New on DVD 'Nowhere Boy,' 'Red' Reviews VIDEO TRAILERS

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January 23, 2011 12:00 am

"Nowhere Boy" ***½ (R; 1:38) — This unusually fine biopic mines gold from the muck of John Lennon's Liverpool upbringing. Aaron Johnson is uncanny as troubled John, Kristin Scott Thomas is superb as the stern but loving aunt who raises him and Anne-Marie Duff adds a sexual charge as the estranged mother who reunites with John and introduces him to rock 'n' roll. (Joe Williams)

"Red" ** (PG-13; 1:50) — On the run from assassins, a retired CIA agent (Bruce Willis) kidnaps a pension clerk (Mary-Louise Parker) for a cross-country mission to locate some old allies (Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich). The cast is crowd-pleasing, but the action is limp, the jokes are unfunny and the script is an insult to our intelligence. (JW)

"Secretariat" **½ (PG; 2:00) — Diane Lane turns in a heartfelt performance in this formulaic drama based on the true story of the racehorse and 1973 Triple Crown winner. But as the thoroughbred's trainer, John Malkovich is reduced to wearing funny hats. (Calvin Wilson)

Coming Feb. 1
"Conviction," "Let Me In," "Never Let Me Go In," "The Tillman Story"

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Oscar Nominated Movies Crowd Movie Theaters for Homestretch of Award Race

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Actress Halle Berry arrives at the Golden Globe Awards Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
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Prestige movies crowd theaters for homestretch of Oscar race

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 January 23, 2011
BY JOE WILLIAMS • Post-Dispatch Film Critic

For film aficionados in flyover country, January is the best of times, January is the worst of times.

While audiences in New York and Los Angeles have already feasted on the movies recommended by critics, Midwesterners spend the weeks after Christmas gnawing on tasteless leftovers like "Little Fockers" and reheated formula flicks like "The Dilemma."

At last Sunday's Golden Globes awards, Paul Giamatti won best actor in a comedy for his role as a much-married curmudgeon in "Barney's Version." Other nominees for a Globe included Halle Berry as a woman with multiple personalities in "Frankie and Alice" and the Spanish film "Biutiful," starring Javier Bardem as a human trafficker. None of those movies have opened in St. Louis yet.

In the case of "Carlos," a Golden Globe-winning miniseries about an international terrorist that was a theatrical release in selected cities, it may skip St. Louis theaters altogether. Such was the case with "Welcome to the Rileys," a recent film in which Kristen Stewart plays a young New Orleans stripper befriended by grieving dad James Gandolfini.

The flip side of what the studios call a platform roll-out, with second-tier markets like St. Louis getting a delayed taste of the most critically acclaimed films, is that the otherwise bleak days of January and February can be a bright spot for both theater owners and audiences, especially after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces the Oscar nominees Tuesday morning.

"January is a good month if you're playing the nominated films, while the commercial stuff is a little weak," said Harman Moseley, who operates the Chase, Moolah and Galleria theaters.

For St. Louis moviegoers, a Valentine's Day date can include a screening of a grown-up award contender instead of a disposable teen romance.

Laura Resnick, local manager for the Landmark theater chain that specializes in "art house" films, said that award contenders such as "Black Swan" and "The King's Speech" are doing big business at Plaza Frontenac, more than a month after they debuted on the coasts.

Last weekend, the local Landmark theaters finally got three films that have been generating award buzz since the important autumn festivals in Toronto and Venice: "Rabbit Hole," "Blue Valentine" and "Somewhere." And the area's largest theater chain, Wehrenberg, is now showing such award contenders as "The Fighter" and "True Grit."

In the movie business, timing is critical, and studios often stake out key release dates a year in advance. It's especially tricky with potential award contenders. If a good movie like "Winter's Bone" or "The Ghost Writer" is released too early in the year, there's a danger of it being forgotten by the time the votes are collected. And if it's released too late, it may got lost in the crowd.

By rule, potential Academy Award nominees need to screen for paying customers in Los Angeles County for a full week before the end of the year. And influential critics want movies to be screened for them by mid-December to be included in their Top 10 lists. That means prestige movies are often sent to critics and Academy voters on DVD, which is not the best way to view epics like the new prison break movie "The Way Back."
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MIT Professor Slams Twitter, Facebook - MUSIC VIDEO Under My Wheels - Alice Cooper 1971

Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 January 2011

Twitter and Facebook don't connect people – they isolate them from reality, say a rising number of academics.

An American student checks in on his smart phone. Critics of social networking say it is having an isolating effect on users. 

 

The way in which people frantically communicate online via Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging can be seen as a form of modern madness, according to a leading American sociologist. "A behaviour that has become typical may still express the problems that once caused us to see it as pathological," MIT professor Sherry Turkle writes in her new book, Alone Together, which is leading an attack on the information age. Turkle's book, published in the UK next month, has caused a sensation in America, which is usually more obsessed with the merits of social networking. She appeared last week on Stephen Colbert's late-night comedy show, The Colbert Report. When Turkle said she had been at funerals where people checked their iPhones, Colbert quipped: "We all say goodbye in our own way." Turkle's thesis is simple: technology is threatening to dominate our lives and make us less human. Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world.

But Turkle's book is far from the only work of its kind. An intellectual backlash in America is calling for a rejection of some of the values and methods of modern communications. "It is a huge backlash. The different kinds of communication that people are using have become something that scares people," said Professor William Kist, an education expert at Kent State University, Ohio.

The list of attacks on social media is a long one and comes from all corners of academia and popular culture. A recent bestseller in the US, The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, suggested that use of the internet was altering the way we think to make us less capable of digesting large and complex amounts of information, such as books and magazine articles. The book was based on an essay that Carr wrote in the Atlantic magazine. It was just as emphatic and was headlined: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Another strand of thought in the field of cyber-scepticism is found in The Net Delusion, by Evgeny Morozov. He argues that social media has bred a generation of "slacktivists". It has made people lazy and enshrined the illusion that clicking a mouse is a form of activism equal to real world donations of money and time.

Other books include The Dumbest Generation by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein – in which he claims "the intellectual future of the US looks dim"– and We Have Met the Enemy by Daniel Akst, which describes the problems of self-control in the modern world, of which the proliferation of communication tools is a key component.

The backlash has crossed the Atlantic. In Cyburbia, published in Britain last year, James Harkin surveyed the modern technological world and found some dangerous possibilities. While Harkin was no pure cyber-sceptic, he found many reasons to be worried as well as pleased about the new technological era. Elsewhere, hit film The Social Network has been seen as a thinly veiled attack on the social media generation, suggesting that Facebook was created by people who failed to fit in with the real world.

Turkle's book has also hit home because her previous works, The Second Self and Life on the Screen, seemed more open to the technological world. "Alone Together reads as if it were written by Turkle's evil Luddite twin," joked Kist.

But even the backlash now has a backlash, with many leaping to the defence of social media. They point out that emails, Twitter and Facebook have led to more communication, not less – especially for people who may have trouble meeting in the real world because of great distance or social difference.

Defenders say theirs is just a different form of communication that people might have trouble getting used to. "When you go into a coffee shop and everyone is silent on their laptop, I understand what she is saying about not talking to one another," Kist said. "But it is still communicating. I disagree with her. I don't see it as so black and white."

Some experts believe the debate is so fierce because social networking is a new field that has yet to develop rules and etiquette that everyone can respect and that is why incidents such as Simone Back's death appear so shocking. "Let's face it, I see no sign of anyone unplugging," said Kist. "But, perhaps, we need to involve a 'netiquette' to deal with it all."

He also pointed out that the "real world" that many social media critics hark back to never really existed. Before everyone travelled on the bus or train with their heads buried in an iPad or a smart phone, they usually just travelled in silence. "We did not see people spontaneously talking to strangers. They were just keeping to themselves," Kist said.
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"Under My Wheels" is a rock song by Alice Cooper. It was originally released on the group's Killer album in 1971, and was also that album's first single release.
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Alice Cooper - Under My Wheels

Lyrics:
The telephone is ringing
You got me on the run
I'm driving in my car now
Anticipating fun
I'm driving right up to you, babe
I guess that you couldn't see, yeah yeah
But you under my wheels
Why don't you let me be

'Cause when you call me on the telephone
Saying take me to the show
And then I say, honey, I just can't go
Old lady's sick and I can't leave her home

The telephone is ringing
You got me on the run
I'm driving in my car now
I got you under my wheels
I got you under my wheels
I got you under my wheels
Yeah yeah
I got you under my wheels
Yeah yeah
I got you under my wheels

The telephone is ringing
You got me on the run
I'm driving in my car now
Anticipating fun
I'm driving right up to you, babe
I guess you that couldn't see, yeah yeah
But you was under my wheels, honey
Why don't you let me be, yeah yeah
I got you under my wheels
I got you under my wheels
I got you under my wheels
Yeah yeah
etc
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BUSTIN' LOOSE - Motley Crue- Hooligans Holiday - Everybody Wants A Piece of Pie MUSIC VIDEO

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"Hooligan's Holiday" is a song by American hard rock band, Mötley Crüe, released on their 1994 eponymous album. The lyrics to the song were written by vocalist/rhythm guitarist John Corabi and bassist Nikki Sixx, while the music was written by Corabi, Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee and guitarist Mick Mars._________________________________________________________________________________ .

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FACEBOOK FRIENDS: Take Yourself A Friend - RUSH - MUSIC VIDEO

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Song:  Take a Friend
Artist:  Rush
Album    :Rush
Genre:Hard rock/Heavy metal
Year:  1974

Line-up:
Geddy Lee-Lead vocals, bass
Alex Lifeson-Guitar
John Rutsey-Drums
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Well, I'm lookin' at you
And I'm wond'rin' what you're gonna do
Looks like you got no friends
No one to stick with you till the end


Take yourself a friend
Keep 'em till the end
Whether woman or man
It makes you feel so good...
So good


Yes, you think you're all right
But now you're lonely ev'ry night
Well, you need a friend
Someone on whom you can always depend


Take yourself a friend
Keep 'em till the end
Whether woman or man
It makes you feel so good...
So good


-Solo-


Yes, you need some advice
Well, let me put it to you nice
I said you need a friend
Someone who'll stick with you to the end


Take yourself a friend
Keep 'em till the end
Whether woman or man
It makes you feel so good...


Take yourself a friend
Keep 'em till the end
Whether woman or man
It makes you feel so good...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah


Take yourself a friend
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Keep 'em till the end
Woah oh
Whether woman or man
It makes you feel so good...
So good

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