Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Matt Damon hopes "Promised Land," his drama on the divisive practice of fracking, will win over international critics, despite a U.S. reception that disappointed the actor.
Matt Damon's anti-fracking movie "Promised Land" is not making the box-office splash environmental groups may have hoped for.
Matt Damon wanted to do a hit piece on fracking, the process by which natural gas is extracted from shale deposits deep in the ground.
The new movie "Promised Land" digs into the fierce national debate over fracking, the technique that's generated a boom in U.S. natural gas production while also stoking controversy over its possible impact on the environment and human health.
The new movie "Promised Land" digs into the fierce national debate over fracking, the technique that's generated a boom in U.S. natural gas production while also stoking controversy over its possible impact on the environment and human health.
"Promised Land" offers an experience that's alternately amusing and frustrating, full of impassioned earnestness as well as saggy sections.
"Promised Land" _ An experience that's alternately amusing and frustrating, full of impassioned earnestness and saggy sections. Director Gus Van Sant has the challenge of taking the topic of fracking and trying to make it cinematic. Working from a script by co-stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, based on a story by Dave Eggers, he succeeds in fits and starts. The impoverished small town that's the tale's setting, a place in need of the kind of economic rejuvenation fracking could provide, is full of folksy folks whose interactions with the main characters don't always ring true. "Promised Land" has its heart is on its sleeve and makes its pro-environment message quite clear, but it's in the looser and more ambiguous places that the film actually works. Damon stars as Steve Butler, a salesman traveling the country on behalf of a bland behemoth of an energy corporation. Having grown up on an Iowa farm himself and seeing how an economic downturn can devastate a small town, Butler seems to be a true believer in what he's selling. But he's also a pragmatist, as evidenced by the playfully cynical give-and-take he enjoys with his partner, Sue (a sharp Frances McDormand). Famously for his efficiency in persuading rural residents to sell their land for the drilling rights, Steve runs into a major challenge when he and Sue arrive in depressed McKinley, Pa., where an outspoken old-timer (Hal Holbrook) and a flashy, charismatic environmental crusader (Krasinski) dare to question the company's methods. R for language. 106 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Jane Lynch and John Leguizamo are joining a lineup that includes Jimmy Kimmel and Kristin Chenoweth to honor Ellen DeGeneres with the nation's top humor prize.
"Alex Cross" _ James Patterson titled his 12th Alex Cross crime novel simply "Cross." The filmmakers who adapted it expanded the title to "Alex Cross." They might as well have gone for broke and called it "Tyler Perry's Madea's Stab at Expanding Her-His Hollywood Marketability as James Patterson's Alex Cross." Perry's name will draw his fans in. Patterson's name will draw his fans in. There's no trace of Madea in director Rob Cohen's adaptation, yet the spirit of the sassy grandma inevitably hangs over the project for viewers curious to see Perry playing it straight and dramatic. Alex Cross the man and "Alex Cross" the movie wind up suffering for it. It's perfectly reasonable for Perry to try to broaden his enormous popularity beyond the Madea lineage in his own raucous portraits of family life. It's also perfectly reasonable to say that casting Perry as Cross was a bad idea, though it's not necessarily the worst in a movie built on bad ideas. Perry looks the part of Patterson's big, athletic hero, but he's low-key-bordering-on-sleepwalker dull, and the standard-issue cop-vs.-serial-killer story presents Cross as more of a dopey psycho-babbler than a guy whose incisive mind cuts right to the heart of the case. With Edward Burns, Matthew Fox and Cicely Tyson. PG-13 for violence including disturbing images, sexual content, language, drug references and nudity. 102 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
Artfully constructed but hollow at its core, "Nobody Walks" makes it impossible to stop watching while simultaneously making it impossible to care about what's happening.
Jimmy Kimmel, Kristin Chenoweth, Steve Harvey and Lily Tomlin have signed on to honor Ellen DeGeneres with tribute performances as she wins the nation's top humor prize.
Jimmy Kimmel, Kristin Chenoweth, Steve Harvey and Lily Tomlin have signed on to honor Ellen DeGeneres with tribute performances as she wins the nation's top humor prize.
Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell has seen a lot of media abuse in his time as the master monitor of the liberal press. Now, he's seen the very worst: The broadcast networks "all but spiked the largest legal action in history to defend our constitutionally protected religious freedom," the analyst says, citing CBS, ABC and NBC for skimming over news that 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the Obama administration.
Talk about office politics. NBC is searching for a new show-runner to replace Paul Lieberstein on its top-rated comedy "The Office."
Some unknown kids with superpowers have nudged out the actor who plays the world's most famous teen wizard at the weekend box office.
Mr. Krasinski said he and Mr. Damon tried to avoid too much of a political message.
"He's much more excited with how the spots are going right now," Mr. Krasinski said. "I'm fine. I'm fine to take the egg on my face right now and hopefully celebrate at the end."
