One of the great things about my job is that I am always hearing about so many great collaborations about people and organizations working together all over West Michigan. There are some very unique and creative efforts working to address real problems and needs in all our communities. Well, now is a great time to share with us those great partnerships that work. It’s time to nominate them for our Connecting with Community Awards. 

This is a great opportunity to tell us how YOU are Connecting with Community.

“Touchback” scheduled for April 27th theatrical release in West Michigan

"Touchback" poster courtesy Hannibal Classics

“Touchback” could be a touchdown for West Michigan.

Nearly a year-and-a-half after the movie filmed many scenes here, “Touchback” is according to my sources - scheduled to be released in the Grand Rapids market April 27, 2012.

 ”Touchback” filmed for several weeks during the summer of 2010, mostly in Coopersville, but also in Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Ohio in Coshocton, Columbus, and Warsaw.

The cast includes Kurt Russell as the head coach, Brian Presley in lead role, Melanie Lynskey as his wife, Mark Blucas as a friend and teammate, Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Christine Lahti as the mother, Mark Ellis as opposition coach, Barry Sanders in a cameo role as an Assistant Coach, Drew Powell, Sarah Wright, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, and Kevin Covais.

A red carpet Michigan premiere of the movie is possible here, those involved with “Touchback”‘s production here have been working with the West Michigan Film Office to get a premiere in Grand Rapids.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three new wide release movies this week, plus four limited release movies expand or arrive in West Michigan, including Oscar nominees “The Descendants” and “Albert Nobbs”…

( I’ll add video version later from this week’s EightWest segment)
( click here for video version from last week’s EightWest segment 1-20-12)
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New in theaters (Friday 1/27): ”The Grey”, “Man on a Ledge”, “One for the Money”, “The Descendants” (expands), “A Dangerous Method” (limited), “Albert Nobbs” (limited), “Shame” (limited), “Le Havre” at UICA Grand Rapids

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“The Grey” (Rated R)(Action/Adventure/Drama/Thriller) In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders. (Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney)
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“Man on a Ledge” (Rated PG-13)(Crime/Thriller) A police psychologist works to talk down an ex-con who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel rooftop, trying to clear his name from a jewelry heist that sent him to prison. (Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Ed Burns, Anthony Mackie)
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“One for the Money” (Rated PG-13)(Action/Comedy/Crime/Thriller) Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin’s bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past. (Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo)
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“The Descendants” (expanded LIMITED RELEASE-see below) (Rated R)(Comedy/Drama) With his wife Elizabeth on life support after a boating accident, Hawaiian land baron Matt King (Clooney), takes his daughters on a trip from Oahu to Kauai to try to re-connect with his two daughters. (George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Judy Greer, Beau Bridges)
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“A Dangerous Method” (LIMITED RELEASE-see below) (Rated R)(Biography/Drama/Thriller) A look at how the intense relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud gives birth to psychoanalysis. (Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen)
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“Albert Nobbs” (LIMITED RELEASE-see below) (Rated R)(Drama) Glenn Close plays a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some thirty years after donning men’s clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making. (Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson)
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“Shame” (LIMITED RELEASE-see below)(Rated: NC-17)(Drama) – In New York City, Brandon’s carefully cultivated private life — which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction — is disrupted when his sister Sissy arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay. (Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan and James Badge Dale)

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Moving to Woodland Mall this week ($4.00 shows):
“Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1″ (6.0/10), “J.Edgar”
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Playing in limited release in Grand Rapids market:
“Albert Nobbs” at Celebration! North,
“A Dangerous Method” at Celebration! Rivertown and AMC Star Grand Rapids,
“The Artist” at Celebration! North and Rave CityPlace 14 (Kalamazoo),
“Shame” at Celebration! South,
“The Iron Lady” at Celebration! Rivertown and Rave CityPlace 14 (Kalamazoo),
“My Week With Marilyn” at Celebration! Woodland,
“The Descendants” at Celebration! North, Celebration! Rivertown, Celebration! Crossroads, Celebration! Carousel (Muskegon), Celebration! Benton Harbor, AMC Star Grand Rapids, and Rave CityPlace 14 (Kalamazoo),
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” at Rave CityPlace 14 (Kalamazoo),
“Courageous” at Celebration! Woodland
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Next Week in theaters (Friday 2/3):  “Chronicle”, “Big Miracle”, “The Woman in Black”
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New this week on DVD (Tuesday 1/24): “50/50″ (8.5/10), “Paranormal Activity 3″, “Real Steel” (6.5/10), “The Lie” (limited), “Restless” (limited), “Revenge of the Electric Car” (limited), “The Whistleblower” (limited), “The Woman” (limited), “Another Happy Day” (straight-to-video), “Few Options” (straight-to-video)
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Next week on DVD (Tuesday 1/31): ”The Big Year”, “Dream House”, ‘Drive’, “In Time’, “The Thing”, “Chalet Girl” (limited), “The Double” (limited), “Janie Jones” (limited), “Texas Killing Fields” (limited), “Treasure Buddies” (straight-to-video), “You and I” (straight-to-video)
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Coming to DVD in March, 2012: “Playback” (*filmed in West Michigan)
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MY REVIEWS OF OTHER MOVIES CURRENTLY PLAYING IN THEATERS OR AVAILABLE TO RENT/BUY: Read the rest of this entry »

  I’m off for the next several days.  I’ll have a couple of threads pop up, but I’ll leave this one up to deal with current weather.   Here’s links to the current conditions, regional radar, the forecast snowfall off the NAM model (out to 84-hours) and the GFS model (out to 120-hours), the HPC snow forecast, and a surface map. Here’s the local warning/advisory map and the National warning/watch/advisory map.  You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan.   Here’s closings, the Spyglass Condos Weather Station the S. Haven GLERL station, the Muskegon GLERL station.   Snowfall thru midnight Thurs. night was 1/10th inch in G.R. and 3/10ths inch in Lansing, where it was still snowing at midnight.

When I saw the first trailer for “Man on a Ledge”, it seemed like I’d seen this movie before… a little like “Fugitive”, a little like “Phone Booth”, a bit like “Inside Man”, with a little “Blue Streak” mixed in, plus about a dozen other crime thrillers.  While entertaining, it lacked the best of these movies: true suspense, mystery, edginess, action, strong characters and comedic relief.

This crime thriller is not a waste of time or money, it was better than I expected, just keep your expectations lower and if you go see it now, you won’t be disappointed.

"Man on a Ledge" poster courtesy Summit Entertainment

 (My spoiler-free review)

Sam Worthington has proven he can handle the role of leading man in an action movie, but in “Man on a Ledge”, he’s the central figure who does very little action and a lot more standing on that ledge.  For as much as he tries/is written for him to evoke emotion and suspense, I never truly felt like he was conveying all the neccessary emotions to build his dramatic performance.

Most of this talented cast seemed to be walking through it nonchalantly too… there’s a guy about to jump of the 21st floor of a New York City building!!!  People on the street below are kind of freaking out, the over-the-top New York media is playing it up (although just one reporter is on the scene- Kyra Sedgwick). But everyone else is just kind of going through the motions.  I never felt like anyone was fully devoted to their characters or felt that they were totally real, except for Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez… who play Worthington’s brother and future sister-in-law who love and fight like a normal couple throughout the “ordeal”.

Elizabeth Banks, Anthony Mackie, Ed Burns, Ed Harris, and Sedgwick have all done much better work than what we see here, its like they all showed up to the set and said, yeah, this is easy… and just started spitting out their lines of dialogue until the director (Asger Leth, making his feature film debut), yelled cut!  I expect more when I see this kind of acting talent on the screen and in the cast list.

Luckily the story, although quite cliche, does keep us interested … (not giving anything away) there’s twists and red herrings, some intensity in editing and camera work, and some characters who may or may not be what they seem.  Its all pretty standard fare, but my compliment is, that despite seeing this sort of thing before, it still kept me interested.

The movie also does well using some quality filmmaking techniques: using contrasting high/low camera angles, making the main character an underdog who’s trying to clear his name, setting up a series of challenges to keep the audience interested, and introducing little clues along the way to keep us guessing.  Unfortunately once you have figured everything out (whether its sooner or later), it turns into an act of just watching the movie come to an end.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Read the rest of this entry »

  As I write this, the last of the showers are heading SE.  There could be a few slick spots on the area roads.  Here’s current conditions. Here’s regional radar. Here’s forecast snowfall off the NAM model (out to 84-hours) and the GFS model (out to 120-hours). Here’s the HPC snow forecast, and a surface map. You can checkout the latest Grand Rapids NWS discussion, the Northern Indiana NWS discussion (includes the Michigan Counties that border Indiana), the discussion for Northern Lower Michigan, and Eastern Lower Michigan. SEASON SNOWFALL as of MONDAY PM: Grand Rapids 25.4″ (we’re actually a little above normal for January so far), Lansing 21.4″ (5″ below average for the winter), Muskegon 37.5″, Kalamazoo (WMU) 40.0″ (only down 4″ from normal), Oshtemo 44.5″. CLIMATE FACT: 12 of 23 days of January have been 40 degrees or warmer in Grand Rapids. In December 18 of 31 days were 40 degrees or warmer. So since (and including) Dec. 1, 30 of 54 days have been 40 degrees or warmer.  Also:  Wow!  Watch the video of the roof of an ice rink caving in from the weight of heavy snow!  Here’s a timelapse of the Northern Lights from a few days ago…and pictures of flooding near Dallas TX.  Here’s video of a 71-year old grandmother rescued in the flood.   And..check out the pic. of the Northern Lights from the U.P. early morning of the 25th.

   Here’s the latest from Ed:  ” With some stations going below $3, we are unfortunately seeing an upward push in the markets today. That will cause a spike, most likely tomorrow, historically the most spiked day in TheGasGame history. The spike shouldn’t reach more than $3.35-$3.39, less depending where you are.”  The map on the right shows that the only part of the U.S. that is “abnormally dry” is the area south of San Francisco.  We are missing a nice band of rain and snow tonight to our south and southeast.   The models are still forecasting colder air and snow for the weekend.  I could see 1-3″ Friday night, flurries on Saturday and another 1-3″ in the lake-bands on Sunday.  NOTE – This is NOT a pattern flip.  The warm pattern remains and it’ll be close to 40 by Tuesday and I can’t rule out a 50 in the future.  The Arctic air wll make a rare and relatively short appearances in the Great Lakes, then retreat back to the northern Canada.  Heavy rain and severe weather has hit the south.  Seven tornadoes and 52 wind damage reports and get a load of these rainfall totals from Texas:  9.82″ Cleburne (SW of Dallas), 5.66″ Austin, 3.89″ Dallas, 4.07″ San Antonio, 3.41″ Fort Worth, 3.29″ Fort Smith AR., 2.85″ Houston.   Harlingen reached 88 degrees Weds. PM.  It’s still cold and snowy in Alaska.   Lows this morning included -57 at Nuiqsut and -52 at Bettles.  Nome was -28, King Salmon set a record low at -37.   Anchorage had a high of only +6.   Valdez has 72″ of snow on the ground with 68″ at Yakutat.  Temperature departures from average this month so far:  Barrow (north coast) -4.8 deg., Nome (west coast) -18.6 deg., Anchorage (south coast) -13.6 deg., Kodiak Is. -8.5 deg., Ketchikan -3.8 deg.

<–click map to enlarge. Today is Blizzard Anniversary Day. The Blizzard of 1978 ranks as the #1 snowstorm ever for Grand Rapids and much of Lower Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. The barometer reading of 28.28″ in Cleveland still ranks as the lowest non-hurricane barometer reading in U.S. history. Sarnia, Ontario reported a barometer of 28.21″ and Grand Rapids also set a record barometer reading 28.68″. Grand Rapids had 15″ of snow in about 15 hours (19.2 total). Muskegon picked up 52″ of snow in 4 days. The Traverse City area had up to 28″. Houghton Lake and Indianapolis had over 15″ of snow and Lansing recorded over 19″. South Bend recorded a four-day total of 36″. Wind gusts of 42 mph blew the snow off roofs (a good thing). Wind gusts in Ohio topped 80 mph. The storm hit on a Wednesday Night, and many schools didn’t reopen until the following Monday. The heavy snow started shortly after 10 PM on 1/25. I measured a snow drift 14-feet high. Drifts in Ohio reached 20-feet. The entire Ohio turnpike was closed as was most of I-75 through Lower Michigan and Ohio. All air and rail service came to a halt. I was at the TV station for 3 days without leaving. One news anchor came to work on a snowmobile. For you weather junkies…this storm deepened 40 millibars in 24-hours – we call that “bombogenesis”. Seventy deaths were blamed on the storm, including 51 in Ohio. At least 22 people in Ohio died outside while struggling through the blizzard. Another 13 people were found dead in stuck cars, and 13 died in unheated homes. The National Guard were called out in Michigan and Ohio and the University of Michigan closed for the first time in 140 years. Over 125.000 vehicles were abandoned in the storm. It took 3 to 5 days to move the abandoned cars and open the expressways. After this, we had the coldest February ever in G.R. and the 5th coldest March. Snow piles from the storm lingered into April. Read more about the storm here in Michigan, in Ohio, cool pictures and more here. Here’s the governor of Ohio’s voice with a little film. Here’s some eyewitness accounts from West Michigan and video of a newscast from Cleveland. Mark sent a link to pics. from Breckenridge. Here’s write-up on the storm from the NWS in Detroit. Leave a comment if you have a memory of the big storm.

<–abandoned cars and buses on Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago. I was in high school (New Trier East) and living in Wilmette, Illinois during the blizzard of ’67. The storm hit on Jan. 26, 1967. Outside of the snow, my best memory is some kid driving around the high school in the blizzard with his convertible top down and everyone pelting him with snowballs until the car was full of snow. A week before the storm, the temperature fell to -8 in Chicago. Then, two days before the big snow, the temperature hit 65. At 9 PM on 1/24, it was still 60 degrees and we were under a severe t-storm watch! I remember I was at a meeting of the St. Joseph teen club (I remember that meeting well for two reasons) and I wanted to be outside watching the storm come through. Winds hit 48 mph at Midway Airport, funnel clouds were sighted and one person was killed (four injured) when winds blew down a wall at a construction site. I remember measuring 29″ of new snow in Wilmette (a little boost from Lake Michigan) along with 6-foot drifts. An estimated 50,000 cars and 1100 buses were abandoned in the storm. A total of 273 people were arrested for looting on the south and near-west sides of the city. Officially, Chicago had 23″ of snow in 29 hours. Here’s home movies after the storm, and more video. That storm also hit West Michigan with very heavy snow, severe drifting and of course, lots of school closings.

   Heavy snow fell Tuesday over much of the U.P.  The snow is almost 3 feet deep on the snowman cam.  As of Tuesday morning, Twin Lakes was up to 72.7″ for the month and 139.4″ for the season.  Herman has 111.2″ for a season total.   Here’s some snowfall totals.  Calumet had 22.5″ of snow in 24 hours!  The Marquette National Weather Service has 25″ of snow on the ground.  You don’t have to go too far north to find snow.  Houghton Lake reports about 9-10″ on the ground.  Kalkaska has 10″ on the ground and Cadillac reports 6″.  The bitter cold continues in Alaska.  Nuiqsut had a low temperature of -62F.  Umiat dipped to -59.  Barrow recorded a low of -45F.  More heavy rain for Texas (and a tornado watch overnight) with some 4″ totals north and west of Fort Worth.  Waco had over an inch of rain and College Station was approaching 1″ the last time I checked.  More severe weather is likely the next couple days in the Gulf States.   The 12Z run of the European has the most snow here for the weekend, with .27 liquid (about 4″ for G.R.), the NAM and GFS would have perhaps 1-3″.  I’ll lean to the higher total now.  Favorable lake-effect snow bands could produce +6″.   THIS IS also a brief cool down over the weekend.  The overall pattern remains warm, with Pacific air dominating and Arctic air making only brief appearances in the northern U.S.   In the meantime, it could hit 40 Thurs. and Fri.  ADD:  Pictures of the Northern Lights.  ADD:  There’s been a couple of tornado watches down south.   Here’s severe storm reports from today.  Here’s a 93 mph wind gust in Alaska.   Here’s a slide show of the tornado damage in Alabama.