UT Arlington has announced the lineup for the 2013-14 Maverick Speakers Series, and if you're a big fan of CNN, you're in luck; Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta take up two slots in the five-person series.
Cooper will come to College Park Center on the UT Arlington campus on November 11, where he'll talk about his 12-year career at CNN, along with the myriad other positions he's held over the years. Here's hoping he takes at least a couple minutes to talk about his short tenure as host of The Mole.
Gupta is next in line at College Park Center after Cooper, but he won't arrive until March 18, 2014. The neurosurgeon has also been with CNN for 12 years, covering everything from 9/11 to the Iraq War to the 2011 Japan tsunami. He's gained recent notoriety for the reversal of his opinion on the medical benefits of marijuana.
Other speakers in the Maverick Speakers Series' sixth season will include immigration rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas on September 24, 2013; ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen on October 24, 2013; and NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg on April 8, 2014. Those three lectures will take place at Texas Hall on the UT Arlington campus.
All of the events are free and open to the public, but all attendees still require a ticket. Tickets become available two to three weeks prior to each event; check the UTA site for details. So-called "Preferred Packages" are also available for $25 per person.
ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen will be the second speaker in the series.
Photo courtesy of UT Arlington
ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen will be the second speaker in the series.
The career of actor Chris Hemsworth is a curious one, as it feels like he’s a huge star (mostly from playing Thor in Marvel movies) and not at the same time, with most of the non-MCU movies featuring him in a lead role failing to become big successes. But he still has a certain presence about him, which is why he’s being given another chance to prove his star power in the new thriller, Crime 101.
Hemsworth plays Davis, a talented thief who knows how to get what he wants without resorting to violence. When a job early in the movie turns slightly sideways, it makes him think twice about working with his handler (Nick Nolte), who seems to prefer someone with a stronger touch, like the up-and-coming Ormon (Barry Keoghan).
Davis is the main character, but two others who come into his orbit get their own subplots. Lou (Mark Ruffalo) is a slightly schlubby LAPD detective who’s convinced he knows the pattern of an unknown thief that likes to hit places close to Highway 101. Sharon (Halle Berry) works for a high-end insurance agency known for working with ultra-wealthy clients, the types who might be a great target for a thief like Davis.
Written and directed by Bart Layton, the film has a decent propulsion to it that comes with most crime thrillers. Davis and Ormon represent the yin and the yang of criminal approaches, and and it’s interesting to see the juxtaposition between the two as their simmering rivalry heats up over the course of the film. When the film commits to actually showing its crimes, it has an excitement that’s worth watching.
Unfortunately, Layton displays a real lack of focus, taking the audience into subplots with each of the three main characters that prove unnecessarily distracting. Lou’s marriage problems may explain his disheveled appearance, but there’s no need to see him deal with them with wife Angie (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Sharon’s troubles with her male-dominated company prove slightly pivotal, but still don’t merit the time put into exploring them.
The most baffling subplot is Davis pursuing a relationship with Maya (Monica Barbaro), a woman he randomly meets. At different points in the movie, including many of his interactions with Maya, Davis seems like the most uncomfortable, antisocial person in the world. And yet he somehow morphs into a suave smooth-talker who’s able to convince anyone to do what he wants at other key points, making it unclear exactly what kind of person he really is.
Hemsworth does relatively well in the lead role, but he’s still missing that certain something to make his character, and therefore the movie, truly compelling. The rest of the cast is fine, too, but each of them seem to be putting in just the minimal amount of effort to make the film watchable. Ruffalo and Barbaro come off the best, but with the talent in the cast (11 Oscar nominations and one win), they could have been used better.
Crime 101 has most of the ingredients to be another great entry in the genre, and it succeeds when it actually decides to deliver on its promise. But too much of the film is spent on things that have no real bearing on plot or character development, leaving the movie in the middle of the pack.
