Ryan Reynolds as superhero in 'Green Lantern': movie review

By Peter Rainer, Film critic / June 17, 2011

Just in case you thought there weren't enough comic-book superheroes crowding our screens, here’s “Green Lantern,” starring Ryan Reynolds in green jammies and matching mask, to set you straight. The way things are going, the only movies getting financing will be franchise installments. Or are we already there?
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Gallery: Summer sequels 2011



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Franchise-wise, “Green Lantern,” which reportedly cost $300 million to make and market, is not a done deal yet, although Warner Brothers, which owns the rights to the venerable DC Comics character, boldly offers up the mandatory sequel teaser in the credits.

Since quite a bit of “Green Lantern” is slowed down by exposition, a sequel might actually be an improvement – less time spent setting up situations already known to fanboys of the comic book. On the other hand, it’s been my experience watching these films that things inevitably bog down anyway. New villains need back story just like old heroes.

IN PICTURES: 2011 Summer Movie Sequels

The director is Martin Campbell, who shook up the "James Bond" franchise with “Casino Royale,” starring Daniel Craig as a 007 looking a lot more pummeled than shaken or stirred.

Reynolds represents an altogether different mode: His retro-handsomeness looks naturally airbrushed. He’s also blithely affable, although this may not bode well in the long term. On the other hand, I’ve kind of had it with darkly brooding comic heroes, even when they're played by Robert Downey, Jr. It’s time to lighten up.

That is not to say that “Green Lantern” is a marvelous antidote to all this gloomy gravitas. It’s not only light, it’s thin. It’s self-deprecating to a fault. Reynolds is required to practically wink at the audience, as if to say,“I know this looks silly.” But at least the filmmakers acknowledge that Reynolds in green tights and mask still looks like his non-Green Lantern alter ego, cocky test pilot Hal Jordan. There’s none of this Clark Kent/Superman silliness, where Lois Lane can’t seem to figure out that both men are one and the same.

For those who haven’t been schooled in the DC Comic mythos, Hal is chosen by the intergalactic police squad Green Lantern Corps to wear the ring that grants him the power to conjure up anything his mind can conceive. (I’ve never understood why Green Lantern can’t just conceive of an invincible weapon to vanquish his enemies, but I guess I’m being annoyingly literal-minded.)

Before the movie is through, he has battled not only renegade scientist and Elephant Man-look-alike Hector Hammond (deliciously played by Peter Sarsgaard) but the megavillain Parallax, whose power comes from absorbing his combatants’ fear, or some such. Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown) resembles a tarantula that has ingested the entire Gulf oil spill.

The love interest is supplied by Blake Lively’s Carol Ferris, herself an ace test pilot who doubles, not altogether convincingly, as an aviation company honcho. It’s “Top Gun” meets “War of the Worlds.” At least she isn’t fooled, Lois Lane-style, by Hal’s green jammies.

By the way, for Ryan Reynolds completists, there is now a new comic book in Bluewater Productions’ “Fame” series. The comic book, as it's been reported, is all about Reynolds's rise as an actor from bit roles to “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” and “The Proposal” to his current Greenness. Next up in the series: Michael Jackson, 50 Cent, and Howard Stern.

Where is Parallax when you need him? Grade: B- (Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action.)

Supermassive Black Hole Eats Star, Spews Bright Gamma-Ray Flares

By IB Times Staff Reporter | June 17, 2011 7:46 AM EDT

Flashing gamma rays observed in March from a supermassive black hole have been traced to a star falling into the massive black hole and being ripped apart, astronomers say.

On March 28, NASA's Swit spacecraft initially observed the gamma-ray emission through its Burst Alert Telescope. The gamma-rays were were traced to constellation Draco when it erupted with the first in a series of powerful X-ray blasts. The satellite determined a position for the explosion, now cataloged as gamma-ray burst (GRB) 110328A, and informed astronomers worldwide.

(Photo: Reuters)
Flashing gamma rays observed in March from a supermassive black hole have been traced to a star falling into the massive black hole and being ripped apart, astronomers say.

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(Photo: Reuters)
Flashing gamma rays observed in March from a supermassive black hole have been traced to a star falling into the massive black hole and being ripped apart, astronomers say.

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Astronomers initially thought it was an emission of gamma rays from a dying star - a normal phenomenon, but were surprised as they have ever seen anything this bright, long-lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours.

Astronomers soon realized that it wasn't a typical gamma-ray burst at all when the bright gamma rays sustained for weeks. They found that a high-energy jet produced as a star about the size of our sun was shredded by a black hole a million times more massive.

"This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before," Joshua Bloom, an associate professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley, said in a statement.
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Immediately, dozens of telescopes turned to study the event and space become excited. Astronomers say the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to its galaxy's central black hole. Intense tidal forces tore the star apart, and the infalling gas continues to stream toward the hole. According to this model, the spinning black hole formed an outflowing jet along its rotational axis.

An image taken by Hubble telescope on April 4 pinpoints the source of the explosion at the center of this galaxy, which lies 3.8 billion light-years away.

Scientists think that the X-rays may be coming from matter moving near the speed of light in a particle jet that forms as the star's gas falls toward the black hole.

What made this gamma-ray flare, called Sw 1644+57, stand out from a typical burst were its long duration and the fact that it appeared to come from the center of a galaxy nearly 4 billion light years away, Bloom added.

"This burst produced a tremendous amount of energy over a fairly long period of time, and the event is still going on more than two and a half months later," said Bloom. "That's because as the black hole rips the star apart, the mass swirls around like water going down a drain, and this swirling process releases a lot of energy."

Since most, if not all, galaxies are thought to contain a massive black hole at the center, a long-duration burst could conceivably come from the relatively slow tidal disruption of an infalling star, the astronomers said.

"We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary," said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement in April.

The astronomers suspect that the gamma-ray emissions began March 24 or 25 in the uncatalogued galaxy at a redshift of 0.3534. Bloom and his colleagues estimate that the emissions will fade over the next year.

Most galaxies, including our own, contain central black holes with millions of times the sun's mass; those in the largest galaxies can be a thousand times larger. The disrupted star probably succumbed to a black hole less massive than the Milky Way's, which has a mass four million times that of our sun.

Astronomers previously have detected stars disrupted by supermassive black holes, but none have shown the X-ray brightness and variability seen in GRB 110328A. The source has repeatedly flared. Since April 3, for example, it has brightened by more than five times.

Scientists think that the X-rays may be coming from matter moving near the speed of light in a particle jet that forms as the star's gas falls toward the black hole.

"We think this event was detected around the time it was as bright as it will ever be, and if it's really a star being ripped apart by a massive black hole, we predict that it will never happen again in this galaxy," he said.

Bloom and team propose in their Science Express paper that some 10 percent of the infalling star's mass is turned into energy and irradiated as X-rays from the swirling accretion disk or as X-rays and higher energy gamma rays from a relativistic jet that punches out along the rotation axis. Earth just happened to be in the eye of the gamma-ray beam.

Looking back at previous observations of this region of the cosmos, Bloom and his team found no evidence to conclude that these X-ray or gamma-ray emissions that this is a "one-off event".

"Here, you have a black hole sitting quiescently, not gobbling up matter, and all of a sudden something sets it off," Bloom said. "This could happen in our own galaxy, where a black hole sits at the center living in quiescence, and occasionally burbles or hiccups as it swallows a little bit of gas. From a distance, it would appear dormant, until a star randomly wanders too close and is shredded."

A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, in the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.

Probable tidal disruptions of a star by a massive black hole have previously been seen at X-ray, ultraviolet and optical wavelengths, but never before at gamma-ray energies.

Such random events, especially looking down the barrel of a jet, are incredibly rare, "probably once in 100 million years in any given galaxy. I would be surprised if we saw another one of these anywhere in the sky in the next decade," Bloom said.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2' final trailer released -- Accio tissues!

By Tierney Bricker Zap2it

9:17 a.m. EDT, June 17, 2011
"Every moment he's lived has led to this."
It's been a long journey "Harry Potter" fans and the end isn't near, it's here. The final trailer for the franchise ever has just been released and, as per usual, it's emotionally gripping and visually stunning. We're kind of scared to see the film considering this trailer has reduced us to a sobbing mess.
Click here to find out more!
More of the final battle -- as well as Harry and Voldemort's final showdown -- at Hogwarts is featured in the new trailer, as well as a revealing line from Snape: "You've kept him alive so he can die at the proper moment." Ron and Hermione fans will also be pleased with a few shots in the trailer.
Also featured in the trailer is a moment book fans probably sobbed their way through -- spoiler alert for non-readers! -- Harry talking to his parents and godfather, Sirius Black, on the way to his death. "You'll stay with me?" Harry asks. Lily: "Always." Sirius: "Until the end." Are you crying yet? If you're not, you clearly do not have a soul or have had an unfortunate run-in with some Dementors.
It's been an honor to grow up with and watch Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and the rest of the amazing cast and crew and we'll always be thankful to J.K. Rowling for allowing us entry into this magical world.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" (and the death of our childhood) hits theaters on July 15.