SCREEN/LISTINGS SCREEN/APPS
35
For movie times, visit boiseweekly. com or scan this QR code.
T H E AT E R S EDWARDS 22 BOISE 208-377-9603, regmovies.com EDWARDS 9 BOISE 208-338-3821, regmovies.com EDWARDS 14 NAMPA 208-467-3312, regmovies.com THE FLICKS 208-342-4222, theflicksboise.com MAJESTIC CINEMAS MERIDIAN 208-888-2228, hallettcinemas.com
VOTE FOR THESE ELECTION WIDGETS Events like Halloween, Christmas and the Super Bowl are usually celebrated with a swirl of apps. Why should Election Day be any different? Here are some of our favorite politics-in-yourpocket apps. Some are cool, some are wonky but all are useful. See Your Ballot is a Web-based app crafted by headcount.org and pollvault. com. Possibly the most utilitarian of them all, See Your Ballot asks for your address and displays the full slate of presidential candidates (and third-party candidates), statewide propositions and constitutional measures. It also allows you to build your own adviser teams from people or organizations you trust.
The New York Times’ Election 2012 app is available for iPhone and Android and offers an exhaustive library of polls, editorials and videos, along with the Times’ best-in-thebusiness coverage. Politwoops, another Web-based app, is a bit of fun, chronicling all the tweets that politicians wish they had never sent (and thought they had deleted). Ad Hawk, available for iPhone and Android, is a great little gadget that helps you identify who is behind those nasty political ads as they air. Hold your smartphone up to the TV or radio and Ad Hawk identifies that silly super PAC that’s clogging your entertainment pleasure. —George Prentice
SCREEN/TELEVISION REVOLUTION: THE APOCALYPSE OF DEAD BATTERIES You know a J.J. Abrams-produced show isn’t going to become the greatest thing since Lost when you see four-and-a-half words of warning appear on the screen: “Guest Starring C. Thomas Howell.” The word “starring” couldn’t be less accurate. For one thing, Howell isn’t much of a star, but also, he’s dead more than two minutes prior to his name appearing in the opening credits. But the premise of NBC’s Revolution is compelling. The show mostly takes place 15 years after all electricity—including batteries— just stops working. Lightning is still around, as well as electrostatic brain impulses—but the latter aren’t always evident, especially when characters say things like, “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.” Or: “I’m looking for a biography of Joe Biden.” And lines like this don’t help, either: “Where are you going?” “Uh, this little place called Shut Up and Stay Here.” The show desperately wants to feel like Lost in terms of mystery and narrative technique, but that show was exquisitely literate and full of well-developed characters. Most characters on Revolution are annoying. It’s difficult to care what happens, for instance, to a kidnapped character who, essentially, is Justin
36 | OCTOBER 31 – NOVEMBER 6, 2012 | BOISEweekly
This Revolution will be televised.
Bieber with asthma. The show includes a lot of boring fights, because when electricity is gone, you can’t include boring car chases—or maybe because the writers seem to think electricity is keeping us from becoming really good sword-fighters. The dystopian images of ivy-strewn rollercoasters and architectural landmarks reduced to plant holders just about make the show worth watching, but it’s nowhere close to the mythological puzzles of its influential predecessor. It’s fun to speculate about dead batteries, but it just doesn’t measure up to a time-traveling island featuring a smoke monster and an ancient, subterranean donkey wheel powered by teleported polar bears. —Damon Hunzeker WWW. B O I S E WE E KLY. C O M