THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, November 6, 2013 g
AT THE MOVIES
IN THE ARTS
Playing to save the world in ‘Ender’s Game’
MUSIC & DANCE Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club, Emmanuel Trifilio Tango
Trio, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6; Familiar Faces, 8 p.m. Nov. 8, call for prices, 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. 240-330-4500, www.bethesdabluesjazz.com. BlackRock Center for the Arts, District Comedy, 8 p.m. Nov. 8; call for tickets, 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown. 301-528-2260, www.blackrockcenter.org. Fillmore Silver Spring, Reel Big Fish, Five Iron Frenzy, Beautiful Bodies, Beebs & Her Money Makers, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6; New Found Glory/Alkaline Trio with H20, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7; Jake Miller, 7 p.m. Nov. 8; Timeflies: The Warning Signs Tour, 8 p.m. Nov. 10; Tori Kelly, 8 p.m. Nov. 14; Saved By the 90s A Party with The Bayside Tigers, 8:30 p.m. Nov. 16; David Nail With Special Guest Brothers Osborne, 7 p.m. Nov. 17, 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, 301960-9999, FillmoreSilverSpring. com, www.livenation.com.
Institute of Musical Traditions — Takoma Park, A Civil War
Scrapbook: CD Release with Hesperus & Maggies Music, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13; Takoma Park Community Center, call for prices, times, Takoma Park Community Center, 7500 Maple Ave., Takoma Park, 301-960-3655, www.imtfolk.org.
Institute of Musical Traditions — Rockville, Alasdair Fraser & Nat-
alie Haas, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8, Saint Mark Presbyterian Church, 10701 Old Georgetown Road, Rockville, call for prices, www.imtfolk.org. Strathmore, Afternoon Tea, 1 p.m. Nov. 6, Nov. 9, Nov. 19-20; Cathy Fink with guests Brad Kolodner and Amadou Kouyate, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6; Luis Bravo’s Forever Tango, 8 p.m. Nov. 7; BSO: Off the Cuff — The Planets, 8:15 p.m. Nov. 8; National Philharmonic: Lost Childhood, A Concert Opera, 8 p.m. Nov. 9; Kids EuroFestival: Leiutajateküla Lotte — Lotte from Gadgetville Vanemuine Theatre, 10 a.m., 1 p.m. Nov. 10; Voices of the Holocaust: Kristallnacht Commemoration 2013, 7:30
Page B-7
BY
MICHAEL PHILLIPS
ENDER’S GAME
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
SARA BECKER
Sara Becker’s “Mysterious Landscape,” is one of many works on view as part of the 7Palettes Art Show Saturday and Sunday at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo Park. p.m. Nov. 10; State of the Schools: Building Our Future Together, 8:30 a.m. Nov. 11; Museum Shop Around, 10 a.m. Nov. 14-17; BSO: Chris Botti, 8 p.m. Nov. 14; call for venue, Locations: Mansion, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda; Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, 301-581-5100, www.strathmore.org.
VISUAL ART Adah Rose Gallery, Joan Belmar and Lori Anne Boocks, “Mathematics, Maps and Myths,” to Nov. 10, 3766 Howard Ave., Kensington, 301-922-0162, www. adahrosegallery.com Gallery B, “ZigZag,” to Nov. 30, gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, 7700 Wisconsin Ave., Suite E. www. bethesda.org. Yellow Barn Studio, 7Palettes Art Show, Nov. 9-10, reception from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 9, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. www. yellowbarnstudio.com.
In step with its sensitive, tactically brilliant 12-year-old hero, “Ender’s Game” is a bit of a tweener, neither triumph nor disaster, a war-games fantasy with a use-by date of Nov. 22, when the new “Hunger Games” movie comes out. Its central action scenes unfold in a vast zero-gravity battle-simulation arena, on a space station readying for an alien attack of enormous skittery bugs called Formics. The preteens and young teenagers being trained to save the world play dangerous rounds of laser tag and try to impress the authority figures played by Harrison Ford (a long way from Han Solo), Viola Davis and Sir Ben Kingsley. Asa Butterfield of “Hugo” is Ender Wiggins, the relentlessly bullied boy with the Hobbitty-sounding name who becomes “Earth’s ultimate military leader,” in the words of the film’s promotional materials. Hailee Steinfeld of “True Grit” is Petra, his sympathetic best friend and training mentor. They’re sweet together, these kids. Already, Butterfield and Steinfeld are learning the virtue of behaving on camera, as opposed to acting each tense encounter into the ground. When a best-seller such as Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” takes a generation or more to find its way to the
n 2 1/2 stars n PG-13; 114 minutes n Cast: Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley n Directed by Gavin Hood
PHOTO BY RICHARD FOREMAN JR., SMPSP
(From left) Ben Kingsley, Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield star in “Ender’s Game.” screen, the result can acquire an unwanted aura of retronostalgia, whatever the story’s setting or the director’s approach. The look of this project, reflected by the film’s poster, settles for futuristic industrialism made generic. Still, while writer and director Gavin Hood may not be Mr. Style or a science-fiction visionary, he gets the story told, with appealing actors at the center. Across nearly three decades, many young readers have devoured Card’s books (the original, the four sequels, plus two spinoff adventures) as expressions of rebellious outsiders with a cause. Ender is a freak by definition simply by being a “third,” the third-born child in a near-future world ruled by a strict two-child pol-
icy. The violence in Ender’s life is nearly always justified since he’s dealing with dead-eyed sociopaths his own age who wish to do him harm. Then comes the not-so-twisty twist near the climax of the story, which asks the audience to grieve and question a different scale of violence. (Spoiler issues here, so we’ll keep mum.) Hood’s adaptation streamlines the novel and its concerns,
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only occasionally lapsing into trailer-speak, as when Ford’s commander speaks to his recruits in the language of movietrailer-ese (“and in the middle of the battle, a legendary hero emerged”). At heart, “Ender’s Game” relays a simple story of a little guy caught in a web not of his own making, learning to stand up for his beliefs. The target audience could do worse. The old folk, meantime, can focus on the film’s most intense stare-down contest: Though I don’t believe they ever share a scene, it’s astonishing nonetheless how Kingsley and the main Formic handle close-ups in exactly the same way, never, ever, ever, ever blinking. Ever.