“Chasing Mavericks” Review: surfing saga wipes out on dry land

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Regarding legendary MGM bathing beauty Esther Williams, producer Joe Pasternak once famously quipped, “Wet, she’s a star.”

So it goes with “Chasing Mavericks,” a biopic that features not enough stirringly gorgeous surfing footage and way too many clunky biopic clichés in telling the story of surf legend Jay Moriarity. With a storyline as by-the-numbers as a square dance, the movie’s one surprise comes with the closing credits – namely, that this trite “inspirational” movie is the product of two world-class filmmakers, Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted.

After a prologue in which eight-year-old Jay, already obsessed with the big waves, is rescued from drowning by his ten-hanging neighbor Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), we meet our lead character at age 15 and played by Jonny Weston. A talented young surfer, Jay sneaks off one morning and watches Frosty tackle Mavericks, a giant super-wave thought by many to be the stuff of legend.

Once he sees Mavericks, Jay has found his Mt. Everest, and he won’t rest until he can conquer it. He begs Frosty to train him, and so begins a 12-week course that will include the physical (paddling from Santa Cruz to Monterey, learning to go four minutes without breathing) and the mental (Jay writes essays for Frosty about observing the tides and conquering personal demons).

Naturally, the surf lessons become life lessons, whether it’s about taking a step back and finding the easy way through a situation or distinguishing the difference between fear (a good thing) and panic (not so much). Kario Salem’s screenplay ticks off the character development in the most predictable way possible; when Jay reveals early on that he has an unopened latter from the father who abandoned him as a child, we know that envelope’s going to be torn open in the final act.

Because of his positive attitude and many achievements at a relatively young age, Jay Moriarity became a legend in the surf world. Unfortunately, that mantle anchors the film – rather than portray Jay as the complex and interesting person he no doubt was, the movie reduces him to a paragon. Constantly upbeat and crowned in a halo of blond curls, Weston has nothing to play that can make Jay anything but a blank, shiny ideal.

Butler may still be grappling with his American accent, but at least Frosty has a flaw or two that give the actor something to do. The women in the film are handed even less to work with, stuck playing The Girlfriend (Leven Rambin) or The Boozy Mom Who Suddenly Isn’t Boozy Anymore (Elisabeth Shue). Abigail Spencer, as Frosty’s wife, gets some relatively complex moments, but even she is saddled with the requisite “Please don’t go surf Mavericks tonight, honey” speech.

None of the film’s many flaws matter when Jay or Frosty hops on a board and swims out to the waves. If the surfing scenes are real, then they’re breathtaking; if they’re faked, then they’ve been faked brilliantly. But for that, better to rent “The Endless Summer” or “Step Into Liquid” so you can cut right to the good stuff without having to wade through all the personal-growth and surrogate-family bushwa that “Chasing Mavericks” handles so badly.

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Modern Science Unravels Ancient Mummy Mysteries

Reported by Dr. Julielynn Wong:

Call it the coldest case ever.

New York researchers have used modern-day forensic science to reveal the faces of four ancient mummies from the 1^st century A.D.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Bob Brier, an Egyptologist at Long Island University and lead author of a new study published in the journal ZÄS.  “We didn’t know what we were going to find.”

Brier and colleagues used a CT scanner to produce physical models of the mummies’ skulls. Then a crime artist, who only knew the mummy’s age and gender, used the models to recreate the mummies’ faces. The painstaking process took seven days per mummy.

“We were dying to see what it looked like,” Brier said.

The team then compared the faces to painted portraits entombed with the bandaged bodies.

Two of the four match-ups were strikingly similar.

A mummy from the British Museum was a small woman in her early 20s with delicate features, a narrow face and thick lips. Her face appears to match the features of her portrait. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is believed that they were almost certainly painted during the lifetimes of the individuals and clearly were not idealized images,” Brier said of the portraits.

A second mummy from the British Museum was a large man in his 50s with a broad face, thick brow, flat nose, and heavy jaw. His face was very similar to his portrait, which may have been painted when he was younger. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

But one face didn’t match the portrait at all, leading the researchers to believe the ancient embalmers might have wrapped the mummy with the wrong portrait.

A mummy from the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen was a young man in his 30s with a wide nose, broad cheekbones, thick lips and rounded jawline. This face looked quite different from the portrait, hinting that a switch might have occurred. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is possible that during the mummification procedure, when several bodies were being mummified at the same time, a mismatch occurred,” Brier said.

The fourth mummy’s nose looked more refined in the portrait than in the researchers’ prediction, but his “other facial features and proportions were so consistent between the reconstruction and portrait that no mix-up was indicated here,” Brier said.

A mummy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was a man in his early 30s with a wide nose, square jaw and thick lips. His “touched up” portrait appears to show a younger man with a more narrow nose but similar lips and jaw. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

The study sheds light on the purpose of the portraits, which represented a shift from symbolic art to realistic art after the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 B.C.

“This study convinced us that some of these portraits were dead-on,” Brier said, adding that some portraits were likely styled to be more flattering to the deceased.

“This is a very sound manner of testing the hypothesis that the mummy portraits were made when the individual was alive,” said Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, who was not involved with the study. “It enhances our understanding of the concept of portraiture and its importance at this time.”

Brier would like to extend the study to include more mummies. But while there are more than 1,000 mummy portraits, less than 100 are still attached to the people they depict, he said.

“The difficulty is finding portraits that are still bound to the mummy,” he said. “Many portraits were taken off the mummies and sold during the 19th century and early part of the 20th century.”

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Anglo American chief to step down

26 October 2012 Last updated at 12:11 ET

Cynthia Carroll is to step down as chief executive of mining giant Anglo American after six years in the job.

Earlier this year a group of shareholders, unhappy with a sharp drop in profits, asked the chairman to look for a new chief executive.

Anglo said it was her decision to leave and chairman Sir John Parker paid tribute to her leadership.

No date has been set for her departure, which will leave just two women running the biggest UK-listed companies.

They are Angela Ahrendts at Burberry and Alison Cooper of Imperial Tobacco. Dame Marjorie Scardino, currently the chief executive of Pearson, is stepping down at the end of the year after 16 years in the job.

Anglo American shares closed up 4%, the biggest gainer among the 100 top quoted companies.

Cynthia Carroll, a 55-year-old American, said it had been a difficult decision to leave.

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“I am extremely proud of everything we have achieved during my period,” she said.

“Next year I will be entering my seventh year as chief executive and I feel that the time will be right to hand over to a successor who can build further on the strong foundations we have created.”

Legacy

Sir John said she had “developed a clear strategy, based on a highly attractive range of core commodities, and created a strong and unified culture and a streamlined organisation with a focus on operational performance”.

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Her departure does nothing to solve the key problems facing the company in the medium term”

End Quote Nik Stanojevic Mining analyst, Brewin Dolphin

“Her legacy will include, among many other things, a step change improvement in safety, sustainability and the quality of our dialogue with governments, communities and other stakeholders. Her values represent the very best of Anglo American.”

A geologist by training, Cynthia Carroll was the the first woman and the first non-South African to be appointed to the role of chief executive at Anglo American when she was given the top job in 2007.

She has come under increasing pressure from investors over the company’s share price, which has fallen by a third this year, and the deteriorating industrial relations at its platinum operations in South Africa.

A continuing wildcat strike means the company is losing output of four and a half thousand ounces of refined platinum every day, which equates to a loss of almost $ 7m (£4.3m).

But there have also been concerns about its Minas Rio iron ore project in Brazil, as well as problems in its Chilean copper operations.

Contenders

Nik Stanojevic, mining analyst at Brewin Dolphin said her performance had been mixed: “She made significant improvements in certain areas, particularly in cost cutting, removing various layers of management and streamlining the business. Importantly she also improved relations with the South African government,” he told BBC News.

“But her time also saw cost overruns and long delays at the Minas Rio iron ore project.

“Her departure does nothing to solve the key problems facing the company in the medium term.”

Mr Stanojevic added that there were some big names in the business who could be in line to take over, including the current boss of mining giant Xstrata, Mick Davis, who will leave his post after it completes its merger with Glencore.

Also potentially available are Chip Goodyear, the former chief executive of BHP Billiton, and Alex Vanselow, another former BHP Billiton executive.

Charlie Gibson, mining analyst at Edison Investment Research, said her successor would not necessarily be more successful: “The ‘new broom’ may not be able to do much better. I have a saying – no mining plan survives past its first contact with a rock – it is such an unpredictable business, there is always a geological fault, or a slippage or any number of unexpected hitches.”

Analysts at Macquarie bank calculated that Anglo American is worth $ 25bn less than it was when Cynthia Carroll became the chief executive, while its major competitors have grown, or at least not lost value.

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Amnesty Int: Ivory Coast torturing detainees

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast security officials are torturing dozens of detainees by administering electric shocks and other forms of abuse, Amnesty International alleged Friday.

The victims include people charged with endangering state security in the wake of a recent spate of attacks targeting military installations. Since early August, unknown gunmen have carried out roughly 10 attacks at checkpoints, military bases and other installations throughout the country, including in the commercial capital of Abidjan.

United Nations officials have said that more than 200 people have been detained on suspicion of involvement in the attacks, and that torture has been documented at multiple detention facilities.

Gaetan Mootoo, West Africa researcher for Amnesty, said an investigation team received reports of a range of abuses during a recent month-long visit.

“We were able to meet dozens of detainees who told us how they have been tortured by electricity or had molten plastic poured on their bodies,” Mootoo said. “Two of them have been sexually abused. Some have been held for many months denied contact with their families and access to lawyers.”

Army spokesman Cherif Moussa denied the torture allegations Friday. “Our camps are not concentration camps,” he said.

However, he acknowledged the possibility that individual soldiers may occasionally “go beyond what they are allowed to do” when dealing with inmates.

He added that the government tried to ensure that inmates’ rights were respected. “We want to prove that we are not abusing people’s rights,” he said. “We’re working for the state’s security. We’re working for the people’s security.”

Earlier this month, the Associated Press interviewed former detainees at a military camp in the southwestern port town of San Pedro who described widespread beatings as well as the use of electric shocks. A guard at the camp corroborated most of the claims, though camp commanders denied them.

In its statement Friday, Amnesty described how one detainee, a police officer, had died as a result of the torture he endured at the San Pedro camp.

“Serge Herve Kribie was arrested in San Pedro on August 21 by the national army and interrogated about recent attacks,” Amnesty said. “He was stripped naked, tied to a pole, had water poured on his body, and was then subjected to electric shocks. He died a few hours later.”

Amnesty said that some detainees were only released after ransoms were paid. One detainee told the rights group: “My parents first paid 50,000 CFA (a little under US $ 100) and then after my release, my jailers went at my house and demanded a higher sum. I told them that I couldn’t pay such an amount and they agreed to receive 20,000 CFA more (about US$ 40).”

The government has blamed the attacks on allies of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was arrested in April 2011. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office after losing the November 2010 election to now-President Alassane Ouattara sparked six months of violence in which at least 3,000 were killed.

Amnesty researchers also met with some of the more than 100 Gbagbo allies – including his wife, Simone – who are being detained on charges stemming from the post-election violence.

“Some of them told us that despite the fact that they have been held since April 2011, they only saw an investigating judge twice for less than a few hours,” Mootoo said.

Despite widespread evidence that forces loyal to Ouattara also committed atrocities during the violence, none have been arrested or credibly investigated, sparking allegations of victor’s justice.

Also Friday, in Amsterdam, judges at the International Criminal Court rejected a request for release by former president Gbagbo, who is being detained on suspicion of crimes against humanity.

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Exclusive: Massachusetts’ regulator eyes other firms on research

BOSTON (Reuters) – Massachusetts‘ top securities regulator said on Friday that his office is looking into whether top Wall Street investment banks in addition to Citigroup have leaked research in violation of state law on how to share this kind of information.

“We are looking at all of them, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan,” regulator William Galvin said in a telephone interview about the probe. “It is a very active investigation,” Galvin said, declining to give more information about what kind of charges may be made.

Earlier on Friday, Galvin’s office said it has won a $ 2 million settlement with Citigroup after two of its analysts doled out information about top technology companies to a small number of journalists. Citi fired Mark Mahaney, the senior analyst in the case, and an unnamed junior analyst in the wake of the Massachusetts probe.

Galvin’s office said Citi’s junior analyst passed on some of the bank’s confidential financial forecasts about Facebook while the senior analyst passed on confidential information about Google unit YouTube. Galvin said the Citi case was concluded first because his investigators were able to find emails to prove the information was discussed improperly.

“This is a recurring theme. The banks promise there is a firewall between research and marketing, that they will observe the quiet period, but that is clearly not the case,” Galvin said.

He said he is pursuing the investigation nearly a decade after big banks reached a global settlement on research to make sure that investors are protected. “This is about not having two sets of rules one for preferred clients and one for everyone else,” Galvin said.

Galvin has a reputation for acting quickly on issues where federal regulators may be slower to move in. “Mr. Galvin is very aggressive, and, in fairness, does a great job in upholding the law in Massachusetts,” said Anthony Sabino, a business professor at St. John’s University.

He also said there may be more to come on how the banks treated clients.

“Keep in mind this is but a preview of the ongoing shareholder litigation, regulatory investigations, and so on trying to find out what went wrong with the Facebook IPO.”

(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Steve Orlofsky)

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