Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 21, 2013

B2

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

 Mountain Views News Saturday, December 21, 2013 

SEAN’S SHAMELESS REVIEWS: 


JASMINE’S CORNER

Book Reviews by Jasmine Kelsey Williams 

By Sean Kayden

OUT OF THE FURNACE

Writer/director Scott Cooper broke out onto the scene with his critically lauded 
film, “Crazy Heart” a few years ago. He’s returned with his follow-up, “Out of the 
Furnace,” that has one of the strongest acting ensembles of the year. With a cast 
of all-stars including, Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson and Casey Affleck with 
support from Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Sam Shepard and Zoe Saldana. 
Bale stars as Russell Baze, a mill worker in small town in Pennsylvania. Grueling 
hours and making ends meet, Baze hopes to start a family with his girlfriend played by Zoe Saldana. In 
the meantime, his brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck) returns home from the war looking for anyway to 
make a quick buck. In a cruel twist of fate, Russell lands himself in prison and Rodney gets involved with a 
brutal and sadistic crime ring up in the Northeast. Woody Harrelson plays a vicious villain who’s pitiless 
toward anyone who crosses his path. While it’s difficult to 
ignore the overwhelming talent on screen, it sort of baffles 
you how actors of this caliber are drawn to such an empty, 
hollow script. “Out of the Furnace” doesn’t say a whole lot 
about really anything. It attempts to be contemporary with 
a jab to the US military by a disgruntled marine and how 
the choices you may certainly may have dire circumstances. 
“Out of the Furnace” simply doesn’t have anything to 
offer other than feeling like a direct-to-DVD film that 
just happens to include an all-star cast attached to it.

 I was really hoping and even expecting to see a dynamite film here. However, the film is utterly 
straightforward in such an old school, traditional way. Often times, the reasons made by characters 
didn’t hold much merit. Not for a second did I believe Casey Affleck to be some tough guy marine who 
has served four tours of duty in Iraq. In addition, Bale’s character reasoning behind being locked up 
(never knowing how long it was for) just seemed derivative. Sam Shepard had no point in the film while 
Forest Whitaker once again shows up as a cop or some authority figure with little to offer. The only two 
guys who had anything going for them were Bale and Harrelson, but even their characters were very 
one-note. Harrelson plays a badass guy better than anyone else, but there wasn’t a whole lot of meat to his 
character for him to chew on. After Russell gets out of prison is when his brother, Rodney gets into deeper 
trouble than ever before. What doesn’t make sense is Rodney doing what he said he would do, but paying 
a price for it. It’s unclear why the fate of his character is met with unwarranted results. Then there’s the 
ending, which is almost laughable of how it all unfolds. No twists or turns, just baffling uncomplicated. 

 Indeed Scott Cooper has suffered the sophomore slump with his second directorial effort. 
I almost can’t believe this film was released by big names such as Ridley Scott and Leonardo 
DiCaprio’s Appian Way company. It’s not as if “Out of the Furnace” is complete garbage, but there’s 
really nothing holding it together. No centerpiece, no message. It has a few good scenes amongst a 
plethora of scenes lacking any intrigue or interest. There are several faults and ill-conceived story 
decisions here that easily allow the viewer to pick it apart piece by piece. With a cast like this, a 
director coming off a big hit, you just have certain expectations that you hope are met. With “Out 
of the Furnace,” you get almost nothing in return for the price of admission. Perhaps this script 
should have been sent to the furnace before anyone was dumb enough for giving it the green light. 

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 

CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE 
EVERYTHING THROUGH ASSET-BASED 
THINKING 

By Kathryn D. Cramer & Hank Wasiak

It’s now the middle of December, and we are gradually 
drawing towards the end of another year, filled with 
wonderful books and stories that I’ve read, reviewed, and 
shared. And with the Christmas holiday fast approaching, 
as well as the New Year in January, the next upcoming 
selections will be sure to put you in a fresh and positive 
state of mind. To start off our uplifting picks, we come 
to this selection: “Change the Way You See Everything 
through Asset-Based Thinking” by Kathryn D. Cramer 
and Hank Wasiak. Although you may be familiar with 
longer titles by now, dear readers, this pick for the middle of December is sure to not just put 
you in a more positive frame of mind, but may also help to relax you while reading. 

 If you are a first-timer to read this, then you shall find it both relaxing and beneficial in what 
this book tries to convey. Cramer and Wasiak introduce the crucial plot of Deficit-Based 
Thinking (DBT) versus Asset-Based Thinking (ABT), and how as individuals we can train 
our minds to slowly convert over to ABT. For first-timers, such as myself, to come across this 
book, the straightforward explanations, soothing visual pictures and individual stories from 
various examples and exercises help to fully explain that when readers attempt to apply this 
method to themselves, they are able to gradually make small improvements to their overall 
being and mentality. Do keep in mind that this book makes a good pick for young adults or 
first-timers even, but the familiar theme of changing your state of mind through positive 
thinking is one that is commonly used and may seem dull to anyone who has read something 
similar or already content with their own frame of mind. But this does not mean to overlook 
this book; readers can enjoy the simple lessons Cramer and Wasiak express and that just one 
slight change (without trying everything all at once) can have a major impact. 

 Receiving praise from critics, as well as a kind word from Publishers Weekly, “Change the 
Way You See Everything through Asset-Based Thinking” is a wonderful way to wind down 
the last of the holidays and prep for the start of a new, fresh, and much more positive new 
year. 

http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Change_Way_Think.jpg
Directed by: Scott Cooper

Written by: Brad Ingelsby, 
Scott Cooper

Rated R for strong violence, language 
and drug content

Release Date: December 6th,, 2013


The World Around Us


HUBBLE DISCOVERS WATER VAPOR


Vapor Found Venting from Jupiter’s Moon 
Europa

 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered water 
vapor erupting from the frigid surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, in 
one or more localized plumes near its south pole.

 Europa is already thought to harbor a liquid ocean beneath its 
icy crust, making the moon one of the main targets in the search 
for habitable worlds away from Earth. This new finding is the first 
observational evidence of water vapor being ejected off the moon’s 
surface.

 “By far the simplest explanation for this water vapor is that it 
erupted from plumes on the surface of Europa,” said lead author 
Lorenz Roth of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. 
“If those plumes are connected with the subsurface water ocean 
we are confident exists under Europa’s crust, then this means that 
future investigations can directly investigate the chemical makeup of 
Europa’s potentially habitable environment without drilling through 
layers of ice. And that is tremendously exciting.”

 “We pushed Hubble to its limits to see this very faint emission,” said 
co-lead author and principal investigator of the Hubble observing 
campaign Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne, Germany.

 Hubble’s spectroscopic observations provided the evidence 
for Europa plumes in December 2012. Time sampling of auroral 
emissions measured by Hubble’s imaging spectrograph enabled 
the researchers to distinguish between features created by Jupiter’s 
magnetospheric particles and local enhancements of gas, and to also 
rule out more exotic explanations such as serendipitously observing 
a rare meteorite impact. The imaging spectrograph detected 
faint ultraviolet light from an aurora, powered by Jupiter’s intense 
magnetic field, near Europa’s south pole. 

 It is unknown how deep inside Europa’s crust the source of the 
water may be. Do the vents extend down to a subsurface ocean or are 
the ejecta simply from warmed ice caused by friction stresses near 
the surface?

*******************

 THE HOLIDAYS have crept in on us, almost unnoticed (at least 
by this writer)—and just when we all needed a little cheering up. So 
let’s all “deck the halls with boughs of holly,” and not let gloom take 
over, even if the sky seems to be falling (it won’t). 

IN A DARK TIME

All these tiny lights

Linked up in a mesh of love

Illumine our town.

 STAR OF WONDER. During the holiday season, public 
astronomy lecturers often focus their talks on the “Christmas Star,” 
trying to find a logical, scientific explanation for it. Perhaps a comet, 
or an unusual grouping of planets, they suggest. I prefer to avoid 
such attempts to explain away what is, as a familiar carol says, a “star 
of wonder”—and let the poet in me prevail. As poet Rainer Maria 
Rilke put it in his book, Letters to a Young Poet, “Have patience with 
everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions 
themselves.” 

 Isn’t it great that there is so much yet to be discovered, so many 
questions to be loved?

Billion-year mission:

Descrambling the wonder

Outside and inside.

 Poems used in this column are copyrighted by Robert L. Eklund. 

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com

This graphic shows the location of water vapor detected over Europa’s south pole that provides the first strong evidence of water 
plumes erupting off Europa’s surface, in observations taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in December 2012. Hubble didn’t photograph 
plumes, but spectroscopically detected auroral emissions from oxygen and hydrogen. The aurora is powered by Jupiter’s magnetic 
field. This is only the second moon in the solar system found ejecting water vapor from the frigid surface. The image of Europa is 
derived from a global surface map generated from combined NASA Voyager and Galileo space probe observations.

Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and L. Roth (Southwest Research Institute and University of Cologne, Germany)