96% War Witch

All Critics (48) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (2)

Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen spent nearly a decade researching this docudrama about child soldiers in Africa, and the film feels as authoritative as a first-hand account.

A haunting take on unspeakably grim subject matter, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A powerful and upsetting portrait of a young girl compelled into unimaginably horrific circumstances.

Nguyen, astonishingly, manages to wring something vaguely like a happy ending from this tragic story.

War Witch is most effective not when we are looking in on Komona but when we are inside her head.

The powerful things we expect from "War Witch" are as advertised, but what we don't expect is even better.

... driven by a remarkably natural, unaffected performance by Mwanza. And Nguyen, despite relying a little too heavily on the initial voice-over for exposition, is a confident and sensitive intelligence behind the camera.

You're likely to ponder its images, its insights into a very foreign (for most of us) location and the tragic situation of Komona (and others like her) for a long time to come.

Is it accurate depiction of Africa's child soldiers? I don't know, thank God. But it feels authentic to its very core, and that makes it as hard to forget as it is to ignore.

Brutal without turning exploitative, the result is harrowing and heartbreaking.

Nguyen creates a mesmerizing tone through his camerawork, editing, sound and the infusion of African folk imagery and ritual, but it's Mwanza's performance as Komona that makes "War Witch" feel so miraculous.

Nguyen reportedly worked on "War Witch" for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

Made with extremely clear-eyed restraint from harangues, sentiment, message-mongering, or anything else that would cheapen its central character's suffering and fight.

War Witch features a standout performance by Rachel Mwanza, but the supernatural visions don't really suit the film's tone and mood.

Nguyen's compassion and commitment to the issue is admirable, and at its best, War Witch is devastating.

War Witch is remarkable for the fact that it never strays into sentimentality or sensationalism.

...a love story between youngsters who are forced to become adults all too early in their lives.

This is a straight ahead essay on warfare at its worst and the survival of the human spirit at its best.

An astonishing drama set in Africa that vividly depicts the courage and resiliency of a 12-year-old girl whose spiritual gifts enable her to survive.

It is astonishing that film that contains such violence can have such a serene tone. The source of the serenity is the measured, calm narration by Komona (voice of Diane Umawahoro) that is the telling of her story to her unborn child

An exquisitely made film in direct contrast to the ugliness of its subject matter

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war_witch/

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I have shoes for any occasion

Riot gear for Africa? Rhinestone cowboy wear? Yep, and more.

By Donna Bryson / May 24, 2013

Photo illustration by Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Everyone staying at the Kinshasa hotel in the spring of 1997 was, like me, a reporter covering the crumbling of Mobutu Sese Seko's reign. Everyone except a chatty but mysterious American who greeted waitresses at breakfast with "Bahn joor, baby." His accent was so bad, I was convinced it masked a Parisian fluency deployed during shady diamond dealings, or when he reported back to Mr. Mobutu's henchmen about what the foreign reporters were saying about the dictator of what was then known as Zaire (now Congo).

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One afternoon, my colleagues and I stood in the lobby, discussing a protest that had gotten out of hand and ended with several journalists being robbed of even their shoes. The suspected diamond dealer glanced at my still-shod feet and pronounced that my black high-tops would be safe to wear to the next riot, because no one would want to steal Chucks.

Let Proust have his madeleines. I have my shoes.

I can be forgiven for trying to make my shoe habit seem intellectual, or at least cool. I take plenty of teasing about it at home. My 9-year-old daughter hides shoe catalogs from me. She feigns fear I'll spend her inheritance at the shoe shop. Hoping to shame me into restraint, she'll tell anyone who will listen: "Mommy has a lot of shoes." Most listeners probably think that means a closet full of Christian Louboutin heels. They'd be disappointed. I own nary a red sole. My tastes tend more to those high-tops, and not just in riot-ready basic black.

I sometimes need to be fast on my feet; I always need to be color coordinated.

You need only peek in my mom's closet to see that I come honestly by my shoe mania. She has a lifetime collection stacked in towers of the original boxes. Her tastes run to classic pumps and high heels. But when a young co-worker once came to her, in near tears because her own mother was insisting she buy a pair of heels ? her first ? for her wedding, my mom counseled her to stick with her favorite tennis shoes, perhaps with lacy ties for the occasion.

After Converse, the most represented brand in my shoe closet is Goodyear. I have several sandals fashioned from old tires, and every time I stretch on a pair I'm reminded of the inventiveness of recyclers in the developing world.

African cobblers find novel ways to loop and weave laces, creating a pattern across the foot. They incise the rubber to generate more interest by revealing black-and-white designs. A Pakistani cobbler caught my interest with a simpler method: pile the color atop soles made from tires. The straps on my Pakistani pair are dyed red and embroidered with curlicues and florets in at least as many colors as I have high-tops. I brought them back from a temporary assignment in Islamabad and proudly showed them to my landlady's daughter in New Delhi, where I was based at the time.

"Very Baluch," she said, referring to Baluchistan in southwest Pakistan. I thought, "Well, that's the point," recognizing that she hadn't meant it as a compliment. It wasn't a political statement rooted in decades of Indo-Pak tension. She just didn't like my shoes. I didn't mind. I've happily worn my wild Baluch sandals for years.

Not all my shoe tales are exotic. Or mine. Or even, perhaps, true.

My husband took me to Santa Fe, N.M., to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Naturally, we ended up at Kowboyz, with its huge selection of used cowboy boots. My husband planted himself near the cash register, chatting with the owner, while I combed shelves full of prizes in my size in the women's department. We must have been in there three hours.

I got a wonderful black-and-white women's pair. The real find for me, though, was in the men's department. A rich oxblood color, they are by Lucchese, the Louboutin of cowboy boots. The dandy who wore 'em and left 'em had tiny feet for a man. He had barely scuffed the soles. Had he spent gambling winnings on them, then sold them the next month to pay the rent? Perhaps he was a dot-com millionaire who bought them on a whim, only to find they pinched. I like to think he was a down-on-his-luck rodeo cowboy, tough and wiry, with fine boots his one indulgence. I hope he got together enough cash for an even finer pair. I wish I could thank him for breaking in mine.

Three hours is a long time to just sit surrounded by boots with stories to tell. My husband did break down and try on a pair with fabulous toes: ostrich skin dyed turquoise. He decided they pinched, and left them on the shelf. If only my particular dandy had had daintier feet.

And my daughter? I've seen her eying my Kowboyz purchases. I got her a pair of red boots at Christmas, and her face lit up when she opened the box. I think she's hooked.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kRrLScBYWRU/I-have-shoes-for-any-occasion

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Behind the Scenes of How Man Works with Machine in Pacific Rim

The monstrously giant mechs of Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim are controlled by two different people at the same time. The two pilots interact with the computer in Drift Space to control the giant mech and this featurette explains a little about how that works.

It basically looks like the funnest video game ever (also the creepiest since you gain acess to other people's brains). [WarnerBros]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/behind-the-scenes-of-how-man-works-with-machine-in-paci-509429595

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Spheres can form squares

May 23, 2013 ? Everybody who has tried to stack oranges in a box knows that a regular packing of spheres in a flat layer naturally leads to a hexagonal pattern, where each sphere is surrounded by six neighbours in a honeycomb-like fashion. In an article just published on-line in PNAS, researchers from Wageningen University report an exception to this rule: when small, micrometer-sized particles are placed on a curved oil-water surface, they arrange in a square pattern, as on a chessboard.

Since a number of decades, scientists are looking for strategies to create ordered crystal structures of regularly arranged small particles. Such crystals are interesting, because they can be used to control, modulate, or steer visible light in applications like lasers or other optical devices. While creating hexagonal patterns is relatively easy -- this is the natural way in which the particles tend to order -- anything different from that is much more difficult.

The team from the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Colloid Science at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, has now found a way to create square particle arrays. To do this, they make use of the surface tension of the underlying oil-water surface, that is the tendency of the surface to minimize its area. When a particle sticks to the liquid surface it deforms the surface somewhat, and thereby increases the total area. The surface tension acts to minimize these deformations, which can be done by clustering all the particles together.

This effect is also responsible for the clumping of breakfast cereals in a bowl of milk or of bubbles at the surface of a soft drink. The researchers have found that this effective attraction between particles resulting from the surface tension depends on how the liquid surface is curved. A slight curving of the surface already makes the interaction between particles highly dependent on their relative orientation, with attraction in two perpendicular directions and repulsion in the other directions. This is what causes the particles to arrange spontaneously in square patterns.

The researchers believe that their findings will lead to new bottom-up strategies for the design of structured materials, to be used in high-tech optical applications.

The research has been supported financially by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wageningen University and Research Centre.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. D. Ershov, J. Sprakel, J. Appel, M. A. Cohen Stuart, J. van der Gucht. Capillarity-induced ordering of spherical colloids on an interface with anisotropic curvature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1222196110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/le2u5z_doJk/130523093147.htm

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FOR KIDS: Building with moon rocks

FOR KIDS: Building with moon rocks

Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials

By Sid Perkins

Web edition: May 22, 2013

Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials

By Sid Perkins

Web edition: May 22, 2013

Enlarge

Lunar concrete

Findings by this teenage engineer from Hoschton, Ga., suggest that construction on the moon could be less costly than previously thought.

Credit: Patrick Thornton, SSP

Astronauts will likely colonize the moon one day. Because it costs thousands of dollars to lift a pound of material off of Earth and into orbit, it should prove cheaper to build moon structures from materials already there. And new research by a Georgia teen suggests that concrete made from moon rocks and soil would be stronger than ordinary concrete.

Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: Building with moon rocks.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350610/title/FOR_KIDS_Building_with_moon_rocks

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Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn Take His Kids to School

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/tiger-woods-and-lindsey-vonn-take-his-kids-to-school/

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NBA draft order set, so who goes No. 1?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are on top of the NBA draft yet again, only this time there is no LeBron James waiting to save them. There may not even be a Kyrie Irving.

The first big NBA draft question was answered Tuesday night when the Cavaliers won the lottery for the second time in three years. But there are still plenty of questions left with a draft that many talent evaluators believe lacks the star power of previous years. And they start right at the top.

There is no consensus No. 1 selection. Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel may come the closest, but he is recovering from a torn ACL that will likely keep him out until at least December. Kansas guard Ben McLemore, Indiana guard Victor Oladipo and Georgetown forward Otto Porter also are considered some of the top players in the draft.

"I think it's a balanced draft," new Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders said. "You don't have an Alonzo Mourning, a Patrick Ewing, a guy like Derrick Rose, Shaquille O'Neal. You don't have that one player that might single-handedly change the face of the franchise. It's going to be a draft where you might see a player at taken at 12 that some other team might take at No. 6."

Observations like that one are common, leading some to label the draft weak. Saunders is among several executives and talent evaluators who disagree with that characterization, instead taking encouragement from the overall depth.

"There isn't a player that has wowed or completely dominated college or international ball to create that buzz or whatever," said Ryan Blake, the NBA's senior director of scouting operations. "We have a bucket load of really good players that are going to make an impact immediately."

Noel is the wild card that could shape the rest of the draft. The 6-foot-10 center from Kentucky was one of the most sought-after recruits in the country, but he tore the ACL in his left knee Feb. 12, giving him just over half of a season of college experience before coming to the pros. He hopes to make his NBA debut sometime in December, but some teams could be concerned after watching Rose sit out the entire season with the same injury.

"We haven't seen him in three or four months and we're not going to see him in another three or four months," Blake said. "That can be disturbing."

The Cavs certainly could use a young big man to bring into a promising core that includes Irving, Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson. Getting a natural shot-blocker and gifted rebounder like Noel could round out that group very nicely. A knock-down shooter like McLemore or a versatile forward like Porter would also fill some needs for a team that is desperate to get back into the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference.

The Orlando Magic sit in the No. 2 spot, still in full-on rebuilding mode after trading Dwight Howard to the Lakers before last season. If the Cavs go in another direction, the Magic could grab Noel to put alongside young center Nikola Vucevic for an imposing new-age frontcourt.

"They say this draft isn't running over with great talent, but believe me, there will be eight or 10 players from the draft, you'll look back and say they had really good careers," Magic senior vice president Pat Williams said after losing the No. 1 spot to the Cavaliers in the lottery. "We're very pleased. Obviously, we came here to win it, because we have a history and wanted to keep it going. But, everybody is very pleased with the second pick."

And just because this class is lacking a star who became a household name last season in the NCAA tournament doesn't mean there isn't one to be found. Last year at this time few knew much about a muscular point guard out of Weber State named Damian Lillard. The 6-foot-3 Lillard played four years in college, which has become more of a liability than an asset for players at the top of the draft these days.

The Portland Trail Blazers grabbed him with the sixth overall pick, and he wound up as the unanimous rookie of the year and a player heralded as a cornerstone for the franchise moving forward.

"I don't think anybody expected when Portland was picking at six last year that they'd have the unanimous rookie of the year," said Saunders, whose Timberwolves have the ninth overall choice.

Teams looking to add big men will find plenty in this draft, including Noel, Indiana's Cody Zeller, Maryland's Alex Len, Gonzaga's Kelly Olynyk, Louisville's Gorqui Dieng and Pitt's Steven Adams. And as the draft moves on into the late first round, promising prospects like Michigan's Tim Hardaway, Jr., Miami's Shane Larkin and Russia's Sergey Karasev are there for the taking.

"Some teams want to hit that home run," Blake said. "They're going to take a chance. But no matter what you get in this deep draft, you're going to have guys that come in and can be a 10-point, 10-rebound guys for 10 years."

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Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter: http://twitter.com/APKrawczynski

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BKN_NBA_DRAFT?SITE=ORLAG&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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