What a crazy three days for area athletes.

Most of the ads for “After Earth” have neglected to mention that M. Night Shyamalan co-wrote and directed the film. Movie studios finally seem to be realizing that having Shyamalan’s name plastered above the title will no longer sell tickets. If anything, it will have audiences fleeing from the theater in revulsion. Whenever it looks like Shyamalan can’t embarrass himself any further, he always comes out with a new film that’s even more atrocious than the last. At least with his previous debacle, “The Last Airbender,” Shyamalan hit ground zero. There’s no way he could possibly make a film even more poorly written, effortlessly acted, and bleakly directed, right?


Most of the ads for “After Earth” have neglected to mention that M. Night Shyamalan co-wrote and directed the film. Movie studios finally seem to be realizing that having Shyamalan’s name plastered above the title will no longer sell tickets.

Army National Guard Spec. Ryan A. Kordys has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C.


Humanity's home planet hardly merits the name-check in "After Earth," M. Night Shyamalan's sci-fi survival tale whose shipwreck action could (with the exception of a scene where our hero scrawls a crude map over Lascaux-like cave paintings) take place on any old life-supporting globe in the cosmos. The disappointingly generic film, which strands a father and son (Will and Jaden Smith) on Earth a thousand years after a planet-wide evacuation, will leave genre audiences pining for the more Terra-centric conceits of "Oblivion," not to mention countless other future-set films that find novelty in making familiar surroundings threatening. Will Smith's presence, not just as co-star but as originator of the story, seems likely to carry box office receipts beyond the benchmark of Shyamalan's previous picture, the wretched "The Last Airbender," but those hoping for a franchise should navigate elsewhere.

History is one of our greatest teachers.

Cera Hassinan is one of those people who makes others feel uncomfortable with themselves.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:10-12).

Dillie Nerios is a Florida food stamp recruiter. Her job is to sign up 150 seniors monthly in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

In the galaxy of big-screen superheros — a rather glum lot — Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is the snappy one.

I received a press release today on the Brothers in Arms Classic the Desert Vista football team is participating in the fall.

On May 5, 1862, a rag-tag force of vastly outnumbered Mexican soldiers held off well-provisioned French troops backed by heavy artillery in a battle to defend Mexican sovereignty.

In the wake of last week’s tragedy in Boston, what are the images that stayed with you? The pillowing smoke? Blood on the streets? Shell-shocked victims in wheelchairs? Our hearts have been broken again. And since the footage is shown over and over, we’re traumatized each time, just like when the twin towers burned on 9/11.

Being a person of faith isn’t like being a football player or a plumber. In those cases, everyone knows the rules, the skills and who qualifies. Christians don’t even have universal agreement of what it means to “belong” or “get in” the club, let alone answers to life’s most pressing questions.

Army Pvt. Jesse A. Blas has graduated from basic infantry training at Fort Benning, Columbus, Ga.

"The Sapphires" is missing a lot — detailed characters, a unique narrative arc, half-plausible scenes of the Vietnam War — but it's got two uncommon things going for it: genuine charm and Chris O'Dowd. They are not mutually exclusive.

Up there with “Stoker” and “Like Someone in Love” as one of the best films to hit theaters this spring, “War Witch” is devastating, beautiful and truly not to be missed. An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this gut-wrenching tale of a child soldier has been reeling in the accolades: Best Actress awards for young star Rachel Mwanza at both the Berlin and Tribeca film festivals, along with a whopping 10 honors (including Best Picture) at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards.

It was nearly the storybook ending everyone at Desert Vista thought was possible.

LOS ANGELES — A grave 12-year-old African girl, abducted from her village by vicious armed rebels and forced to wage war as a child soldier, guides the viewer through the horrors of Canadian director Kim Nguyen's engrossing Oscar-nominated drama "War Witch." Managing to be neither sentimental nor sensationalistic, the film tells its story from the heart, and from the simple, straightforward viewpoint of young heroine Komona, warmly played by the talented Rachel Mwanza in her screen debut.

It is not out of the ordinary for Montessori students to self direct their learning and research. So, when upper elementary students, Sushil and Matthew, both age 11, decided to conduct a research on the topic of world wars, Sushil invited Sam Morris, a World War II veteran, to speak to his class about his involvement in that war. Morris also shared many stories about his experiences being a young soldier.

The 35th Annual Cave Creek Fiesta Days Rodeo is set for March 22-24 at Cave Creek Memorial Arena, at 24th Street and Carefree Highway, with three rodeo performances featuring top-ranking Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) and Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) contestants.

Earlier this month, Mountain Pointe High School’s Academic Decathlon team snagged third place in a tough regional competition against more than 20 other high schools.

It is astonishing to me that a self-professed “retired consulting engineer” could not understand that Professor John Lott’s hypothesis of a 3-percent-per-1-percent relationship between gun ownership and crime rate reduction is a LOGARITHMIC function.

Just turned 50, Tom Cruise is eligible for membership in the American Association of Retired Persons. Just split from third wife Katie Holmes, Cruise is the object of told-you-so cynics who simply knew that romance wouldn’t last. Just finished with his stab at something really different as a heavy-metal rock god in “Rock of Ages,” Cruise is coming off one of the lowest-grossing movies in his career.

Capt. Joanie Baca remembers looking up at the picturesque, mountain terrain during her 11-month deployment in Afghanistan last year near the Pakistani border.