A mix of farce and film noir falters

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Shooting probed as possible suicide

Police are investigating the possibility that a Cary teenager killed himself because he thought he had shot a friend moments before.

Justin Armond Monaco, 18, and three friends were in his apartment early Wednesday morning when he fired a .357 Magnum revolver, said Cary police Capt. Dave Wulff. Monaco did not hit anybody, Wulff said, but may have thought he did.

Police have not ruled Monaco's death a suicide as they await autopsy reports from the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill.

How Coco became Chanel

'Coco Before Chanel" is a film as unfussy and elegant as the creations of the designer.

It's the candid and unsentimental story of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel and how, at a time when women's opportunities were very much tied to men's wallets, a girl who grew up in an orphanage managed to become a 20th-century icon.

The film begins in that orphanage, where Chanel and her sister, Adrienne, are dropped off by their father, who doesn't look back and never returns. It quickly moves on to a grown-up Gabrielle (Audrey Tautou) and Adrienne (Marie Gillain), now bar singers, trying not to be mistaken for hookers.

'Grease' loses pizazz

If you see "Grease" at the Durham Performing Arts Center this week, do not go hoping to see the movie reincarnated right before you.

Instead, prepare for a fun version with a slightly different plot, a few extra, forgettable songs and a swell time -- but not much more.

The 1978 movie starring John Travolta as Danny Zuko and Olivia Newton-John as Sandy Olsson has been seducing teenage girls at slumber parties for more than 30 years now. It might be difficult to get an audience that doesn't have certain expectations of "Grease" the musical.

'Intimate' eavesdropping

In "Intimate Strangers" ("Confidences Trop Intimes"), Patrice Leconte's impossibly chic variation on Hitchcockian themes, Sandrine Bonnaire plays a distraught-looking mystery woman -- a woman on the verge of middle age -- en route to an office/apartment building for her first appointment with a therapist.

She's looking for a Dr. Monnier, and the building's concierge, who is distracted by her favorite daytime soap opera, waves her toward the elevator and tells her she'll find the good doctor on the fifth floor.

Once inside his office, the woman wastes no time unloading her grief on the silent, sad-eyed man. She talks a blue streak. She's been married four years, she starts off, and her husband is at present unemployed - and also at present uninterested in her. They haven't had sex in six months. When her monologue moves into her sex life, her listener looks oddly startled and embarrassed, but as the details become more graphic, he seems almost titillated.

Oscar predictions: Who will the nominees be?

On Tuesday morning, at 8:30 EST, this year's Oscar nominations will be announced at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater. And whoever is announcing the best-picture nominees had better take a deep breath - because this year, he or she is reading 10 names.

It's a new twist that's shaking things up for Oscar-watchers in 2010. The decision to go from five titles to 10 was made last summer, ostensibly to give Academy voters a chance to showcase more films, but in all likelihood inspired by the telecast's sagging ratings and frequent criticism that the Academy, in its top awards, ignores movies popular with audiences (like last year's "The Dark Knight").

Historians point out that the Oscars long ago allowed more than five movies in the category: Though the first Academy Awards ceremony, in 1929, had only three titles in the top category (then called "Outstanding Picture," and won by the silent World War I drama "Wings"), subsequent years featured as many as 10. Some categories