United giving back $5.6 million in city tax incentives

United Continental Holdings, parent of United Airlines, is giving back $5.6 million in City of Chicago tax incentives.

The incentive money is tied to United's 2007 move to its corporate headquarters at 77 W. Wacker Drive, along the Chicago River.

Because of United's recent plans to move out of that building and consolidate its headquarters into Willis Tower where it has other operations, the airline said it was "appropriate" to return the money. However, it wasn't necessary.

City officials said United had so far fulfilled its obligations for receiving the money, such as maintaining a minimum employment level in the 77 W. Wacker Drive building, and that the incentives would have traveled with the company as it moved several blocks down Wacker Drive to Willis Tower.

"I commend United Airlines on an incredible act of corporate citizenship that speaks to the unique role Chicago's business community plays in the future of the city," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement.

United said it will give back $5.6 million it already received in Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, a funding tool used by Chicago to promote investment in the city.

United will also forgo up to $9.7 million more in TIF money that the city would have paid the airline, for a total of $15.3 million. However, United probably wouldn't have received the remaining $9.7 million because the money was tied to its fuel consumption at O'Hare International Airport.

"We were unlikely to ever realize the incremental $9.7 million anyway because of our improving fuel efficiency and reduced capacity," United spokeswoman Christen David said, referring to the airline's business strategy of reducing its overall flying by operating fuller planes.

The giveback does not include $35.9 million in TIF money tied to a separate 2009 incentive agreement that involved moving 2,500 workers from Elk Grove Village to Willis Tower.

"Since we are vacating 77 W. Wacker, which we redeveloped with the help of city economic incentives, we feel it is appropriate to return the funds we used for that redevelopment," David said.

The airline decided it should not combine the incentive agreements for the two locations. "This decision does not have any impact on the agreement for Willis Tower," she said.

The move to return money might seem surprising, coming from a company with thin profit margins in an industry that has struggled. Flight cancellations during superstorm Sandy caused a financial setback of $90 million in revenue and $35 million in profit for the month of October, United said last week.

"I do think this is rare," Joe Schwieterman, a professor in the school of public service at DePaul University, said of giving back incentive money. But in general, companies like to maintain their flexibility and can be hamstrung by a requirement for a minimum employment level at a certain location, he said. United's TIF agreement called for a minimum employment of 315 over 10 years, starting in 2007 at 77 W. Wacker. A 10-year commitment "is an eternity in the topsy-turvy world" of business, he said. "And employment guarantees can be an albatross around senior management's neck."

When United finishes the move, it will have more than 4,000 employees in Willis Tower, far more than the approximately 2,800 they were required to have for both TIF agreements.

United CEO Jeff Smisek said in a letter to Emanuel last week that the airline will consolidate into Willis because it "will be a critical factor in building a common company culture and greater operational efficiency, which we view as keys to our success."

He said United has met the commitments in its incentive agreements on the headquarters building. "However, now that we are relocating co-workers to Willis Tower, we believe it is appropriate to terminate those agreements and repay the city funds we have received," Smisek said in the letter.

United currently leases about 625,000 square feet in Willis. The airline secured another 205,000 square feet in the building and extended the term of its lease through 2028, according to Smisek. The airline expects to finish building out the additional space by the second quarter of next year, according to Smisek's letter.

The mayor's office called United's Willis expansion "one of the largest office space commitments in Chicago's history."

United is the fourth company to return TIF funds recently, according to the mayor's office. The others are CME Group, CNA Group and Bank of America, which together returned some $34 million in TIF money last year. CNA and Bank of America fell short of the 2,700 or so jobs each was required to keep in exchange for the tax breaks, which helped them update buildings. However, they returned the money earlier than they had to, a city spokesman said.

The returned money goes back into the TIF program and will be used for other projects.

gkarp@tribune.com

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Fire official: At least one dead in Indianapolis blast

By Adam Sege




Tribune reporter

1:11 a.m. CST, November 11, 2012

At least one person was killed and hundreds of people were displaced Saturday night when a powerful explosion leveled two homes and sparked an extra-alarm fire on the south side of Indianapolis, a fire department spokeswoman said.

Two homes exploded just after 11 p.m. Saturday, sparking fires in at least two others and damaging upwards of a dozen homes in total, said Lt. Bonnie Hensley, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis Fire Department.

"It looks like a war zone here right now," Hensley said.

Fire officials notified the Marion County Coroner's Office of a fatality early Sunday morning, and officials were still search hours after the blast, Hensley said. Two people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone else was missing.

Officials evacuated about 200 people to a nearby elementary school, where the Red Cross was sheltering about 20 of them there for the night. Others spent the night in the homes of friends of family, and officials planned to take the remainder to the Southport Presbyterian Church.

Firefighters had brought the fire under control by 12:30 a.m. Sunday but were still putting out hotspots afterward, Hensley said.

The explosion happened near the intersection of South Stop 11 Road and South Sherman Drive, said Capt. Rita Burris, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis Fire Department.

About 75 firefighters were on the scene as of 11:30 p.m.

Check back for more information.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Taiwan’s HTC settles patent disputes with Apple

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. has settled with Apple Inc. on their outstanding patent disputes.

In a joint statement Sunday, the two companies said they also signed a 10-year license agreement that will extend to current and future patents held by one other.

Apple and HTC had battled patents over various smartphone features since March 2010, with the Cupertino-based firm accusing HTC phones that run on Google‘s Android software of infringing on its patents.

HTC chief executive Peter Chou says ending the litigation will allow his company to focus more on product innovation.

HTC has grown as the first maker of phones running on Android software. But its sales faltered from the second half of 2011 in a market increasingly divided between Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

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Is “Our Kind of Traitor” next for Mads Mikkelsen?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Since winning the Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Thomas Vinterberg‘s “The Hunt,” Mads Mikkelsen has been inundated with offers for new projects.

Mikkelson, who also stars in Denmark’s entry for the foreign Oscars, “A Royal Affair,” has yet to decide what he will do next, according to his representatives. But one of his choices, they say, is “Our Kind of Traitor,” the film adaptation of the John le Carre spy novel.

“Our Kind of Traitor, is being put together by a consortium of British producers, including Film4, Potboiler Productions and The Ink Factory.

It will be directed by Justin Kurzel from a screenplay by Hossein Amini. It tells the story of a young English couple who bond with a millionaire Russian businessman after a chance encounter on vacation.

What they don’t know is that the enigmatic Russian is a money launderer seeking to defect to British intelligence before his rivals have a chance to murder him. He has chosen the couple as his lifeline.

The couple’s recruitment by the secret service is followed by a deadly chase, which takes them from the souks of Marrakesh to London, to the French Open Tennis Final in Paris and to a thrilling climax in the Swiss Alps.

Ralph Fiennes name has also come up with the project, as has Jessica Chastain‘s, although a rep for the actress says she has yet to receive an offer.

Mikkelsen has lately been busy in Canada filming his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which U.S. writer-producer Bryan Fuller has reinvented for a 13-episode NBC-Gaumont television series, “Hannibal.”

Mikkelsen, who got his break in Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “Pusher” in 1996, has notched up a number of high-profile credits, including the role of the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond movie, “Casino Royale.” He also played the composer in “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” and could be seen in “Clash of The Titans” and “The Three Musketeers.”

This summer he filmed Fredrik Bond’s “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman,” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and Danish director Asger Leth’s “Move On.” The Danish film powerhouse, TrustNordisk is also working on a new project for the actor to film next summer but said that it is keeping the details closely under wraps.

His other upcoming films include the French period piece “Michael Kohlhaas,” which tells the story of a well-to-do horse merchant, and an adventure-western called “The Stolen.”

The Ink Factory and Potboiler Productions did not return calls to TheWrap for comment on the casting for “Our Kind of Traitor.”

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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Canada looks to lure energy workers from the U.S.

EDMONTON, Canada — With a daughter to feed, no job and $200 in the bank, Detroit pipe fitter Scott Zarembski boarded a plane on a one-way ticket to this industrial capital city.

He'd heard there was work in western Canada. Turns out he'd heard right. Within days he was wearing a hard hat at a Shell oil refinery 15 miles away in Fort Saskatchewan. Within six months he had earned almost $50,000. That was 2009. And he's still there.

"If you want to work, you can work," said Zarembski, 45. "And it's just getting started."

U.S. workers, Canada wants you.

Here in the western province of Alberta, energy companies are racing to tap the region's vast deposits of oil sands. Canada is looking to double production by the end of the decade. To do so it will have to lure more workers — tens of thousands of them — to this cold and sparsely populated place. The weak U.S. recovery is giving them a big assist.

Canadian employers are swarming U.S. job fairs, advertising on radio and YouTube and using headhunters to lure out-of-work Americans north. California, with its 10.2% unemployment rate, has become a prime target. Canadian recruiters are headed to a job fair in the Coachella Valley next month to woo construction workers idled by the housing meltdown.

The Great White North might seem a tough sell with winter coming on. But the Canadians have honed their sales pitch: free universal healthcare, good pay, quality schools, retention bonuses and steady work.

"California has a lot of workers and we hope they come up," said Mike Wo, executive director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp.

The U.S. isn't the only place Canada is looking for labor. In Alberta, which is expecting a shortage of 114,000 skilled workers by 2021, provincial officials have been courting English-speaking tradespeople from Ireland, Scotland and other European nations. Immigrants from the Philippines, India and Africa have found work in services. But some employers prefer Americans because they adapt quickly, come from a similar culture and can visit their homes more easily.

Since 2010, about 35,000 U.S. workers a year have been issued work permits, according to Canadian immigration statistics. That's up 13% from earlier in the decade. And that figure is expected to grow as provinces continue to loosen requirements for temporary foreign workers.

Rudolf Kischer, a Vancouver-based immigration attorney, said his firm can hardly keep up with the processing of work permits for employers hiring U.S. help.

"We're the busiest we've ever been," he said.

Many of those workers are heading to where the labor market is hottest: Edmonton.

One of the fastest growing cities in Canada, this capital city owes its prosperity to the oil sands. Lying a few hours to the north, the sands are a mixture of sand, clay, water and bitumen — a heavy, black, viscous petroleum — that must be mined and processed to extract the oil. Alberta's massive deposits, which rival the conventional crude oil reserves of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, are being developed at breakneck speed to meet the growing global demand for energy.

Edmonton has become a staging ground for oil companies that include Canada's Suncor Energy Inc., Shell Canada Ltd. and Chevron Canada Ltd. The energy sector has in turn boosted industries such as manufacturing, home building and retailing.

With a population of about 812,000, Edmonton looks a lot like many American cities. There are large strip malls anchored by U.S. retailers such as Costco and Home Depot, and ubiquitous coffee shops — except here Tim Horton's doughnut shops outnumber Starbucks 3 to 1.

The biggest difference: The unemployment rate here is 4.5%, and "We're Hiring" signs are posted in almost every window.

Moving to a city where the economy is firing on all cylinders was a sharp turn from struggling Motor City, Zarembski said.

Fat paychecks allowed him to ditch his battered Pontiac Grand Am for a late-model Dodge pickup truck. He has vacationed in the Dominican Republic and taken his 14-year-old daughter to Universal Studios in Florida. He's planning to buy a house in Edmonton's western suburbs soon.

With so much work available, Zarembski said, trade workers can afford to pick and choose. Jobs near Fort McMurray, a remote town six hours north, are the best-paid; a welder can make up $37 an hour. (At present Canadian and U.S. dollars are almost equivalent in value.) But laborers must stay in barracks-style camps, which energy companies have upgraded to woo them. The best ones offer private rooms with flat-screen TVs, gyms, prime dining and wireless Internet access.

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Five shot on South, West sides

A 19-year-old man was shot behind the ear Friday night in a church parking lot on the West Side, police said, one of at least five people shot since about 7:40 p.m.

The bullet came out his neck and the man is still alive, police said. Police taped off the entire parking lot, which sits between the 2600 blocks of Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard, while detectives and evidence technicians began their investigation. 

People gathered at the rented-out church for a birthday party when someone shot the man outside, in the parking lot. Police said the partygoers apparently didn't see what happened. 

The man was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, police said. 

About the same time, a man in his 20s was shot near Pulaski Road on Grenshaw Street. He called police from there and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, police said, with a gunshot wound to the back. 

A male whose age wasn't available was shot in the leg about 9:30 p.m. in the 3300 block of West Walnut Street in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital.

About a half hour earlier, a 24-year-old woman was shot in the ankle in the 3100 block of West 39th Place in the Brighton Park neighborhood. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition.

At 7:40 p.m. a 19-year-old man was shot in the leg in the Calumet Heights neighborhood. He was shot in the 9000 block of South Colfax Avenue, ran home, called police and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in good condition.

The three people with leg wounds are expected to survive.

Check back for more information.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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Walmart Moves Up Black Friday

Walmart is kicking off Black Friday shopping earlier than ever this year, opening stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

“In addition to offering amazing low prices on the season’s top gifts, Walmart is taking the historic step to ensure wishlist items like the Apple iPad2 are available for customers during a special one-hour event on Thanksgiving,” the world’s largest retailer said in a statement today.

“We know it’s frustrating for customers to shop on Black Friday and not get the items they want,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer, Walmart U.S. “This year, for the first time ever, customers that shop during Walmart’s one-hour event will be guaranteed to have three of the most popular items under their tree at a great low price.”

Other retailers will also be opening earlier, including Sears at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, moved up from 4 a.m. on Black Friday last year. Kmart will be open Thanksgiving Day 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., then it will close and reopen 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. Macy’s, Kohl’s and Best Buy open at midnight; Toys R Us hasn’t announced its plans. Advice on how to snag the best deals.

To help convince folks to head out to the store after dinner, Walmart said it will guarantee that customers who are inside the store and in line between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. can get these deals:

Apple iPad ®2 16GB with Wi-Fi – $ 399 plus get a $ 75 Walmart Gift Card

Emerson ® 32 720p LCD TV – $ 148

LG ® Blu-ray™ Player – $ 38

“If any of these items happen to sell out before 11 p.m. local time, Walmart will offer a Guarantee Card for the item which must be paid for by midnight and registered online. The product will then be shipped to the store where it was purchased for the customer to pick up before Christmas,” the retailer said.

A few of the top items available in store, while supplies last, include:

8 p.m. on November 22: Gifts for the Entire Family – Toys, Gaming, Home and Apparel

Xbox 360 ® 4GB + SkyLanders ™ Bundle – $ 149

Wii ™ Console- $ 89

More than 100 video games priced at $ 10, $ 15 or $ 25 each

Top Toys of the Season: Leappad ® 1.0 Learning Tablet ($ 65) and Furby ® ($ 45)

Razor ® Accelerator 12-Volt Electric Scooter – $ 79

Fisher Price Power Wheels ® Jeep ® Wrangler 6-Volt Ride Ons (Hot Wheels ® and Barbie ®) – $ 89 each

Licensed Boys’ and Girls’ 2-Piece Sleep Set – $ 4.50 each

Mens and Ladies Denim – $ 9.50 each

Home appliances such as a Crock Pot ® 6-Quart Slow Cooker and Mr. Coffee ® Programmable 12-Cup Coffee Maker – $ 9.44 each

Shark ® Steam Pocket Mop and Ninja ® Pulse Blender – $ 39 each

Fashion Dolls such as Barbie ®, Bratz ™ and Disney ® Princess – $ 5 each

Hundreds of DVD and Blu-ray movies such as Brave, The Amazing Spiderman, Hunger Game ranging from $ 1.96 to $ 9.96 each

Better Homes and Gardens ® 700-Thread Count Sheet Set – $ 19.96

48″ Air-Powered Hockey Table – $ 29.86

14′ Trampoline with Enclosure and Bonus Flash Light Zone – $ 159

10 p.m. on November 22: The BIG Event – Brand Name Electronics

Vizio ® 60″ 720p LED Smart TV with built in Wi-Fi – $ 688

Samsung ® 43″ 720p 600Hz Class Plasma HDTV – $ 378

HP ® 15.6″ Laptop with 4GB and 320GB hard drive – $ 279

Nikon ® D3000 Digital Camera with Lens Kit – $ 449

Samsung ® Smart ST195 Digital Camera – $ 99

Beats by Dr. Dre ® Headphones – $ 179.95

Nook ® Color ™ 8GB Tablet – $ 99

Virgin Mobile ® 3G/4G Hotspot – $ 39.88

5 a.m. on Nov. 23: Caffeine Not Needed – Great Savings on Gifts from Jewelry to Tires

Sharp ® 70″ 1080p 120Hz HDTV – $ 1,798

Acer ® 13.3″ Ultrabook ™ with 4GB and 320GB solid state drive – $ 499

$ 100 Walmart gift card with the purchase of select smartphones such as the Samsung ® Galaxy S III, Droid RAZR M by Motorola ® and HTC ® One X

Goodyear Tires ranging from $ 59 – $ 99 each

Forever Bride 1/3 -Carat T.W. Diamond Ring in 10K Gold – $ 198

Stanley ® 6-Drawer Rolling Tool Cabinet with 85-Piece Mechanic Tool Set – $ 99

Singer ® Sew Mate 5400 60-Stitch Sewing Machine – $ 99.97

5? Pre-Lit Harrison Christmas Tree – $ 20

Better Homes and Gardens Deluxe Recliner – $ 199

Black Friday Specials & More Online:

Samsung 50″ Class LED 1080p 60Hz HDTV – $ 698

Ematic 7″ Tablet Android 4.0 1GHz, 4GB – $ 49

Dsi XL Ultimate Bundle – $ 129

Razor A Kick Scooter, Multiple Colors – $ 25

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“Lincoln” Reviews: Is Steven Spielberg’s biopic Oscar-worthy?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Lincoln,” with a cast of acting titans like Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones, arrives in theaters Friday with many predicting big things come Oscar night. But does Steven Spielberg‘s biopic of the Great Emancipator live up to the early hype?

Based on initial reviews, it seems like Spielberg and company have delivered. Critics are raving about Day-Lewis’ performance and crediting the film with taking a historical figure who is cloaked in myth and making him relatable and sympathetically human. Instead of uncoiling a birth-through-death chronology of Father Abraham, “Lincoln” narrows its gaze to a few key months in 1865 when the president was trying to simultaneously end the Civil War and pass an amendment abolishing slavery.

The film, which will expand nationally next week after opening in limited release this weekend, scored a bullish 92 percent “fresh” rating on critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

In TheWrap, Alonso Duralde lavished praise on the film and its literate script from Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner for finding the man behind the monument. His one bone of contention was not with the film itself but with its gauzy ad campaign.

“The dreadful trailer makes ‘Lincoln‘ look like an awful collection of Spielbergian excesses, including swelling John Williams moments (admittedly, there are one or two) and Janusz Kaminski’s honey-baked lighting (OK, granted, it appears, but not too often), not to mention Tommy Lee Jones‘ terrible wig (which actually winds up being organic in his memorable turn as Thaddeus Stevens),” Duralde writes. “Don’t let the marketing campaign keep you from seeing one of the best American movies this year, and Spielberg’s finest work in decades.”

Perhaps no critical enthusiasm could match that of A.O. Scott. In a glowing review in The New York Times, Scott sounds the trumpets for Spielberg’s epic, urging parents to bundle their children into the local multiplex to see history unfurl across the screen.

“Some of the ambition of ‘Lincoln‘ seems to be to answer the omissions and distortions of the cinematic past, represented by great films like D. W. Griffith‘s ‘Birth of a Nation,’ which glorified the violent disenfranchisement of African-Americans as a heroic second founding, and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ with its romantic view of the old South,” Scott writes. “To paraphrase what Woodrow Wilson said of Griffith, Mr. Spielberg writes history with lightning.”

For Kenneth Turan, the greatness of the film lies in its understatedness. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, he lauded Spielberg for abandoning his more bombastic impulses to focus on the interior life of an American president.

“There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg’s direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point,” Turan writes. “The director delivers selfless, pulled-back satisfactions: he’s there in service of the script and the acting, to enhance the spoken word rather than burnish his reputation.”

It’s an “A,” declares Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, who hails the film for getting its hands dirty while depicting the sausage-making of politics.

“The Lincoln we see here is that rare movie creature, a heroic thinker,” he writes. “He has the serpentine intellect of a master lawyer, infused with a poet’s passion. ‘Lincoln’ brilliantly dramatizes the delicacy of politics, along with the raw brutality of it.”

In New York magazine, David Edelstein savored the film, but admitted that a few moments could have gone down more smoothly. In particular, he said the film’s initial scenes suffered from musty dialogue and some of the political wrangling it depicted was difficult to follow. Ultimately, however, he credited the picture with finding a fresh take on a president whose legacy has been dissected and debated for generations.

“By the time the movie ends, you don’t feel as if you know Lincoln – few, in his own time, claimed to know him,” Edelstein writes. “But you feel as if you know what it was like to be in his presence. And so an icon (it’s a measure of how promiscuously that word is thrown around that it seems inadequate for one of history’s truly iconic figures) has become a man – and, startlingly, within reach.”

There were a few critics, of course, who were not ready to endorse “Lincoln.” In the Newark Star-Ledger, Stephen Whitty slammed the movie for choking on its own self-serious and mocked it for too many scenes of intense debates held by men with copious facial hair.

“So if you’ve been sitting around wondering, ‘Gee, when is Spielberg ever going to make another ‘Amistad?’ ’ here’s your answer,” Whitty writes.

Apparently, Whitty would prefer another “Jaws.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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FEMA Chief Tours Damaged NYU Langone Medical Center

The federal government’s emergency management chief trudged through darkened subterranean hallways covered with silt and muddy water Friday, as he toured one of New York City’s top academic medical centers in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The basement of the complex, NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, smelled like the hold of a ship — a mixture of diesel oil and water.

“You’re going to deal with the FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt,” W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told NYU Langone officials afterward, as they retreated to a conference room to catalog the losses. “Don’t look at this. Think about what’s next.”

NYU Langone, with its combination of clinical, research and academic facilities, may have been the New York City hospital that was most devastated by Hurricane Sandy. What’s next is a spectacularly expensive cleanup.

Dr. Robert I. Grossman, dean and chief executive of NYU Langone, looking pale and weary — as if he were, indeed, struggling to hold back the FUD — estimated that the storm could cost the hospital $700 million to $1 billion. His estimate included cleanup, rebuilding, lost revenue, interrupted research projects and the cost of paying employees not to work.

As the hurricane raged, the East River filled the basement of the medical center, at 32nd Street and First Avenue, knocked out emergency power and necessitated the evacuation of more than 300 patients over 13 hours in raging wind, rain and darkness. It disrupted medical school classes and shut down high-level research projects operating with federal grants.

Mr. Fugate arrived to inspect the damage and help plot the institution’s recovery, the advance guard of what aides said would be a hospital task force. He was brought in by Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who kept saying that there was nothing like seeing the damage firsthand to understand how profound it really was.

“What was that movie — ‘Contagion?’ ” Mr. Schumer said, marveling at the hellish scene.

NYU Langone’s patients, a major source of revenue, have been scattered to other hospitals, creating a risk that they may never return. Dr. Grossman said he was counting on those patients’ loyalty.

John Sexton, president of New York University, which includes NYU Langone, and who also met with Mr. Fugate, raised fears that researchers might be lured away to other institutions because their grants were ticking away on deadline or because they must publish or perish. Outside the hospital, tanks of liquid nitrogen testified to the efforts to keep research materials from spoiling.

In inky blackness, the group stood at the brink of the animal section of the Smilow Research Center, where rodents for experiments had been kept, but they did not go inside. On Nov. 3, a memo sent to NYU Langone researchers said the animal section, or vivarium, was “completely unrecoverable.”

Dr. Grossman said that scientists had managed to save some rodents by raising their cages to higher ground.

A modernized lecture hall with raked seats used by medical students had been filled “like a bathtub,” he said, though it was dry on Friday. The library, he said, “is basically gone.”

Four magnetic resonance scanners, a linear accelerator and gamma knife surgery equipment, kept in the basement, were now worthless. Dr. Grossman said that in the future, he wanted to move such equipment, which is very heavy, to higher floors.

Electronic medical records were protected by a server in New Jersey, he said.

Richard Cohen, vice president for facilities operations, took the group past piles of sandbags and a welded steel door that had been blown out by the force of the flood. “That door was put in around 1959 to 1960, when doors were really doors,” Mr. Cohen said. “And this thing is completely torsionally twisted. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Walking to the back of the hospital, Mr. Cohen used a loading dock as a measuring stick to estimate that the surge had risen to 14 ½ feet. “We were prepared for 12 feet, no problem,” Dr. Grossman said.

Dr. Grossman said it would take a couple of more weeks of assessing the damage to determine when the hospital could reopen. Outpatient business is already returning. Research and some inpatient services will come next.

Mr. Fugate said his agency would help cover the uninsured losses, and urged NYU Langone officials to move ahead.

At this point, Dr. Grossman said, he could only theorize as to why the generators had shut down. All but one generator is on a high floor, but the fuel tanks are in the basement. The flood, he said, was registered by the liquid sensors on the tanks, which then did what they were supposed to do in the event, for instance, of an oil leak. They shut down the fuel to the generators.

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