Galusha Higgins & Galusha moving to Snake River Landing

Can you guess what this foundation at Snake River Landing is going to be? No, it's not McKenzie River Pizza, Bandon River Apartments or Scientech. This will be the new home of Galusha Higgins & Galusha, the accounting firm that will be moving from downtown into a building that has 6,265 square feet on the main floor and 1,429 in the basement, according to plans at the Idaho Falls Building Department office. The address is 1220 Whitewater Drive. The contractor is Morgan Construction.

Movie Review: World War Z

Brad Pitt and family flee the zombie apocalypse in "World War Z"

Reviewed by NATHAN COOK

Doubters thought this apocalyptic effort could only end in disaster, but the latest zombie thriller manages to be surprisingly good and constantly engaging.

It starts out like any regular day in Philadelphia. Brad Pitt plays a family man who has left behind his old life as a United Nations specialist to spend more time with his wife and kids. After breakfast, he drives the family around town only to enter into a traffic jam.

This is no ordinary traffic jam, however since the civilians trying to drive through have no idea of what’s going on. The terrifying answer: ZOMBIES!

It seems that everybody is running through the streets to escape the hordes of the undead. Some aren’t lucky. They are killed and instantaneously transformed into zombies themselves. Others, like Pitt and his family, manage to get out alive … for now.

After taking refuge in the nearby apartments for a night, they rush up to the rooftop evading yet another wave of ghouls. Successfully boarding a helicopter, they are guided to an aircraft carrier in the ocean. The family is given a place to stay while Pitt agrees to travel across the globe to fight zombies, find answers, and perhaps come up with some sort of solution that will allow humanity to fight back against the epidemic.

This film is different from other zombie flicks in that it treats the situation less like an arena of carnage and more like global crisis, giving it a more realistic air. Director Marc Forster handles the thrilling set pieces and suspenseful moments well, which gives life to the proceedings. Kudos to the animalistic movements of the zombies, which give a new meaning to the term “horde”.

When the undead aren’t wreaking havoc, Pitt and company are locked in a briskly paced race against time to stop the infection from spreading. Unlike most apocalyptic films, the film has a visual flavor all around, from the cool, busy center of Philadelphia turned into a heart of doom to the bleak, desolate South Korean outpost trapped in the rain, to the warm, walled-up city of Jerusalem still abundant with life. The score is minimal, though the main opening theme is ambient yet attention-grabbing. It is like a warning of the perils to come.

The film’s major asset, Pitt himself. He gives a solid performance as a hero who relies mostly on his wits and experience. Behind the scenes, ever since a film adaptation of Max Brooks’ 2006 novel was first conceived, it was Pitt who had interest and faith in the material. He sought to get it backed by a major studio and launched into production. There were many struggles between Pitt and Forster, production problems, script rewrites (the third act was entirely altered), and release delays for conversion into 3D, which resulted in it being the most expensive zombie movie ever made. It seems as if Pitt has endured the brutalities of war just to see this film come alive onto the big screen.

WWZ is not without its flaws though. The opening sequence is marred by an excessive amount of chaos with the dreaded action-film combination of shaky-cam and quick-cut ending, to the point that some of it is nearly incomprehensible. Plot holes progressively unravel as the film winds towards its wide-open ending.

It’s hard to make a PG-13 zombie film, as graphic displays of blood and gore are the bread and butter of the genre. The filmmakers attempted to tone all of this down, but the lack of grisly carnage causes the result to feel watered down

I cannot compare the film to the novel since I have not read it. I have heard from those who have that this film is loosely adapted, which is a drawback for them. Gamers might recognize that a few scenes are similar to levels in the video game “Left 4 Dead.” Nothing like having your story-boarding done in advance, I guess.

All in all, though, “World War Z” is a well-done, effective piece of work that turned out to be much better than expected. It delivers the goods for a summer blockbuster and offers a pleasant, mindful diversion from the other apocalyptic flicks coming out this year.

Nathan Cook is a recent graduate of Skyline High School who will be attending Boise State University in the fall.

Chamber sponsoring Obamacare workshop this week

The Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce Business Resource Committee will host an Affordable Care Act workshop Thursday from 2 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. at Stevens-Henager College, 901 Pier View Drive in Idaho Falls.

Topics include an "Introduction to the Affordable Care Act" by Dave Noak; "Health Insurance Exchange Option" by Tom Donovan; and "Employer Compliance" by Tim Anderson.

The goal of the workshop is to give business owners an idea of how they might be affected by the law and how to avoid possible pitfalls and penalties, the chamber news release said.

Attendance is free to Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce members and $5 for guests. For information, contact Frosty Wilson at the Small Business Development Center, 523-1087. Seating is limited and those planning to attend should RSVP to hromrell@idahofallschamber.com.

Work continues at Gold's Gym Ammon site

Crews at work at the future home of Gold's Gym, where Teton Spectrum Raceway used to be.  Poking our nose in Monday, the granite counter at the entry has been built. Efforts to find out a projected opening date have been unsuccessful so far. Late last year it was estimated the 40,000-square-foot project would take six or seven months.

Pro-nuke "Pandora's Promise" sparks national debate

Since it premiered last winter at the Sundance Film Festival, my friends at the Idaho National Laboratory have been sharing every post they can find about "Pandora's Promise," a documentary that casts nuclear power in a favorable light.

This should come as no surprise. With the exception of Arco, I don't think you'll find a more pro-nuclear community on the face of the earth than Idaho Falls. Our city owes a lot to the Atomic Energy Commission and its decision in 1949 to locate its National Reactor Testing Station on the desert to the west. The work that has gone on there since then has been controversial at times but nevertheless extraordinary.

Anyway, any movie that premieres at Sundance usually starts being seen by the rest of the world five or six months afterward, which means that's also when you start seeing movie reviews and online discussions. This weekend I noticed a piece on Salon.com about "Pandora's Promise," which I found interesting. I'll post the link -- http://www.salon.com/2013/06/22/are_environmentalists_rethinking_nuclear_power/ -- and invite those of you interested in such things to read it and the comments.

Likewise, the film has begun to get some ink (or whatever the Web equivalent is) on the New York Times Web site. Today we see an article by Richard Rhodes, who has written an exhaustive four-part history of the nuclear age (if you're looking for a power read, try the first book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb.") Rhodes has come to the conclusion that nuclear power is essential to our effort to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He also has a clear take on why nuclear power has such vehement opposition.

"Nuclear testing, nuclear crisis and nuclear power were all born together in the long wake of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. I’m not surprised that the clean and peaceful technology, which today provides about 13.5 percent of world electricity without air pollution or greenhouse gases, was tarred with the same brush as the Bomb. I am surprised, however, that idealistic, intelligent people who want to clean up the air and limit global warming are opposed to nuclear power. They might as well be out there promoting fossil fuels. In effect, they are."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/welcoming-a-real-debate-about-nuclear-power/?_r=0