By Susan Granger - This debacle of an action-adventure proves that even teaming heavyweight actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe with stylish, big-budget "Black Hawk Down" director Ridley Scott doesn’t pay off when William Monahan’s espionage screenplay, based on a David Ignatius novel, goes AWOL.

Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) is the Pentagon’s top spy in the Middle East. He speaks fluent Arabic and is such a personable fellow that even the most suspicious of our alleged allies seem to trust him. He’s an 'operative' of Langley-based Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), who tracks his every movement, via computer, and communicates constantly with him, using an always-reliable cell phone that never suffers the 'out-of-range' frustrations of Sprint, AT&T or Verizon.

Ferris’s mission is to entrap the elusive jihadist leader Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul) - think Osama Bin Laden - who is masterminding seemingly random terrorist bombings. To do this, he must work with Jordan’s sophisticated Intelligence chief, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), enlist a network of informers and invent a clever sting operation to smoke Al-Saleem out of his ‘safe house’ hideout. There are huge explosions, of course, as black SUVs careen through Third World bazaars. There are even awesome, high-tech sky-track surveillance shots that show how the CIA can monitor anything, everywhere, even your backyard barbecue.

Problem is: nothing is emotionally convincing, even DiCaprio’s brief romantic involvement with the Iranian nurse (Golshifteh Farahani) who administers his weekly anti-rabies injections. Having sprouted a few mossy, unkempt whiskers to mask his still-baby face, DiCaprio flounders with the lack of subtext, while Crowe recites his lines by rote with a soft Southern drawl. Only Mark Strong’s performance is memorable.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Body of Lies" is a bloated, far-fetched 5, filled with two-and-a-half hours of meandering meaninglessness.

Ms. Prince-Bythewood ("Love & Basketball") directs her film at a relaxed pace, in tune with life in South Carolina during the 1960s, with a few bursts of violence outside the home deal from white crackers' beating up a young woman on her way to register to vote and with other white racists' roughing up a young black man for sitting in a movie theater with a white teenage girl.

Female centered and likely to be called by some a chick flick, "Bees" follows an exodus from home of fourteen-year-old Lily (Dakota Fanning) after one more beating from her dad (Paul Bettany). With caretaker Rosaleen Daise (Jennifer Hudson) in tow, she discovers that the manufacturer of bottles of honey lives nearby. Upon introducing themselves, Lily and Rosaleen are warmly welcomed into a "Pepto-Bismol pink" house run by August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) and her sisters—cellist June (Alicia Keyes) and a neurotically sensitive May (Sophie Okonedo). As Lily helps out with the bee hives, she responds to the love that has grown among the sisters and her, particularly from the counseling of the strong-willed August—who maintains that bees, like every other living thing, need love.

Adding richness to the plot are the relationship of Lily with a young black man and that of another, marriage-minded fellow with the most independent sister of the Boatwright clan. "The Secret Life of Bees" is as honey-sweet as Sue Monk Kidd's novel by not cloying. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

However, Young added that most anglers are often amazed at the plethora of unique winter trout fishing opportunities Arizona offers from an improbable desert river fishery near Phoenix and gas-tank-friendly urban waters to a renowned tail-water trout fishery that draws anglers from around the world. There is even a lesser known fun stretch of river within casting distance from major gambling casinos.

"We even stock winter trout in two popular warm water fisheries - Saguaro and Canyon lakes," Young pointed out. "Do you want a fairly solitary winter hiking adventure where you can fish shaded canyon pools for feisty rainbow trout? Just try Beaver Creek or West Clear Creek in the Verde Valley."

But it’s tough to top the artificial lure and fly, catch-and-release-only golden trout experience at Silver Creek (barbless hooks only please).

This year, the hard-working Silver Creek Hatchery crew outdid themselves - prior to opening day they stocked a couple of dozen Apache trout tipping the scales at around 3 pounds or so. It was line-stripping fun for anglers on opening morning even before the annual stocking took place later that day.

"It felt like Christmas morning when I was a kid," said one beaming fly angler who had the pleasure of fighting and then landing at least two of the trophy-sized golden beauties.

The early-bird anglers even got another treat at first light - a majestic bull elk was waiting for them as an unofficial greeter at the end of their hike through the dewy grass to the upper pool on the Game and Fish Department’s Silver Creek property.

But it wasn’t all pure action, fun and golden adventure. A hard-working crew from Cabela’s in Phoenix plunged into the hatchery ponds and helped to net, load, and then distribute the Apache trout and rainbows along this meandering creek barely one puddle-jump away from the Show Low Airport.

"There’s no fishery quite like this," said Tim McGough, a Phoenix architect who comes to help out and fish on opening day each year. "This spring-fed creek is fishable all winter long. It’s an amazing place to fish."

For those who aren’t aware, the native Apache trout is Arizona’s state fish. Although it is listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, anglers can fish for it in certain areas, such as Silver Creek, the Little Colorado River in the Greer Valley, plus the East and West Forks of Black River.

In fact, the White Mountains of Arizona is the only place on this blue planet where you can readily angle for pure-strain Apache trout.

Apache trout are also on the brink of making history - they may become the first native fish in the United States to come off the endangered species list, thanks to a model cooperative recovery effort involving the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a long list of dedicated angling groups.

History notes notwithstanding, the anglers present on opening morning at Silver Creek did have one request - don’t tell anyone. Oops, the trout’s out of the stocking net as it were. So go catch some golden memories at Silver Creek, Greer or the East and West Forks. Don’t forget about the classic Apache trout fisheries on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

But as the season progresses, snow storms visit and higher elevation lakes ice-up, the spring-fed waters of Silver Creek will still be a viable Apache trout fishery worth experiencing.

This is also the leading edge of the Game and Fish Department’s ambitious winter trout stocking program. For a list of what water is stocked when, visit the Game and Fish Department’s Web site. http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/stocking_schedule.shtml

Other winter trout fisheries (most are stocked, some are not) include:

* The Lower Salt River near Phoenix (start stocking the first week of November);
* Saguaro Lake (scheduled for the second week of November);
* Canyon Lake (scheduled for the third week of November);
* Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley (being stocked this week);
* West Clear Creek in the Verde Valley (being stocked this week);
* Verde River between Camp Verde and Cottonwood (starting the first week of November);
* Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Cottonwood (the first week of November);
* Goldwater Lake, Lynx Lake and Fain Lake near Prescott (have already been stocked);
* Tempe Town Lake (first stocking the Tuesday before Thanksgiving);
* Lees Ferry in northern Arizona (the wild trout spawn typically starts in January);
* Bullhead area of the Colorado River along Casino Row (already being stocked);
* Willow Beach, the tail-water fishery in Arizona between Hoover Dam and Lake Mohave (already being stocked);
* Oak Creek Canyon (already being stocked);
* Urban Program lakes in greater Phoenix and Tucson areas (start stocking with trout the second week in November);
* Green Valley Lake (an Urban Program water) in Payson, first trout stocking the second week of October;
* Cluff Pond, Dankworth Pond, Frye Mesa, and Kearny Lake in southeastern Arizona (stockings start in November);
* Patagonia, Parker Canyon and Roper Lake in southern Arizona (stockings mostly start in November).
* Fortuna Pond in Yuma (stockings start in mid December).

"Those anglers who hang up their trout fishing gear in winter are missing some of the most unique and exciting fishing adventures of the year," Young said. "Don’t miss out on Arizona’s winter trout."

Ridley Scott, who seems willing to mute his usual simple stories in favor of convoluted ones in a desire to appear arty, is working with William Monahan's script adapted from David Ignatius's well-received novel of the same name. Thinking, perhaps, that his usual audience might be bored by endless chatter on cell phones, Scott changes the scenery every so often with an explosion or shoot-out every quarter-hour, taking his people from Iraq to Jordan to Syria and to Washington while photographer Alexander Witt captures vast stretches of desert—actually shot in Morocco. Ignatius's novel, considered by some book critics to be one of the best post-9/11 spy thrillers to come out, stresses a plan based on one used by the British against the Nazis in World War 2. While Ignatius would have A-list jihadist's believe that some leaders are working with the Americans, Monahan's script focuses on a plan to create a fake organization whose leader gets credited with a terrorist act that allegedly has killed many Americans.

Leonardo DiCaprio performs in the role of Roger Ferris, a CIA agent who speaks fluent Arabic and who, after being wounded in Iraq, is sent by his superior officer, Ed Hoffman (Ruseell Crowe) to Jordan. His aim: to ferret out a leading terrorist, putting his body on line while for his part, Hoffman comes across as a pudgy house-husband who is more concerned with getting his young boy to school and doing his laundry as he is for the very life of his macho underling. A cynical humor is evoked as Hoffman phones in dangerous orders while professing his love for his son. Ferris, perhaps motivated by newspaper columnists who believe that Osama Bin Laden is envious of the attention given to other violent groups, creates a scheme to flush out head jihadist, using a local patsy and a geeky computer expert (Simon McBurney) while taking orders from a superior officer whose rich life in suburban Washington should make the audience realize that the men in the field are more to be commended than their high officials back home.

DiCaprio follows up on his macho role in "Blood Diamond" as a guy who's masochistic enough to almost like being tortured. Contrary to good CIA sense hits on a pretty Jordanian nurse of Iranian ethnicity (the Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani) even while knowing that Arabic eyes focus on the couple and that in this part of the world you are not allowed even to shake hands with a woman unless you're married to her. Mark Strong takes on the role of Hani Salaam, chief Jordanian intelligent expert who wears a different suit or jacket each day under the hot Jordanian sun and who almost destroys the CIA plan when he is lied to.

One final query, raised by a fellow critic whose writing I respect and whose political views are considerably to the left of center: What are Americans doing in these Middle Eastern countries, places which according to Ed Hoffman nobody should want to be in and which offer not much of anything? The Europeans, who are closer to the areas of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, and who are threatened by the militants in this pic, are doing far less to contain the terrorism which, according to the Muslim fundamentalists, are provoking a lust by some Arabs for revenge?

Fernando Meirelles, who knows quite a bit of the constant battle of people against people ("City of God" looks at the evil shenanigans of children of Rio's slums) now gives us "Blindness," which deals with how we cope when we lack vision—both literally and figuratively. In that area he was preceded by the likes of William Golding's novel, often required reading in high school, "Lord of the Flies," a tale of English schoolboys victimized by a plane wreck, let loose on a deserted island without the presence of a single adult. Children hunt children as order deteriorates. But OK, these are kids. Adults would never turn savage would they? How about John Wyndham's "The Day of the Triffids," in which the whole world is struck blind suddenly and simultaneously? Individualism, so prized in our own country, becomes a death sentence in Wyndham's vision.

In his film "Blindness," Meirelles joins the crew of writers and directors who look into the thin veneer of civilization, a patina that melts away under extreme stress. Without citing the Spanish proverb, "En el pais de los ciegos el tuerto es rey" ("In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"), Don McKellar, who adapted Nobel-prize-winning author Jose Saramago's novel to the screen, shows us that when an entire city has gone blind for no explicable reason, new communities will be set up to deal with the crisis. Unfortunately, one person or one group grasps power because of some edge. The most logical leader of a small community of newly-blinded people would be a doctor's wife (Julianne Moore).

For reasons unknown she is the only individual with continued eyesight. Yet a blind man (Gael Garcia Bernal) assumes authority in Ward Three over the distribution of food. Rather than dish the portions out equitably as he was expected to do, he became corrupted, insisting that only after the women in the wards submitted to the sexual advances of the men would the nourishment be apportioned.

Predictably enough, the little society crumbles because of its "lack of vision." "Blindness," an worthy allegory which could have used more of a solid story—like Jonathan Swift's "Gullivar's Travels," for example, a spoof of the British monarchy with a fascinating story that can be appreciated on its own narrative level—falls short.. While the characters are not given names in the movie or the novel, the better to sound like expressionist works such as Elmer Rice's play "The Adding Machine," matters work their way in a predictable fashion.

Mark Ruffalo does good work as an ophthalmologist married to the Julianne Moore character, but on the whole the film lacks emotional connection with the audience while providing merely a heady experience.

They say that every man has his price. Lincoln once told a lobbyist to stop talking, not because he was disgusted listening to him, but because he was afraid that the lobbyist would meet his admittedly lofty price. Robert Kearns, Ph.D, appears to have no price at all. He desires only the satisfaction of Ford's publicly naming him the inventor of this windshield wiper. The suits at Ford, one of America's giant corporations, seemed quite interested in buying the product, but lo and behold, when they got the chance, they manufactured it—having stolen the process from its sole inventor. What follows is a progression of court cases and attempted settlements that would have Dr. Kearns martyr himself. Despite having six kids and a wife, he refused to accept Ford's settlements while the case was on the calendar, even though the money finally offered would have means the high life for all eight people.

Maybe because Kearns feels that the outer society considers him a wimp, he was determined to beat Ford. Money was obviously not an object since he turned down lucrative settlement proposals from the corporation. When Ford agreed to buy his invention, the professor-inventor rented a factory, since his basement was obviously not the place to manufacture the wipers. (Yes, he actually wants to build the wipers himself in his own corporation.) After the invention was stolen, he is advised by his lawyer (Alan Alda) to accept the company's $250,000 offer, which could be pushed up to $400,000 through negotiation. Negative: even though Lawson, the lawyer, bought a big bottle of Moet at a dinner conference with him and his wife, Phyllis (Lauren Graham). We're taken through family strife, as just about everyone wants the man to accept the offer. I think he should have done. After all, he gives up his job at the college, later going on unemployment comp and having a breakdown that lands him in a state mental hospital.

Because he stuck to his guns, his biography can be found in Wikipedia.org. This is a solid story but since director Marc Abraham never takes it a step above its limited scope of the inventor of a windshield wiper—make that the inventor of an improvement for the already used wiper—the tale does not take on the emotional release found in such larger-than-life stories as those by John Grisham. The tale is taken from John Seabrook's New Yorker magazine article.

Diana Liverman of Oxford University has been recruited to co-direct the institute with Jonathan Overpeck, UA professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences. Overpeck has been director of UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, which will be replaced by the new institute.

"The UA has always served the people of Arizona by addressing the most critical issues facing our society," UA President Robert N. Shelton said. "This institute and, most importantly, the leadership team that will guide it are yet another example of the UA's commitment to excellence in service to the state."

"The UA is delighted that Diana Liverman will join Jonathan Overpeck in directing the new institute," said Leslie Tolbert, UA vice president for research, graduate studies and economic development. "Under their leadership, we expect the institute to flourish, enhancing and expanding the University's strengths in environmental science and policy and putting us front and center in informing current debate. The institute will be a model in bringing together an interdisciplinary group that spans almost the full range of the campus to tackle critically important societal issues."

"I can't be more excited about co-directing the institute with Diana," Overpeck said. "She is arguably one of the very best social scientists in the world working on global environmental change. Not only is she an exceptional scientist, she has a very interdisciplinary approach to problem solving, she is committed to social entrepreneurship, and she has very strong fundraising experience. We have worked together before and we have complementary visions. It's a perfect match."

Liverman will rejoin the UA in January 2009. She was a professor of geography, director of the Center for Latin American Studies and interim dean of social and behavioral sciences while at the UA from 1996-2003. While at the UA, Liverman worked on Latin American environmental issues, especially land use and climate change in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border environment. She was known for her commitment to collaboration with a wide range of colleges, departments and programs across the UA. She helped develop UA's CLIMAS program, a regional climate assessment center for the U.S. Southwest.

For the past five years, Liverman has been director of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, focusing her research on such international climate policy issues as carbon trading, adaptation and food security.

"I am excited about returning to the UA, which has hired some fantastic new environmental faculty in the last five years," Liverman said. "The next few years will be critical if we are to reduce the risks of climate change, identify sustainable pathways for the use of energy, land and water, and forge new partnerships between the public, the private sector and government, and between the developed and the developing world. I believe the UA can have a significant role in creating these partnerships and solving environmental problems."

Overpeck is an environmental scientist of international renown. His research focuses on global change dynamics, particularly on how and why key climate systems vary on timescales longer than seasons and years. Overpeck was a coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report released last year. The panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

The new institute's primary goal is to facilitate partnerships among university scientists and society in developing environmentally sustainable technologies, strategies and policies that will strengthen the economy and improve the quality of life in Arizona and beyond, organizers say. It is central to the UA's land-grant university mission.

"Collectively, UA environmental scientists are uniquely poised to tackle the most pressing environmental concerns of the 21st century, namely, how to support growing human populations in arid and semi-arid regions that are increasingly stressed by the warming, drying climate," Overpeck said. Environmental problems have become so acute that funding opportunities for environmental research have been growing, despite tough economic times, he added.

Environmental scientists currently win a major part of the University's non-state research funding. For example, scientists who are part of the Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA), the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), Superfund Basic Research Programs at UA, the NSF-Arizona Acclerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, the National Science Foundation Water Quality Center, the National Ecological Observatory Network and the National Phenology Network have projects funded at tens of millions of dollars. Other initiatives, such as Biosphere 2 and the Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing, are funded in the $50 million to $300 million range.

The Institute for Environment and Society will be located in a new environment and natural resources building that is being constructed on the east side of the Dennis DeConcini Environment and Natural Resources Building, 520 N. Park Ave.

The Arizona Board of Regents approved construction of the $90 million, 150,000-gross-square-foot building as part of the Stimulus Plan for Economic and Educational Development at its meeting last July. Construction is planned from September 2009 to February 2012. The building will be designed so that it is eligible for platinum certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, known as the LEED system, which sets standards for "green" buildings.

Until then, the new institute will be housed at offices at 715 North Park Ave., at Rogers Rountree Hall, 1145 N. Mountain Ave, and elsewhere.