NEW YORK TIMES: Peter Graves, the cool spymaster of television’s “Mission: Impossible” and the dignified host of the “Biography” series, who successfully spoofed his own gravitas in the “Airplane!” movie farces, died on Sunday. He was 83. He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said Fred Barman, his business manager. It was a testament to Mr. Graves’s earnest, unhammy ability to make fun of himself that after decades of playing square he-men and straitlaced authority figures, he was perhaps best known to younger audiences for a deadpan line in “Airplane!” (“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”) and one from a memorable Geico car insurance commercial (“I was one lucky woman”). MORE

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations. Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control. He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in. California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia. MORE

Digital short from last night’s SNL warning that with great boombox power comes great responsibility and unintended consequences.

DENVER POST: A Leadville woman is in custody in Ireland, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to kill a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, according to her family and Leadville police. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was arrested Tuesday in Waterford, Ireland, the second American woman to be grabbed in an apparent plot to kill the Swede, who incited the Muslim community with anger after his parody cartoons. Paulin-Ramirez was traveling with her son, Christian, 6, who has not been heard from since his mother’s arrest on Tuesday. Paulin-Ramirez’s mother, Christine Holcomb, said Friday night that she had spoken with her daughter and her grandson Monday but hasn’t been able to reach them since. “I’m angry with her,” Holcomb told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story online. “I’d just like to choke her, but I’m worried about her too.” Holcomb’s husband of 14 years, George Mott, was more direct Friday night. Mott said that last year, Paulin-Ramirez began spending considerable time on the Internet in Muslim chat rooms, befriending JihadJane and other Muslim extremists — including Najibullah Zazi, the Aurora airport-shuttle driver who recently admitted his plot to bomb the New York City subway system. She also began wearing fundamentalist Muslim clothing, including a hijab, or head cloth covering everything except her eyes. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: JIHAD JANE: Suburban Montco Housewife Arrested In Plot To Kill Swedish Cartoonist Who Offended Islam

PREVIOUSLY: JIHAD JANE: Like A Bad Episode Of ‘Cops’

Every one on Earth should see this at least once before they die.

RELATED: 10 Hidden Surprises

INQUIRER: Eight Philadelphia police officers who were fired or disciplined in 2008 after a television news helicopter captured them beating three shooting suspects are getting their jobs back or having their punishments reduced, police announced yesterday. An arbitrator has ordered that the two officers who were terminated, Patrick Gallagher and Vincent Strain, be reinstated. Four other officers who were involved in the beating and later disciplined were punished too harshly, the arbitrator also found. Three of those officers were suspended, and Joseph Schiavone, a sergeant, was demoted. The arbitrator, from the American Arbitration Association, ruled that those suspended should receive back pay, lost overtime, and a reprimand. The arbitrator found that the department had no cause to punish Schiavone, and ruled that he be reinstated to his rank. Two rookie police academy graduates who were dismissed after the beatings had no standing with the arbitrator because they were in their probationary period when they were fired. But Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said that given the overall decision, they were likely to be reinstated if they applied. The decision further vindicates the officers, who were all cleared of wrongdoing by a Philadelphia grand jury in August. “This is something we expected from Day One,” said John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge. “Now they can look forward to coming back to work and moving on with their lives. I’m sure it’s a big relief, not just for them but for their families.” MORE

This week A.P. takes on the Tea Party douchebags protesting the president’s speech on health care reform at Arcadia University on Monday.

A PROPHET (2009, directed by Jacques Audiard, 155 minutes, France)

RED RIDING:1974 (2009, directed by Julian Jarrold, 102 minutes, U.K.)

RED RIDING: 1980 (2009, directed by James Marsh, 93 minutes, U.K.)

RED RIDING: 1983 (2009, directed by Anand Tucker, 100 minutes, U.K.)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC

When we first meet Malik, the lead character in Jacques Audiard riveting new crime drama A Prophet, it does not seem like he could possibly be the titular character. Questioned upon entering prison for assaulting a policemen, the 19- year-old Malik professes no religion. In fact he seems like a vulnerable blank slate; he has no family, no past and no beliefs; the only sign of a back story are the deep scars across his back. Sporting the type of peach fuzz they used to call a “hair-stache” in my high school, this deer-in-the-headlights looks like he’s a just scene or two away from becoming the victim of some grisly cell block crime.

Yet this “rise of a criminal mastermind” story is also a coming-of-age tale, as Malik becomes not only gifted student of the prison’s criminal underworld but he is his own man as well in his three years behind bars. Starting off as the peon houseboy for the Corsican gang that runs the prison, Malik soon graduates to being the go-between between the Corsican boss César (an excellent performance by the gray and portly Niels Arestrup) and the burgeoning Muslim population.  When he starts running his own drug business, it is only a matter of time before Malik and César bump heads.

This may read like typical crime film fare, and while A Prophet has its share of expected showdowns the film both satisfies and transcends its genre setting.  Front and center is the enthralling performance of Tahar Rahim as Malik. At first glance he is so meek and inward-drawn there does not seem to be much to him.  Although he learns to read while in prison, he never turns into a verbal character. Rahim embodies the character completely, though, and without words he begins to make you feel the soulfulness of this criminal finding his feet in the world. It reminded me of Sean Penn’s early, near-silent inmate in the youth prison flick Bad Boys.

And while the setting gives us a sense of hyper-realism, director Audiard occasionally illuminates Malik’s inner world by portraying the ghosts and illusions that haunt him in his cell.  Audiard is also brilliant in focusing on the little details of the criminal life.  In one unforgettable scene he shows Malik practicing the murder he has been forced into, spitting blood as he masters the art of hiding a razor blade in his mouth, then catching it in his teeth as he lunges for the kill.  All prison films hinge on the same basic conflicts but again A Prophet finds ways to surprise us, by following Malik as his territory becomes larger with his 12-hour furlough releases that allow him to both import drugs and imagine a world outside the prison’s walls.

Its a real cinematic pleasure discovering that this character who seemed destined to be gobbled up by the prison’s ugliness becomes so fully-dimensional that his travails easily warrant the film’s two and a half hour length.  Two-thirds of the way through the film a Muslim crime boss asks Malik if he’s a prophet because his position gives him the ear of all racial and national factions in the prison. One can just as easily admire how this story’s universality has made it a must-see for crime fans world-wide.

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Stretching its story over three feature-length films, Red Riding, based on a quartet of novels by David Peace, makes somewhat less of an impression.  The film’s grandiose conception — having three directors direct three features on three filmmaking mediums (16mm film , 35 mm film  and high-definition video respectively) — leads one to believe we’re in store for some Kieślowski-type “major statement” here.  Partially, this is a trick of marketing: Red Riding began its life as a mini-series broadcast on Channel Four, the British TV station.  Any auteurist touches from the directors are subservient to the producer’s grand design, much as the name directors who worked on The Sopranos left little of their own mark.  What we’re really getting is high quality British television in a theatrical setting, which at its best is nothing to sneeze at, although Red Riding only intermittently achieves the power of a good episode of Cracker.

Set in the non-urbane Northern England city of Yorkshire, the three films fictionalize events around the real case of the “Yorkshire Ripper,” who killed 13 woman between 1975 and 1980. It is not the crimes themselves that dominate the story but their effect on a reporter, investigator and solicitor who examine the evidence.  At times even the crimes fall into the periphery as the corruption that has set in on Yorkshire like a damp rot gives the impression that such crimes are just a symptom of a world adrift without a moral compass. In the opening film, 1974, an over-eager young reporter Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield, recently spotted in Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus) steps on toes of the powers-that-be while trying to solve the case himself.  Turns out a developer who plans one of the first mega shopping malls might be involved, and Eddie and he both share a lover in the sexy mourning mother of one of the young dead.  This first chapter shares some of the incautious romanticism of Eddie himself, with dreamy pop montages set to the vintage 70’s soul Eddie favors.  It all blows up spectacularly in the end, leading to the second chapter six years later.

Directed by James Marsh (who has done excellent original work in both the Gael Garcia Bernal vehicle The King and the highwire documentary Man On a String), the trilogy reaches its high-point with 1980.  Paddy Considine (visible in The Bourne Ultimatum) is inspector Peter Hunter, a self-righteous inspector brought in by higher-ups as extra artillery to solve the still unsolved Ripper murders.  Hunter makes no bones about his belief that the local police have botched the job, leading the Yorkshire force to cooperate with him as little as possible.  Is that because they want the glory of solving it themselves or are men on the force somehow involved?  Personally, I might enjoy the second episode the most because the wall-to-wall regional accents in parts one and three make it undeniably difficult in stretches to suss out just what the characters are saying.  But Considine (resembling a young John Doe from the band X) is completely captivating as the cop bent on being the man who cracks the case, while at the same time he is distracted by a colleague he once compromised his own morals with by having an affair.  If you’re not willing to commit yourself to the entire trilogy, this section stands fine by itself and is gripping enough to give a strong recommendation.

By the third section, 1983, the conspiracy has become so convoluted we’re treated to endless flashbacks and a story that so seedy and corrupt it stretches credulity.  Child kidnappings and murders are so perverse they are in the great majority carried out by compulsive loners.  That Yorkshire is such a forsaken place (telegraphed frequently by the looming nuclear towers hovering in the horizon) that the pillars of society join together to take part in them is a grisly truth more likely created in a writer’s mind.  One should be game to stare dark truths in the eye, but dark fantasies posing as hard truths are another story altogether.

The Low Anthem + Annie & The Beekeepers, Lissie

TONITE First Unitarian Sanctuary 8:00 pm

INQUIRER: The U.S. Department of Defense handed over $3.4 million to the City of Philadelphia yesterday, after an Inspector General’s Office investigation found evidence of uncashed wage-tax checks from the federal government to the city from 2005. City Inspector General Amy Kurland came across the missing funds as part of an ongoing corruption investigation into a former city employee. Kurland declined to say much about that ongoing probe, but she said the city notified the Defense Department of what it found, and Defense records confirmed that the 2005 checks had never been cashed. Kurland said she did not know exactly who failed to cash the checks, nor did she know what had happened to the physical checks, which were not recovered. Kurland said the city is reconciling all wage-tax accounts involving federal agencies as part of its ongoing investigation, and she predicted that more uncashed funds would be found. MORE

You might recall him from last week’s outrage of the week — he is the outgoing Senator from Kentucky who fiercely filibustered a bill to extend unemployment benefits to the jobless because it would add to the deficit. This from the man who voted fund two wars on the back of the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich. His message to the hundreds of thousands that would lose benefits? Too fuckin’ bad, freeloaders! He will be signing autographs at the Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show. We urge anyone currently collecting to go to the show and get him to sign your unemployment check.

WASHINGTON POST: In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball. For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers. Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them by single-handedly shutting down these popular programs. Bunning’s fellow Republicans are aghast. If this were baseball, the Hall of Famer would be on his way down to triple-A. But this is the Senate, where any one of the 100 members has the ability to bring proceedings to a halt, and Bunning continues to hurl his wild pitches. The ornery Kentuckian said he was merely insisting that Congress find a way to pay for the $10 billion, 30-day extension, but that was difficult to square with his recent votes against attempts to rein in debt and spending. This left people puzzling over Bunning’s motives. Was he taking revenge on his senior colleague from Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who helped to push Bunning into retirement? Or was he just being, well, crazy? This second possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. With the Phillies and the Tigers, he had enviable accuracy, boasting one of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios. But since his reelection campaign, in 2004, Bunning has had some serious control problems. He said his opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. He suggested that he and his wife had been roughed up by “little green doctors” at a political picnic. He refused to debate in person, instead doing so by teleconference from Republican National Committee offices in Washington, where he used a teleprompter. Just over a year ago, Bunning resumed his erratic form when he predicted in public that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months. MORE

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER: As long as Republicans were in charge, Sen. Jim Bunning was OK with trading a surplus for a deficit. He voted to put two wars, tax cuts and a Medicare drug benefit on the nation’s credit card. Now that Republicans are no longer in charge, Bunning is drawing the line on deficit spending. He’s doing it in a way that shows callous contempt for the more than one in 10 working Kentuckians whose jobs disappeared in the economic meltdown. We’ve become accustomed to bizarre, egocentric behavior from Bunning. So it wasn’t all that surprising when he single-handedly blocked an unemployment benefits extension for a million people, including 119,230 in Kentucky, whose benefits run out this year. About 14,000 Kentuckians will exhaust their benefits in two weeks without the extension. Bunning’s filibuster also denies newly laid-off workers help paying for health insurance. It halts road and bridge projects around the country by furloughing 2,000 federal transportation employees, stops reimbursements to state highway programs and cuts Medicare payments to doctors. To those who know him, it’s not surprising that Bunning answered a Democratic colleague’s complaint with a crude profanity. Or that he joked about missing a basketball game while pushing some unemployed Kentuckians into homelessness or bankruptcy. MORE

[Illustration by JAY BEVENOUR]

EXAMINER: A New Jersey man from Buena Borough is accused of joining Yemen’s al Qaeda terrorists. Sharif Mobley is in custody in Yemen after an escape attempt in a deadly hospital rampage that left one guard dead. Yemeni officials charge that the 26 year-old Mobley was planning a terror attack. Mobley was apprehended and hospitalized last week.  In a thwarted escape attempt, Mobley killed a policeman on Sunday as he attempted to shoot his way out of the hospital reports say. His friends and family expressed shock. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: WMGM-TV in Atlantic City quoted “federal sources” as saying Mobley is the man accused of shooting two guards over the weekend in a Yemeni hospital where he was being held prisoner. One of the guards died, and the suspect was caught after a chase. As his father, Charles Mobley, and his wife pulled out of their driveway on their way to see a lawyer Friday, he said: “I can tell you this: He’s no terrorist.” He was originally arrested as part of an earlier sweep against al-Qaida, according to other security officials, and was in prison on charges of membership of the group. He complained of being ill and was admitted to the hospital, where was held under heavy guard while he was treated for around a week until his escape attempt, said a member of the security forces. MORE