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Arts & Life
MENDOCINO, Calif. – A dramatic new documentary about wildland fires and how we can make our communities fire safe will debut this weekend in Mendocino County.
“Wilder than Wild” will be screened at Preston Hall, 44867 Main St. next to the Presbyterian Church, in Mendocino.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the film beginning at 7 p.m.
Admission is free.
The hour-long documentary reveals how fuel buildup and climate change have exposed Western wild-lands to large, high intensity wildfires, while greenhouse gases released from these fires accelerate climate change.
This vicious cycle jeopardizes our forests and affects us all with extreme weather and more wildfires, some of which are now entering highly populated wildland/urban areas.
A sequence in “Wilder than Wild” shows how the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa and the Redwood Valley fire, which began on Oct. 8, 2017, caused the destruction of 4,658 homes and killed 44. It shows how the "fires of the future" can include urban areas.
"Things are changing," said one firefighter, "If we don't change, we're going to see even more homes annihilated in these types of fires."
Following the screening there will be a panel discussion with Mendocino Fire Chief Ed O’Brien, Fire Captain Eric Chisholm and Mary Mayeda, who heads the Mendocino Fire Safe Council.
The moderator is the event’s organizer filmmaker Jim Culp.
For further information call 707-937-3755, or e-mail
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The GenX Cinema series presents the 1985 horror film, “Fright Night,” starring Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowell, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.
Entry is by donation.
A playful, loving homage to the golden age of horror, yet completely its own beastly fun ride of frights and thrills.
The tale, about a ”normal” man living next to a vampire, neatly parodies Alfred Hitchcock and John Hughes movies, and writer/director Tom Holland litters his rattling story with as many laughs as jolts.
The film is rated R with run time of 1 hour 34 minutes, and is sponsored by Blair Drywall and Painting.
The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
A poem is an object carefully assembled of words, a "thing" that readers must reckon with just as they'd reckon with any other object.
The title poem of Adrian Koesters' new book, Three Days with the Long Moon, published by BrickHouse Books, sets out a number of disparate elements, then observes: "…this pen making / a thing of them."
So it's the "pen" in the hand of the poet that assembles the singular "thing" from the details. And that's how a poem comes to be.
This poet lives in Omaha and was one of our very able assistants on this column.
Three Days with the Long Moon
That field nag, old-penny
swayback. Low hawk, to
ducks in train to a quad of geese,
in case. Last night, the long
moon lay it seemed a tissue
of snow, but then dawn told
that wasn't so. Late morning, now,
the fire, the hearth, eggs
sitting for the mute plate
and fork, this pen making
a thing of them. Two more nights—
waterfowl safe and noisy
in the dusk, the low rails
running flank to the river
at midnight—find what they'll
make of that river, this moon.
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Adrian Koesters, "Three Days with the Long Moon," from Three Days with the Long Moon, (BrickHouse Books, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Adrian Koesters and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2018 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS (Rated PG)
An interesting situation is at hand with director Eli Roth, a master with horror films, as the one at the helm of delivering a presumable kids’ movie with “The House with a Clock in Its Walls.”
Don’t be surprised then if “The House,” with elements of Harry Potter sorcery but scarier, might be a little too forbidding for really young children too easily frightened by creepy animated dummies and menacing jack-o’-lanterns.
Recently orphaned 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) is a focal character sent to live with his oddball uncle in a creaky old mansion that holds a secret revealed by the film’s title.
The stage is set when Lewis arrives one night and Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) is wearing a kimono and holding forth with such eccentricity that one wouldn’t blame Lewis for taking the next bus back to wherever he came from.
The weirdness of the gothic mansion is that, while every room seems to be overwhelmed with ticking clocks and creepy artifacts, hidden within the walls somewhere is a ticking doomsday clock ready to be triggered by a supernatural power.
Enrolling at a new school, Lewis is ostracized for being a geeky misfit so lacking in athletic ability that no one chooses him for their intramural basketball team until he later comes into his own with some magic power.
As a naturally curious child, Lewis unearths some of the mansion’s secrets. The discovery explains why his uncle spends so much time verbally sparring and bantering with next door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett).
The mansion’s previous owner is the evil wizard Isaac (Kyle MacLachlan), whose remains in the local cemetery is set free by sorcery only to wreak havoc that propels the elements of true horror.
At this point, we learn that Lewis’ uncle is a warlock and Mrs. Zimmerman, his cohort, is a witch, albeit they seem benevolent as their desire is to stop Isaac from setting off the doomsday clock.
Lewis begins to master the dark arts and finds this might be a good way to handle school bullies when he’s not busy using supernatural powers on the home front.
In the end, the inevitable Armageddon is staged inside the mansion with Lewis, his uncle and Mrs. Zimmerman fighting with vigor to repel the evil force of Isaac.
The fun of “The House” may hinge on the enjoyment of the odd combination of fantasy, horror and oddball humor.
‘MAGNUM P.I.’ ON CBS NETWORK
The long-running “Magnum, P.I.,” starring Tom Selleck in the titular role, made its mark in the 1980s as one of the most popular private investigator series on the CBS television network.
Now after several decades have passed, CBS is rebooting the series appropriately enough with a younger cast of the same primary characters, with a sense of familiarity delivered in a fresh milieu.
The new “Magnum P.I.” stars Jay Hernandez as Thomas Sullivan Magnum, a former Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan. Now living in Hawaii, Magnum is joined by war buddies Rick (Zachary Knighton) and chopper pilot TC (Stephen Hill) in a series of adventures.
Similar to the original series, Magnum, wearing Hawaiian shirts and a Detroit Tigers cap, lives at the estate of unseen millionaire Robin Masters as a security consultant while dabbling in private eye work on the side.
It may be hard to master the charm of Tom Selleck but Hernandez is off to a good start in the first episode made available for preview. Even though the role of Higgins now goes to a female (Patricia Weeks), the new Magnum’s charisma may hit a few snags with her.
Juliet Higgins, an attractive former British MI 6 agent, referred to as the “major domo,” will clash with Magnum on everything from his use of the estate’s red Ferrari to his freewheeling ways.
The first episode begins with a preposterous rescue mission in North Korea but quickly settles into the venue of Oahu where Magnum and his buddies try to solve the mystery of another friend from the war who is kidnapped and viciously tortured and beaten to death.
A familiar detective series trope is trotted out when Honolulu police detective Katsumoto (Tim Kang) threatens Magnum with obstruction if he meddles in a homicide investigation. You can guess how this will play out.
Magnum’s ethnicity hardly warrants a mention until during an ocean dive when Magnum banters with Rick and tells him that Rick should worry because sharks prefer white meat.
“Magnum P.I.” has great Hawaiian scenery, plenty of action and casual sense of humor that serves Magnum and his buddies well. It could follow in the successful footsteps of the updated version of the “Hawaii Five-O” series.
During the summer press tour, executive producer Peter Lenkov reported that talks were engaged with Tom Selleck and that “we went to him first to get his blessing.” I’ll take that as an endorsement for a new series that is worth a look.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Tim Riley