‘NOBODY 2’ RATED R
   
Four years ago, along came a nebbish as the titular figure in the appropriately titled “Nobody,” in which Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), an outwardly passive family man unveiled his true nature after petty thieves broke into his house, attacked his son, and stole his daughter’s treasured bracelet. 
   
Although he was ostensibly a lunchpail worker at a mundane job, Hutch’s profession as a workaholic assassin enabled him to track down the thieves, but the real story was what happened on the late-night ride home on a municipal bus.

 

The sudden transformation from an ostensible milquetoast to a streetfighter with special skills like that of a martial artist led to a serious beatdown of five thugs who harassed and threatened a couple of passengers.  
   
To say that things didn’t turn out so well for the menacing hoodlums is the proverbial understatement. Brazenly unloading the bullets from his handgun, Hutch proved that all he needed were his fists, feet, and the nearest blunt instrument to vanquish the goons.
   
Similar to a “John Wick” movie, what ensued in “Nobody” was a battery of gun battles, explosions, car crashes, and fist fights resulting in an orgy of intense action. The tone of ridiculously violent action now carries over to the second round of Hutch’s simmering penchant for violence.
   
With “Nobody 2,” Hutch’s beleaguered everyman is now working overtime in a war with assorted criminals as he’s in a huge bind of having to repay $30 million belonging to a Russian mob that he torched in the first film.
   
Meanwhile, Hutch is trying to repair his fractured family life due to his frequent absences. His beloved wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) is becoming as equally estranged from her husband as the children Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) are from their father.
   
After pummeling five thugs in a hotel elevator, and then facing off with machine gun toting Corsicans and a subsequent violent encounter with Brazilians with machetes, Hutch has to reckon with how his non-stop killing of criminals on behalf of other criminals is stretching home life to a breaking point.
   
The family needs a break, and when Becca mentions it, Hutch seizes the moment and decides the family would bond by taking a road trip to Wisconsin to the water park that was the only vacation he ever had as a kid with his father David (Christopher Lloyd) and brother Harry (RZA).
   
Because of fond memories from his childhood, Hutch pulls his elderly father out of the retirement home to join the family vacation. That David has already demonstrated his proficiency with firearms just might come in handy at some point. 
   
The amusement park in the summer resort town of Plummerville has seen better days. The hotel accommodations are barely adequate; it’s not a four-star resort by any means. The park’s rides and attractions are rather mundane. But the family is willing to make the most of it.
   
It doesn’t take long for things to get interesting. An altercation at the arcade is a little unsettling, but it gets worse when a security guard slaps Hutch’s young daughter on the head.
   
Not wanting a confrontation in front of his family, Hutch returns to the scene under the pretext of having forgotten his cell phone, and proceeds to pummel the offending park workers.
   
Of course, this clash at the park draws the attention of the town’s sinister Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), who has ulterior motives of concern that a stranger poses a threat for causing trouble. That the lawman is psychotic adds another edge to his wickedness.
   
Hutch also gets sideways with crooked theme park owner Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz), who has so much to hide in that his ramshackle resort is a cover for a massive illegal operation that is under the protection of the corrupt sheriff.
   
The criminal enterprise belongs to female crime boss Lendina (Sharon Stone), also a casino owner, who treats a cheating customer at cards by nailing his hand to the table with a knife. 
  
With slicked-back hair and wearing dark glasses and a sharp suit, Lendina is the epitome of a viciously unhinged psycho who goes to great lengths to send goons to attack Hutch on a duck boat.
   
The ensuing fight scene on the boat is so wild that the unarmed Hutch uses everything he can grasp as a weapon, from flotation devices and fire extinguisher to an anchor he plants in a goon’s back.
   
Despite all the violence courtesy of an unassuming suburban family man, the “Nobody” films are delightfully amusing in that the nerdy Hutch is so improbably preposterous as the slickly brutal avenger.
   
While lack of familiarity with the original film is only detrimental in that you missed out on the fun, “Nobody 2” can stand on its own for delivering ridiculous action-filled pleasure in a crisp running time of about ninety minutes.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

‘HAPPY GILMORE 2’ ON NETFLIX
  
According to AI, 1980’s “Caddyshack,” starring Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Bill Murray, is considered by many to be the quintessential golf comedy, with Adam Sandler’s 1996 “Happy Gilmore” highly rated. The robot is probably right in this instance.
  
Almost thirty years later, Sandler returns as the short-tempered eponymous hockey-obsessed golfer in Netflix’s “Happy Gilmore 2.” A lot of the original cast returns, with a notable exception of not another fistfight between Happy and Bob Barker.

The film leans so heavily into flashbacks and the numerous original cast members on hand that there is no need to watch the 1996 version to have a grasp on what unfolds. All you need to know is that Happy is still plagued with anger management issues at the core of his wacky persona.
  
Glory days on the course are gone. An incident during a 2014 tournament resulted in an errant golf ball turning lights-out for Happy’s beloved bride Virginia (Julie Bowen). He’s now an alcoholic with a minimum wage job stocking a grocery store. The house the family once owned went into foreclosure.
  
The Gilmore household consists of four rowdy sons and lone daughter Vienna (Sunny Sandler), a talented dancer who’s been accepted into an elite Paris ballet school with a hefty price tag of $300,000 for tuition.
  
Once at the top of his game, Happy ditched his clubs and vowed never to return to the game. Working at a supermarket does not afford Happy the ability to finance Vienna’s education. He will have to unretire, which is not as simple as one might think, with his practice run a total misfire.
  
The eventual outcome is predictable, but there is plenty of hilarity with Happy’s continuing antics, along with tapping a busboy to be his unorthodox caddy (Bad Bunny), who provides a lot of comic relief on the course.
  
Arch rival from the first film, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), is released from an insane asylum and fights Happy in a cemetery before they team up to take on a mutual enemy. 
  
Cameo appearances come from golf legends like Lee Trevino (also in the original film), Nick Faldo, and Fred Couples. Infamous golf pro John Daly lives in Happy’s garage. Jack Nicklaus orders ice tea and lemonade, apparently not knowing the combination drink is named for golf icon Arnold Palmer. 
  
“Happy Gilmore” remains a cult classic comedy. The sequel may not quite measure up to the same exalted status, but fans of Adam Sandler and the original should be satisfied overall. Amidst all the fun and insanity, Sandler’s likeable flawed character’s comeback is worth rooting for. 

US OPEN TENNIS TOURNAMENT FAN WEEK
  
The last leg of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments concludes with the US Open getting under way on Sunday, August 24th, but fans get to enjoy a plethora of free admission events on the grounds of New York’s Flushing Meadows beginning the week before. 
  
On Monday, Aug. 18, the main attraction will be the opportunity to enjoy the Arthur Ashe Stadium experience for a pre-US Open Singles Men draw to watch top players practice throughout Fan Week from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Registration for the free Fan Access Pass is required for admission.
  
Running all day, the Louis Armstrong Stadium and the Grandstand allow fans to get an up-close look at their favorite players and the tournament’s biggest stars as they prepare for the US Open Singles Main Draw. 
  
On Courts 4-17, the US Open Qualifying Tournament will once again feature 128 men and 128 women competing for one of the final 16 spots in the Singles Main Draw. The Qualifying Tournament, running all day is free to the public. 
  
The US Open Mixed Doubles Championship has been reimagined for this year for a blockbuster lineup where entrants include nine of the world’s top-ten women and nine of the world’s top-ten women. American teams consist Madison Keys and Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Townsend and Ben Shelton.
 
The competition takes place during the fan week on Tuesday, August 19th and Wednesday, August 20th, with $1 million in prize money being awarded to the winning team. Moving this event to the fan week schedule allows it take center stage during the tournament. 
  
On Thursday night, August 21st, the Stars of the Open presented by Chase returns to bring together an electrifying mix of legends and top players on the court to dazzle fans with their incredible skills. 
 
This special event is expected to showcase the talents of Coco Gauff (who won her first major title here two years ago); former World No. 1 players Andre Agassi and Venus Williams; 2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick, also World No. 1 player; and the mercurial legend John McEnroe.
  
While participants are subject to change, teenage phenom Joao Fonseca will make his Stars of the Open debut. 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro will once again participate. 
US Paralympian Casey Ratzlaff and Dana Mathewson, first American woman to win a Major wheelchair tennis title, will also debut.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — Middletown will get a taste of Nashville when Cash Creek and Friends take the stage at Middletown Central Park on Friday, Aug. 15. 

The event kicks off with dinner from 4 to 6 p.m., followed by live music from 5 to 10 p.m., with special guests The Happy Axedents. 

Tickets are $35 for dinner and dancing or $25 for dancing only. 

The lineup features Megan Mullins Owen, joined by Andrea Guess, Tim Pardee and Travis William — the lead singer for Kentucky Straight — alongside the seasoned members of Cash Creek. 

Known for their ties to country greats like Alabama, Shania Twain, and John Michael Montgomery, these musicians are set to deliver a night of top-tier performances.

Sponsored by Premier Pools & Spas and West Lake Auto Center, proceeds of the evening of entertainment will benefit Middletown High School FFA, the Middletown Central Park Association and the Lions Club.

Middletown Central Park is located at 15299 Central Park Road.

LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Symphony will present its annual summer chamber concert on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 2 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport. 

Doors open at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.

This concert is not as lengthy as the regular season concerts, and consists of a smaller group of musicians, featuring mostly strings and harpsichord with some woodwinds, brass and percussion. 

There is one performance only; there is no discounted “rehearsal” performance this time. As usual, though, there is no charge for youth aged 18 and under.

The chamber orchestra will play several selections by composers who are considered among the best in Western history.

Lake County Symphony Association, or LCSA, Musical Director/Conductor John Parkinson opens the concert with “Rondeau from Abdelazer Suite” by Henry Purcell (1659-1695). 

A composer of Baroque music, Purcell incorporated Italian and French elements in his musical style and is generally considered one of the greatest English opera composers.

The orchestra’s next piece is “Marche pour la Ceremonie des Turcs” by Jean-Babtiste Lully (1632-1687). 

Lully was a French composer, dancer and instrumentalist who was considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Originally from Florence, he spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France and became a French subject in 1661. 

Luigi Boccherini’s “Overture in D Major” (G. 521 -Op. 43) is a lively piece often performed as a standalone concert overture. Boccherini (1743-1805) was born into a musical family in Lucca Italy and received his first music lessons at age five from his father, who taught him the cello. 

Considered a child prodigy, he continued his musical studies and by age 13 he and his father were employed by the Vienna court as musicians. As an adult, he was employed for many years by the younger brother of King Charles III of Spain.

J.S. Bach (1685-1750) has two selections in this concert: “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3” (1st mvmt) and his “Flute Concerto in E minor,” featuring Celesta Deter on flute. Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period, known for his “prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms.”

Bach is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, as are the final two composers, Mozart and Haydn. 

Following intermission, the audience will hear “Serenade in D Major, K239” by Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791). Mozart’s music is admired for its “melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture.”

The final piece is “Symphony No. 88” by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Born in Rohrau, Austria, Haydn has been called the “father of the symphony” due to his prolific output. His compositions include 104 symphonies, 50 concertos, 84 string quartets, 24 stage works, and 12 masses, among numerous other works. 

Tickets may be purchased through the Soper Reese website or at the Soper Reese box office at 275 S. Main St. in Lakeport 30 minutes prior to the 2 p.m. performance. 

Refreshments will be available in the lobby before the concert and during intermission. 

Season ticket holders should note that this concert is “open seating” with no reserved seating and that LCSA member discounts will not apply.

‘THE NAKED GUN’ RATED PG-13
  
The genius of “The Naked Gun” franchise, from the brilliant comedic creative team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (known as ZAZ), originated with the short-lived television series “Police Squad!” that the ABC network had the lack of good sense to keep on the air after only six episodes.

That the ZAZ team created the disaster spoof film “Airplane!,” starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty, and featuring Leslie Nielsen, among other notable actors like Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves, was inspiration for more in the genre.
  
From the box office success of this now iconic comedy film, ZAZ was apparently ready to create another film spoofing a serious police procedural, and instead came up with the series “Police Squad!” starring Leslie Nielsen as the inept, bumbling Los Angeles police lieutenant Frank Drebin.
  
For the TV show and the movies, Frank Drebin could easily be a caricature of Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday in the Sixties series “Dragnet,” where his clipped and to the point questioning of suspects or witnesses to get only the facts was ripe for parody.
  
While ABC cancelled “Police Squad!,” the one season of the television show has attained cult status. This classic lampoon of cop shows is worth finding, and maybe the only option is to purchase it in on Amazon.
  
Once a serious actor, Nielsen’s turn to comedy resulted in pure gold because of his deadpan expression and his talent for wordplay of non-sequiturs and smart punchlines, along with being oblivious to almost everything around him.
  
Nielsen, of course, went on to star in ZAZ’s 1988 film “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!,” where crass humor, visual gags, slapstick mayhem, and the blatant incompetence of the squad combined for zany hilarity.
  
Now three decades later, the ZAZ team is no longer involved (one member passed away last year) and continuing the Frank Drebin legacy falls to the character’s son, Frank Drebin Jr., whose mother was Priscilla Presley’s Jane Spencer.
  
The gravelly voiced Liam Neeson makes an interesting choice for Frank Drebin, Jr. in the rebooted “The Naked Gun,” where he’s as clueless as his deceased father, whose portrait hangs at the Police Squad’s wall of legends and whose spirit is later channeled through an owl.
  
Where Leslie Nielsen’s appealing deadpan delivery was relatively flat and mellow, Neeson’s tone is sometimes closer in attitude to the intensity he brought to his character of retired CIA agent Bryan Mills in the “Taken” franchise, except that his Drebin doesn’t have any discernible set of skills.
  
Not operating by the book, the film begins with Drebin foiling a bank robbery by showing up disguised as a little school girl who turns a giant lollipop into a weapon that subdues some of the criminals and precipitates a violent melee.
  
Flouting the rules, Drebin runs afoul of Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) who threatens to disband the Police Squad, but then dispatches him with his partner Ed Hocken, Jr. (Paul Walker Hauser), the son of the late George Kennedy’s character in the film series, to investigate a fatal car crash.
  
The crashed electric vehicle turns out to have been involved in the bank robbery, which ties into oily tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston) as the mastermind of the heist that was a cover for his henchman Sig (Kevin Durand) to pilfer a gadget from a safety deposit box.
  
The man who died in the crash was deemed to have been a suicide, but his sister Beth Davenport (the alluring Pamela Anderson as a femme fatale) is convinced that foul play was orchestrated by Cane and she’s determined to investigate on her own.
  
Before too long, Beth teams up with Drebin for sleuthing, which turns into an inevitable romantic angle that has its share of indecency during an intimate evening when a snowman joins in a sexual triangle that leads to murderous jealousy. 
  
Then, there’s one of Cane’s henchmen following Drebin and Beth to use infrared binoculars to spy on them with the result that the thermal imaging appears to show Beth engaging in a sexual act that is not PG-13 rated material. If one is curious, the scene is in the trailer.
  
The climax comes down to Cane’s disturbed plan to the citizens of Los Angeles into a scenario straight out of “The Purge” where all crime is legal for a half-day window. Here it’s a lot of ridiculous street fighting triggered through phones. 
  
Running at a fast pace of 85 minutes, “The Naked Gun” does not concern itself with plot so much as with its aim to be as raucously funny and absurd as possible. Not all madcap wordplay and sight gags land gut-busting punches, but the odds are decent enough. 
 
What “The Naked Gun” boils down to is a wacky comedy in the spirit of the original such that it achieves for the most part its goal. The film merits being seen in a theater where audience laughter becomes contagious.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — This Saturday, Aug. 9, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. come out to the Middletown Art Center for a night of contemporary underground dance music straight out of the United Kingdom. 

DJs Ami and Nick deliver an energized dance party, with beats, rhythms, and sounds from UK Garage (UKG), Bassline and House tracks.

Whether you love electronic music or you just want to get down and groove, this party promises hot fun in the summertime.

UK Garage, played in dance clubs worldwide, is a mash-up of house and bass music, borrowing heavily from jungle and incorporating elements of R&B and reggae. There will be bass!

Young in Lake County and looking for a party? You are invited to come dance with them. Dance to city club sounds in this small country town.

Ami Verhey is an emerging DJ, a Middletown High and UC Davis graduate currently working on his master’s in wildlife ecology at Cal Poly Humboldt. Nicholas Hay is a veteran L.A. and local DJ and head gardener at Harbin Hot Springs.

“I am always excited to showcase current dance-focused music here at home,” said Verhey. “We need more quality exposure to contemporary music and culture here in Lake County.”

Suggested donation is $10; $5 for ages 18-25; high school students, and younger free or by donation. No one turned away for lack of funds. Multiple generations and families are welcome. Movies in the back for kids.

First 20 guests get a free beverage, and ALL guests receive a free raffle ticket for THERE WILL BE BASS T-shirts! Beverages/snacks for purchase—non-alcoholic or beer/wine (21+ with ID).

Experience the contemporary sounds, rhythms, and beats that are moving people across the world, right in the heart of Middletown.

Middletown Art Center is a nonprofit dedicated to engaging the public in art making, art education, and art appreciation, and providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, striving to create an inclusive and accessible space for all.

To learn more and donate to support this or other MAC arts and cultural programs, visit middletownartcenter.org. For inquiries or further information, please contact the Middletown Art Center at 707-355-4465 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 in Middletown.