This week’s article could have been a film review of “Our Brand is Crisis,” but with our own election season heating up, I had to wonder if the tale of American political hacks involved in a Bolivian presidential campaign would hold much interest.

On the one hand, a film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Sandra Bullock as rival political advisors seems to be intriguing, but the most interesting thing about Thornton is that his character looks a lot like Bill Clinton campaign operative James Carville.

But why waste your time in a darkened theater with a carton of stale popcorn when the Starz cable channel offers up a big helping of Bruce Campbell reviving his role of the blowhard monster fighter from Sam Raimi’s iconic “Evil Dead” franchise?

The new breed of horror began with Raimi, as writer and director, teamed with producer Rob Tapert and star Bruce Campbell, going back more than three decades to the first “Evil Dead” theatrical release, which was followed by sequels, including the awesome “Army of Darkness.”

To be sure, the “Evil Dead” phenomenon has achieved cult status, and as such, the appeal for the Starz 10-episode, half-hour series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” which features such an excess of bloody gore that it would never be on network television, may be limited.

For reasons that have to do with his natural charisma and boundless sense of humor, Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams, a self-centered, aging lothario and lazy stock boy at the Value Stop discount store, is the glue holding this whole thing together.

The last “Evil Dead” movie starring Campbell happened more than two decades ago, and yet the fan base clamored for his return because he’s a seriously flawed hero, who wields a mean chainsaw and delivers a no-holds-barred sense of fun and sheer insanity in fighting zombies.

Starz is so certain that “Ash vs. Evil Dead” is a winner that it announced an early renewal for a second season even before the first episode hit the airwaves. Of course, and this is a good thing, Bruce Campbell has signed on for a second tour of duty.

The first episode finds Ash in a menial dead-end job, living in a squalid trailer park and still driving a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, the now classic car that has been used in one form or another in all of the “Evil Dead” films.

The mythology of the “Evil Dead” goes back to the first film in which Ash and some buddies discover an ancient book, “The Necronomicon Ex Mortis,” which unleashes demons to possess the living, becoming creatures known as the Deadites.

Ash may think the zombie-slaying business is behind him, but one night after too many drinks and trying to impress a young girl invited back to his trailer, he reads a passage from the book, and all hell breaks loose.

The friendly old lady next door that helps Ash tidy up his messy trailer turns into a Deadite, as does his annoying boss who figures his indolent box boy is only handy enough to move cartons of light bulbs. 

Selfish and a bit of an idiot, Ash has no appreciable skills or special training, but his prosthetic hand is useful in wielding a chainsaw to lop off the heads of Deadites, the most effective killing tool.

In short order, Ash picks up two unlikely allies in his co-workers, Pablo (Ray Santiago), an illegal immigrant who desperately wants to be an American, and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), an impulsive wild child with a biting wit.

Tough, quick-witted and sarcastic, Kelly is the common-sense counterpart to Ash, except that she first has to deal with the mystery of her mother (Mimi Rogers) having disappeared without a trace about six months earlier.

Meanwhile, Ash, even though he acts stupidly at times and exercises cloudy judgment, is idolized by Pablo, who believes in him to lead the battle of good versus evil, even when Ash doubts himself.

Both disenfranchised by family circumstances, Pablo and Kelly wind up as sidekicks for Ash, an improbable de facto father figure who vacillates between acting as a mentor and a tormentor.

There is a parallel story of Michigan State Police detective Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) finding her career on the line following the grisly murder of her partner by a Deadite.

Amanda is destined to be on a collision course with Ash, who may become a prime suspect. Lucy Lawless pops up as the seductive and reclusive Ruby, who also believes that Ash is the cause of the supernatural massacre that murdered her family over 30 years ago.

“Ash vs Evil Dead” is a horror thrill ride with plenty of action, laughs and buckets of blood. Oh yes, lots and lots of blood are splattered everywhere. Our heroes are literally drenched in blood on several occasions, and that’s just in the first two episodes.

No matter what, the battle against the Deadites is fraught with bloody mayhem and excessive violence. True to the B-movie pedigree of the film series, “Ash vs Evil Dead” is campy fun with its unique blend of comedy, gore and horror.

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

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Lake County residents and visitors have been seeing themselves differently these last few weeks, so how better to add to the conversation than showcasing ourselves to ourselves through portraiture.

Portraits can be more than rendered attributes. A portrait can provide insight into the subject, the artist, or something within us all.

“Portraits,” a new exhibit, opens Friday, Oct. 30, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m., and will be on view until Dec. 6 at the Middletown Art Center, or MAC, 21456 State Highway 175 in Middletown.

A wide array of artists will showcase works in many mediums from oil to pastel to wood to plaster.

Openings at MAC are well attended and highlight an evening of art, music and community. MAC also showcases other vibrant cultural events.

Slowly recovering normalcy, MAC has been offering free or subsidized art classes to express and release the fire experience and engage with community.

During these trying times, the MAC has proven itself to be a considerable asset, hosting important meetings and providing support during this time of crisis.

Donations are needed to help support artists who lost their homes and studios and continue subsidizing MAC’s nonprofit work, which includes the underserved members of our community.

Donations of funds and art, ceramics, jewelry, tools and other related supplies are graciously accepted.

Middletown Art Center offers an array of memberships and art making opportunities, and can accept donations, memberships and class registrations online at www.MiddletownArtCenter.org .

Located at the junction of Highways 29 and 175 in Middletown, the old Middletown Gymnasium welcomes residents and visitors inside once again.

The building has been transformed into a beautiful space for contemporary art and performance events.

The back portion of the building serves as a studio where classes in drawing, painting, ceramics, and more, are offered for children, teens and adults.

Check class offerings at www.MiddletownArtCenter.org/classes.html .

MAC is open Friday and Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. or by appointment.

For more information call 707-809-8118 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

During World War II the government endorsed the publication of inexpensive paperbacks for persons serving overseas.

Jehanne Dubrow, who lives and teaches in Maryland and whose husband is a naval officer, here shows us one of those pocket-sized volumes.

This poet's latest book is The Arranged Marriage, (University of New Mexico Press, 2015).

Armed Services Editions

My copy of The Fireside Book of Verse
is as the seller promised—the stapled spine,
the paper aged to Army tan—no worse
for wear, given the cost of its design,
six cents to make and printed on a press
once used for magazines and pulp. This book
was never meant to last a war much less
three quarters of a century.
                                             I look
for evidence of all the men who scanned
these lines, crouched down in holes or lying in
their racks. I read the poems secondhand.
Someone has creased the page. Did he begin
then stop to sleep? to clean his gun perhaps?
to listen to the bugler playing taps?

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It does not accept unsolicited submissions. Poem copyright ©2015 by Jehanne Dubrow, “Armed Services Editions,” (Bellevue Literary Review, Vol. 15, no. 2, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Jehanne Dubrow and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.

STEVE JOBS (Rated R)

When it comes to handling computers, I am so incapable at times in dealing with technical problems that even the Geek Squad will no longer return my calls. But, at least, articles such as this one flow from the relative ease of using Microsoft Word.

On the whole, it would seem not within my realm of comprehension or even desire to be writing a critique of “Steve Jobs,” the story of the acclaimed pioneer of Apple who made the computer accessible even to the most unskilled users.

This assignment is approached with some trepidation, but with the knowledge that Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay based upon Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of the Apple founder, it appears the proper roadmap has been drawn.

In a canned interview stuck inside the film’s press notes, director Danny Boyle, who does a tremendous job here, notes that the “film is an abstraction,” taking events – some of them real, some of them imagined – and pushing them into three acts.

With an almost minimalist style, “Steve Jobs” focuses on the backstage drama attendant to the launch of three new computer products over the course of a fourteen-year period beginning with Apple’s formative years.

First, it’s the launch of Macintosh in 1984, where Michael Fassbender’s Steve Jobs unveils his work in front of a fawning audience that would seemingly fuel the computer genius’ tendency to arrogantly believe that his brilliance was undeniable.

Like many brainy masterminds, Jobs is relentless in badgering and hectoring those around him instrumental in facilitating his dream. His most immediate foil is Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), who is roundly berated for not being able to get the Macintosh to say “Hello.”

Gal Friday Joanna Hoffman (a nearly unrecognizable Kate Winslet) fares little better in her treatment from Jobs, whose neverending grievances and demands would be demoralizing to someone with much less tolerance and inexhaustible endurance.

Over the course of what is essentially a three-act play, Jobs’ oldest friend and collaborator, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen, playing it straight), endures the humiliation of vainly trying to get the Apple genius to publicly recognize the achievements of the Apple II team.

The personal failings of Jobs are found in his troubled relationship with former live-in girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) and his insensitive unwillingness to accept paternity for their young daughter Lisa (played by different young actors over time).

Arriving backstage on the launch day, Chrisann scratches at the hard exterior shell of the aloof Jobs, making a strong case that his child support payments are woefully inadequate as she and Lisa suffer the hardship of living on welfare.

Even though he doesn’t want Lisa to know him as a father, Jobs takes tentative steps to form a tenuous bond with his offspring, and his interest in her becomes more pronounced when she makes a computer drawing. Only in the third segment would he admit naming a computer after her.

Another constant person in the picture is Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), the man who ironically fired Jobs from Apple in the early going, but keeps surfacing at the pivotal points in Jobs career up to the end of the third-act launch of the iMac in 1998.

Sculley’s presence also punctuates the tension of Apple boardroom squabbling where Jobs confronts his employers with the same tortured, angry responses that inform even his everyday interaction with other business associates.

The backstage drama of the second act comes in 1988 when Jobs, having been ousted from his position at Apple, pushes the NeXT cube computer, which proves to be anything but the next big thing in the digital world.

The third act wraps it all up with the 1998 launch of the iMac, and the crowds in the auditorium for the event have grown larger and even more sycophantic for the elusive mad genius behind the curtain.

In patented fashion, Aaron Sorkin delivers fast-paced, sharp dialogue in scenes where Jobs walks and talks with such speed that one is in awe of how his pithy one-liners are so clever and worthy of emulation.

Indeed, in situations where Jobs’ arrogance matches his intelligence with ferocious impact on anyone and everything within his path, it’s possible to see him as a Shakespearean creation of hugely melodramatic proportions, maybe like King Richard III but without the hunchback and murderous soul.

Though he may not look very much like his subject matter, Michael Fassbender’s role is a tour de force performance that could easily be remembered when Academy voters are thinking about an Oscar nomination next year.

Above all, “Steve Jobs” is a psychological portrait of a brilliant man consumed by internal conflicts and personal demons. The result is a fascinating character study which ends so abruptly in 1998 that one may hope for a sequel to finish the rest of the story.
  
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

MENDOCINO, Calif. – Fort Bragg Center for the Arts' Coast Chamber Concerts presents pianist Frank Wiens on Sunday, Nov. 8.

The concert will take place beginning at 3 p.m. in Preston Hall, 44867 Main St., Mendocino.

Wiens will perform works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin Debussy and Rachmaninoff.

Tickets in advance are $20 at Harvest Market, Fort Bragg, and Out of This World, Mendocino and are available at the door for $25.

For more information visit http://www.fbcamusicseries.com/ .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Saturday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m., the Soper Reese Theatre presents a special concert celebrating 1920s, 1930s and 1940s European and international café music, featuring the beautiful sound of the mandolin.

The Hot Frittatas, the headlining act, will deliver a concoction of classical and contemporary roots music from Spain, Italy, France, South America and Mexico, with waltzes, tangos, polkas, musettes, tarantellas and marches all performed with style and vivacity. 

This Northern California group, including Lake County local Don Coffin, has played on National Public Radio and written music for “The Bachelor” TV series.

Opening for the Hot Frittatas is the Sonoma-based Haute Flash Quartet. The all-female group plays gypsy jazz, French musette waltzes and American swing with hard driving rhythms, lush vocal harmonies and lighthearted fun.

Reserved seating tickets are $20 for single seats at a table; $18 center Loge and $15 side Loge.

Tickets are now on sale at www.soperreesetheatre.com ; at the theatre Box Office, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main St., Lakeport, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; or at the theater box office up to two hours before the show.

For more information call 707-263-0577.