MILLION DOLLAR ARM (Rated PG)

The fictional Don Draper could be just as impressive as an self-centered, arrogant, fast-talking sports agent as the driven, philandering advertising executive he is in the TV drama series in “Mad Men.”

That’s because actor Jon Hamm brings the same charisma and hardened attitude to the role of Los Angeles sports agent JB Bernstein in Disney’s fascinating feel-good sports drama “Million Dollar Arm.”

The difference, this time, is that JB Bernstein is a real-life person, and his story of searching for Major League Baseball pitching talent with cricket bowlers in India, of all places, is factually-based. Don Draper, on the other hand, remains pure fiction.

As a baseball fan, I find heartening sports movies almost irresistible, chiefly if they combine underdog triumphs, personal redemption, inspirational hope and determination to succeed as the essential ingredients. Thus, “Million Dollar Arm” is in league with films like “The Blind Side” and “Miracle.”

The story begins with JB Bernstein almost coasting, at least financially, on his past success with a large firm, where he handled big name talent, and ended up with a big house, expensive sports car and tailored suits.

Now struggling on his own with his Indian-American business partner Ash (Aasif Mandvi), JB finds keeping the doors open is tough, mostly since he can’t close on a hot NFL prospect who contemplates signing with the high-powered competition.

Focusing his attention on deal-making with a baseball team owner to find untapped talent sources, JB hits on the unique idea of conducting a televised talent contest in a foreign country with a million dollar payoff.

Not a fan of cricket, JB comes up with this idea on a late night TV viewing that consists of alternating between Susan Boyle belting out tunes on “Britain’s Got Talent” to a sports channel carrying an Indian cricket match.

Heading over to India with a deadline to get prospects in place within a year, JB and Ash get help from salty, cantankerous, narcoleptic retired baseball scout Ray (Alan Arkin, in fine form) who can judge the speed of a pitch even with his eyes closed.

To help navigate the cultural differences in India, the American team is joined by eager go-fer and translator Amit (Pitobash), an unabashed baseball fan in a country dominated by a cricket-loving population.

JB announces that his mission is to find the next Yao Ming, except for baseball. He figures that in a country with more than a billion people the odds favor finding undiscovered raw talent.

Hyped by Indian TV programs, the Million Dollar Arm bus tour covers the rural areas of India, where eager young men jump at the chance to show their talent. Mostly, though, the team has no luck at first locating anyone who can throw the ball at a speed above 50 miles per hours.

Ultimately, JB finds his best prospects in Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma from “Life of Pi”) and Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal from “Slumdog Millionaire”) and then brings them home to Los Angeles, where culture shock is a rude awakening.

At first, the boys are put up in a hotel, but that proves to be disastrous since they are mystified by the vagaries of American life. JB’s ordered life is then upended when he brings them to live in his big house.

Accustomed to dating models and living in his own bubble, JB finds it challenging to get his new talent on the right course. He gets help on that score from sexy, smart medical student Brenda (Lake Bell), a tenant renting out his guest house.

JB also depends heavily on USC baseball coach Tom House (Bill Paxton), a former major league player, to get his green pitchers into shape for a showcase in front of skeptical baseball scouts.

Part of the movie’s core redemptive spirit is JB’s eventual grasp of his need to show some heart for his players. In fairly short order, he spends more time eating pizza with Rinku and Dinesh, and finds Brenda more enchanting than shallow one-night stands.

The fish-out-of-water experience for the Indian players brings a nice mix of comedy and drama. Though the young men will struggle to adapt to the necessary pitching skills, the eventual formulaic ending is a winner.

“Million Dollar Arm,” similar to a walk-off game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth, is a truly enjoyable, satisfying sports story that ranks in the same league of comparable gratifying films like “The Rookie” and “42,” the inspiring story of Jackie Robinson.

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

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Three Lake County teenagers are raising funds in order to attend a national singing competition in Maryland next month.

Elisabeth Chaidez, Jordan Zabek and Joanna Parker have qualified for the Pentecostal Church of God's Youth Talent Expo Nationals, which takes place June 17 to 21 in Lutherville, a suburb of Baltimore.

The trio, representing Freedom Worship & Education Center in Kelseyville, won the 2014 multi-voice category for the Pentecostal Church of God's Northern California-Nevada District.

In years past, various national competitors have received scholarships and been awarded recording contracts as a direct result of their participation in the PCG National Talent Expo event.

Zabek lives in Clearlake and attends Middletown Christian School; Joanna Parker and Elisabeth Chaidez are school attendees at Freedom Christian University in Kelseyville and residents of Middletown.

Their fundraising goal is $3,500.

Donations can be made online at http://www.gofundme.com/Impact-Compatition .

Peter Everwine is a poet whose work I have admired for many years.

Here is a poem about an experience many of us have shared.

Everwine lives in California, but what happens in this poem happens every day in every corner of the world.

After the Funeral

We opened closets and bureau drawers
and packed away, in boxes, dresses and shoes,
the silk underthings still wrapped in tissue.
We sorted through cedar chests. We gathered
and set aside the keepsakes and the good silver
and brought up from the coal cellar
jars of tomato sauce, peppers, jellied fruit.
We dismantled, we took down from the walls,
we bundled and carted off and swept clean.
Goodbye, goodbye, we said, closing
the door behind us, going our separate ways
from the house we had emptied,
and which, in the coming days, we would fill
again and empty and try to fill again.

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. Poem copyright 2013 by Peter Everwine, from Listening Long and Late (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Peter Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

NEIGHBORS (Rated R)

The plot of “Neighbors” is succinctly stated in the tag line of the film’s billboard advertising. Simply put, “Family vs. Frat” sums it up nicely, with generational conflict spawned when a rowdy fraternity house takes up residence in a peaceful neighborhood.

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are young adult professionals Mac and Kelly Radner with a cute newborn baby. Mortgaged to the hilt, they buy a dream house in a leafy suburban community.

The transition to mature adulthood with the attendant responsibilities of creating a nice family life is challenging. Spontaneity in their sex life and desire to party is inhibited by the ever-watchful smiling baby (one of the cutest infants in memory).

When the large house next door goes up for sale, the Radners are hopeful for friendly new residents. Instead, they get the neighbors from hell when the Delta Psi Beta fraternity moves in with the sole mission of designing party central complete with all-night drinking bouts.

The vacuous, party-boy frat president Teddy (Zac Efron), apparently aimless in his scholastic career, has the single-minded goal of putting his class into the annals of frat history with the most epic party ever held.

At first, Mac and Kelly, rightly concerned about the presence of party animals, don’t want to appear to be “uncool” old fogies, so they join a frat party one night and indulge too much in some hallucinogenic activities.

Of course, trying to fit in with the adolescent college types is not really a wise move, and Mac and Kelly quickly realize that, though they are far from being old, they are not going to recapture the wild abandon of their not-so-distant partying days.

As a result, an understanding is reached with Teddy that he’ll tone down the frat’s activities if their parties become too loud and raucous. All that Mac and Kelly need to do is call with a request to “keep it down.”

The inevitable sleepless night of coping with too much loud music from the neighbors soon arrives, and multiple calls to Teddy go unheeded. The only choice for Mac and Kelly is to report the rowdy party to the police for what turns out not to be an anonymous tip.

At this point, Teddy expresses his disappointment that Mac and Kelly went nuclear, and backed up by his wingman Pete (Dave Franco) and the entire fraternity, including a group of humiliated pledges, he decides to launch all-out war on the family next door.

The young couple takes their concerns about the fraternity to the college dean (Lisa Kudrow), who seems worried only about newspaper headlines that would shame the school. Still, they discover that Delta Psi Beta is already on probation and facing possible disbandment.

Some strategic thinking goes into a plot to turn the frat house into an unsustainable financial burden so that the boys would be forced to sell and relocate. Flooding the frat house basement is a good start.

And yet, the frat boys prove to be ingenious by raising money on campus by selling to willing, adoring female students sex toys that have been molded by using the frat members as models. The actual production of such tools is just one of the weirdly funny scenes.

Indeed, if the above is not sufficient warning, filmgoers should be aware that there are crude penis jokes, and not surprisingly, much like a Judd Apatow movie, lewd and salacious humor drives much of the comedic action.

The ongoing escalation of war between the neighbors is unavoidable. Even the frat’s Robert De Niro costume party offers many taunts to the Radners, with Teddy doing an impression of an unhinged Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver” as an awkward method of intimidation.

Director Nicholas Stoller (“Get Him to the Greek” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) has an Apatow-like taste for scandalous idiocy, but also taps into some resourceful ingenuity. The clever use of pilfered air bags from the Radner station wagon is a prime example.   

A frequently shirtless Zac Efron shows off his chiseled torso, but the best comic use of his physique comes near the end during his summer job as an outdoor model for Abercrombie & Fitch, where he’s hilariously upstaged when the flabby Seth Rogen decides to go shirtless as well in an impromptu competition.

“Neighbors” is crude, profane, rude and even scatological in its humor, which is what one would expect in a movie that stirs memories of “Animal House” and “Old School.” Still, there’s a measure of sweet sentimentality that mutes the otherwise dark edges of comedy.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a benefit for the Soper Reese Theatre, several talented musicians will pay tribute to the life of Pete Seeger who died last January at the age of 94.

The “Celebrating Pete Seeger” concert takes place on the theater’s stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 24. All seats are $15.

Seeger, a three-time Grammy winner and political activist, was best known for such iconic American folk songs as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “We Shall Overcome,” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

His hallmark instrument was emblazoned with the words, “this banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” and he always encouraged his audiences to sing along.

Seeger’s life and times will be honored by several well known musicians from the area including Don Coffin on guitar and mandolin.

Coffin plays with the blue grass group, “Uncorked,” and is one of the original members of Kate Wolf’s band, “Wildwood Flower.”

Also playing is Will Siegel, on guitar and banjo. He teaches guitar at Mendocino College and was a member of the “Wildwood Flower” band.

Peter Baird, who will play guitar at the concert, once played with Seeger when Baird was director of the Sacramento Labor Chorus. Baird also interviewed Seeger for his doctoral dissertation on children's musicians. Baird's brother, Steve, who will play bass, also has a degree in music.

Verne Morninglight has been a Pete Seeger fan since childhood, learning to play the 12 string guitar in the Elizabeth Cotton style of picking, as did Seeger. Verne has performed at such historic folk venues as the Hungry Eye in San Francisco.

Special guest for the evening, Mandy Feder, will share her reminiscences of time spent with Seeger, who had been a lifelong family friend.

And then there will be the voices of the audience, so essential to a Seeger concert. The Emandal Chorale, directed by Don Willis, will get things started as they sing from the seats and encourage the rest of the audience to join in.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.soperreesetheatre.com ; at the box office, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, on Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; or at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main St., Lakeport, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information please call 707-263-0577.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” screens at the Soper Reese Theatre as part of its Classic Cinema Series on Tuesday, May 13, with show times at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

This suspenseful film, made in 1963, is set in Bodega Bay and made the tiny coastal California town famous worldwide.

In classic Hitchcock style, the tension builds slowly, beginning with a small, unexplained quirk in bird behavior until eventually the attacks become widespread, violent and life threatening.

The movie marks the screen debut of Tippi Hedren. It also stars Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright.

Entry to the film is by donation.

The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, telephone 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com .