R.I.P.D. (Rated PG-13)

You learn something new when you least expect it. But then I am only familiar with standard comic book fare such as “Spider-Man” and “The Green Hornet,” just to name two that readily come to mind for no apparent reason.

I never would have guessed that “R.I.P.D.” is based on a popular Dark Horse comic book. Offhand, I can’t think of a Dark Horse comic right at this moment, which may be a problem if this film is some sort of prophecy.

You see, for those unaware like me, “R.I.P.D.” stands for the Rest in Peace Department, a supernatural police force tasked with arresting lost souls who are hiding out on Earth, escaping Judgment Day.

Jeff Bridges, sporting a bushy goatee and mangling words with his Old West drawl, is just what you would expect for playing the part of an ill-tempered veteran lawman who still resents being eaten by coyotes after his untimely death in the 19th century.

Bridges’ curmudgeonly veteran sheriff Roy Pulsifer, as to be expected of a lawman accustomed to the ways of the Wild West, doesn’t have much use for proper police procedures or even having a partner.

Ryan Reynolds’ Nick Walker is a rising star in the Boston Police Department, who’s conflicted about the insistence of his partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon) to stash some gold taken in a drug raid.

Operating outside the boundaries of police procedure, Bobby’s reckless and lawless behavior results in the death of his partner Nick in the line of duty during a raid on a criminal hideout.

Meanwhile, Nick leaves behind pretty young wife Julia (Stephanie Szostak), who understandably has questions about her husband’s death while Bobby shows a bit too much attention.

After being gunned down during the violent raid, Nick ends up in a state of purgatory, which turns out to be the Rest in Peace Department, where Mary-Louise Parker’s Proctor is the insufferable police chief.

Unwilling partners, Nick and Roy are teamed up to return to Earth in search of the dead living amongst the general population, with the aim of bringing them back to the other side to face judgment.

These walking dead, not to be confused with zombies, are called “Dead-Os,” and yet, they often morph into huge, fat slobs when confronted by the R.I.P.D.

You could be excused for thinking that “R.I.P.D.” could be confused with “Men in Black,” though the supernatural lawmen are not natty dressers with cool shades. Besides, they aren’t fighting creepy aliens.

Not surprisingly, Nick and Roy don’t much care for each other. Chalk up their differences to a clash of culture and personalities. Roy’s a lone gunslinger with a weary “been there, done that” attitude.

For his part, Nick is too obsessed with trying to communicate with his widow, so that she will know that he wasn’t a corrupt cop looking for an easy big score.

Though he returns to Boston to fight crime, Nick is unable to be recognized. Members of the R.I.P.D. take on a new identity, and in his case, James Hong becomes Nick’s unexpected elderly avatar.

Contrary to expectations and type, Roy’s avatar is a very sexy buxom blonde bombshell, supermodel Marisa Miller, a lingerie model for Victoria’s Secret and cover girl for the swimsuit issue of “Sports Illustrated.”

The concept for “R.I.P.D.” seemed very promising, exploring the rapport between two wholly disparate guys – a newly dead modern-day police officer and his gunslinger counterpart from the Old West.

It also seemed promising that their earthbound avatars were a hot blonde and a middle-aged Asian dude, a combination that appeared hopeful to generate plenty of laughs.

As to the first part, Nick and Roy generate plenty of friction but not enough heat to spark much interest beyond the usual bravado of two macho guys trying to prove their tough guy credentials.

The comedy aspect of their avatars is almost completely wasted. Their appearances are limited to a few scenes, and one can’t help thinking of the comic potential offered by the odd pairing of James Hong and Marisa Miller as crime fighters.

Unfortunately, Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds are also wasted, though the latter has about as much charisma as a plastic bottle while Bridges’ oddball quirks come across as forced and ultimately somewhat irritating.

“R.I.P.D.” ends up being a rather listless, bland exercise despite the formulaic shoot-‘em up theatrics of full scale war waged on the walking dead.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

You may be able to shake off the doldrums engendered by the lethargic effort of “R.I.P.D.” by an indulgence in some Asian gangster film fun in a new DVD release.

Appropriately titled, “The Gangster” is based on a notorious time in Bangkok history where gangsters and the mafia ruled the streets.

From the producers of “Ong Bak 2” and “Dynamite Warrior,” among other releases, “The Gangster” is inspired by the infamous Thai gangster era, when gangsters were heralded as celebrities and heroes.

The film centers on two young men who return to a life of crime after being released from prison. Dealing with younger hoodlums who are drawn to easy money, the film tells the story of two generations of crooks struggling to adapt in a changing environment.

The DVD release of “The Gangster” offers special features including a making of the film and behind the scenes documentary.

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

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to have been new parents will recognize the way in which everything seems to relate to a baby, who has by her arrival suddenly made the world surround her. D. Nurkse lives in Brooklyn.

First Night

We brought that newborn home from Maimonides
and showed her nine blue glittering streets.
Would she like the semis with hoods of snow?
The precinct? Bohack’s? A lit diner?
Her eyes were huge and her gaze tilted
like milk in a pan, toward shadow.
Would she like the tenement, three dim flights,
her crib that smelled of Lemon Pledge?
We slept beside her in our long coats,
rigid with fatigue in the unmade bed.
Her breath woke us with its slight catch.
Would she approve of gray winter dawn?
We showed her daylight in our cupped hands.
Then the high clocks began booming
in this city and the next, we counted for her,
but just the strokes, not the laggards
or the tinny echoes, and we taught her
how to wait, how to watch, how to be held,
in that icy room, until our own alarm chimed.

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 2012 by D. Nurkse from his most recent book of poems, A Night in Brooklyn, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of D. Nurkse and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2013 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.

PACIFIC RIM (Rated PG-13)

Directing a sci-fi action adventure where giant robots clash with monstrous creatures from the center of the earth is a natural wish fulfillment for Guillermo del Toro.

A self-described “fanboy,” del Toro is within his element for directing “Pacific Rim,” which seems pitched to the sensibilities of Japanese cinema that celebrated such monsters as Godzilla and Mothra.

With the annual Comic-Con geek fest taking place in San Diego, the Mexican-born filmmaker could arrive at the event as a conquering hero. Maybe he did in the past, and I am just not aware of it.

Set in the near future, “Pacific Rim” finds that the human race is at a critical crossroads, following apocalyptic attacks on coastal cities around the world, including San Francisco, Manila and Hong Kong.

Creatures emerging from the depths of the sea look like a mixture of dinosaurs, sea serpents, and horribly deformed alien creatures. These legions of monstrous creatures are known as Kaiju, the Japanese word for giant beast.

The monsters destroy bridges and tall buildings as if they were rambunctious kids knocking over building blocks or Legos. Goodbye, Golden Gate Bridge. Too bad they didn’t attack London because I would love to see a monster tangle with the London Eye.

To combat the Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers (German for “hunters”), controlled by two pilots whose minds are synched via a neural bridge, called “The Drift.”

Unfortunately for mankind, the sea monsters keep mutating into every more powerful creatures, bent on nothing short of complete annihilation of the planet.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending humanity have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi).

Hunnam’s Raleigh Beckett was a Jaeger pilot in the initial Kaiju wars when co-piloted a giant robot with his older brother on a mission that went badly.

After the death of his sibling, Raleigh had dropped out of the monster bounty hunting, doing odd jobs along the Alaska coast while others tried to figure out ways to fortify the coastal areas from the monster invasion.

As the world hangs in the balance, Raleigh is dredged out of retirement by his former commander, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba, a suitably no-nonsense tough guy), for a desperate play showdown with the Kaiju.

The problem, of course, is that it takes two to pilot the 25-story tall robots, and a pilot’s partner has to be someone with whom sharing your brain requires the utmost bond of trust and confidence.

Full of bravado and swagger, Raleigh may be willing to put his life on the line despite any risks, but he’ll only do so on his own terms.

Meanwhile, Kikuchi’s Mako Mori is a beautiful Japanese martial-arts expert who’s a candidate for a robot pilot position, though she must first prove herself capable of enduring the intense training.

Known only to commander Pentecost, Mako’s past includes a dark secret about a childhood encounter with the Kaiju that still brings nightmares that must be purged from her memory. Interestingly, a red slipper is a symbol of the mental torment.

Not surprisingly, there is a severe competitive streak in the international cast of robot pilots, and after Raleigh and Mako tangle in a martial arts contest, they become partners in the robot called Gipsy Danger.

Del Toro has an affinity for Ron Perlman, having used him in his “Hellboy” films. Fittingly, Perlman’s Hannibal Chau is a sleazy black market operator in Hong Kong, selling the salvageable body parts of dead Kaiju.

More comic relief comes from a pair of wacky scientists, Charlie Day’s high-pitched voiced Dr. Newton Geiszler thinks he create a neural bridge with a Kaiju, while his partner (Burn Gorman) is just plain eccentric.

The success of the Jaeger program requires Raleigh and Mako to become a well-connected team. For his part, Raleigh is a loner who grapples with trust issues, and so it is no easy task.

Fans of this genre are anxious to move on from the obvious plot contrivances and get to the essence of what is expected from an action film with roots in the anarchic Godzilla genre.

“Pacific Rim” does not disappoint those who want to enjoy the spectacular clash of the titans, as robots and monsters bang away at each other with ferocious intensity.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Local artist Diana Liebe will demonstrate how to create and use a silk screen in an August class at the Lake County Arts Council's Main Street Gallery.

The class will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at the gallery, 325 N. Main St.

Demystify this wonderful art form and learn how to incorporate silk screen images into your art.

The cost is $20 and includes a T-shirt.

To sign up, contact Liebe at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-245-7512.

Here’s an observant and thoughtful poem by Lisel Mueller about the way we’ve assigned human characteristics to the inanimate things about us. Mueller lives in Illinois and is one of our most distinguished poets.

Things

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

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. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from <em>Alive Together</em> by Lisel Mueller. Copyright 1996 by Lisel Mueller. Introduction copyright 2013 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. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

THE LONE RANGER (Rated PG-13)

Sometimes you put your money on the wrong horse. It has happened to me, on more than one occasion, at the Santa Anita race track. It can also happen in making other choices in life.

That occurred most recently in picking to review “The Lone Ranger” instead of “Despicable Me 2.” A revisionist Western tale, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski, seemed like a sure bet.

The best thing about “The Lone Ranger,” produced at a cost to rival the GDP of a Third World country, is in fact the Lone Ranger’s beautiful white horse, Silver, an equine hero and great scene-stealer.

Possessing a distinct personality, Silver holds a beguiling combination of mystery, humor, majesty, eccentricity and heroism. This is a horse that suddenly appears in treetops and on the roof of a burning barn.

Now we don’t want to slight the human actors in “The Lone Ranger,” especially since the filmmakers put a lot on the line by casting Johnny Depp as the Native American warrior Tonto.

It is also apparent that the Bruckheimer-Verbinski team, which produced the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, put a lot of stock in getting mileage out of Depp’s essential quirkiness.

With heavy face paint and a dead crow sitting on his head, Depp’s Tonto, a proud Comanche with a quiet sense of humor, often looks and sounds like he’s channeling the spirit of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Armie Hammer’s upright, newly-minted federal prosecutor John Reid, soon to become the Lone Ranger, is returning from the east by train to Colby, Texas to start his legal career.

Meeting him in Texas is his older brother Dan (James Badge Dale), a hardened Texas Ranger whose rough frontier nature is a striking contrast to that of his refined and highly educated younger sibling.

At first, John Reid holds the naïve view that playing by the book will trump the extremely violent nature of the Wild West. His worldview is put to the test by a vicious outlaw in custody on the train.

Soon to be the arch enemy of the Lone Ranger, the fiendish Butch Cavendish (a horribly disfigured William Fichtner) is freed by Butch’s gang in a daring railway hijacking.

As a result, Reid finds himself chained to another prisoner onboard, which turns out to be Tonto, taken prisoner for a transgression that already I do not recall.

Setting up the inevitable pairing of Tonto and Reid as crime fighters takes considerable time. It happens most dramatically when Tonto comes to the rescue of Reid after a brutal ambush by Cavendish’s gang.

Once in Texas, Reid teams up with his brother and other lawmen to hunt down Cavendish, but unfortunately they are all gunned down in a desolate canyon.

Tonto stumbles upon the massacre scene and proceeds to bury everyone, including a presumed dead John Reid, who rises from his makeshift grave just in the nick of time.

At this point, Reid dons the famous black eye mask and wide-brimmed white hat, transforming himself into the fabled Lone Ranger, seeker of justice on the dusty plains.

Motivated as much by desire to avenge his brother’s cold-blooded murder, the Lone Ranger also has an odd longing for his brother’s widow (Ruth Wilson), who had once been his girlfriend before he moved east for law school.

While Butch Cavendish is the ultimate badass outlaw and the obvious target for a manhunt by the Lone Ranger and Tonto, other dubious characters populate the landscape.

Helena Bonham Carter has an impressive turn as the peg-legged Southern madam running a house of ill-repute that follows the railroad as it is being built. She’s flamboyant and has a shotgun concealed in her fake leg.

A superb actor, Tom Wilkinson appears as railroad tycoon Latham Cole, hell-bent on his vision of finishing the Transcontinental Railroad in great haste.

Whenever Wilkinson is in a film, he’s almost invariably a person of dubious moral character, if not an outright villain. For “The Lone Ranger,” his railroad builder is kind of what you would expect.

“The Lone Ranger” is a distended exercise in long, drawn-out action, though the climax on a runaway train offers the dramatic heroics that are most worthy of the Lone Ranger’s mythological history.

A lot of money was spent to give “The Lone Ranger” a spectacular look in its setting in Monument Valley and other locations that recall the cinematic brilliance of John Ford Westerns.

My guess is that “The Lone Ranger,” which is oddly uneven and not very satisfying in the end, won’t have the success necessary to launch a new franchise.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

In perfect timing for this week’s movie review, another story of the Old West is being released on DVD, the television series “How the West Was Won.”

Based on the 1962 film of the same name, this TV show was a rousing action saga and moving family chronicle about the post-Civil War era (the same time period for “The Lone Ranger”).

The TV show starred “Gunsmoke” legend James Arness as a mountain man accustomed to the harsh realities of frontier life, while his widowed sister-in-law, Kate (Eva Marie Saint), struggled to maintain a home for the family.

Kate’s eldest son, Luke (Bruce Boxleitner), is pursued by the law for deserting the Union Army.

“How the West Was Won,” a beloved TV series of the American West, plays out during a hard-hitting period when laws were frequently broken and progress was charted by individual suffering and survival.

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