RED DAWN (Rated PG-13)

During the height of the Cold War, at a time when President Ronald Reagan identified the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” director John Milius tapped into the 1980s zeitgeist with the original “Red Dawn.”

The 1984 film became a cult-classic that showcased young actors Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, C. Thomas Howell, and Jennifer Grey, along with a slightly older Patrick Swayze.

The original premise of “Red Dawn” involved the Soviets invading the United States, followed by the resistance movement that arises when a group of heroic teenagers band together to repel the occupying force.

Fast forward to 2012, and the principal foe is now North Korea, launching a full-scale attack on the Pacific Northwest. You’d think that China would be the more likely invaders, but they are probably waiting to see if we’ll repay our national debt first.

The face of the enemy has changed, but the tactics employed by the guerrilla insurgency are pretty much the same. Once again, it’s up to a bunch of kids to be the frontline of freedom fighters.

A few minutes pass after the obligatory introduction of the primary teen characters, and “Red Dawn” kicks into high gear with a most unexpected aerial attack of North Korean paratroopers descending on Spokane, Wash.

A murderous, cruel Captain Cho (Will Yun Lee) moves his troops so quickly through town that barely a handful of teens make a getaway to the woods outside town, while most others are rounded up like concentration camp victims.

Jed (Chris Hemsworth), an Iraq War veteran, and Matt (Josh Peck), the high school quarterback, are brothers whose father, Tom Eckert (Brett Cullen), is a ranking police officer.

The Eckert family has the natural instinct to fight back. As such, Jed, as the result of his military training, becomes the de facto leader of a budding rebel group that includes mostly Matt’s high school pals.

As the quarterback of the high school football team, Matt enlists classmates and friends, including Robert (Josh Hutcherson), the tech geek, and Daryl (Connor Cruise), the mayor’s son.

Other members of the core group include Danny (Edwin Hodge), the star receiver and Matt’s best friend, and Toni (Adrianne Palicki), a pretty girl with a major crush on Jed. Meanwhile, Matt’s cheerleader girlfriend Erica (Isabel Lucas) is incarcerated in an internment camp.

As a battle-tested Marine on leave, Jed knows what it takes to live off the land while improvising effective insurgent attacks upon the unsuspecting North Koreans who may be growing complacent after the ease with which they conquered the Pacific Northwest.

Early on, the North Korean invaders prove themselves to be murderous villains, randomly killing civilians for the slightest infractions and generally terrorizing the population into subservience.

Bonding as a team, the rebel youth take on the moniker of “Wolverines,” in honor of the football squad. That Jed’s younger brother is a hothead results in some complications, considering that he’s fixated on liberating his girlfriend from a heavily guarded prison camp.

Nevertheless, the Wolverines gradually become more efficient in carrying out random acts of violence against the symbols of foreign occupation, going so far as to wipe out command posts, patrol units and fortified areas.

“Red Dawn” becomes the fantasy revenge picture it was intended to be. The idea of North Korea successfully invading America is far-fetched, to say the least, but the audience nonetheless delights in well-orchestrated action sequences that involve plenty of explosions and gunfights.

During the course of the insurgency, the young fighters are joined by a trio of grizzled retired Marines led by the spirited Tanner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), just in time for a major vital assault on the occupier’s main communications center.

“Red Dawn” is solid for its action, which mainly requires the insurgents to take their fight to the streets in a gripping attempt to outwit and overcome the intruders, causing major disruptions with nicely timed explosions and gunfire ambushes.

Notwithstanding the wickedness of the communist enemy, “Red Dawn” seems so implausible that if the lunatic Kim Jong-Il were still alive, even he would probably have a difficult time accepting the premise. But the little creep would be thrilled with the notion.

The bulk of “Red Dawn” is all about the action, thereby becoming the type of contemporary action thriller that is, simply put, satisfying popcorn fare.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

A gangster film that plays more like a Western, “Lawless” captured the brutality of a Prohibition-era battle between moonshiners and corrupt lawmen. Now it’s available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Inspired by the biographical novel “The Wettest County in the World,” the film version of the adventures of the Bondurant Brothers follows a quest for a piece of the American Dream, albeit an illegal one.

The three brothers (Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke) fight to maintain their hold on the bootlegging business that is under attack from urban gangsters.

The youngest brother aspires to become Public Enemy No. 1, reaping the benefits that go along with the trappings of a dangerous criminal.

A mysterious woman named Maggie (Jessica Chastain) enters the picture, working in the family business and becoming the girlfriend to the oldest brother.

Living up (or is it down?) to its name, “Lawless” has plenty of brutal violence, with guns blazing aplenty. Special features include “The True Story of the Wettest County in the World.”

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

The unpleasant reality of today’s world is that the global economy is not so hot. This makes the selling of films problematic when countries like Greece and Italy are floundering in a state of financial distress.

The economic picture isn’t so rosy on the home front, but at least we have the American Film Market pushing all types of independent films on weary buyers from around the globe. It’s a film industry stimulus package.

The annual American Film Market (AFM) allows the global film industry to converge in the sunny seaside city of Santa Monica for eight days of deal-making on films in every stage of development and production.

The lesson of hard economic times is that the public is historically in mood for escapism, and what better way to forget your troubles than to spend a few hours at the cinema or watching the latest DVDs?

That may explain why AFM is boasting an increase of buyers and more buying companies attending, with over 440 movies from more than 30 countries being screened at local venues, including 82 world premieres.

Trends are important to the film industry, not just ones affected by demographics. Yet, the youth market must be served, which explains the popularity of the “Hunger Games” franchise that is just getting under way.

Meanwhile, we can thankfully put to rest the whole romantic vampire/werewolf fantasy nonsense of the “Twilight Saga,” which mercifully ends with “Breaking Dawn Part 2” this month.

OK, I must confess that I never once watched Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan falling in with Robert Pattinson’s vampire Edward Cullen. If I commit to watching five film installments, it will have to be something like James Bond.

AFM seeks to fill the void for the youth market with the usual mix of B-grade horror and zombie films, along with a few teen sex comedies that seem relatively dated and quaint.

The best way to get a flavor of the schlock cinema on offer is to visit the hotel rooms and suites where the independent film companies peddle their wares like sidewalk vendors in New York’s Chinatown.

Of course, the setting is the elegant surroundings of the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, where the occasional glimpse of the majestic Pacific Ocean is a compensating factor.

The traffic in the halls and hotel rooms of the beachfront hotel seemed rather subdued this year, holding almost as much excitement as a Saturday night bingo game.

The most fun to be had is a search for the worst possible films. To that end, my first stop has to be a visit to Troma Pictures, purveyors of classic cinema like “The Toxic Avenger” and “Surf Nazis Must Die.”

Troma apparently has been resting on its laurels. Their only upcoming film is a sequel called “Return to Nuke ‘Em High,” and though it has maniacs, mutants and half-naked girls, it offers no promise of new ground in sleaze.

Just like last year, the zombie film genre remains very much alive (if that’s the way to put it) at AFM. In “A Little Bit Zombie” a mild-mannered office manager, infected by a virus, tries to keep it together so as not to incur the wrath of his bridezilla-to-be.

“101 Zombies” has a typical premise. A small southern town finds itself the center of a zombie apocalypse when tainted local moonshine half its residents into the flesh-eating undead.

The Dutch are getting into the zombie business with “Kill Zombie!,” a tale of four hung-over friends, emerging after one night in jail, to find that Amsterdam has been ravaged by a zombie outbreak.

Even the Chinese, the ones from Taiwan, are promoting what is billed as the “first genre movie combining apocalypse and zombie in Chinese film history” in a cataclysmic bloodbath called “Zombie 108.”

There are plenty of horror films, running the gamut from the “Saw” variety to the more traditional. A company called Nu Image was promoting “Texas Chainsaw 3D” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D.” They looked to be the same, so it was a bit confusing.

Nu Image was also promoting a film in development called “Before I Go to Sleep,” based on a bestseller, about a woman whose memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Produced by Ridley Scott, the film is notable because it will star Nicole Kidman.

The premise of “Falling Down,” which starred Michael Douglas as an unemployed engineer, is taken to the extreme in “Axed.” Here the guy who loses his job goes on a murderous rampage against his ex-boss and his own family.

It’s also fun to come across film titles that remind you of an entirely different film. One such film is “Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman.” The titular character is a ruthless hit-woman, who appears in the advertising dressed in a bikini and toting heavy weapons.

Destruction of the earth is also a big theme. “Independence Daysaster” coincides with the North American continent burning to rubble on the 4th of July. Giant spiders conquer the world in “Archnoquake,” and in “Ghostquake” the spirits of the dead are unleashed by a massive earthquake.

According to the Mayan calendar, our planet comes to an end in late December. “End of the World” brings about Armageddon when mysterious plasma spheres pummel the earth’s surface. Fortunately, this movie is not likely to be released in time to stoke our fears.

On a brighter note, Myriad Pictures is promoting Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley as an ordinary man who reaches his breaking point in the action-thriller “A Common Man.”

AFM is also the place where you can find the forgotten stars of the past.

For instance, Steve Guttenberg stars in a German-produced film called “Fatal Rescue.” My guess is that we’ll never see this thriller stateside.

The American Film Market is a fun place to learn about what type of films appeal to the global market.

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

UKIAH, Calif. – The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department and Ukiah Civic Light Opera will hold auditions on Saturday, Dec. 8, for their upcoming co-production of the classic American musical “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s affectionate paean to Smalltown, USA of a bygone era.

The beloved show features some of the greatest songs in American musical theater history, including “76 Trombones,” “Goodnight my Someone” and “The Wells Fargo Wagon.”

The production’s directors are looking for a large cast of 40-50 singers, dancers and actors of all ages.

The plot follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boy’s band he vows to organize – this despite the fact he doesn’t know a trombone from a treble clef.

His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain’s fall.

Theatre professor Reid Edelman will be directing the production with the help of choreographer Maria A. Monti, vocal director Marilyn Simpson and music director Les Pfutzenreuter. The show will run April 12-21 in the Mendocino College Center Theatre.

According to Edelman, “Producing a major musical, such as ‘The Music Man,’ is always exciting. It is a joyful opportunity to collaborate with our wonderful dance and music faculty and to involve a large cast of enthusiastic performers. This is one of the greatest musicals ever written, one that celebrates life, love and the transformative power of music.”

The cast of the play includes many roles for adults and children. Edelman encourages anybody with an interest in being a part of this delightful show to come to the auditions on Dec. 8.

All roles will be cast through open auditions; no roles have been precast. Interested performers should arrive at the Mendocino College Center Theatre at 10 a.m. and plan on staying until 3 p.m. if needed. Scripts are on reserve at the Mendocino College Library for those wishing to read the play in advance.

At the audition, performers will be asked to sing a song and to learn a short dance routine. Ideally, the song should be from a Broadway musical and should be 1 minute or shorter. An accompanist will be provided, so performers should bring sheet music for their song if possible.

Singers who do not have a prepared song will be taught one of the songs from the show at the audition. The song will also serve as the initial acting audition, so Edelman recommends choosing “a character driven song with some dramatic interest.”

For the dance audition, performers should wear comfortable movement clothes. Some performers may be invited to attend additional call-back auditions on Sunday, Dec. 9.

Available male roles include:

• Professor Harold Hill: 30-40 years old, a fast-talking con man who is redeemed by play’s end through his love for Marian the librarian.
• Charlie Cowell: 30-45 years old, a traveling anvil salesman intent on exposing Hill as a fraud.
• Mayor George Shinn: The skeptical mayor of River City.
• Marcellus Washburn: Hill’s old friend and fellow con man.
• Winthrop Paroo: age 10, younger brother of Marian, speaks with a lisp and painfully shy and withdrawn since the death of his father. Professor Hill and his new boy’s band bring Winthrop back to life.
• Tommy Djilas: 17 years old, a town trouble maker who is transformed by Professor Hill and by his love for the Mayor’s eldest daughter Zaneeta.
• The school board quartet: four members of the River City school board (Jacey Squires, Ewart Dunlap, Olin Britt and Oliver Hix) can’t stand each other, but became inseparable when Hill joins them into a barbershop quartet!
• Plus all the boys in Professor Hills band (ages 7-12), a variety of teen agers, at least 5 salesmen (ages 20-60) and other members of the chorus.

Available female roles include:

• Marian Paroo: 26 years old. An “old maid.” She is a music teacher and town librarian. She longs for true love, but rejects Hill as a faker, but sees him differently when she witnesses his effect upon her young brother Winthrop.
• Amaryllis: age 8, “in love” with Winthrop. She is terrified of becoming an “old maid” like Marian.
• Mrs. Paroo: age 45-50, Marian’s mother. An Irish matriarch who would really like to see Marian lighten up and get married.
• Zaneeta Shinn: 17 years old. The mayor’s eldest daughter. In love with Tommy Djilas.
• Pick a little talk a little ladies: counterpart to the school board quartet, a singing gaggle of gossipy women who become inspired when Hill convinces them they can dance!
• Plus a group of teen-age girls in River City’s Fourth of July pageant, possibly some female members (ages 7-12) of Professor Hills “boy’s” band, and other members of the chorus.

Rehearsals will begin Jan. 8, 2013, and continue until the show opens on April 12. Performances will run through April 21, and will include a special student matinee on Tuesday, April 16, at 10:30 a.m.

Several college courses are associated with the production, and all performers will receive college credit. In addition to the performance opportunities, numerous backstage production positions are available. Crews are needed to build scenery, props and costumes, as well as to work as stage managers, light and sound operators and run-crew.

For those with an interest in learning to build costumes, there will be a costume construction course taught by Kathy Dingman Katz. This class will meet Tuesday evenings from 5:30 p.m. to 9:20 p.m.

Alternate audition times can also be arranged, so actors who cannot attend the scheduled auditions on Dec. 8 should contact Reid Edelman ASAP.

For additional information about auditions, or to join the backstage production team, call 707-468-3172 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In June, Poets and Writers, a national organization that supports working writers, renewed their grant to the Lake County Arts Council and Mary McMillan.  

This grant supports the free public writing workshop offered monthly in Lakeport, where writers meet at the Main Street Art Gallery, 325 N. Main St., at 6:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month.  

The Lake County Arts Council sponsors the workshop, and former Lake County Poet Laureate Mary McMillan facilitates it.

Residents from all over Lake County come to the Writers Circle to share memoirs, fiction, essays or poems they have written – or just to listen and get inspired.  

More seasoned writers and writers just beginning join together to offer feedback, build their skills and find new ideas.  

Aged 19 to 90, some people come only one or two times, and others show up every month.

Poets and Writers provides this grant through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.

For more information contact Mary McMillan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Our sense of smell is the one sense most likely to transport us through time. A sniff of fried fish on a breeze and I can wind up in my grandmother’s kitchen 60 years ago, getting ready to eat bluegills.

Michael Walsh, a Minnesotan, builds this fine poem about his parents around the odor of cattle that they carry with them, even into this moment.

Barn Clothes

Same size, my parents stained and tore
alike in the barn, their brown hair

ripe as cow after twelve hours of gutters.
At supper they spoke in jokey moos.

Sure, showers could dampen that reek
down to a whiff under fingernails, behind ears,

but no wash could wring the animal from their clothes:
one pair, two pair, husband, wife, reversible.

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 ©2010 University of Arkansas Press, from The Dirt Riddles by Michael Walsh, University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Michael Walsh and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 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.

LINCOLN (Rated PG-13)

Steven Spielberg delivers a brilliant masterpiece on American history with “Lincoln,” from a screenplay based in part on the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Fear not, history is far from a ponderous, tedious exercise with this lively exploration of the full measure of this great president, a man whose passion and humanity is on full display.

The rich human drama that played out near the end of the Civil War is all the more impressive because Daniel Day-Lewis skillfully makes Abraham Lincoln the tall, elegant and imposing figure of authority that history informs us was the case.

To its everlasting credit, “Lincoln” dwells on the final four months of the 16th president’s life and presidency, when a shattered nation teeters on the very real possibility of the Union forever dissolved.

History, but not the movie, enlightens us on Lincoln’s use of draconian emergency powers during the Civil War, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and outright media censorship.
 
There’s very little battlefield action here, and what there is merely sets the tone for certain political necessities that follow from ending the war so that the United States is once again whole.

“Lincoln” the movie focuses on the extraordinary steps that the president took in doubling down on the war effort, not merely to end the Civil War but to push for the enactment of the 13th Amendment that would permanently abolish slavery.

Most of the action takes place during the month of January 1865, when the reelected Lincoln makes an all-out effort to secure passage of the amendment in the ill-tempered House of Representatives.

The president relies on the help of Republican Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), powerful chairman of the House Way and Means Committee and a fiery and often irascible advocate of the abolitionist movement.

Lincoln’s secretary of state William H. Seward (David Strathairn), a former political adversary during the 1860 election, was an indispensable ally in the fight to save the Union, and as such, he helped, albeit reluctantly, organize a lobbying effort to spread patronage in an ingenious vote-buying scheme.

Some comic relief comes from a trio of lobbyists (John Hawkes, James Spader and Tim Blake Nelson) who run around Capitol Hill offering lucrative government jobs to the very Democratic congressmen who were not otherwise inclined to abolish slavery by any measure.

Meanwhile, plenty of fireworks take place not just in the halls of Congress but inside the White House as well. Sally Field fully realizes the complicated role of Mary Todd Lincoln, alternately supportive of her husband or so emotionally overwrought as to be a thorn in his side.

We often catch the Great Emancipator in a pensive mood as he wanders late at night through the White House tormented by the pressing burdens of his office. On top of that, he’s a vulnerable husband and father who must cope, respectively, with his demanding wife and the ongoing grief of son Willie’s death.

More family drama intrudes with Mrs. Lincoln’s insistence that oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) not join the war effort. Even against the president’s wishes, Robert wanted to join the Union Army, not seeking any favor because of his station in life.

Without the knowledge of Secretary Seward, Lincoln sends a delegation to Richmond in an attempt to negotiate the surrender of the Confederacy. Meanwhile, he has to stall this peace effort just long enough to pass the 13th Amendment.

The political intrigue in the nation’s capitol is fascinating. Lincoln realizes that unless the abolition of slavery is enshrined in the Constitution, the reconstituted Union is unlikely to pass the amendment when Democratic representatives from the South join the Congress.

Politics in its rawest form is fully on display in the contentious debate over the abolition of slavery. The sharp-tongued Thaddeus Stevens is a wonder to behold as he skewers the hypocrisy of his Democratic adversaries.

The most theatrical aspects of “Lincoln” occur as the result of debates in Congress about the 13th Amendment. One great showdown involves Congressman Stevens’ heated and acerbic tongue-lashing of pro-slavery Democrat Fernando Wood (Lee Pace).

The portrait of Abraham Lincoln that emerges is a man of raw paradoxes, one who is funny and solemn, as well as shrewd and vulnerable. The president dotes on his youngest son and is a playful storyteller, but he’s also a fierce power broker and astute commander.

Thrust into the high stakes battle to save the American Union, Lincoln comes into view as a master strategist brokering deals with members of the opposition as well as recalcitrant members of his own party.

It’s never a good idea to come away from a movie with the notion that the historical figures have been depicted with accuracy and fairness. “Lincoln,” though, seems like an honest attempt to capture the essence of one of the most compelling figures in the history of mankind.

Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is ambitious filmmaking at its best. This brilliant film shows that the president was not just a multifaceted statesman and military leader, but also a dedicated and introspective family man coping with an enormous number of challenges.

Daniel Day-Lewis is simply superb as Abraham Lincoln. If he’s not nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor, I would question the judgment of the voters.

TELEVISION BOOK UPDATE

A period drama of the early 20th Century, “Downton Abbey” is a smash hit on PBS’ “Masterpiece Classic,” soon to return in January for its third season.

Meanwhile, to satisfy the legions of fans, St. Martin’s Press has released the beautifully illustrated “The Chronicles of Downton Abbey,” highlighting the history of the popular show.

When Season 3 of the award-winning TV series opens, it is 1920 and the occupants of the Great House are waking up to a world forever changed by World War I.

New challenges to the established order and new guests abound, with more intrigue, rivalry and romance than ever. In this new era, different family members arrive, include Shirley MacLaine.

“The Chronicles of Downton Abbey” ties in nicely with the upcoming third season. The book is lavishly designed and gloriously illustrated and full of intimate detail.

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