MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED (Rated PG)

Recently, I mused that sequels may sound good on paper but don’t work out as nicely as intended. “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” may well scramble this dynamic.

Of course, it’s been seven years since the original and one presidential election cycle since the first sequel. As a result, there may be a void in my memory bank.

Still, “Madagascar 3” is so lively, boisterous, funny and colorful that the realization of a second sequel is a worthy endeavor even though multiple directors and writers are attached to this project.

The quartet of Central Park Zoo animals have always been the central focus of the “Madagascar” franchise. Their presence is not only elemental but vitally agreeable.

Ben Stiller voices the handsome, pensive lion Alex, who frets uneasily about his role as king of the jungle. Nervous giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer) appears to be less of a hypochondriac this time around.

The garrulous zebra Marty, voiced by Chris Rock, delivers his thoughts at break-neck pace. Meanwhile, hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett-Smith) remains blissfully cheerful.

As the film opens, this quartet misses their old New York home so much that they have recreated the island of Manhattan out of mud and clay in the middle of the African desert.

They are stranded in the misbegotten corner of the African continent because the penguins and monkeys took off for Monte Carlo where they are attempting to beat the casino at the gambling tables.

Making their way across the Mediterranean, the quartet launches an elaborate plan to foil the schemes of the traitorous tuxedoed birds and their chimpanzee henchmen.

Orchestrated commotion at the casino is a funny chaotic scene, but it brings the unwanted attention of a fierce animal control officer named Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand).

Captain DuBois’ idea of dealing with runaway wildlife is to bag Alex as a trophy to be put on her office wall. She won’t be honored for her work by PETA anytime soon.

With the skills of a bloodhound and the instincts of a predator, the deranged DuBois makes a great villain. She is so relentless that she will leap tall buildings on a Vespa in hot pursuit.

Even international borders won’t stop the Captain’s manhunt (or should that be animal hunt?). The quartet, now reunited with the ones who deserted them, hook up with a shabby circus act for a nifty getaway.

The circus train is heading to Rome, but the prime attraction is the ill-tempered Siberian tiger Vitaly (Bryan Cranston), who no longer wants to perform after an unfortunate accident.

Vitaly is hostile to the circus interlopers, but the dim-witted sea lion Stefano (Martin Short) and the shapely trapeze artist jaguar Gia (Jessica Chastain) are more accepting.

The plot, so to speak, involves the animals putting on a really good circus show to get the attention of an American promoter who will take them to New York.

Of course, Alex and his friends have an ulterior motive; they want to return to the Central Park Zoo by any means necessary.

Meanwhile, complications arise as the inevitable romance blossoms between the shy, introverted Alex and the slinky, sexy Gia, who purrs like an Italian starlet in front of adoring paparazzi.

A weirder romance, played for great laughs, involves the wacky, ostentatious lemur King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) being madly infatuated with a huge tricycle-riding bear that never utters a sound.

The animation, rich in colors and texture, is so excellent that the use of 3D only enhances the action at some critical moments, including a dazzling circus act complete with fireworks.

In all respects, “Madagascar 3” is packed with action, spectacle, energy and humor that should prove appealing to both children and adults. Besides, the animals are really endearing.

How can you resist?

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

Not everyone subscribes to the Showtime cable network, so now we all have the opportunity to enjoy a terrifically funny series called “Episodes.”

The DVD release of “Episodes: The First Season” offers the perfect blend of British and American humor when a British husband-and-wife team arrive in Hollywood to produce an Americanized version of their hit British TV show.

Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly Lincoln (Tamsin Greig) must keep it together in order to navigate the shark-infested waters of Hollywood and survive with their careers, marriage and sanity intact.

This won’t be an easy task. Matt LeBlanc, playing himself, stars as the overbearing lead of the American TV series produced by the Lincolns.

Though it consists of only seven hysterical half-hour episodes, “Episodes: The First Season” is not something to be missed.

The second season premieres on July 1 on Showtime. It’s either time to subscribe or just patiently wait until the next inevitable DVD release.

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

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – The Lake Community Pride Foundation is presenting another in a series of concerts featuring local performers.

On Saturday, June 9, the foundation will present “An Evening with … Barrish and Sommers” from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Doors open at 6 p.m.

Tickets are $10 with all proceeds going to promote youth performing arts.

Shows are at the Lower Lake High School Little Theater on the campus at 9430 Lake St. in Lower Lake.

For tickets and information call 707-331-8445 or go to www.aneveningwith.org .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Theater Co. is holding auditions for “The Cemetery Club” by Ivan Menchell, a light-hearted comedy about the coping skills of three women friends after their husbands have gone.  

They have been friends for years, and meet once a month for tea and then go to the cemetery to clean up their husbands graves. What happens in between makes for lots of fun and laughter.

The auditions are as follows:

• Saturday, June 16, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Weaver Auditorium in the Lower Lake Historical Schoolhouse Museum, Lower Lake.
• Tuesday, June 19, and Thursday, June 21, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Lakeport Senior Activity Center, 527 Konocti Ave. in Lakeport.

There are parts for four women and one man. The characters are in their late 50s to early 60s. The play will be performed at the Lakeport Senior Activity Center the last two weekends in September and is a benefit for the “Meals-on-Wheels” program.  

For more information contact director Marg Brooks at 707-263-5199 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or producer Cindy Strong at 707-349-5402 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Bill Holm was a Minnesota poet and essayist and a dear friend to many of us who live and write in flyover country. He is much missed. Mark Vinz has written this fine tribute to Bill.

Absences

        “Even when you are not in a room,
        you are in it, your voice everywhere.”  –Bill Holm

The message that’s recorded on the phone
is unmistakably bad news, and then
another call tells us it’s one we love—
a sudden death while traveling, somehow
appropriate for one who always
seized life too completely to stand still.

A door slams shut, a wall has dropped away,
and once again I’m driven back to
empty pages, insufficient words,
to rooms he always filled on entering—
rooms lined with books, piano music, and
good friends who raise their glasses one last time.

And now, as all the lights are blinking off
in every prairie town we’ve ever loved,
when all the toasts are made and songs are sung,
when leaving is the only certainty,
a single voice keeps echoing, along
each dark, untraveled hallway of the heart.

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 by Mark Vinz, whose most recent book of poems is The Work Is All, Red Dragonfly Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from the South Dakota Review, Vol. 48, no. 3, Fall 2010, by permission of Mark Vinz 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.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (Rated PG-13)

The legend of Snow White has been revived this year in a TV series and two movies, the previous one in late March.

What accounts for this phenomenon is a mystery that defies explanation, at least from my vantage point.

As far as movies go, it is clear that Snow White has slipped from the grasp of the Walt Disney kingdom.

Earlier this year, “Mirror Mirror” proved an amiable, comedic take on the timeless fairytale.

“Snow White and the Huntsman,” elevating a warrior to co-equal status, is a darker, foreboding tale, where the cruel Queen is the ultimate incarnation of villainy. Again, no Disney magic found here.

But first, a prologue sets the stage. Snow White is a young child when her widower father, King Magnus, defeats an army and rescues the beautiful Ravenna (Charlize Theron) from supposed captivity.

Sad and lonely, the King is smitten by Ravenna’s beauty and quickly decides to marry her. On their wedding night, Queen Ravenna reveals her true colors, and it isn’t pretty.

On the marital bed, the King, for reasons to be left unexplained, demonstrates a lack of staying power. Thus, the evil Queen Ravenna promptly seizes the throne, tossing Snow White into a cold, damp cell in the palace tower.

To keep her status as the fairest beauty in the land, the Queen talks to her magic mirror, takes milk baths and in vampire-like fashion sucks the life out of every fair maiden she can find.

The Queen’s loyal sidekick is her wretched brother Finn (Sam Spruell), whose unfortunate blond page-boy haircut and pale skin apparently render him a pliable henchman serving her every twisted whim.

Foretelling the doom that awaits, the Queen’s fabled mirror, a shape-shifting device, warns that the kingdom is running out of fresh virgins and the sacrifice of Snow White is the Evil Queen’s only salvation.

Not surprisingly, Snow White breaks free of the castle and runs to the Dark Forest, a really grim place that is nicely realized by blackened trees, slithering snakes, and a monstrous troll. It’s dark enough that it should give nightmares to very young kids.

The Queen possesses numerous supernatural powers, including the ability to turn black ravens into an army of warriors, but she’s not keen on pursuing her stepchild into the forbidding forest.

Thus, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), a fierce warrior reduced to a bitter drunkard as the result of the death of his wife, is enlisted to hunt down Snow White by a false promise given by the Queen.

Knowing the tricky terrain of the Dark Forest, the Huntsman takes little time in finding the princess and then precious little more time to be entranced by Snow’s plucky resolve.

Eluding the Queen’s brother and his gang, Snow White and the Huntsman end up seeking refuge in a camp where the only residents are women who have disfigured themselves as protection against the Queen’s ravenous appetite.

On the run once again, they end up being captured by the proverbial dwarves, this time all of them played by recognizable actors like Ian McShane, Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins and Ray Winstone.

A nice cinematic trick has miniaturized full-grown men into little people, the effect of which is so jarring that one ponders more how this was accomplished than to pay attention to the unfolding story.

As it should be, the dwarves add some much-needed humor into this bleak fairytale, but in the end they don’t provide as much comic relief as the story requires.

The dwarves serve a meaningful purpose of leading the Huntsman and Snow White into a magical fairyland, where cute animals and sprites frolic in a lush green forest.

After our duo hooks up with Prince William (Sam Claflin), the action then shifts abruptly to a medieval battle scene with a full-scale assault on the Evil Queen’s island fortress.

Snow White, dressed in a suit of armor like Joan of Arc, suddenly abandons her blank-eyed look and takes on the steely determination of a fierce warrior similar to that of her savior the Huntsman.

Of course, as to be expected, there is a showdown between Snow White and Queen Ravenna, where at first the princess is tossed around like a rag doll.

“Snow White and the Huntsman,” with elements of fantasy, romance, adventure and intense action, seems calculated to appeal to a wide-range of audiences. Indeed, it succeeds on several levels.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

Long before he played the weary private eye James Rockford, James Garner was the wisecracking ladies’ man Bret Maverick in a Western TV series.

Now for the first time, “Maverick: The Complete First Season” is being released on DVD, containing all 27 episodes of Season One that average 50 minutes a clip.

Bret Maverick and his more serious brother Bart (Jack Kelly) are two handsome bachelors on the loose in the Wild West, traveling with a sense of humor and a knack for getting into trouble.

The two have more success at the game of poker than the game of love, yet their fondness for gambling invariably leads to some sort of frontier hassle.

“Maverick” is a classic and sometimes humorous Western series that was nominated for four Emmys and won one during its successful 5-year broadcast run.

For the right person, “Maverick: The Complete First Season” may prove a fitting Father’s Day gift.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Arts Council will host its next First Friday Fling on June 1.

The fling will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Main Street Gallery, 325 N. Main St., Lakeport.

The First Friday Fling will introduce the work of Kevin Village Stone, Cathy Farris, Bonnie Tringali, Terry Drunil. Diana Leibe and Richard Seisser.

Currently showing at the gallery are Kathy Dutra, Clementine Hall, Ron Snider, Bill Rose, Linda Richmond, Evelyn and Dennis Robison, Linda Fielding, Linda Riedel, Toni Hyden, Leonora McKenzie and John Winslow.

Pianist Andy Rossoff will provide music and Chacewater Winery will pour its vintages. Finger food also will be offered.

For more information contact the Lake County Arts Council, 707-263-6658.