‘CRY MACHO’ RATED PG-13

At the age of 91, Clint Eastwood is not just an institution but an actor and director, performing double duty in his latest film “Cry Macho,” with an apparent desire to outlast all of his contemporaries.

We should not begrudge Eastwood’s wish to keep working; instead, his work ethic is something to be admired. While he will never play Dirty Harry again, nor appear in a spaghetti western, his characters will likely be more like the ones in “Gran Torino” and “The Mule.”

The artwork for the film’s poster features an iconic pose of Eastwood that suggests a throwback to his early Westerns, but “Cry Macho” is not the story of a righteous gunslinger roaming the range.

“Cry Macho” is the right fit for him at this point in his career. Eastwood’s Texas cowboy Mike Milo is a former rodeo star and has-been horse breeder who, in 1979, reluctantly takes an assignment from his old boss to venture south of the border.

Wealthy rancher Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakum), a year after firing Mike as his horse trainer, comes to him for the dubious task of retrieving his estranged teenage son Rafo (Eduardo Minett) from the care of his crazy Mexican ex-wife Leta (Fernanda Urrejola) in Mexico City.

While Mike has no particular fondness for his old boss, he feels obligated to return a favor to the person who gave him a job after a severe injury ended his riding career, which was followed by the loss of his wife and son.

One senses that the long drive on the dusty roads all the way to Mexico City presages a rockier trip back home after arriving at the destination of Leta’s mansion where the boy’s decadent and alcoholic mother is protected by menacing bodyguards.

Leta warns that Rafo is a delinquent who has a passion for entering his prize fighter rooster named “Macho” in illegal cockfights. Rafo could be involved in other illicit affairs, but mama seems not to care.

When Mike resists a drunken advance in her bedroom, Leta is no longer hospitable, and at this point it’s also fairly evident that she will become vengeful and task one of her henchmen in pursuit back to the border.

As the kid survives on the streets of the big city, Rafo is quickly found at a cockfight and proves reluctant at first to go with Mike to Texas until a tentative bond is formed with the promise of having his own horse on a ranch.

What happens next is a journey through the back roads where delays occur because of transportation difficulties and pursuit by the federales and Leta’s thug, the latter discovering that the aging Mike still has a nice right hook.

That the nonagenarian still has a few moves, as unlikely that may be in the romance department, becomes part of the story when Mike and Rafo stumble upon a desert small town where the cantina is run by the widowed Marta (Natalia Traven).

Enjoying the hospitality afforded by Marta, a woman about half the age of Mike who is also raising her orphaned granddaughters, the two travelers decide to hang around the village for a while, even camping out on the benches of a small church.

Perchance, Mike enjoys the flirtation that blossoms with the cantina owner. Other things bind him to the village. Mike finds purpose with helping a local to tame some wild horses, and pretty soon he becomes a Dr. Dolittle by helping others with their sick pets and farm animals.

The chemistry between the veteran cowboy and the kid may seem perfunctory but it revolves around the trust that comes from overcoming shared adversities on the road, and with Mike imparting occasional wisdom such as saying “the macho thing is overrated.”

With Mike and Rafo spending so much time together, conversation turns to forming a bond where the two learn something from each other. When the kid claims Mexicans ride horses better than gringos, Mike quickly reminds him that he’s half-gringo.

The heart of the film is most moving and satisfying during the sojourn in the small dusty town, where Mike connects easily with people who don’t even speak English or when he communicates with one of Marta’s deaf grandchildren through sign language.

Other than a thug trying to tangle with Mike or suspicious federales poking around, “Cry Macho” is devoid of gunfights, brawls, exciting car chases and other staples of an action film.

Clint Eastwood has directed a slow-paced trip through the picturesque desert terrain that would be fitting for a Western, but it’s a sentimental journey of redemption and second chances for both the cowboy and the kid.

The wisdom of “Cry Macho” comes when Mike says to Rafo, “You think you have all the answers, but then you get older and realize you don’t have any. By the time you figure it out, it’s too late.” Let’s hope it’s not too late for Eastwood to turn out more films.

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

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — String classes and rehearsals for the new community orchestra originally scheduled to begin in September have been postponed by the Lake County Symphony Association.

Sue Condit, conductor of the LCSA Community Orchestra, said the sign-up date for string classes has been changed from September to December.

Classes and rehearsals will likely start in January of 2022.

“We’re pleased with the high level of community interest in the classes and the community orchestra and have already sent emails to those who expressed interest in participating to inform them of the date change,” said Condit. “Unfortunately, due to the uptick in the COVID virus and new safety protocols necessary to keep everyone safe in rehearsals, we felt a delay was necessary.”

Condit said the situation will be reevaluated in December. “If everything looks good, we plan to start up on Jan. 9, 2022.”

For the latest updates and for information about all upcoming LCSA events, visit the group’s website.

Debra Fredrickson works with the Lake County Symphony Association.

Dorianne Laux is one of our treasured poets. Her elegant poems grow out of the familiar.

“Urn” is beautifully inventive in the way she connects the moment of uneasy childlike delight in the inexplicable “magic” of a light switch (“I didn’t know/ where the light went”), with her struggle to face mortality.

Laux’s new collection of poems, from which this lovely elegy comes, “Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems,” appeared in 2020.

URN
By Dorianne Laux

I feel her swaying
under the earth, deep
in a basket of tree roots,
their frayed silk
keeping her calm,
a carpet of grass singing
Nearer my god to thee,
oak branches groaning in wind
coming up from the sea.

We take on trust the dead
are buried and gone,
the light doused for eternity,
the nevermore of their particulars
ground up, dispersed.
As a child I didn’t know
where the light went
when she flipped the switch,
though I once touched
the dark bulb that burned
my fingertips, studied the coiled
element trapped inside
seething with afterglow.


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Dorianne Laux, “Urn” from Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.

'COPSHOP' RATED R

The production of a B-movie could either be a low-budget commercial film or in the broader sense a genre picture with an exploitative or even campy quality, which might describe any number of action thrillers starring Gerard Butler.

The B-grade is often used in a pejorative sense to diminish the artistic appeal of an action picture, but for “Copshop,” in which Butler has a key role, that would be an unfortunate misjudgment.

Butler’s Bob Viddick is a man of mystery, but first the proper set-up is to observe that Frank Grillo’s Teddy Murretto is equally enigmatic as he drives along an isolated Nevada desert highway in a car riddled with bullet holes.

Why is Teddy on the run, but more puzzling, why does he sucker-punch police officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) who is trying to break up a wedding brawl outside a casino?

Teddy wants to get arrested so that he’s safely tucked away in the jail at the remote police station of Gun Creek, little aware that assassin-for-hire Bob is on his trail and just as eager to stage an ostensible drunk-driving accident to end up in a cell across from Teddy.

What ensues is a lot of tough-guy jabbering between the two jailbirds, as Teddy has a bounty on his head that seemingly has something to do with the murder of the state’s Attorney General and missing documents in a briefcase.

The reasons for the political assassination are not only murky but actually prove irrelevant to the plot. Bob wants to kill Teddy, while Teddy just wants to find out if his ex-wife and son are safe, but from what or whom we don’t really know.

Meanwhile, a truly psychotic killer named Anthony Lamb (Toby Huss) shows up at the police station carrying birthday balloons and a machine gun, and then promptly goes berserk in a bloody rampage.

With most of her colleagues falling victim to the psycho and after being injured herself, Officer Young manages just barely to find refuge in the holding cells and is faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to trust Bob or Teddy for help.

Trust is hard to come by at this police station when one of the officers has a keen interest in retrieving contraband stored in the evidence locker. What’s his connection to any of the criminals?

As good as Frank Grillo and Gerard Butler may be as relentless adversaries, Alexis Louder’s rookie cop steals the show with her wit and intelligence as well as fearless bravery in the face of extremely challenging circumstances.

Capturing the essence of ‘70s exploitation, “Copshop” proves to be similar in a good way to a grindhouse film with the feel of something Quentin Tarantino might have directed flanked by “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction.”

Best of all for this entertaining, rousing thriller, filled with tough dialogue and even rougher violence, is the climactic moment of an escape that leaves room for a sequel that one hopes brings director Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces”) back behind the camera.



‘KATE’ ON NETFLIX

While we’re on the subject of violent action thrillers, why not take a look at Netflix’s “Kate,” a brutal drama involving an assassin in Japan racing against the clock after being poisoned to hunt the party responsible for her condition.

As the titular character, Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s assassin, mentored in the craft by a father figure in Woody Harrelson’s Varrick, bears a lot of similarity to “Gunpowder Milkshake,” another recent Netflix film. Or think of Natalie Portman in “Leon: The Professional.”

Not to divulge too many details, Kate violated one of the rules of a professional killer, which is why she was poisoned by a deadly dose of Polonium-204 and can only keep going with occasional jabs of adrenaline.

In the quest to find her killer, Kate teams up with rebellious teenager Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau), who has ties to the Japanese underworld but is disaffected with her criminal relatives who have made her an orphan.

The storyline for “Kate” is hardly distinctive. Winstead’s Kate is to Harrelson’s Varrick what Maggie Q’s Anna is to Samuel L. Jackson’s Moody in “The Protégé,” at least on the superficial relationship of a female contract killer to her male mentor.

In the final analysis, “Kate” is a derivative pastiche of the genre, cursorily satisfied with seizing only the most ruthlessly intense and borderline sadistic actions of a professional killer operating in a fantasy underworld.

Of course, since Winstead’s Kate has only 24 hours to live, all niceties must be dispensed with in her headlong rush to kill every Yakuza scumbag that stands in the way of her ultimate target.

While “Kate” may waste its star’s versatile talent, mindless escapism is not necessarily something to dismiss as we breathlessly await better films at the multiplex. Good thing that the next James Bond film “No Time to Die” is just around the corner.

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

What haunts this loose sonnet by Carrie Green is loss, anticipated loss, but loss, nonetheless. Yet, what emerges is an elegant “pre-elegy.”

A tender anthem to a father and to the sweetness he represents, an anthem made more intimate by the choice of addressee: “Brother.”

ROBBING THE BEES
By Carrie Green
after John Wood

Brother, one day the grove and hives will empty:
the neighbor’s trees frozen back to stumps,
our father’s bees scattered across the scrub.
But today the scent of orange blossom
reaches our patch of sand, and the beeyard
teems with thieving wings. Our father works
the hives, white shirt buttoned to the neck,
hands glove-clumsy. Veiled, he’s mysterious

as a bride. Brother, we’ll want to recall
the pollen-dusted light kissing scrub oak
and sand pine, the needles smoking in tin,
the bees’ stunned flight as our father offers
a taste of honey on his pocketknife.
Our tongues steal sweetness from the rusted blade.


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Carrie Green, “ROBBING THE BEES” from Studies of Familiar Birds, (Able Muse Press, 2020.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.

CABLE TV PREVIEW

The Walt Disney Co. owns so many entertainment properties, including networks, cable channels, and film studios, that it is a wonder the behemoth corporation has not become a monopoly, but probably not for a lack of trying.

“Doogie Howser, M.D.,” a medical drama starring Neil Patrick Harris in the titular role as a teenage physician, ran for four seasons on the ABC television network, which was acquired by the Walt Disney Company a few years after the end of the series.

Fast forward to now, the Disney+ channel is releasing a coming-of-age dramedy inspired by the hit medical series “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” and an obvious nod to this original show is captured in the title of “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.,” which is shot on location in Hawaii.

This Disney+ series follows Lahela “Doogie” Kamealoha (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a 16-year-old prodigy juggling a budding medical career and life as a teenager, a premise sounding quite familiar to any viewers of the ABC series.

Marketing the show may be easier with “Doogie” in the title, and during the TV press tour executive producer Kourtney Kang in referring to this reboot noted that “Doogie” is a physician’s nickname that is “apparently a thing that happens to young doctors.”

Guiding the new Doogie is her career-driven mother Dr. Clara Hannon (Kathleen Rose Perkins) who’s also her supervisor at the hospital, her doting father Benny (Jason Scott Lee), her free-spirited older brother Kai (Matthew Sato), and various friends and colleagues.

Since we are on the subject of Disney programming, it is worth noting that on October 1st the ABC network will present a spectacular television event, “The Most Magical Story on Earth: 50 years of Walt Disney World.”

Hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, the two-hour program will take viewers on a historical journey spanning half a century and beyond at Walt Disney World in Florida with impressive visuals and musical performances.

The musical talent features Christina Aguilera and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Halle Bailey in front of the legendary Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom Park, accompanied by the renowned Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.

Interviews are conducted with iconic actors, actresses and athletes, Walt Disney World cast members, Disney Imagineers and executives past and present, who have all played their unique part in sprinkling pixie dust over “The Most Magical Place on Earth.”

Celebrity participants include Gary Sinise, John Stamos, Melissa Joan Hart, NFL athletes Tom Brady and Phil Simms, and creative forces George Lucas and James Cameron.

This special event offers a look at Walt Disney World’s humble beginnings in the Florida swamplands and its evolution into a cultural phenomenon, as well as a never-before-seen-on-TV glimpse into the journey to bring Walt’s vision to life and a look at grand plans for the future.

THE NEW LOOK OF THE TCM CABLE CHANNEL

Turner Classic Movies, or TCM, has been the venerable leader in airing uncut, commercial-free classic films for nearly three decades, engaging film buffs not only on a premium cable platform but also with an annual classic film festival.

Now TCM is unveiling a cable network rebrand that’s a “New Look, Same Old TCM,” however, they are calling their new tagline “Where Then Meets Now.” TCM is based in Atlanta, so I was wondering if they remember the fiasco of New Coke, which was quickly abandoned.

According to Wikipedia and most sentient beings at the time, the failure of the reformulated soft drink remains “influential as a cautionary tale against tampering with a well-established and successful brand.”

We hope that the idea of establishing the network as the destination and catalyst for reframing the conversation around 20th century films for contemporary times is not ill-advised.

“Everything old is new and classics movies are no exception,” said Pola Changnon, general manager of TCM in a press release touting dynamic creative packaging of a new logo that focuses on the energy of the letter “C” in TCM that comes to life in print and video.

Changnon goes on to claim that TCM’s new look “better reflects the vibrant brand and respected industry authority that TCM has become over the years, with an eye toward the future.”

That “fans can still enjoy the same curated classic film experience, now presented with a bold new energy that reflects today’s audience” may offer some comfort, but what does this mean anyway?

Does TCM want to target more millennials or other demographic groups that might not be drawn to black-and-white films? For young adults, it could be a challenge to gain appreciation for the classics.

In a video clip, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz notes the refresh of the brand is to “stay culturally relevant,” and the only new difference is “we’re doing it with a cool new logo and a spiffy 21st century set.”

TCM remains committed to showing the films from Hollywood’s Golden Age and in Mankiewicz’s words “putting them in context and telling stories of the artists who made them.” This may be the message we need that the new look won’t detract from enjoyment of great films.

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