How to resolve AdBlock issue? Arts & Life
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- Written by: Debra Fredrickson
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Symphony will present its annual summer chamber concert on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 2 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.
Doors open at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.
This concert is not as lengthy as the regular season concerts, and consists of a smaller group of musicians, featuring mostly strings and harpsichord with some woodwinds, brass and percussion.
There is one performance only; there is no discounted “rehearsal” performance this time. As usual, though, there is no charge for youth aged 18 and under.
The chamber orchestra will play several selections by composers who are considered among the best in Western history.
Lake County Symphony Association, or LCSA, Musical Director/Conductor John Parkinson opens the concert with “Rondeau from Abdelazer Suite” by Henry Purcell (1659-1695).
A composer of Baroque music, Purcell incorporated Italian and French elements in his musical style and is generally considered one of the greatest English opera composers.
The orchestra’s next piece is “Marche pour la Ceremonie des Turcs” by Jean-Babtiste Lully (1632-1687).
Lully was a French composer, dancer and instrumentalist who was considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Originally from Florence, he spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France and became a French subject in 1661.
Luigi Boccherini’s “Overture in D Major” (G. 521 -Op. 43) is a lively piece often performed as a standalone concert overture. Boccherini (1743-1805) was born into a musical family in Lucca Italy and received his first music lessons at age five from his father, who taught him the cello.
Considered a child prodigy, he continued his musical studies and by age 13 he and his father were employed by the Vienna court as musicians. As an adult, he was employed for many years by the younger brother of King Charles III of Spain.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750) has two selections in this concert: “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3” (1st mvmt) and his “Flute Concerto in E minor,” featuring Celesta Deter on flute. Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period, known for his “prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms.”
Bach is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, as are the final two composers, Mozart and Haydn.
Following intermission, the audience will hear “Serenade in D Major, K239” by Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791). Mozart’s music is admired for its “melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture.”
The final piece is “Symphony No. 88” by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Born in Rohrau, Austria, Haydn has been called the “father of the symphony” due to his prolific output. His compositions include 104 symphonies, 50 concertos, 84 string quartets, 24 stage works, and 12 masses, among numerous other works.
Tickets may be purchased through the Soper Reese website or at the Soper Reese box office at 275 S. Main St. in Lakeport 30 minutes prior to the 2 p.m. performance.
Refreshments will be available in the lobby before the concert and during intermission.
Season ticket holders should note that this concert is “open seating” with no reserved seating and that LCSA member discounts will not apply.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘THE NAKED GUN’ RATED PG-13
The genius of “The Naked Gun” franchise, from the brilliant comedic creative team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (known as ZAZ), originated with the short-lived television series “Police Squad!” that the ABC network had the lack of good sense to keep on the air after only six episodes.
That the ZAZ team created the disaster spoof film “Airplane!,” starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty, and featuring Leslie Nielsen, among other notable actors like Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves, was inspiration for more in the genre.
From the box office success of this now iconic comedy film, ZAZ was apparently ready to create another film spoofing a serious police procedural, and instead came up with the series “Police Squad!” starring Leslie Nielsen as the inept, bumbling Los Angeles police lieutenant Frank Drebin.
For the TV show and the movies, Frank Drebin could easily be a caricature of Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday in the Sixties series “Dragnet,” where his clipped and to the point questioning of suspects or witnesses to get only the facts was ripe for parody.
While ABC cancelled “Police Squad!,” the one season of the television show has attained cult status. This classic lampoon of cop shows is worth finding, and maybe the only option is to purchase it in on Amazon.
Once a serious actor, Nielsen’s turn to comedy resulted in pure gold because of his deadpan expression and his talent for wordplay of non-sequiturs and smart punchlines, along with being oblivious to almost everything around him.
Nielsen, of course, went on to star in ZAZ’s 1988 film “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!,” where crass humor, visual gags, slapstick mayhem, and the blatant incompetence of the squad combined for zany hilarity.
Now three decades later, the ZAZ team is no longer involved (one member passed away last year) and continuing the Frank Drebin legacy falls to the character’s son, Frank Drebin Jr., whose mother was Priscilla Presley’s Jane Spencer.
The gravelly voiced Liam Neeson makes an interesting choice for Frank Drebin, Jr. in the rebooted “The Naked Gun,” where he’s as clueless as his deceased father, whose portrait hangs at the Police Squad’s wall of legends and whose spirit is later channeled through an owl.
Where Leslie Nielsen’s appealing deadpan delivery was relatively flat and mellow, Neeson’s tone is sometimes closer in attitude to the intensity he brought to his character of retired CIA agent Bryan Mills in the “Taken” franchise, except that his Drebin doesn’t have any discernible set of skills.
Not operating by the book, the film begins with Drebin foiling a bank robbery by showing up disguised as a little school girl who turns a giant lollipop into a weapon that subdues some of the criminals and precipitates a violent melee.
Flouting the rules, Drebin runs afoul of Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) who threatens to disband the Police Squad, but then dispatches him with his partner Ed Hocken, Jr. (Paul Walker Hauser), the son of the late George Kennedy’s character in the film series, to investigate a fatal car crash.
The crashed electric vehicle turns out to have been involved in the bank robbery, which ties into oily tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston) as the mastermind of the heist that was a cover for his henchman Sig (Kevin Durand) to pilfer a gadget from a safety deposit box.
The man who died in the crash was deemed to have been a suicide, but his sister Beth Davenport (the alluring Pamela Anderson as a femme fatale) is convinced that foul play was orchestrated by Cane and she’s determined to investigate on her own.
Before too long, Beth teams up with Drebin for sleuthing, which turns into an inevitable romantic angle that has its share of indecency during an intimate evening when a snowman joins in a sexual triangle that leads to murderous jealousy.
Then, there’s one of Cane’s henchmen following Drebin and Beth to use infrared binoculars to spy on them with the result that the thermal imaging appears to show Beth engaging in a sexual act that is not PG-13 rated material. If one is curious, the scene is in the trailer.
The climax comes down to Cane’s disturbed plan to the citizens of Los Angeles into a scenario straight out of “The Purge” where all crime is legal for a half-day window. Here it’s a lot of ridiculous street fighting triggered through phones.
Running at a fast pace of 85 minutes, “The Naked Gun” does not concern itself with plot so much as with its aim to be as raucously funny and absurd as possible. Not all madcap wordplay and sight gags land gut-busting punches, but the odds are decent enough.
What “The Naked Gun” boils down to is a wacky comedy in the spirit of the original such that it achieves for the most part its goal. The film merits being seen in a theater where audience laughter becomes contagious.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Middletown Art Center
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — This Saturday, Aug. 9, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. come out to the Middletown Art Center for a night of contemporary underground dance music straight out of the United Kingdom.
DJs Ami and Nick deliver an energized dance party, with beats, rhythms, and sounds from UK Garage (UKG), Bassline and House tracks.
Whether you love electronic music or you just want to get down and groove, this party promises hot fun in the summertime.
UK Garage, played in dance clubs worldwide, is a mash-up of house and bass music, borrowing heavily from jungle and incorporating elements of R&B and reggae. There will be bass!
Young in Lake County and looking for a party? You are invited to come dance with them. Dance to city club sounds in this small country town.
Ami Verhey is an emerging DJ, a Middletown High and UC Davis graduate currently working on his master’s in wildlife ecology at Cal Poly Humboldt. Nicholas Hay is a veteran L.A. and local DJ and head gardener at Harbin Hot Springs.
“I am always excited to showcase current dance-focused music here at home,” said Verhey. “We need more quality exposure to contemporary music and culture here in Lake County.”
Suggested donation is $10; $5 for ages 18-25; high school students, and younger free or by donation. No one turned away for lack of funds. Multiple generations and families are welcome. Movies in the back for kids.
First 20 guests get a free beverage, and ALL guests receive a free raffle ticket for THERE WILL BE BASS T-shirts! Beverages/snacks for purchase—non-alcoholic or beer/wine (21+ with ID).
Experience the contemporary sounds, rhythms, and beats that are moving people across the world, right in the heart of Middletown.
Middletown Art Center is a nonprofit dedicated to engaging the public in art making, art education, and art appreciation, and providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, striving to create an inclusive and accessible space for all.
To learn more and donate to support this or other MAC arts and cultural programs, visit middletownartcenter.org. For inquiries or further information, please contact the Middletown Art Center at 707-355-4465 or email
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘BALLARD’ ON AMAZON PRIME
A prolific author of detective novels and crime fiction, Michael Connelly has a legion of fans not only for his books but for the television series “Bosch,” Bosch: Legacy,” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.”
With 41 bestselling novels to his credit, it does not appear the 69-year-old author is slowing down any time soon. His Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, is back with a case in “The Proving Ground” novel due in October.
This year also brought the release of “Nightshade,” an introduction to a new cop with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell exiled to a low-key post on Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. Could this augur a future television series?
Several Connelly novels featured LAPD detectives Renee Ballard and Harry Bosch working together to hunt killers, from the “Desert Star” search for a man murdering an entire family, to “The Night Fire” in which Ballard and Bosch become an investigative team.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime is “Ballard,” starring Maggie Q as Robbery-Homicide detective Renee Ballard, who is about as popular with the department bureaucracy as Scottish detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) is with his own in “Dept. Q,” which was reviewed last week.
The connection between “Ballard” and the “Bosch” universe is unambiguous, given the literary existence of the two detectives working together, and yet they never came in contact during the television series until the last episode of “Bosch: Legacy.”
We first saw Maggie Q’s Ballard when she entered uninvited into Bosch’s private investigator office, demanding he return the files she accused him of purloining. It looked like the start of a contentious relationship.
The investigation was a cold case into the murder of one of the young girls that Bosch was unwilling to forget, even after leaving the police force. This case involved a firefighter suspect returning to Los Angeles after a dozen years.
After a reluctant but effective partnership to nab the murderer, Ballard and Bosch exchange compliments for good work. Prophetically, Bosch proclaims, “Maybe somewhere down the line we’ll get to work together again.”
With its provenance to the Michael Connelly literary sphere, “Ballard” most appropriately draws in a few familiar faces from the “Bosch” domain, including the lovable retired LAPD curmudgeons Crate and Barrel.
As a result of getting on the wrong side of the insular LAPD culture, Ballard is ostracized by friends and colleagues for lodging an attempted sexual assault complaint against a senior officer who is seemingly an untouchable insider. Never mind that Ballard is one of LAPD’s finest detectives.
Banished to a file room in the basement of the LAPD training center, Ballard is left to her own devices to put together a team, getting help from Councilman Jake Pearlman (Noah Bean) for some funding, as he has a personal interest in the twenty-year old cold case of his murdered sister.
Ballard’s former partner in the Robbery-Homicide division, Thomas Laffont (John Carroll Lynch), comes out of retirement to join the cold case task force. He provides a steady presence inside a somewhat hectic team.
An eclectic group of volunteers form the backbone of the cold case unit. Colleen Hatteras (Rebecca Field) is most energetically enthusiastic, relying on intuition and new age superstitions to postulate her crime theories, which are not necessarily off-base.
College student intern Martina Castro (Victoria Moroles) is studying law with a perspective on crime that may be unorthodox to some. Ted Rawls (Michael Mosley), wealthy owner of a security firm and acting as a watchdog for the interests of his friend the Councilman, joins the team as a reserve LAPD officer.
To round out the crew, Ballard pursues Samira Parker (Courtney Taylor), formerly an investigator on an LAPD cold case, who resigned from the force after a brief, unpleasant stint as a Robbery-Homicide detective. Only Ballard’s persuasive power brings Samira back into the fold.
It’s not all about sleuthing for Ballard. She shares a waterfront double-wide trailer home on the Malibu beach with her grandmother Tutu (Amy Hill), and clears her head from the heavy workload with early morning surfing sessions that also allow her to remember with admiration her late father.
“Ballard” is not just about the police work on forgotten cases. The storyline takes a deep look into complex issues, ranging from corruption to sexual improprieties to a culture rife with convolutions that go beyond the usual, perfunctory themes of cop dramas.
Unquestionably in this reviewer’s perspective, “Bosch” and “Bosch: Legacy” rate highly in the pantheon of police procedurals as among the best of all time TV shows. “Ballard” shows promise to create a trifecta of remarkably essential and laudatory entertainment.
Without disclosing the slightest hint of how the first season’s cliffhanger concludes, suffice it to say that a failure of “Ballard” to come back for a second turn would be an unforgivable crime. We just can’t be left hanging.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
