‘THE PROTÉGÉ’ RATED R

Netflix’s “Gunpowder Milkshake” has as its protagonist a young woman who’s quite proficient as a professional contract killer.

Meanwhile, the same situation is at hand in “The Protégé,” a stylish action thriller with a deadly efficient female assassin.

In a 1991 prologue, we find a young Vietnamese girl hiding in a closet and holding a gun she used to kill the murderers of her parents. Rescued by legendary assassin Moody (Samuel L. Jackson), the young girl is trained in the business.

Now an adult, Maggie Q’s Anna, teamed in an apprenticeship with her father figure Moody, becomes a skilled contract killer in her own right, all the while running her own London store selling rare books as her true passion.

With a nagging cough and a looming retirement seeming inevitable, Moody’s days as a wily assassin may be coming to an end.

Meanwhile, the enigmatic Michael Rembrandt (Michael Keaton) visits Anna’s bookstore, setting in motion an inevitable cat-and-mouse game.

While there’s an oddly flirtatious situation between Anna and the much older Rembrandt, the romantic friction only delays for the moment the fact that Rembrandt is an agent for a crime boss hiding out in Vietnam who presents a danger for Moody and Anna.

Not wanting to return to her homeland as the result of bad childhood memories, Anna must nevertheless seek out the mysterious crime lord while getting some help from a biker gang led by Robert Patrick’s Billy Boy, who would look more at home at a rally in Sturgis.

Anna goes from looking glamorous in a sleek red dress at a fancy restaurant dinner with Rembrandt to becoming a hostage being tortured by waterboarding by a bunch of thugs who ultimately prove no match for this assassin.

Directed by Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”), one can be forgiven for having the notion that “The Protégé” is like a test run for having Maggie Q in a future role of a female James Bond. She certainly demonstrates the chops for a tough secret agent.

An action picture offering gripping escapism, “The Protégé” is worth watching if for no better reason than enjoying Maggie Q’s fierce take on lethal vengeance which delivers an exciting excess of breakneck thrills.

‘9/11’ DOCUMENTARIES ON TV

Not surprisingly with the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on our mainland coming on September 11th, a variety of 9/11 documentaries are scheduled across various platforms.

At the end of August, National Geographic Channel will premiere the six-part documentary series “9/11: One Day in America” made in official collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

The series offers a comprehensive account of the day using archival footage – some never before seen – and new, original interviews with eyewitnesses who now have had almost two decades to reflect on the events they lived through.

The perspective of first responders and survivors includes the first FDNY chief to arrive at the World Trade Center and a firefighter who escaped the North Tower just before it collapsed. Paramedics recall their devastating encounters of searching for life in the rubble.

The History Channel plans an extensive observance of the 9/11 anniversary with a series of seven hours of documentary programming, beginning with “9/11: The Legacy,” a poignant sharing of stories from young adults who were children impacted by the terrorist attack.

“Rise and Fall: The World Trade Center” covers the first terrorist attack during the 1993 bombing and unpacks in vivid detail a timeline of how and why the building fell after commercial airliners flew into the towers on September 11.

Through personal narratives of family and friends, “9/11: Four Flights” tells the riveting and emotional human stories of those aboard each doomed jetliner. We probably recall the final heart-wrenching phone calls and harrowing yet heroic moments especially on the United 93 flight.

Featuring rare footage and audio, “9/11: I Was There” unveils an intimate portrayal of the events of September 11 captured by ordinary people who chose to pick up their video cameras that day.

A two-hour documentary, “9/11: I Was There” puts viewers in the shoes of New Yorkers and visitors alike to unfold the tragedy, the fear of what was next and the horrific aftermath to follow resulting in a raw and unfiltered telling of that fateful day.

Apple TV+ announced “9/11” Inside the President’s War Room” which tells the story of 9/11 through the eyes of President George W. Bush and his team of key decision makers who responded for the nation during the 12 hours after the strike on that horrific day.

The Apple TV+ documentary will feature never-before-heard testimony not only from President Bush, but from administration officials that include Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Chief of Staff Andy Card, among others.

Anyone of a certain age to remember September 11, 2001 will be likely moved by the storytelling of a dark chapter in our history and yet be inspired by those who displayed feats of heroism and altruism in response.

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

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — The Middletown Art Center presents the second in the “Sounds of Liberation” series with acclaimed singer/songwriter Gloria Scott on Saturday, Aug. 28, at 7 p.m. at MAC and online.

Scott, now living in Nice, will be hosted by Clovice Lewis, composer, musician, educator and social justice advocate from Upper Lake.

The evening's event is centered around a conversation about race and music and performance by Scott with an opportunity for audience questions and a wine reception.

Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

This Sounds of Liberation event will hold stories of Scott’s experiences as a musical artist, her professional work with Sly Stone and Ike and Tina Turner, her solo album produced by Barry White, and her artistic journey as a woman of color in a demanding industry during challenging times of social change and racial injustice.

For more information about Gloria Scott read the article “The soulful trip of Gloria Scott.”

Sounds of Liberation honors the black experience as told through musical genres that have contributed to, and influenced contemporary North American music and culture.

The primary goal of the project is to create environments that support public exploration of challenging questions about systemic racism in America through music and the personal experiences of Black musicians living in Lake County.

A collaboration between Clovice Lewis and The MAC, Sounds of Liberation was inspired by the “Community Call to Action: A loving response to systemic racism in America,” a self-organized local action group formed by the Unitarian Universalist Community of Lake County.

The MAC invites community members of all ages to join by improved Zoom broadcast or by limited seating in-person at the MAC gallery to hear Scott’s story and experience her powerful voice.

The project launched on Juneteenth at The MAC with a conversation between arts professional and social justice advocate Sabrina Klein Clement and Clovice Lewis.

Lewis now shifts to his role as interviewer. “There was so much discovery in our delightful sharing on Juneteenth,” said Lewis, “I can’t wait to do it again with the fabulous Gloria Scott.”

Additional Sounds of Liberation events will take place this fall in locations around the county and feature musician Victor Hall and recording artist Andre Williams among others.

Participants may purchase tickets to attend in-person, with COVID protocols in place, or RSVP for Zoom participation and receive a link. Tickets are available on a sliding scale at www.middletownartcenter.org/sounds-of-liberation.

Sounds of Liberation is made possible with community support and with support from California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org.

The mission of The MAC is to provide art opportunities, art education, cultural enrichment, and ecological awareness, contributing to community well-being throughout Lake County and among our neighbors.

The MAC Gallery is open Thursday through Monday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment by phoning 707-809-8118.

Learn more about The MAC and ways that you can support their work weaving the arts into life in Lake County at www.middletownartcenter.org.

Carolyn Forché’s ability to transport us to unusual places is a gift.

Here in her poem, “Clouds”, we learn of tart Russian Antinovka apples that become for her, personal symbols of the immigrant experience in America.

In this tender poem about memory and movement, she skillfully manages to collapse time as she reflects on the lives of her parents.

Clouds
By Carolyn Forché

A whip-poor-will brushed
her wing along the ground
a moment ago, fifty years
in the orchard where my father
kept pear and plum,
a decade of peach trees
and Antinovka’s apples
whose seeds come
from Russia by ship
under clouds islanding
a window very past
where also went
the soul of my mother
in a boat with blossoming
sails like apple petals
in wind fifty years at once.


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 Carolyn Forché, "Clouds" from In the Lateness of the World (Penguin Publishing Group, 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.

‘BECKETT’ ON NETFLIX

Political intrigue thrillers rooted in paranoia made their mark in the late Sixties and early Seventies with films like Costa-Gravas’ “Z;” Sydney Pollack’s “Three Days of the Condor,” and Alan J. Pakula’s “The Parallax View.”

Netflix’s “Beckett” captures the paranoid action thriller where the protagonist is a Hitchcockian “wrong man” caught up in a case of intrigue and deception for which he’s as clueless as Cary Grant’s character in “North by Northwest.”

In the eponymous role of “Beckett,” John David Washington is an American tourist in Greece, joined by his girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander) to explore the rural areas as political unrest in the capital caused them to take leave of Athens.

Driving late at night on backroads to a bed-and-breakfast, Beckett loses control of the vehicle, resulting in a deadly crash into an apparently abandoned house. April dies on the scene, while Beckett passes out after seeing what he believes is a woman and a young boy.

The thriller kicks into gear when Beckett after his hospital stay gets interrogated by a bearded cop. Deciding to revisit the scene of the crash, Beckett finds himself in the crosshairs of the same cop and a blonde woman. He escapes with a superficial gunshot wound.

Hence starts a furious run from his assailants who go to such great lengths to find Beckett that any of the locals that help him meet a terrible fate. In a strange land with a language barrier, Beckett must use his wits to get back to Athens for help from the American Embassy.

The journey is fraught with danger, but Beckett comes upon a pair of activists (Vicky Krieps and Daphne Alexander) headed to a rally in Athens. They believe that Beckett may have seen the kidnapped son of an opposition political leader and decide to help.

At under two hours “Beckett” may not seize the full spirit of a conspiracy thriller of the genre, and yet there is enough intrigue with corrupt government officials and an assassination plot to deliver satisfying enjoyment of the trickery that an everyman has to overcome.

PBS FALL PREVIEW

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has been a mainstay of notable documentaries that have aired on PBS, including “Baseball,” “The Civil War,” and “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.”

With his long-term commitment to PBS, it is not surprising that Burns would choose a subject for a biographical documentary who has been as controversial and widely acclaimed as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.

The four-part series “Muhammad Ali” is set to air in September, and at the PBS press tour Burns observed that “Muhammad comes to us first and foremost as the greatest athlete perhaps of all time, certainly of the 20th Century, and as the greatest boxer.”

“Muhammad Ali” draws from an extraordinary trove of archival footage and photographs, contemporary music, and the insights and memories of eyewitnesses – including family and friends, journalists, boxers and historians, among others – to create a sweeping portrait.

While largely celebrated today as an icon of American sport and culture, Muhammad was at one time reviled by many in society for his involvement in the Nation of Islam and refusal to be inducted into the Army during the Vietnam War.

The draft dodging resulted in five years of legal jeopardy and a three-and-a-half-year banishment from boxing, and yet Ali captivated so many with his combination of speed, agility and power in the ring.

“Muhammad Ali” also captures the three-time heavyweight boxing champion’s charm, wit and outspokenness outside of the boxing ring. From his boastful claim of being “The Greatest” to his steadfast Muslim faith, there is much to learn about the greatest boxer.

The American Film Institute designates Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” as the greatest film of all time, followed by “Casablanca,” “The Godfather” and “Gone with the Wind.”

What’s notable about “Citizen Kane,” a biographical story of fictional wealthy newspaper publisher and industrial magnate Charles Foster Kane, is that it is based on a composite of media moguls that included William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.

PBS’s “American Experience” will explore the story of America’s first media baron William Randolph Hearst in the cleverly-titled “Citizen Hearst,” an obvious nod to the Orson Welles masterpiece.

At an early age, Hearst forsake the family business to find the newspaper game irresistible, and by the 1930s he controlled the largest media empire in the country, using it to attain political power.

A man with prodigious appetites, including his extravagant San Simeon castle, Hearst infamously carried on a decades-long affair with actress Marion Davies while remaining married to Millicent Hearst, the mother of his five sons.

During the PBS press tour presentation, author and San Francisco historian Gary Kamiya observed that we “can’t separate our modern media and celebrity landscape from William Randolph Hearst. He created it in so many ways.”

“Citizen Hearst” explores how everything the media mogul said and did was larger than life, taking note of his unorthodox approach to business as well as his complicated private life. The two episodes air on Sept. 27 and 28.

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

In this tiny conun­drum of a poem, Ross Gay, a poet who defi­ant­ly affirms the pos­si­bil­i­ties of hope and grat­i­tude, reminds us that the capac­i­ty to make a sound, to speak, to sing, is ful­ly con­nect­ed to the capac­i­ty to breathe, to live.

Gay​’s recent book of essays, “The Book of Delights,” is its own cat­a­logue of such hope.

ode to the flute
By Ross Gay
A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2015 by Ross Gay, “ode to the flute” from Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press 2015.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2021 by The Poetry Foundation.

‘STILLWATER’ RATED R

The case of Amanda Knox, an American student living in Italy who was arrested and charged with the murder of her roommate, created sensational headlines.

She was convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison term even though she maintained her innocence.

“Stillwater” ostensibly trades on the Knox case at least in the sense that another American studying abroad, Allison (Abigail Breslin) from Oklahoma, ends up in a French prison for the murder of her roommate.

Arguably, “Stillwater,” a city in Oklahoma that is the home of Allison, is more about the redemption of her father Bill Baker (Matt Damon), an unemployed oil rig worker who travels to Marseille to deliver supplies and news to his estranged daughter.

Bill’s working-class hard life has been marred by a past of alcohol and drug abuse, and though Allison doesn’t trust him, he tries to make up for not being in her life with an effort to chase a new tip that could exonerate Allison.

When Allison’s French lawyer declines to pursue a new investigation, Bill takes matters into his own hands, even though he’s confronted with a language barrier and cultural differences, and there are dark turns as he pursues a lead for exculpatory DNA.

Dressed in jeans, plaid shirt and baseball cap, the stoic Bill stands out among the locals as the quintessential heartland American. He has better luck after helping a young girl locked out of the hotel room next to his.

Life takes a new direction for Bill when the mother of the girl, avant-garde actress Virginie (Camille Cottin), appreciates his act of kindness to the winsome 8-year-old Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), a charming scene-stealer.

Virginie becomes a translator, and conveniently, Bill becomes a tenant at her home. The emotional core of “Stillwater” is the new life Bill forges with Virginie and Maya, but then Bill faces difficult choices that threaten his last shot at redemption.

Though plodding in its pacing at times, “Stillwater” merits attention for a suspenseful story and notable acting from an international cast. The ending may seem to be inconclusive. What is not in doubt is how good are Damon and the two French actresses in his orbit.

RANDOM TV NEWS

Joseph Gordon-Levitt grew up on the small screen with roles on multiple series, most notably in his co-starring role in the long-running NBC comedy “3rd Rock from the Sun.”

Now he returns to series television as writer, director and star of “Mr. Corman” on Apple TV+. Gordon-Levitt’s Josh Corman is an artist at heart but not by trade. Things haven’t been going his way.

A lifelong dream of a career in music didn’t pan out for Josh, and he finds himself teaching fifth grade at a school in the San Fernando Valley, his ex-fiance Megan has moved out and his high school buddy has moved in.

Aware that he still has a lot to be thankful for, Josh struggles nevertheless through universal feelings of anxiety, loneliness and self-doubt. “Mr. Corman” is intended to be a darkly funny and relatable comedy-drama for the 30-something crowd.

The British outlandish sense of black comedy comes to “Masterpiece” on PBS in September with the four-episodes series “Guilt” about a hit-and-run that conjures up the old saying, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”

Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives star as brothers Max and Jake who forgot the ancient dictum and thus hide their guilt after running into an elderly pedestrian during an inebriated drive home from a wedding.

Not ordinary perpetrators, Max and Jake carry the victim’s corpse to his house nearby and set him up in an easy chair. They find a letter that he has terminal cancer, leading Max to say, “He was dying slowly. We just made it quick.”

Farcical turns abound in “Guilt,” and classic slacker Jake falls in love with the victim’s niece. Max hires an alcoholic detective to botch an investigation but who then decides to go sober and solve the case. British critics raved about the series, and maybe we will too.

As a forewarning we may not remember thirteen months from now, Amazon Studios has announced that its highly anticipated, yet-to-be-titled “The Lord of the Rings” television series will premiere Friday, September 2, 2022 on its Prime Video.

This new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-Earth’s history. It begins in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” books.

The series will follow an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-Earth. Filming the first season has been completed in New Zealand.

The announcement quoted Bilbo Baggins saying, “Now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.” Fans of “The Lord of the Rings” book, which have sold more than 150 million copies, might ask why we have to wait more than a year for the new series.

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