French American poet, Natalie Handal, has lived in Europe, Latin America and the Arab world since her birth in Haiti, and she offers here a clever and somewhat whimsical self-portrait that flirts with the idea that it is often impossible to presume what is inside of us simply by what our faces offer.

“Cara Aceitunada” is Spanish for “olive-colored face.”

Cara Aceitunada
By Natalie Handal
In Granada
a man asked
for the birds inside of me

I told him I’ve never
belonged to anyone

He asked
where I was from
I gave him a list of cities

He said
the mirrors of history
confuse history

but in your olive-colored face
no one can disturb your heart


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 Natalie Handal, “Cara Aceitunada” from A Country Album (University of Pittsburg 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.

‘JUNGLE CRUISE” RATED PG-13

Anyone who has been to Disneyland since 1955 has probably been on the Jungle Cruise adventure ride where young tour guides take passengers on a tongue-in-cheek journey through treacherous rivers.

Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” starring Dwayne Johnson as skipper Frank Wolff, takes a cue from its theme-park attraction.

Naive tourists around the time of World War I are either amused or terrified by Frank’s Amazon River excursions during which he delivers corny jokes.

Meanwhile, in London Emily Blunt’s Dr. Lily Houghton confronts a male chauvinist scientific group with a vain pitch to explore the rain forests to obtain a flower petal from a fabled tree found in the Amazon that supposedly is a cure for all diseases.

Close on the heels of Dr. Lily is the villainous Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) who seeks the petal for nefarious purposes for Germany long before Hitler launched his quest for world domination.

With her stuffy, uptight brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) in tow, Lily ends up hiring Frank after a series of amusing deceptions that involve taming a jaguar named Proxima and deceiving riverboat bigshot Nilo (Paul Giamatti).

Operating a rickety tour boat, Frank has to rely on guile and his charm, plus the fact that he’s a cheap hire, to take Lily and MacGregor on a trip that is dangerous not just for the rapids but for encounters with snakes and cannibals along the way.

The gruff, wisecracking Frank quickly starts bickering with Lily, calling her “Pants” because she wears trousers, and in turn Lily derisively calls him “Skippy.” The bantering continues throughout the journey, with an outcome you might suspect.

There’s also perilous danger at every turn when the trio is captured by a tribe of apparent headhunters led by a formidable woman, Trader Sam (Veronica Falcon), but that’s hardly the worst of it.

The supernatural comes into play with undead Spanish conquistadors who have been trapped in the Amazon for four centuries after a failed quest to retrieve a petal from the tree that is known as the Tears of the Moon.

As leader of the undead, Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez) and his crew, who have been cursed to remain stuck in the rain forest forever, bring a supernatural element to a climactic final confrontation.

Above all else, “Jungle Cruise” is really inspired by the classic Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn film “The African Queen.” Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt update the premise for a fun adventure the whole family may enjoy.



‘TURNER & HOOCH’ ON DISNEY+

At first blush, the new series that remakes a 1989 Tom Hanks movie for the family-friendly Disney+ looks like it’s trying to determine whether it’s intended for a younger audience despite some of its edgier content.

The similarly named “Turner & Hooch” pays homage to Tom Hanks in that Josh Peck’s Scott Turner, the son of his film character, is now an uptight Deputy U.S. Marshal who inherits a giant unruly dog from his recently deceased father.

Based in San Francisco, the meticulous Scott finds his ordered life upended when his sister Laura (Lyndsy Fonseca) shows up at his door with the drooling Hooch, a massive junkyard dog who proceeds to destroy his tidy apartment.

Laughs ensue, of course, because Hooch chews more than the scenery as he moves about Scott’s immaculate abode with the destructive power of a Category 5 hurricane obliterating everything in its path. Well, so far so good for tame entertainment.

Since Scott is clueless on how to handle the French mastiff, he enlists help from attractive K-9 trainer Erica (Vanessa Lengies). Scott’s also oblivious to the signals from Erica of her interest in him, and that’s the way it goes for at least the first three episodes.

Rambunctious fun with the canine soon gives way to a more serious tone when Scott shows up at the office with Hooch, and a case of guarding a witness set to testify in a criminal trial goes awry when the subject of the Marshal’s protective detail is kidnapped.

While wrangling with his boss James Mendes (Anthony Ruivivar) for an opportunity to join the A-team led by Trent (Matt Hamilton), Scott is saddled with his pregnant partner Jessica (Carra Patterson) for more mundane assignments.

In one of the episodes, Scott’s involvement in the security detail for a hotel gathering of an Olympic Games delegation has him babysitting the young daughter of a diplomat.

But Hooch proves, even with his love for donuts, that he may be more intuitive and effective at police work in tracking down the criminals that abducted the witness than the veteran Marshals that are dismissive of Scott’s involvement.

Though the dad’s career was no more taxing than writing parking tickets, Scott and his sister discover a mysterious case file that their father was secretly investigating which may lead to a recurring subplot.

“Turner & Hooch” offers a mix of comedy and action, and yet there are times the level of violence, with shootouts and fistfights, feels out of place for the Disney family universe.

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

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Symphony Association is now taking registrations for students fourth grade and above and for adults for classes in cello, violin and viola.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Lake County Wine Alliance, lessons are free.

Instruments are not provided. Rentals and purchases are available in Kelseyville, Ukiah and Santa Rosa.

Registration deadline is Sept. 1.

Classes are held Sunday afternoons at the Presbyterian Church, located at Church and Third streets, in Kelseyville.

The date of the first class is Sept. 19.

Registration forms are available to print out at http://www.lakcountysymphonyassociation.org.

Completed forms should be returned to LCSA, P.O. Box 974, Lakeport, CA 95453.

For many of us who live in land locked states, an encounter with the tumult and power of the sea can be a bracing encounter with nature.

Here, in a poem I came across in a clever new anthology called Read Water, Annie Finch captures the humbling way that the sea asserts its forceful voice.

Edge, Atlantic, July
By Annie Finch

I picked my way nearer along the shocking rock shelf,
hoping the spray would rise up to meet me, myself.

Seagulls roared louder and closer than anything planned;
I looked out to see and forgot I could still see the land.

Lost in a foaming green crawl, I grew smaller than me;
shrunk in a tidepool, I heaved, and I wondered. The sea

grew like monuments for me. Each wave and its coloring shadow,
bereft, wild and laden with wrack, spoke for me and had no

need of my words anymore. I was open and glad
at last, grateful like seaweed and glad, since I had

no place on the rocks but a voice, and the voice was the sea’s:
not my own. Just the sea’s.

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 Annie Finch, “Edge, Atlantic, July” from Read Water: An Anthology (Locked Horn 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.

‘OLD’ RATED PG-13

An existential sense of doom pervades visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, which is based on the French graphic novel “Sandcastle” that’s about a group of people vacationing on a secluded beach who discover they are aging rapidly.

The succinctly titled “Old” follows the same premise of its source material, and that’s hardly surprising for anyone who has seen the trailer. It’s not a spoiler to reveal the aging process is so fast as to leave little time for an escape from the beach.

A group of unlucky vacationers at a luxurious tropical resort are invited by the unctuous manager for a day-trip excursion of surf, sun and sand at an off-limits nature preserve that turns into a nightmare.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps are Guy and Prisca Capa, a married couple on the verge of divorce who bring along their 11-year-old daughter Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and six-year-old son Trent (Nolan River) on what may be a last family trip.

Joining the Capa family on the beach outing is surgeon Charles (Rufus Sewell), his mother Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant), his much younger wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee) and their six-year-old daughter Kara (Kylie Begley).

A rapper who goes by the moniker Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre) has mysterious nosebleeds and is already wandering around in a daze. But that’s nothing compared to how Dr. Charles slips rapidly into a disturbing state of paranoia.

The real problem for the vacationers is that a day at the beach turns the young kids into teenagers even before it’s time for a picnic lunch. A dead girl washes ashore and her body quickly decomposes. A psychologist (Nikki Amuka-Bird) faces the threat of epileptic seizures.

“Old” creates an interesting dynamic for the beachgoers trapped in an idyllic place that is anything but relaxing and tranquil. There’s a foreboding feeling of tragedy in that the characters are not in control of their destiny.

More than anything, “Old” ramps up tension and the sense of mortal danger with chilling dread. Shyamalan sums it up in the press notes saying that he “wanted it to feel like you’re watching a two-hour ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.”

Whether Shyamalan delivers an overall suspenseful thriller may be debatable, though on balance the thrills are ominous. Another arguable point is if the twisty ending delivers a suitable conclusion to a supernatural nightmare.

Moviegoers may well argue if the Shyamalan formula of weirdness produces an unsettling effect in “Old.” Go ahead and discuss this amongst yourselves.



‘LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION’ ON IMDB TV

IMDb TV is an ad-supported streaming service owned by Amazon where you can watch TV shows and movies online for free. The service is now in the business of having its own original programming, starting most notably with “Leverage: Redemption.”

Back in 2008, the TNT network launched a five-season run of “Leverage,” a crime drama series that followed a five-person team consisting of a grifter, hacker, hitter, and expert thief led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton).

In carrying out capers, the team acted like Robin Hood in fighting predatory corporate types and corrupt government officials that had wronged ordinary citizens. Now the team is back, minus Timothy Hutton, but with a new player joining in Noah Wyle’s Harry Wilson.

Returning as the avenging crew is Gina Bellman’s grifter Sophie Devereaux, Beth Riesgraf’s master thief Parker, Christian Kane’s martial artist Eliot Spencer, and Aldis Hodge’s computer hacker Alec Hardison.

As a New Orleans lawyer who served as a corporate fixer, Harry Wilson brings a new perspective to the group of do-gooder con artists in that he’s turned the corner from a career of helping rich and powerful crooks to knowing how to get the upper hand to bring them down.

While Sophie may be the de facto leader replacing the deceased Nathan, Harry represents the emotional core of the mission to help the little guy since he’s the one seeking redemption to atone for years of defending the evildoers.

Apparently, Aldis Hodge’s schedule only permits a limited participation in this reboot, but conveniently Hardison’s foster kid sister Breanna (Aleyse Shannon) takes over as the new master of electronic wizardry.

As with the original series, the motley crew of reformed criminals engages in virtuous scams such that each episode stands on its own for wish fulfillment that justice has been served.

The adventures in the early episodes include an elaborate heist in Panama to thwart an evil billionaire’s plan to flee extradition and upending the dastardly plot of a greedy riverboat casino owner to bulldoze the homes of longtime New Orleans natives for his planned expansion.

A very topical undertaking in “The Tower Job” episode is conning a cost-cutting developer out of an entire high-rise apartment building. As filming must have occurred before the building collapse in Florida, this has the feel of a prescient cautionary tale.

While the justice-for-the-aggrieved concept of “Leverage: Redemption” and its predecessor is hardly unique, the team of con artists with their own set of special skills work so well together to deliver a fun diversion.

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

There is nothing quite like the relief of good news from the doctors. Of course, it is a reminder of the bad news we eventually expect, the faith that the word “cure” demands of us.

I have always enjoyed Hilda Raz’s wry sense of humor, and this poem is no different.

Pristine
By Hilda Raz
I am sick with worry when you call.
You tell me a story about ears
How the doctor asked about your earaches
Peered in and pronounced “Pristine.
Clean as a whistle.” And you were cured.

Because I am a maker of poems
And you are a maker of music
You tell me the word pristine was perfect.
It was the cure.

Yesterday I went to the hospital
To hear my heart beat in her various chambers.
I knew the sounds:
The Fly Bird from the right ventricle
The Go Go from the left
The Here I am from under the rib.

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 Hilda Raz, “Pristine” from List & Story, (Stephen F. Austin State University 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.