LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Arts Council invites the community to its monthly First Friday Fling on Friday, May 2.

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

This festive monthly event brings together artists, art lovers and the community at large for an evening of inspiration and fun.

Enjoy the newest exhibits at the gallery and the live performance of musician Bob Lucatorto.

Admission is free, and light refreshments will be available.

For more information, call 707-263-6658 or follow the Lake County Arts Council on Facebook for updates.

‘THE AMATEUR’ RATED PG-13

The television series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” transformed John Krasinski’s titular character from a CIA analyst working from the safe position of a desk job into dangerous field assignments that go with the territory of an espionage thriller.

The premise of this type of work-related transition in the spy world is hardly new, but along comes “The Amateur” to offer its own twist of thrusting, and in this case under unusual circumstances, a deskbound introverted CIA decoder into an international pursuit of ruthless killers.

Charlie Heller (Rami Malek), a brilliant but socially awkward decryption and analysis expert, is confined to a basement office at Langley where he works alone and sequestered from interaction with other colleagues.

A man enjoying a bucolic lifestyle in a lovely farmhouse, Charlie is blissfully in love with his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), who gifted him with a vintage plane he’s working to restore.

Loathe to travel far from home, Charlie decides not to join Sarah on her trip to a conference in London. Tragically, she’s taken hostage during a terrorist attack and meets a horrible fate.

After returning to work, Charlie is summoned by his superior, Deputy Director Moore (Holt McCallany), to the office of CIA Director O’Brien (Julianne Nicholson), where a viewing of gruesome video footage reveals the senseless murder of his wife.

Unable to face a life without his beloved spouse, Charlie decides to avenge her death by going after three killers, an understandable course of action that gets stonewalled by Director Moore and his colleague Caleb (Danny Sapani).

Given the shadowy world of espionage, it seems like more than bureaucratic roadblocks may impede Charlie’s path, but he knows enough inside secrets to blackmail superiors into getting field training from veteran agent Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) to hunt down the assassins on his own.

Charlie doesn’t have the physical skills or killer instinct of James Bond. He proves inept at shooting or fighting. But fearing a nefarious motive by his superiors, Charlie decides to go rogue and run off with a bunch of fake passports to attempt his mission.

Utilizing intelligence talents gathered from work, Charlie also taps into the dark web where the mysterious Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe) assists in his journey to Paris, Marseille, Istanbul and other exotic locations in his search.

Ingenuity works well for Charlie, and sometimes amusingly as when he employs a video tutorial on how to pick locks to break into an apartment. One of the best scenes in the movie, also featured in the trailer, is the dramatic pool-collapse on a high-rise glass bridge.

While the climactic confrontation on the Baltic Sea lacks plausibility, “The Amateur” does benefit from Rami Malek’s quirky performance of a novice field agent out of his depth but driven by vengeance to make it interesting.



‘DROP’ RATED PG-13

Have we become slaves to our smartphones? That’s not the question asked in the thriller “Drop,” but it may be one to take into consideration if you are on a first date at a fancy restaurant and your cell phone turns from an annoyance to a serious threat with a lot of memes.

That’s the situation for Violet (Meghann Fahy), a widowed mother of a young boy on her first date in years, who arrives at an upscale Chicago restaurant where she first meets the helpful, pleasant bartender Cara (Gabrielle Ryan Spring).

She encounters an older man named Richard (Reed Diamond), who she’s relieved to find out is waiting for another blind date that is not her. At this point, she’s still waiting for Henry (Brandon Sklenar), who has texted he’s running late.

When Henry arrives, they are seated at a table with a fabulous skyline view and served by overly talkative waiter Matt (Jeffrey Self), who’s obviously waiting for his next theatrical audition.

Charming and handsome, Henry turns out to have a pleasant personality and attentive demeanor. He will soon be put to the test for patience when Violet starts getting a stream of text messages.

Violet’s son Toby (Jacob Robinson) has been left in the care of her younger sister Jen (Violett Beane). Nervous enough for going out for the evening while Toby is at home, Violet’s evening takes a dark turn when someone starts sending “drops” to her phone.

What starts off as irritating interruptions during dinner for Violet turns incrementally more sinister. The “drops” deliver messages growing from annoying to menacing, soon insisting that she will have to kill Henry or else an intruder, appearing in video on her phone, will slay her son.

The “drops,” which operate on a short radius, indicate the messages are coming from someone in the restaurant. This heightens the tension because she’s constantly warned not to call the police or seek help from anyone.

The paranoia is ramped up in this bizarre cat-and-mouse game as Violet nervously checks everyone in the room. What about the guy constantly texting on his phone while waiting for his guest? There are plenty of red herrings to at least keep “Drop” interesting.

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

TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW

The TCM Classic Film kicks off its opening night gala, showcasing its theme of “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film” with the screening of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” the second film in the “Star Wars” trilogy.

Visionary director George Lucas will be there to present his film that is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Hard to believe that so much time has passed when “Star Wars” films were truly thrilling, rather than what Disney has done with forgettable remakes or reboots.

“The Empire Strikes Back” is like “The Godfather Part II.” Technically, they’re sequels, the second movie is a series. But they are so much more. In fact, they arguably could be stand-alone films.

“Empire” not only “dazzled and delighted ‘Star Wars’ fans, it pushed the boundaries of moviemaking, further deepening its characters and expanding the most popular cinematic universe of all time,” said Ben Mankiewicz, the official host of the festival.

According to Mankiewicz, “The first ‘Star Wars’ picture in 1977 ignited a new era in Hollywood and turned a generation of young people into passionate movie fans for life. Then, somehow, three years later, along comes ‘Empire,’ which might be even better.”

The publicity machine at Turner Classic Movies touts 1980’s “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” as “widely considered one of the greatest sequels in film history,” winning two Academy Awards and other accolades as time goes by.

The excitement of the space opera franchise began with George Lucas’ creation of “Star Wars” which quickly turned into a pop culture phenomenon in what was to be a trilogy of intergalactic adventure.

Not known at the time in 1977 was that “Star Wars” would result in a series where the film would later be known as Episode IV subtitled “A New Hope,” while “The Empire Strikes Back” maintained the same subtitle and became known as Episode V.

Three years later along came “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” with the beloved characters in the Rebel Alliance fighting the malignant Galactic Empire. Some will contend that the legacy of “Star Wars” would have been best served if “Return of the Jedi” had been the final chapter.

With the festival rapidly approaching its launch on Thursday, April 24th, the schedule is fully formed, though subject to last-minute changes. A movie lover’s dream will be fulfilled, as it has since the first festival in 2010.

The Marx Brothers may be the best-known family comedy team of all time, having success in vaudeville, the Broadway stage, and a slew of movies that have not lost their popularity.

The festival will feature Groucho’s favorite of all his movies that was not available in its original form for more than 80 years. “Animal Crackers,” the Marx Brothers’ second feature from 1930, was also their last film adapted from one of their Broadway productions.

In fact, “Animal Crackers” was the play the brothers were performing at night while filming their debut feature, 1929’s “The Cocoanuts” at Paramount’s New York studio.

Fun fact: There were five Marx Brothers, but youngest, Zeppo, never appeared on film, while Gummo, the second youngest, appeared only in the first five films. While Groucho is the de facto ringleader, Chico was the oldest, followed by Harpo. If you lost count, that makes Groucho the middle child.

A classic from the 1920s, “Beau Geste,” to be shown in a world premiere restoration, was one of Paramount’s most popular films, starring Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilton, and Ralph Forbes as three brothers forced by scandal to flee England and join the French Foreign Legion.

There’s high drama as they deal with a sadistic lieutenant (Noah Beery) and swashbuckling action scenes of desert warfare. The film also features early appearances by William Powell and Victor McLaglen.

The film’s Irish-born director Herbert Brenon was one of the first directors to achieve celebrity status, second only to D.W. Griffith. In a career spanning three decades, Brenon directed more than 120 films.

Another world premiere restoration is 1955’s “The Big Combo,” a film noir billed as a symphony of “chiaroscuro,” which is Italian for “light-dark,” thereby explaining a lighting technique to achieve contrast between the subject and a dark background.

Cornel Wilde’s detective Leonard Diamond is trying to get the goods of Richard Conte’s Mr. Brown, a new breed of criminal who keeps his hands clean and his books dirty. Diamond is also in love with Mr. Brown’s mistress (Wilde’s off-screen wife Jean Wallace).

Like any good film noir, the script is filled with punchy lines like “You can’t tell a jury a man’s guilty because he’s too innocent,” and contained multiple levels of overt and implied adult sexuality.

Conte and Wallace have a love scene that had censors in a tizzy, while Conte’s two cool gangsters, Lee Van Cleef’s Fante and Earl Holliman’s Mingo, seem to be more than just colleagues, putting it imprecisely.

While these films are a brief taste of the cornucopia of great cinema, a future column will feature some of the festival highlights.

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

‘A WORKING MAN’: RATED R

Unless someone has been in a coma for the last twenty or so years, it’s unlikely that even the most casual fan of action films would be surprised that Jason Statham has forged his career on the strength of his physical prowess evident in almost all his films.

The British actor, who does a lot of his own stunts, has apparently been quoted as saying something to the effect he wouldn’t get an Academy Award for his role in 2006’s “Crank” or any of his other movies.

To get a sense of Statham’s talent for action, the “Expendables” franchise is a reliable source, as well as any of the “Transporter” series or his turn as an elite assassin in “The Mechanic.” Classic films worth watching include “Snatch” and “The Bank Job.”

Now along comes “A Working Man,” yet again another target for critics who may take issue with a storyline and an excess of violence that would have been a perfect vehicle for Liam Neeson if only he wasn’t now past the age when you must take Social Security.

Speaking of Liam Neeson, the Irish actor will show up in late summer for a reboot of “The Naked Gun,” an action comedy in which he stars as Lt. Frank Drebin, Jr., the son of the inept police detective played by Leslie Nielsen in the TV series “Police Squad!” and the original “Naked Gun” film franchise.

One of Statham’s trademarks is a sarcastic sense of humor. Unfortunately, in his new role of Levon Cade he’s mostly a stoic avenger, consumed with exacting revenge against a multitude of vicious Russian thugs and drug dealers. There is no time for levity once he’s forced into action.

Levon, once in the British Royal Marines where he developed a lethal skill set, is now a construction foreman trying to leave behind the violent life of his military career. His job entails leading a crew on a major project in Chicago for the Garcia family.

Wanting only to be a working man while overcoming traumas of his past, Levon is like family to his boss, Joe Garcia (Michael Pena), along with Joe’s wife Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) and college-aged daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas), who work in the office trailer at the construction site.

Adding to his own woes is that Levon is a widower who fights for custody of his young daughter, Merry (Isla Gie), battling in court with his ex-father-in-law, Dr. Jordan Roth (Richard Heap), who sees Levon as a PTSD-riddled former soldier unfit to raise a child.

Wanting to move on from his tormented past, Levon is put to the test on the job when a bunch of thugs show up to attack one of the workers, and they quickly regret doing so, as he delivers a severe beatdown to these aggressors to the astonishment of his crew.

To celebrate her graduation, Jenny goes out on the town with a bunch of girlfriends to dance at various sleazy clubs. This routine outing is nothing out of the ordinary until Jenny is abducted into a sordid underworld of the Russian mafia and human trafficking.

The grief-stricken Garcias, knowing of Levon’s military heroics, plead with him to undertake a rescue mission, but he initially claims he’s no longer that person. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for him to reconsider, given he told Jenny he’d always have her back.

Enlisting the help of his blind Army buddy Gunny (David Harbour), Levon stocks up on an essential supply of weapons that brings an excess of firepower. Waterboarding a bartender results in Levon identifying Russian mob boss Wolo (Jason Flemyng) who suffers an unusual fate in a swimming pool.

Levon taps into the gritty Chicago underworld by impersonating a drug dealer with the aim of finding Jenny before she disappears forever in the sleazy network of sex traffickers ready to sell her to a wealthy deviant.

Our hero works his way through a parade of bad guys, including Wolo’s scoundrel son Dimi (Maximilian Osinski); the vicious tandem of Viper and Artemis (Emmett J. Scanlan and Eve Mauro); and biker bar proprietor Dutch (Chidi Ajufo). There’s no shortage of interesting characters to deal with.

Chicago is an iconic city with great architecture and incredible landmarks. Regrettably, none of that is shown here as the filming was done in England. The occasional shot of an Illinois license plate or an elevated train is not enough to create a sense of realism.

The die-hard Jason Statham fans will overlook locational flaws or the absence of a coherent plot or storyline. “A Working Man” fits perfectly into the pantheon of the British strongman’s string of exciting action thrillers.

This action genre is geared to being a crowd-pleaser and Jason Statham’s latest opus is no exception. While in the middle of the film there is a bit of a lull in the action, the climactic action really delivers fatal blows to the despicable villains.

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

“SUITS LA” ON NBC

Not quite a half-dozen years after the successful run of the legal drama “Suits” on the USA Network, NBC had the notion to capitalize with a spinoff taking corporate law firm intrigue from the heart of Manhattan to the sunny climes of Los Angeles.

It is instructive to look back at the nine-season run of “Suits,” if not for nostalgic reasons, but to frame a thematic transfer of a cutthroat legal world from frenzied New York to the laid-back Southern California lifestyle.

The East Coast version developed a successful formula of a new twist on legal drama by bringing a college dropout who never went to law school to a position as associate in a firm where legal sharks jockeyed for getting their names on the lobby wall.

Patrick J. Adams’ Mike Ross, using guile and a photographic memory, teamed up with senior partner Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) to close out practically unwinnable cases, while hiding the fact that he never graduated from Harvard Law.

Through most of the long run, Gina Torres’ Jessica Pearson was the cunning managing partner who had to handle the hard-charging lawyers, with Rick Hoffman’s neurotic Louis Litt proving to be the leading candidate as the most devious.

There could be a contest for the most odious lawyer to grace the inside of the firm, but the prize might go to David Costabile’s Daniel Hardman, the disgraced co-founding partner who returned from exile to attempt to take control of the firm, burning bridges left and right.

Given the intrigue inside and out of the firm that captivated audiences with “Suits,” what is going to make the West Coast version in “Suits LA” garner the same acclaim and following of its progenitor?

The first question about “Suits LA” is why have a spinoff of a beloved series that is devoid of connection to its origin, even when the series opens with a flashback to 2010 in New York City with the new series’ main character.

At the time, Ted Black (Stephen Amell), a federal prosecutor undeterred from convincing a reluctant witness to testify against a mob boss, narrowly dodges an explosion that claims the life of the man who could put a crime lord behind bars.

Fifteen years later in current time, Ted has relocated to Los Angeles to form the Black Lane law firm where he’s partnered with old friend Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt), a top-notch criminal defense attorney.

A forthcoming merger has created turmoil for other Black Lane lawyers, including Erica Rollins (Lex Scott Davis), who is angling to head up the entertainment law division, a position that the more seasoned Rick Dodsen (Bryan Greenberg) feels belongs to him.

Right off the start in the first episode, the merger plans go awry, and suddenly a chunk of Ted’s employees depart with Stuart Lane, which plunges the legal landscape at the now Black & Associates firm into a chaotic state.

Those who remain with Ted, in addition to Erica investing her ambition into running the entertainment wing, include Ted’s loyal, efficient gal Friday, Roslyn (Azita Ghanizada), who appears to barely tolerate anyone else trying to ingratiate themselves with the boss.

Barely a half-hour into the start of the series, a cloud of doom hovers over Ted that is surprising he’s not even seeing a shrink with the same frequency that Louis Litt had in “Suits” with his incurable neuroses.

Within a short period, that also includes many flashbacks, Ted’s marriage to Samantha (Rachelle Goulding) falls apart and he grapples with his estrangement from his father and the loss of his younger brother Eddie (Carson A. Egan), who has Down’s Syndrome, that he has cared for since they were kids.

All professional challenges and personal setbacks naturally weigh heavily on Ted, but we are still left hanging as to the reasons his marital union disintegrated and his passion to prosecute criminals suddenly vanished.

Undoubtedly, a move to Los Angeles was tempting, and being an entertainment lawyer would certainly have a glamorous appeal in a town where film and television production is considered the dominant industry.

Yet, Ted faces something of a crisis of conscience when one of top clients, film producer Lester Thompson (Kevin Weisman), charged with murder, now insists that Ted act as his defense attorney. Put in a bind, Ted had vowed never to take on that role.

Like its predecessor, “Suits LA” revolves around the personalities in the office, with several of the attorneys on the distaff side looking glamorous enough to be entertainment clients instead of representing them.

For all its plot twists and backstabbing, “Suits LA” is too convoluted and confusing instead of delivering the magic of its forerunner. There is little here to suggest the DNA of “Suits” is in evidence.

Other than the cameo appearance of Gabriel Macht, there is no connection to the original series other than the use of the theme music of Ima Robot’s “Greenback Boogie.” The unique chemistry of “Suits” is nowhere to be found.

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

‘NOVOCAINE’ Rated R

On occasion, you may learn something at the movies that you did not know existed in real life, only because it sounds too fantastical to believe. That happens to be a rare genetic disorder in the comedic action film “Novocaine.”

There won’t be a need for anesthesia in this movie because the titular character (given his nickname) has a condition called congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA), which means a person has the inability to feel pain. A trip to the dentist for a root canal won’t induce anxiety.

Jack Quaid’s Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered assistant manager at a San Diego credit union bank suffering from CIPA, does his best to live a risk-free life. That means all sharp corners of furniture at work and in his apartment are covered with tennis balls.

A liquid diet is required because eating solid food might cause him to bite off his tongue. The alarm on his watch goes off every three hours as a reminder to not let his bladder explode. When not at work, he spends all his time playing video games with a friend he’s never met in person.

At work, he rarely socializes until he takes notice of new teller Sherry (Amber Midthunder), when she accidentally scalds his hand with a cup of hot water. Sherry takes a liking to him such that he starts to come out of his shell. They even go out on a date, which seems like a first for Nate.

That Nate becomes infatuated with Sherry, not least for the reason that she’s pretty with a vivacious personality, but as well for her persistence by prodding him to take a bite of her delicious cherry pie at lunchtime.

When they go out that evening to a bar, Nate encounters an arrogant bully from his high school days who gave him the nickname of Novocaine because of his condition. When the tormentor fails at hitting upon Sherry, Nate starts falling hard for her.

Getting close to Christmas, Nate demonstrates his good-guy qualities by helping an elderly widower and small business owner defer on making payments until after the holidays. He’s a candidate for good karma, and he’s really gone to need it.

The day after the date with Sherry, three robbers dressed as Santas and toting automatic weapons storm the bank, demanding the safe to be opened. As the leader of the group, Simon (Ray Nicholson) is a certified trigger-happy psycho who kills the bank manager (Craig Jackson).

After forcing Nate to open the vault, the robbers take Sherry hostage once the police arrive. A shootout ensues with several police officers gunned down. With the cops out of commission, Nate steals a squad car to pursue the bad guys.

The consequence of this act causes the sardonic police detective Coltraine (Matt Walsh), along with his partner Mincy (Betty Gabriel), to assume that Nate is part of the robbery gang.

With the help of his video game buddy Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), Nate tracks down one of the robbers named Ben (Evan Hengst), who had escaped separately from Simon and his brother Andre (Conrad Kemp) when they abducted Sherry to their hiding place.

As part of his sleuthing, Nate ends up in a brutal encounter with tattoo artist Zeno (Garth Collins), a physical behemoth who could break him in half. Genuity on the part of Nate using his bloody fists embedded with shards of glass gets the better of his adversary.

One of the best scenes is when Nate ends up in a booby-trapped house and gets ensnared in a bear trap that has him hanging from the ceiling like a side of beef at the butcher shop, only to get saved by Roscoe.

With Nate impervious to pain, “Novocaine” leans heavily into bloody violence with a protagonist willing to go to the ends of the earth to save his damsel in distress. In doing so, Nate suffers beatings so severe that even John Wick wouldn’t bounce back.

Nate doesn’t react when his leg is impaled by an arrow or a spiked medieval ball slams into his back. Sticking his hand into boiling oil to retrieve a handgun is no biggie. He laughs when he’s tortured by pliers pulling out fingernails, but that’s just a bit too much for a squeamish audience to witness.

The choreography of fight scenes, from fists and kicks to throwing knives and frying pans, is thrilling in a cartoonish manner, but it does go unnecessarily over the top. Still, it is fun if you are willing to go with the premise.

“Novocaine” thrives on its ingenuity of brutal damage and mayhem. Nate keeps it all going with the occasional use of an EpiPen as his lovesick devotion to Sherry is his motivation to keep recharging his energy.

You may grimace at all the pain inflicted on the titular hero, but “Novocaine” is oddly enjoyable as a quirky, offbeat comedic thriller with a nice turn by Jack Quaid in the lead.

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