‘THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2’ ON NETFLIX

Considering the frustration felt by many during these challenging times, you may have noticed some leaders keep insisting that we cancel holiday celebrations with family because, after all, let’s end this awful year on a down note for everyone.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, we could have a contest for the officeholder most qualified to be crowned the Grinch. But in the holiday spirit, why not skip the doom and gloom if only briefly. Since this column is about seeking enjoyment, let’s relish the Christmas spirit.

A good start would a family evening for a viewing of the Netflix movie “The Christmas Chronicles 2” starring a most appropriate and delightful Kurt Russell as the hip jolly resident of the North Pole.

While the original 2018 “The Christmas Chronicles” included Chris Columbus as one of the producers, the notable writer and director brings his family-themed creative talent this time to directing and being part of the writing team.

With Columbus at the head, a family amusement to cheer as welcome relief from our current malaise is to be expected from the talent behind the holiday film “Home Alone” and comedies that featured adolescents.

In the original film siblings Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy Pierce (Judah Lewis) had a Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus on camera which nearly derailed Christmas on a wild night before they joined with Santa and the Elves to save Christmas before it was too late.

Two years later, the siblings are spending Christmas in Cancun with their widowed mother Claire (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and her boyfriend and maybe future husband Bob (Tyrese Gibson), who has a young son Jack (Jahzir Bruno).

Now a cynical teenager, Kate broods over the fact that Christmas is just not same in a tropical environment at a glorious beach, and she’s not quite enthused about her mom’s new relationship since she fears the memory of her deceased father is fading away.

Meanwhile, older sibling Teddy has settled down from his more rambunctious ways and enjoys sipping tropical fruit drinks while relaxing near the ocean’s edge. Unlike Kate, Teddy doesn’t miss the winter environment back home in Massachusetts.

The youngest child is possible future half-brother Jack, a nice kid apparently suffering anxiety over just about anything unfamiliar, but who will soon be tested on adapting to big surprises in store.

A former elf named Belsnickel (Julian Dennison), bitter that he felt ignored by Santa and Mrs. Claus (Goldie Hawn) and then unwillingly turned into human form, is ensconced at the South Pole plotting revenge.

Feeling alienated from her family, Kate decides to run away back to Boston at the earliest chance, which comes when Claire and Bob take advantage of an overnight trip to the Mayan ruins.

During the parental absence, Kate and Jack are signed up for Kids Club activities, but they both get duped into a golf cart ride supposedly to the airport by Belsnickel and end up instead thrust into a portal with a fast trip to the North Pole.

The kids are Belsnickel’s ticket back into Santa’s Village where his dastardly plans include theft of the Christmas star that powers the North Pole and launch of a chemical attack that turns the cheerful elves into destructive gremlin-like maniacs.

A magical troublemaker, Belsnickel is hell-bent on destroying the North Pole and bringing Christmas to a permanent end, even if it means unleashing bedlam with a fierce Yule Cat that brings harm to Dasher, one of Santa’s beloved reindeers.

Aside from the amusingly bad behavior of Santa’s wayward elves, Santa and Belsnickel compete in an aerial sleigh ride race with nice digital effects that also would please the youngsters.

Time travel takes Santa and the kids back several decades to Boston’s snowbound Logan Airport on Christmas Eve as holiday travelers wait for delayed flights and Kate ends up in a jam for what a sales clerk believes is her attempt to pass counterfeit money.

Keep an eye out for throwaway bits of humor like the village’s cinema featuring “Bad Santa” while the elves run rampant and Santa and Mrs. Claus dozing off while the elf language version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” plays on the television.

Cynics might think of “The Christmas Chronicles 2” as little more than Yuletide pablum, and while it may not be the most inspired holiday fare of all time, it does have heart and enough cuteness and humor to offer seasonal enjoyment.

Moreover, Kurt Russell brings playful gruffness to his St. Nick when confronting Belsnickel, charming banter with his real-life partner Goldie Hawn, and joyful rocking of a Christmas song in the Boston airport, all of which reflect being right for the part.

Will Christmas be saved once again? Here’s guessing that you may already know the answer, but that would likely be the case for any other similar holiday film.

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

James Crews, the author of this week’s poem, is the editor of a fine anthology from Green Writers Press called “Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection,” much needed in our troubled world.

Here, as I see it, he graciously pays his respects to William Carlos Williams, our great poet of the local and ordinary, who once wrote about the pleasure of eating all the plums his wife had left in the refrigerator.

His newest book is “Bluebird.”

Clearly

To see clearly,
not needing a drink
or pill or puff
of any pipe
to know I’m alive.
To come home,
peel off sandals
and step onto
the cool tile floor
needing only
the rush of water
over strawberries
I picked myself
and then a knife
to trim the dusty
green heads
from each one,
to watch them
gleam cleanly
in a colander
in a patch of sun
near the sink.


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 James Crews, "Clearly," from Bluebird, (Green Writers Press, 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of James Crews and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

‘THE HARDY BOYS’ ON HULU

This is not intended to be a history lesson, but it has to be noted that “The Hardy Boys” books have been around for almost a century, going back to prolific ghostwriters, under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon, churning out teen pulp fiction.

The series of mystery stories about two teenagers who are amateur sleuths solving cases that adults couldn’t handle were certainly popular in my youth. Following the adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy in print was always enjoyable.

In today’s culture of the Internet, Facebook, Instagram and all forms of social media that don’t tax anyone’s attention span, I have no idea if the books are still popular with the target audience.

Up until now, the most identifiable fulfilment of “The Hardy Boys” in the television medium was the 1970s series on ABC that starred Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as the sleuthing teens who were often joined by Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew.

Hulu has rebooted “The Hardy Boys” for a 13-episode run that is now streaming, with the Hardy siblings at a younger age than the stars of the ABC series but no less resourceful in the business of investigation.

Frank Hardy (Rohan Campbell), a 16-year-old athletic star on the high school baseball team, and his brother Joe (Alexander Elliot), a 12-year-old prodigy with an uncanny ability to pick locks like a professional thief, enjoy a wonderful family life until tragedy strikes.

This may be a spoiler to inform you that their mother, Laura Hardy (Janet Porter), who had been an investigative reporter, suffers a fatal automobile accident only minutes into the first episode.

However, the mystery surrounding the demise of the Hardy siblings’ mother is the catalyst for the sleuthing adventures of the boys taking it upon themselves to launch their own investigation into her death.

After this family tragedy, Frank and Joe are forced to move from the big city located in a seemingly unspecified New England location to their parents’ hometown of Bridgeport for the summer.

Without much explanation to the boys, the patriarch Fenton Hardy (James Tupper), a veteran detective with the Dixon City police department, embarks on a secret overseas mission to search for answers that might be found with one of the last people to have seen his wife.

Meanwhile, the boys stay with their Aunt Trudy (Bea Santos) in the sleepy seaside small town where it seems time is frozen in the Fifties rather than the actual era of the 1980s, in part because the town kids hang out at an old-fashioned soda fountain joint.

In reality, Bridgeport is not a conventional small town. The Hardy boys’ grandmother, Gloria Estabrook (Linda Thorson), a woman of considerable wealth and power, is an enigma to her own family and a mysterious figure with considerable sway in the community.

For instance, what is Gloria’s connection to a fishing boat that is destroyed at sea and on which several crew members are killed by the nefarious Tall Man (Stephen R. Hart) anxious to get his hands on a mystical ancient relic?

What about J.B. Cox (Atticus Mitchell), a shady character who pulls a D.B. Cooper stunt by jumping out of an airplane with a mysterious package and is later found by Joe and his pal Biff (Riley O’Donnell) camping on the beach in a tent made from a parachute?

Intrigue lurks everywhere, even when Frank is encouraged by Gloria to take the entrance test to the elite Rosegrave Preparatory School and later finds out that the Dean (Frank Licari) had a close connection to his mother that he’s afraid to talk about on the school grounds.

After completing the Rosegrave exam, Frank partners with his friend Callie Shaw (Keana Lyn) to work together to solve the exam’s last puzzle to escape from Gloria’s study, only to discover another secret room with a connection to the relic being sought by the scary Tall Man.

Intrigue also comes to the Bridgeport Public School when Frank befriends the new girl in town, Stacy (Rachel Drance), who is deemed by Callie to be suspicious either due to jealousy or a reason more sinister.

Binge-watching “The Hardy Boys” over a series of nights is an option, and the early going may seem a bit sluggish at times, but I am more than half-way through and there are enough mysteries beyond the mother’s death to warrant attention.

While “The Hardy Boys” is an American creation, most of the actors in this Hulu Original series are Canadian as the filming occurred north of the border, and yet the setting is unmistakably as American as apple pie.

Potential viewers may assume that this production of “The Hardy Boys” is targeted to the demographic most likely to read the books. Au contraire, the mysteries and intrigues that abound cast a wider net of interest.

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

The following poem by Susanna Brougham appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of Beloit Poetry Journal, one of our country’s successful older literary journals.

This is as fine a poem about “the staff of life” as I’ve ever seen. Is that a pun in the last line? I’ll leave that to you. Brougham lives in Massachusetts.

Translation

Months later, my father and I
discovered his mother’s last word—
deep in the downstairs freezer,
one loaf of dark rye.

Its thaw slowed the hours.

I could not bear
the thought of eating it.
Then the ice subsided. The bread
was firm, fragrant, forgiving.

My father got the knife,
the butter. The slices
held. Together we ate
that Finnish silence.


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 Susanna Brougham, "Translation," from Beloit Poetry Journal, (Vol. 70, No. 1, 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of Susanna Brougham and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

‘THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT’ ON HBO MAX

Anyone who has been flying long-distance for decades has not likely encountered the likes of a flight attendant such as Kaley Cuoco’s manic Cassie Bowden, who views the job as an opportunity for free international travel with the fringe benefit of consuming tiny bottles of vodka.

HBO Max’s original new series “The Flight Attendant” is a darkly comic mystery thriller of sorts about the misadventures of Cuoco’s titular character that emanate in large part from the mess being made of her personal and professional life.

Our first glimpse of Cassie finds her passed-out from a night of an alcohol-fueled bender on a New York subway bench and then waking up to realize she’d better rush to her next shift on a run to Bangkok.

Cassie’s co-workers, including Megan (Rosie Perez) and Shane (Griffin Mattews), tolerate the train wreck party girl’s indiscretions, knowing that she will sneak many gulps of booze in first-class on the long overnight flights.

During the flight to Bangkok, Cassie pays more attention to handsome businessman Alex Sokolov (Michiel Huisman), who becomes known to the rest of the flight crew as “3C,” for his seat assignment.

Well, Cassie gets so carefree and flirtatious with “3C” in the middle of the night that an introduction to membership in the mile-high club with her passenger is emblematic of her propensity for precarious behavior.

To the surprise of no one on the crew, Cassie takes up an offer from Alex for an extravagant date night in Bangkok, which culminates in a stay in his swank hotel suite.

Having blacked out from too many libations, Cassie wakes up horrified to find Alex’s bloodily mutilated corpse without any recollection of how this happened. The only clue seems to be broken glass littered on the floor.

Meanwhile, Cassie naturally panics, knowing she would be the prime suspect in a foreign land. Visions of the legal plight faced by Amanda Knox for a murder in Italy dance in her head.

Grappling with her own thoughts of innocence, Cassie claims to be incapable of murder, contending “I’m not that kind of drunk. I’m public nudity yelling in the subway kind of drunk.”

In the first of many questionable decisions, Cassie rids the crime scene of key evidence, such as wiping up the bloody trails on the floor and discarding broken glass and liquor bottles, before leaving in haste back to the airport for a flight to Seoul.

As her colleagues keep wondering why she is acting more oddly than usual, Cassie finds her conscience grappling with images of Alex conversing about his fatal situation and how she needs to clear her mind to start remembering some details.

Alex’s ethereal presence prods Cassie to investigate the murder on her own, which goes against the pro bono legal advice given by her best friend Annie (Zosia Mamet) to not volunteer any unsolicited information to the authorities.

Yet, her first major mistake back in the States is a willingness to talk freely and without reservations with two FBI agents (Nolan Gerard Funk and Merle Dandridge) who are only looking for someone to incriminate their actions in Thailand.

As if dealing openly with federal agents is not problematic enough, Cassie channels her inner private eye to show up at Alex’s place of business, pretending to be an investor in a hedge-fund she knows nothing about.

Cassie wanders into other situations, often in an alcohol-fueled haze knocking over trays of drinks or a tower of cucumber sandwiches at a memorial service and bumbling along like Inspector Clouseau in search of clues to find Alex’s killer.

Meanwhile, Cassie also has to entertain a pending visit from her disapproving older brother Davey (T.R. Knight) and his family, which unearths more details of her childhood trauma that involved an alcoholic father’s unhealthy influence.

“The Flight Attendant” is an eight-episode series, and HBO Max released for review purposes the first-half of the run, which was more than enough enticement to hang in for the remainder in anticipation that the various plot threads would bear a fruitful conclusion.

Several mysteries need to be solved, not just the one involving the death in Bangkok. Why would someone ransack Cassie’s apartment? Who is the mystery woman stalking Cassie and why? What’s the Sokolov family hiding? What’s up with a co-worker meeting with shady characters?

Aside from an interesting cast of characters with their own motivations and hidden agendas, Kaley Cuoco’s performance alone invests “The Flight Attendant” with sufficient curiosity to ride along for a wild and perhaps bumpy adventure.

Whether or not “The Flight Attendant” soars to a new altitude or eventually gets grounded, my thought is that each new plot development so far definitely warrants a commitment of another four hours to see where and how the denouement lands.

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

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center is hosting a virtual opening reception for its new exhibit, “HOME,” on Saturday, Dec. 5, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The opening will feature a virtual tour of the gallery and conversations with exhibiting artists and co-curators Nicola Chipps and Lisa Kaplan.

Broadcast on Zoom, the event is free and open to the public. A link is available at www.MiddletownArtCenter.org. It will also be livestreamed on Facebook through MAC’s page @ARTMiddletown.

The exhibit speaks to the places where humans and other living beings establish roots, the shelters we occupy, and our sense of the places we call “Home.” The artwork has been juried and curated to represent excellence.

The exhibit includes work from Lake County artists with the addition of new artists from Sonoma County and ceramicists from the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project.

The virtual tour is prepared in 3D modeling and will be navigated live at the opening by Michael Chandler of Third Eye Visuals.

As Lake County’s premier art gallery, the MAC curates rotating exhibits of exceptional work from regional artists. The exhibits are poignant, well-crafted and contemporary with definitive earthy aspects.

As a vital arts resource, the MAC has been providing cultural enrichment and inspiring people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to engage with the arts since 2015, when it opened just a few months prior to the Valley fire.

Like other organizations in the region, the MAC has adapted and found innovative ways to serve and engage the community in the face of wildfire and the COVID 19 pandemic.

Remaining accessible through virtual workshops, exhibits, readings, a Maker’s Faire and more, MAC has been a beacon of resilience while uplifting community spirit.

“We are grateful to continue to provide arts and cultural enrichment while ensuring safety protocols are in place,” said MAC’s programs director and co-curator, Lisa Kaplan.

The Middletown Art Center Gallery Store remains open for your holiday shopping with current safety guidelines in place. Buy lake made art between 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Sunday, or by appointment.

For more information about the artists and for online acquisition of the collection, visit Artwork Archive at https://bit.ly/39AxRLk.

“HOME” has been generously sponsored in part by Sterling Mortgage, Griffin’s Furniture, Chipps Interiors and Engel & Völker of Healdsburg.

Find out more about events, programs, opportunities, and ways to support the MAC’s work to weave the arts and culture into the fabric of life in Lake County at www.middletownartcenter.org.