‘THE CALL OF THE WILD’ (Rated PG)

There have not been many family-friendly films released since the beginning of the year. Let’s agree that kids don’t want to sit through the Oscar winner “Parasite” to read the subtitles for a mature subject matter.

In any event, “Sonic the Hedgehog” helped fill the void and now along come “The Call of the Wild,” based on a veritable and enduring example of classic American literature that was a short novel written by Jack London more than a century ago.

Hewing to the basic Jack London storyline, the film belongs to the big-hearted dog, Buck, who is kidnapped from his spoiled easygoing life at his California home and transported to the exotic wilds of the Yukon during the Gold Rush of the 1890s.

On a jarring note after being snatched from a comfy life, Buck is terrorized and brutally beaten into submission by what is called the “law of the club” before being sold off as a sled dog.

At least Buck ends up with cheerful French-Canadian mail courier Perrault (Omar Sy) and his wife Francoise (Cara Gee) and becomes a valuable member of the sled team delivering mail far and wide to prospectors in the Klondike.

Unfortunately, circumstances lead to Buck being acquired by siblings Hal (Dan Stevens) and Mercedes (Karen Gillan) who are driven by greed in search of fortune and end up having our canine hero lead a sled team on a foolish journey across a frozen river that is beginning to thaw.

This is where the wandering adventurer John Thornton (Harrison Ford) steps in to rescue Buck, setting in motion the vow by the villainous Hal to track both of them down in his vicious desire for vengeance.

For all his good intentions, Thornton has his faults, namely having too much affinity for drowning his sorrows in booze, which results from his grief over the loss of his son and the sadness of breaking up with his wife.

Becoming more than a companion with Thornton in a trek to the great remote wilderness of unchartered territory, Buck’s gentle soul shows itself not just trying to nudge his kindly master away from alcohol, he also bonds with a pack of wild wolves by saving one of them.

“The Call of the Wild” has plenty of adventure, from Buck rescuing animals from raging rivers and other dangers to saving Francoise from beneath a frozen lake and later dodging an avalanche that threatens to obliterate the entire team.

Don’t spoil it for kids by letting them know the animals are realized by the magic of motion-capture and that Cirque de Soleil performer Terry Notary created all the movements and mannerisms of Buck. This film was made for family to enjoy the adventure.

CABLE TV WINTER-SPRING PREVIEW – PART 5

HBO wasted little time jumping into its winter programming with two series that premiered within less than two weeks after the start of the New Year.

Hugh Laurie makes a welcome return to TV as Captain Ryan Clark of a luxury space cruise ship in “Avenue 5,” a comedy series set 40 years in the future with the space tourism excursion tossed into turbulence.

Captain Clark and his crew, which includes eccentric owner Herman Judd (Josh Gad) and head of customer relations Zach Woods (Matt Spencer), have to deal with disgruntled passengers who find out a malfunction will delay a return to Earth by three years.

“The Outsider,” based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, begins its ten-episode season by following a straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a young boy until an insidious supernatural force edges its way into the case.

Police detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) sets outs to investigate what seems to be an ironclad case. However, contradictory evidence places his suspect, Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman), in a different city at the time of the murder.

The circumstances surrounding the horrifying crime leads Ralph to join forces with unorthodox private investigator Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo), and soon they question everything they believe in.

Upending the arc of history is nothing new. The Amazon series “The Man in the High Castle” created an alternate American history with a parallel universe where the Axis powers emerged victorious in World War II.

The same principle is at work in the upcoming series “The Plot Against America,” which creates another version of historical events where now the danger lies from within.

Based on the novel by Philip Roth, “The Plot Against America” turns aviator hero Charles Lindbergh, an avowed isolationist, into a xenophobic populist denying President Franklin D. Roosevelt a third term in office.

In real life, Lindbergh displayed a fascination with Nazi Germany and publicly criticized Roosevelt in speeches to the point that his isolationism caused him to be denounced as an anti-Semite and traitor.

This six-episode series is viewed by the eyes of a working-class Jewish family seeking upward mobility while being horrified that a President Lindbergh has charted a course towards fascism.

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

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The annual winter concert series at the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake continues on Sunday, March 15, at 3 p.m. in Riffe’s Meeting House next to the hotel.

The performers will be Kenny Washington, one of the country’s leading male jazz vocalists, backed by the superb guitarist Jeff Massanari.

“Two years ago, this duo created one of the most memorable afternoons we’ve had in this series,” said Tallman owner Bernie Butcher. “They went on to do a sold-out show at the Soper-Reese in Lakeport the next year. It’s great to have them back in our intimate venue at the Tallman.”

Recently dubbed “the Superman of the Bay Area jazz scene” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenny Washington is a jazz virtuoso who thrills audiences with his soulful interpretations, seemingly limitless range, and rapid-fire scatting.

A native of New Orleans who grew up singing gospel in church, Kenny studied various styles of music at Xavier University and then performed worldwide with the U. S. Navy band for nine years.

He then settled in the Bay Area where he has recorded, collaborated with others, and was the featured artist at the “Top of the Mark” for many years.

As Massanari said, “If you haven’t heard Kenny Washington in concert before, get ready for a jaw-dropping experience. I just love playing with him.”

Massanari studied jazz composition and performance at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and quickly became one of the region’s most in-demand guitarists.

He is often asked to accompany artists such as Kenny Washington, Seth MacFarlane and Mark Inouye. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall and Stern Grove as well as on tour in China.

“The intimate venue at the Tallman is a perfect showcase for Kenny,” said Massanari. “We’re both really looking forward to a relaxing and fun afternoon in Lake County.”

More information on Kenny Washington can be obtained at his website http://www.kennywashingtonvocalist.com/ and on Jeff Massanari at http://jeff-massanari.com/.

Tickets at $25 plus tax are available online at Eventbrite.com or by calling the Tallman Hotel at 707-275-2244, Extension 0. Coffee and cookies are served to guests.

The hotel is also offering a 10-percent discount on hotel bookings for people purchasing tickets to the concert.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Arts Council presents the 39th annual Spring Dance Festival audition on Saturday, March 7.

The audition will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lakeport Dance Studio, 93 Soda Bay Road.

This year's theme is "Dance is in the Air!"

Please come with a prepared piece you are interested in sharing with the community.

The dance piece must be family-friendly. All styles are welcome!

This year’s Spring Dance Festival performances will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 4, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 5.

If you are interested, please contact Blair Brookes at 209-269-6766 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so they can schedule an audition time.

This week’s poem is one of my favorites and I can’t explain why in the 15 years I’ve been writing this column I’ve neglected until now to share it with you. Wendell Berry is one of our country’s finest writers, a poet, a fiction writer, an activist and a Kentucky farmer.

This poem is from “New Collected Poems” from Counterpoint Press, 2012. Berry’s most recent book of poetry is “A Small Porch.”

Before Dark

From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him

– at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.


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 ©1985 by Wendell Berry, "Before Dark," from New Collected Poems, (Counterpoint Press, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Wendell Berry 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.

‘TOMMY’ ON CBS NETWORK

Police procedural shows have been a staple of network and cable television for so long that it is difficult to imagine many new twists for the genre as so many series have the feeling of being inspired by shows that came before.

If there is a new variation for “Tommy” on the CBS network, it could be executive producer Tom Szentgyorgi’s observation during the winter press tour that the new series was “inspired by the absence of somebody.”

He was referring to the fact the three largest cities in the country, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, have never had a female chief of police, and so why not rectify the situation with Edie Falco’s Abigail “Tommy” Thomas taking charge of the Los Angeles Police Department.

As an actress who has made a strong presence in cable shows like “The Sopranos” and “Nurse Jackie,” Edie Falco is an interesting yet effective choice for creating a cop show that Szentgyorgi describes as being less about action and more focused on relationships.

Falco’s Tommy, as she prefers to be called, has been hired by Mayor Buddy Gray (Thomas Sadoski) away from the NYPD as the result of pressure from a federal judge to appoint a woman to the post.

The previous chief, Milt Leakey (Corbin Bernsen), though apparently still popular with the rank-and-file, was accused of sexual harassment by different women while a prostitution scandal that festered under his watch also figured into his dismissal.

As a New Yorker with the accent intact, Tommy is an outsider coming in to run a police department with no knowledge of the local culture. To cement the outsider status, she’s also a lesbian and seems to relish being identified as a “feminist icon.”

Not unlike the pilot of FOX’s “Deputy,” also set in Los Angeles, the first episode of “Tommy” steps into the politics of immigration when an LAPD officer fakes a traffic stop of immigrants to thwart an arrest by ICE agents.

What follows is the most improbable involvement of a police chief of volunteering to take a minor child into her own custody even though she’s living temporarily in a hotel, a situation that stretches credibility.

Moreover, when not struggling to reconnect with her estranged adult daughter Kate (Olivia Lucy Phillip), Tommy is such a hands-on chief that her appearance at every crime scene makes one wonder how she finds the time to exercise management of LAPD.

Navigating the politics of City Hall and maneuvering through the culture of the police force offer Edie Falco a chance to shine but may not do much to elevate “Tommy” beyond the standard procedural.

CABLE TV WINTER-SPRING PREVIEW – PART FOUR

Al Pacino, an iconic thespian with a great career on the screen, stage and occasional forays into TV movies, has arguably been one of the greatest masters of intensity as a method actor in films such as “The Godfather” and “Scarface.”

Pacino’s forceful personality is certain to follow his character of Meyer Offerman in the Amazon Prime Video series “Hunters,” in his role as a Nazi hunter in 1977 New York City.

When a Holocaust survivor is brutally murdered in her own home, Offerman recruits her grandson into a secret organization that is determined to track down hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the United States.

The eclectic vigilante squad of hunters sets out on a bloody quest for revenge to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.

During the winter TV press tour, series creator David Weil, while acknowledging that Nazis who sought refuge after the war on our shores were hunted through legal action, observed that “Hunters” is “a piece about wish fulfillment” of Nazis being eliminated.

That Pacino’s character brings intensity to his role of a hunter is powerfully brought home where he brutally nails the hand of his prey to a desk with the sharp blow of a big knife. The others are equally up to the task of violent retribution.

The setting of the series in the late Seventies allows for more Holocaust survivors to be among us. As it is, the last known World War II Nazi living in the United States, was deported to Germany in 2018 and died a year ago.

Fans of “Downton Abbey,” of which there are many, may want to tune in to the new EPIX series “Belgravia,” a story of secrets and scandals amongst the upper echelon of London society in the 19th century.

An invitation to the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo sets in motion a series of events that will have consequences for decades to come as secrets unravel.

Not surprisingly, “Belgravia” is based on the bestselling novel of Julian Fellowes, who just so happens to be the creator, writer and executive producer of the award-winning “Downton Abbey” television series. Safe to say we likely know what to expect of another period drama.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A diverse range of musical styles on the keyboard will be presented at the Soper Reese Theatre on Sunday, March 8, by seven well-known professional pianists from the region.

Musicians will combine their talent and years of experience to benefit fundraising efforts for the arts and education in Lake County.

The Lake County Friends of Mendocino College is partnering with the Soper Reese Theatre to sponsor the ninth annual Pianists Benefit Concert.

The afternoon begins at 2 p.m. with a no-host reception featuring fine regional wines from Lake and Mendocino counties, followed by the concert at 3 p.m.

A silent auction of items donated by businesses and individuals will be held during the reception and intermission. All proceeds benefit the two sponsoring organizations.

Lake County artists Tom Ganoung and David Neft will be joined by Mendocino County performers Spencer Brewer, Elena Casanova, Patrick Fitzgerald, Elizabeth MacDougall, and Ed Reinhart. The concert will feature all the pianists on stage throughout the performance as they converse about their life experiences and play a variety of musical selections.

Persons or businesses interested in supporting this fundraising effort are invited to become sponsors. Sponsors receive preference for premium reserved seats. Please contact the Soper Reese Theatre at 707-263-0577.

Sponsors to date include Anonymous Donor, Mike Bielenberg, Bernie and Lynne Butcher, Arlene Hanlon, Susie LaPointe, Jim and Wilda Shock, and Strong Financial Network.

Tickets are $27 for regular reserved seats and $32 for premium reserved, and may be purchased online at soperreesetheatre.com or from the Travel Center, 825 S. Main St. in Lakeport, Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. The theatre is located at 275 So. Main St., Lakeport. For more information call 707-263-0577.

“The Lake County Friends, an affiliate of the Mendocino College Foundation, was created to benefit Lake County students and programs. We are delighted that proceeds from this benefit concert will enable us to continue and expand this support,” said Wilda Shock, chairperson of Friends.

Proceeds from past concerts have funded scholarships for Lake County students at Mendocino College, a science laboratory, math and English tutors at the Lake Center, and supplies for art and ESL classes. This summer’s production of Shakespeare at the Lake in Lakeport and Clearlake will receive funds for student participation.

The Soper Reese Theatre is a restored performing arts venue operated by an all-volunteer management team under the auspices of the Lake County Arts Council. “Concert proceeds will be dedicated to the theatre’s Restroom Re-do renovation project which will modernize and expand facilities, and meet ADA standards,” according to Mike Adams, executive director.