Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger star in “In the Heat of the Night.” Courtesy photo. LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1967 drama, “In the Heat of the Night,” starring Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, July 23, at 1 and 6 p.m.
Entry to the film is by donation.
This Mississippi thriller brought Steiger an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as a bigoted small town Southern police chief who must learn to work with an African American police detective from Philadelphia in order to solve a heinous murder.
The movie is sponsored by Bill Kranz. Rated G. Run time is 1 hour and 49 minutes.
The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com .
Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.
We haven't published nearly enough poems written for young people, and here's one I like a great deal, by Joyce Sutphen, the current Minnesota poet laureate, written for her granddaughter, Ellie.
Of course, like much good poetry, it's for both young and old.
Origami
It starts with a blank sheet, an undanced floor,
air where no sound erases the silence. As soon as
you play the first note, write down a word, step onto the empty stage,
you've moved closer to the creature inside. Remember—
a square can end up as frog, cardinal, mantis, or fish.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Coffee House Concert series will present singer-songwriter Xochitl on Saturday, July 20, at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $15.
The concert will take place at Fore Family Winery Tasting Room on Main Street in Kelseyville.
Xochitl is based in the Bay Area. She is a singer-songwriter with a variety of genres, from jazz to rock, pop, electronic, children’s music and country. She describes her style as “singer-songwriter with some jazz.”
She has toured in the South and the East Coast, and completed six West Coast tours. She currently is a regular performer at the Hard Rock Café.
With eight albums to her credit, Xochitl is signed with “SoFar” Sounds. She is reported to have a love for art, music, activism, the environment and youth.
Tickets are available in advance at Watershed Books in Lakeport or online at www.uuclc.org .
A limited number of tickets may be available at the door.
Original programming during the summer months is more often left to the cable networks, with series like “Animal Kingdom,” where the excessive lifestyle of a family is fueled by criminal activities, and “City on a Hill,” mixing criminal plots and corruption in the justice system.
The ABC network is taking advantage of an opening to deliver a pair of summer shows, “Grand Hotel,” a soap opera about a family-run swanky hotel, and “Reef Break,” a sexy, action-packed crime drama that has all the gravitas of a fraternity’s toga party.
There is nothing serious about “Reef Break,” where the gorgeous backdrop of a seductive fictional Pacific Island paradise will have you wondering if the location is on Australia’s Gold Coast or an unknown Hawaiian island that nobody knew was developed like Miami Beach.
A point of confusion is that the show was filmed in Australia with many actors having the native accent and all the while trying to sound like Americans. Perhaps the locale is intended to remain intentionally ambiguous so as not to be confused with a show like “Magnum P.I.”
Whatever the case may be, “Reef Break” stars Poppy Montgomery as Cat Chambers, a surfer with a criminal past who returns to the place she calls “The Reef” and describes as “the shadiest sunny place in the country.”
Within minutes in the first episode, Cat has informed the air marshal on her flight to the island that a man on board is carrying a gun and a bag of illicit loot. Soon after landing Cat hooks up with police detective Wyatt Cole (Desmond Chaim) she has just met in the hotel bar.
The action kicks in when the daughter of the island’s richest man goes missing, and Cat gets sucked into the case after telling a reporter that it’s likely a kidnapping and the ones holding the girl for ransom decide she’s to be the go-between.
On more than one occasion Cat’s only too willing to remind everyone that she was only “accused, never convicted” of crimes. This comes in handy when the governor’s office seeks out her services as a fixer for thorny cases.
Another storyline runs with Cat’s reunion with ex-husband Jake (Ray Stevenson), a former FBI agent who had been deep undercover when they married. Now he’s as close to being a beach bum without stepping foot into the ocean.
Moving forward, Cat will be handling sensitive matters for the island’s governor, working mainly through lieutenant governor Ana DuMont (Melissa Bonne) who’s wary of Cat’s impulsive, reckless nature.
With beautiful tropical settings and ocean views, “Reef Break” is a frothy entertainment with as much depth as a summer beach read. It’s all about surf, sex and sunshine, and plenty of crime thrown in for good measure.
Fitting nicely into the frivolous nature of summer fun, “Grand Hotel,” in the spirit of a Spanish telenovela, is filled with beautiful people, sexual heat, family squabbles, shady business deals, and mysterious twists.
The Mendozas’ Riviera Grand Hotel remains the last of the family-owned luxury resorts in the glamorous part of Miami Beach, with patriarch Santiago (Demian Bichir) nominally in control as the business falters.
Having remarried after his first wife died (which seems to be a mystery), Santiago’s new spouse Gigi (Roselyn Sanchez) fits the mold of trophy wife even though she has two adult fraternal twin daughters.
Santiago has two adult children of his own. Javi (Bryan Craig) has a prosthetic leg but that doesn’t hold this playboy back from seducing pretty hotel guests who believe his story of losing his limb in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, Alicia (Denyse Tontz), graced with smarts and beauty, is a recent MBA graduate who returns home with the expectation of applying her education to helping manage the family business.
The wicked stepsisters are Carolina (Feliz Ramirez), attractive and seductive, and Yoli (Justina Adorno), the frumpy one who nonetheless catches the eye of needy VIP guest El Rey (Jencarlos Canela), a singer headlining nightly shows at the hotel.
Sibling rivalry between Demian’s kids and the stepsisters heats up when Carolina is about to get married and it is revealed that her future husband’s family is buying the hotel.
This news goes down badly with the resentful Alicia and Javi as they seem certain that Gigi is behind the move to jettison the family’s legacy. An indiscrete liaison involving Carolina becomes a vehicle to torpedo the deal.
There are reasons, of course, that Santiago was anxious to sell the property, given that he’s eyeball in debt not to a bank but rather to unsavory people unwilling to extend any more credit.
Meanwhile, new employee Danny (Lincoln Younes) has a lot of interest in the mysterious vanishing of a line chef during a hurricane, and the hunky waiter gets plenty of notice from Alicia.
Check in, if you will, to the “Grand Hotel,” because the scenery is replete with gorgeous people and the endless bickering and backstabbing machinations keep everything interesting.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – On Saturday, live auditions are set to take place in Kelseyville for a musical written and produced by two local artists.
Auditions for “Even in Shadow” will be held today, Saturday, July 13, at 1 p.m. in the Friendship Hall at Kelseyville Presbyterian Church, 5340 Third St.
Actor-singers (18 or older) are invited to audition for the video production of the original musical, which will be shot in Lake County.
Singers who don't want to act, or don't match the look or visual age of one of the characters may audition for the soundtrack, which will be recorded in-studio in Lake County.
Crew members of all skills are also welcome to come and meet with the producers.
Profit sharing is available.
This play was originally produced in 2002 for Summer Theater Workshop. It has been revised and rewritten by its producers, Kelseyville residents Dan Worley and Carolyn Wing Greenlee, who also has served as Lake County’s Poet Laureate.
Auditions will be taken in the order they sign in, first come first heard. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. Online auditions are also welcome.
Information on the production is on the website www.eveninshadow.com with a list of characters and their sides.
Deadline for online auditions is Monday, July 15, 11:59 p.m.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Lake County Rural Arts Initiative and Fore Family Wine will host an art and wine reception for the 2019 Nature Photo Contest for students on Saturday, July 13.
The reception will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Fore Family Wine tasting room, 3924 Main St. in Kelseyville.
They will be showing photographs from the contest, taken by students from around the county.
There will be complementary appetizers and wine available for purchase by the glass.
As part of the Lake County Rural Arts Initiative’s mission to encourage art education, all donations will go toward purchasing art supplies for local schools.
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