‘AQUAMAN’ Rated PG-13

The half-human, half-Atlantean superhero, a DC Comics character known as Aquaman, finally gets his due for his very own feature length film, the sixth installment in the DC Extended Universe.

“Aquaman,” swims along for over two hours in an extravaganza of stunning visual effects in a deep sea adventure, but it does allow for an origin story for the half-man (Jason Momoa) who would be king of the undersea nation of Atlantis.

The story begins with Massachusetts lighthouse keeper Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison) rescuing Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) when washed ashore during a storm. They fall in love and end up bringing a boy named Arthur into the world.

The love story turns to tragedy when Atlanna, a princess from Atlantis, has no choice other than to abandon her interspecies child after being forced to return to the ocean where she’s betrothed to the King of the undersea world.

Young Arthur, raised by his human father, grows up to be the fearsome Aquaman, muscle-bound with tattoos and long hair, an imposing marvel that seems so fitting given the combination of Jason Momoa’s Hawaiian heritage and superb physique.

From his childhood visit to an aquarium where he demonstrates a surreal connection with sharks to his first encounter with ruthless pirates at sea, Arthur is a force to be reckoned with.

It’s only natural that Arthur would be drawn to the sea where a whole new world awaits him. Atlantis is a wondrous place where the inhabitants speak our language and resemble the landside humans they consider to be somewhat inferior.

A haughty attitude seems be what motivates King Orm (Patrick Wilson), the younger half-brother of Aquaman, to organize the other oceanic kingdoms to join his quest for world domination.

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that smug King Orm, whose blond hair and chiseled solid frame suggests a disturbing Aryan context, is driven by an imperialistic vision of planetary conquest.

While Orm’s jealous rage erupts when his half-breed brother ventures into the sea, Aquaman would have easily been willing to be left alone but for the treachery that Orm has unleashed with his petty familial grievances.

Joined by ocean Princess Mera (Amber Heard), Aquaman embarks on a journey to the seven undersea kingdoms in pursuit of the magical trident that would prove his rightful claim to the throne.

Flexing not only his muscles, Aquaman utters enough witticisms to undergird his undeniable charisma, such that rooting for this superhero easily surpasses any thoughts of dismissing the overall silliness of the underwater battles.

“Aquaman” gets plenty of mileage from Jason Momoa’s irresistible charisma and his credible physical strength so easily displayed in the mammoth underwater fight sequences elevated by impressive technical innovation.

Have you ever seen a movie where an octopus plays drums or soldiers ride giant sea horses into battle? These are just a couple of the many special effects that bring a sense of fun to “Aquaman.”



‘I FEEL BAD’ ON NBC NETWORK

The feeling that sitcoms on network television are in a state of decline is palpable when looking at the crop of new series of the current season.

About five or so minutes into the first episode of ABC’s new comedy “Single Parents,” the show was so unfunny and the characters so annoying or unrealistic that it was clearly time to move on.

Thus, I decided to take a look at NBC’s “I Feel Bad,” if only because the title was weirdly uninviting, causing wonder of why the network made this choice, or maybe suggestive of something entertainingly subversive.

In reality, the title of “I Feel Bad” is evidently tongue in cheek, given that an empowered woman of Indian heritage juggling work and motherhood doesn’t really seem to feel bad that she wants to take care of herself before her family.

In the first episode, Emet Kamala-Sweetzer (Sarayu Blue) is dreaming of being on the beach in the loving embrace of some hunk, before waking up with a voiceover of how she sometimes cheats on her husband in her sleep.

Her husband David (Paul Adelstein) is a caricature of the man who is often either clueless or disengaged. Engaged in a whirlwind of activity, Emet is constantly seeking “to preserve my precious 20 minutes” of alone time.

Working at a video game company, Emet is older than her all-male coworkers, Chewey (James Buckley), Norman (Zach Cherry) and Griff (Johnny Pemberton), each one a parody of the typical nerd.

This trio of millennial gamers wear their nerdiness as a badge of honor, with Griff proclaiming that “nerds are cool now. We date models,” a notion unlikely to apply to any of them.

In this age of Harvey Weinstein-type sleaze, it seems odd that a network show runs with a lot of sex jokes. After all, what’s up with Emet asking her male colleagues if she’s “still doable?”

Watch “I Feel Bad,” if you wish to give it a try. At least, it has funnier moments than the ABC show I gave up on.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Sukay’s Pachamama Band opens the 2019 Contemporary Chamber Music Series at the Soper Reese Theatre with a performance on Sunday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $20 with open seating. Youth 18 and under are free.

This performance features chamber music with a world music influence featuring two-time Latin Grammy nominee and virtuoso of the charango, Eddy Navia.

He is joined by renowned violinist Georges Lammam, master guitarist Freddy Clarke and Sukay's founder Quentin Navia.

They come together in this inspired and unique performance of rumba, flamenco, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Andean music where each player brings his unique musical tradition to create an extraordinary and beautiful collaboration of international musical fusion.

Sponsored by Kirsten Olson and by the Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon.

Tickets are available online at www.soperreesetheatre.com or at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main, Lakeport, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport.

For more information call 707-263-0577.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center’s Restore project provides Lake County residents with low-cost art classes and the opportunity to learn or refine skills in a variety of materials and techniques.

Classes take place most Saturdays through May 2019.

Classes include monthly writers workshop, alternating dry point etching, and block printing, and introductions to plaster, woodworking, felting, concrete, welding and more.

Late winter and spring classes will focus on a collaborative project for Phase I of a new Art Trail on Rabbit Hill, and on developing personal work for consideration for Restore exhibits around Lake County, at MAC, and at the EcoArts Sculpture Walk.

Restore classes will resume on Jan. 5 with printmaking, followed by writers workshop on Jan 12. The following weeks will be dedicated to mixed media and sculpture.

Preregister at www.middletownartcenter.org/restore.

Restore writing workshop participants will have the opportunity to contribute to MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images, and to participate in quarterly readings or exhibitions.

The first chapbook, “Resilience – a Community Reframes Disaster through Art,” is available for purchase at MAC or from the MAC Web site.

The Restore project was made possible with support from the California Arts Council, a state agency, with additional support from local organizations, businesses and individuals.

Visit www.ca.arts.gov to learn more about the California Arts Council’s important work in communities and schools throughout California.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Friday, Jan. 18, the Soper Reese Theatre Third Friday Live series features Bill Noteman and the Rockets, with show starting at 7 p.m.

Read more …

CREED II (Rated PG-13)

Outside of the “James Bond” and “Star Wars” films, few movie franchises seem as durable as what Sylvester Stallone created over forty years ago with the underdog boxing legend of Rocky Balboa in “Rocky.”

We may have seemingly run out of Roman numerals for the “Rocky” films, but the shift is now to boxer Adonis Creed, trained by the Philadelphia legend, and as a result, “Creed II” ably carries on the “Rocky” universe to please the fan base.

The story gets off to a rousing start when Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) slugs it out in a brutal match to become the heavyweight champion of the world. With victory comes the inevitable burden of having to defend the title.

Yet, there is life outside the ring and most of it revolves around Adonis and his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a talented singer, worrying about the child they are expecting could inherit her mother’s deteriorating hearing disability.

Meanwhile, Rocky still copes with the loss of his beloved wife, running her restaurant while still yearning to remain a worthy mentor to Adonis, who fails to take the legend’s advice on which opponents to fight in future bouts.

The specter of Rocky’s bout with Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) from years ago looms large here. Recall that Drago killed Apollo Creed in the ring before losing a match to Rocky, so bad blood still lingers.

Now that Apollo’s son, Adonis, is being challenged by Drago’s son, Viktor (Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu), for a big showdown in Russia, it is merely the elder Drago’s desire for revenge by way of his hulking, menacing progeny.

For Rocky, however, the loss of Apollo in the match with Drago is not something he can easily forget, and as a result, he really wants no part of a fight with the Russian’s offspring because remorse cuts so deep.

For his part, Adonis considers Rocky the putative father figure he longs to have, and so there is plenty of drama of whether they will reconcile their differences about the boxer’s future.

In the end, of course, the fateful match is set for a big arena in Moscow, but not before Adonis undergoes arduous training in the Arizona desert with exercises that seem incredibly unorthodox.

As expected, “Creed II” resolves the storyline with an expertly choreographed fight between Adonis and Viktor that is truly spectacular. The payoff is visceral and stunning, and likely to be everything a fan of the “Rocky” franchise could want.



‘THE KOMINSKY METHOD’ ON NETFLIX

The work of Chuck Lorre in sitcom television is filled with huge hits. “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” stand among his popular shows. For Netflix, Lorre has created “The Kominsky Method,” which though providing humor, is not a traditional sitcom by any means.

This new series streaming on Netflix is not easily pigeonholed for any genre. It’s all about the human condition, mostly about two aging characters in the throes of pending mortality, familial grief and unfortunate medical conditions.

Michael Douglas stars as Sandy Kominsky, an acting coach running his own workshop, and Alan Arkin is Norman Newlander, his longtime agent and best friend. Both of them have reached that stage in life where griping about matters trivial and significant is a daily routine.

Thrice married Sandy mentors many young students eager to get into show business. The interactions with his charges can often be surprising and humorous. If he were about four decades younger, he’d probably be dating some of them.

The best part of the series is when Sandy and Norman banter with each other, and fortunately that happens often enough to keep it interesting. When Sandy mentions that one of his students is “age appropriate,” Norman cracks that a woman half of Sandy’s age is “still an old woman.”

And yet, one of the students in Sandy’s class is the middle-aged Lisa (Nancy Travis), who starts dating the acting coach with some mixed results in the beginning. She’s recently divorced with a teenage son that one would charitably describe as difficult.

Sadness intrudes early on when Norman’s beloved wife is bedridden with a terminal illness, and the fact she passes away gives way to some powerfully emotional scenes before, during and after the memorial service.

During the eulogy, Sandy says he was the one who set up Norman with his wife because he “had no patience for women with integrity and self-respect.” Mind you, the service included a Barbara Streisand female impersonator to perform her favorite song.

Sandy challenges his students about being hung up on political correctness, managing to drag his travails with a prostate exam from his flippant urologist (Danny DeVito) into the conversation. Indeed, quite a bit of time is spent on Sandy’s troubles with urination.

“The Kominsky Method” it touching and amusing, and Douglas and Arkin are certainly worth watching as they joke as well as commiserate about the inevitable struggles of the aging process.

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

Tod Marshall, Washington's State Poet for 2016-2018, with the help of that state's humanities and arts programs, put together a fine anthology of Washington poetry, “WA129: Poets of Washington,” and here's just one of many poems I liked.

Sally Green lives on Waldron Island. Her first collection of poems is “Full Immersion” from Expedition Press. Showing someone how to do something is, I think, a fine and noble part of living.

Shank

for Cora

Though she lives in a world of Velcro, snaps
and zippers, I'm showing my granddaughter how
to sew on a button. She's nine, same age I was
watching my mother pick my favorite one, shaped
like a flower a child might draw, color of sunshine.
Her homemaker hands held everything together,
needle and red thread lickety-splitting up, over,
down, up again attaching the blossom to grass-
green cloth: Colors no bee could pass by. Now, before
the last tug of thread through the button
my granddaughter brought me, I point out the pinch
of space––width of a scissor-blade––between it
and the fabric, a shaft of stitches with a half-dozen
twists of thread around it before tying off. Shank,
I tell her, same as Mother named it. It strengthens
the bond between button and garment, less
friction than ready-mades, fasteners that loosen
too soon. Like love, my mother said. Close, but not too
close. A snip of thread and my granddaughter's ready
to go, fluorescent-pink button back on the nose
of her dog-faced school bag, the shank fixing us
together in this world my mother could trust
only so long as everything was done right, only
when she didn't forget to check I was buttoned up
proper, buttoned up tight.

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 ©2017 by Sally Green, "Shank," from WA129: Poets of Washington, (Sage Hill Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Sally Green and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2018 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.