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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Editor
NORTH COAST, Calif. – The Fort Bragg Center for the Arts Music Series presents violinist Kay Stern, the concertmaster of the San Francisco Opera, and pianist Joan Nagano.
They will perform works by Beethoven, Ravel, Amy Beach, Camille Saint-Saens and others on Sunday, Jan. 19, at 3 p.m. in Preston Hall, Mendocino.
Advance tickets ($20) are available at Fiddles & Cameras and Harvest Market in Fort Bragg, at Out of This World in Mendocino and at the door for $25.
Violinist Kay Stern was a founding member of the famed Lark Quartet and has toured throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Of her critic Michelle Dulak said “Indeed, her's was about the most attractive violin playing I’ve heard in years.”
Pianist Joan Nagano is a founding member of the Beaumont Ensemble and has performed with Composers, Inc., the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, New Music Works, and the Empyrean Ensemble.
The duo has delighted audiences for over 12 years with their passionate performances of classical repertoire for violin and piano.
Critical acclaim has described their playing as “sassy” and electric,” combining “delicate nuance” and “magnificent bravado.”
The San Francisco Classical Voice has described them as having “impossibly impressive technique,” and “dash and elegance."
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- Written by: Editor
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Second Sunday Cinema's first film of 2014 will be “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”
The film will be shown on Sunday, Jan. 12, at Clearlake United Methodist Church, located at 14521 Pearl Ave. near Mullen in Clearlake.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the film at 6 p.m.
Admission is free.
Bring a pillow for your chair, for this film is two hours, 10 min. long.
“We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks” is a fast-moving, fascinating film by Oscar-winning Dir. Elex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”).
It introduces viewers to the early days and subsequent development of the famous organization and to two high-profile leakers, Julian Assange and Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.
This film is controversial because it is not approved by either Assange nor Manning, and neither is made to appear as a perfect hero on a white horse.
The film is packed with information and suspense, and has garnered a 95 percent “Fresh” rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
A review in Digital Spy states, “The range of Gibney's subjects, the rigour of his research and the complexity of his questions make We Steal Secrets breathlessly compelling, but it's the moments of psychological probing that haunt the most.”
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
One of our first columns, published in 2005, had to do with a pair of high-heeled red shoes, and some trouble they brewed up, and now, at last, we have a pink pantsuit to go along with those dangerous pumps.
This delightful poem is by Nancy Simpson, who lives in North Carolina.
Pink Pantsuit
It hangs around the wardrobe
for days, dull,
or reclines in the hamper
like a flattened flamingo.
I wash it in soft water.
I give it new life, and what thanks?
It walks out the door with my legs,
through the gate,
headed straight for the racetrack.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2010 by Nancy Simpson from her most recent book of poems, Living Above the Frost Line, Carolina Wren Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Nancy Simpson and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 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. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (Rated PG)
To say that Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is based on the famous short story by James Thurber has a kernel of truth only insofar as the film’s titular character is, indeed, a socially awkward man who daydreams of performing heroic acts.
Pulling double duty as director and star, Stiller has been on both sides of the camera with films like “Tropic Thunder” and “Zoolander,” both of which were flat-out comedies. His work here is a more nuanced bittersweet comedy, slightly eccentric and reminiscent somewhat of “Greenberg.”
The daring exploits of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) bear little resemblance to the odd detours of Thurber’s version. The on-screen Walter’s lapses into fantasy are mostly geared to romancing a pretty co-worker or triumphing over danger with the passion and confidence of an action hero.
Whatever the reason for flights of fancy, Walter is a nebbish consigned to the increasingly unimportant task of managing the photo department of LIFE magazine, recently taken over by snotty corporate downsizing experts who are determined to shut down the print operation for good.
Sporting beards and sharply-tailored suits, the arrogant corporate types, led by the unctuous, detestable Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott), are hell-bent on eliminating many of the publishing empire’s jobs during its swift transition to the digital age.
Scrambling to revamp the media operations, management plans one final print issue of LIFE where the magazine’s cover image will carry great cultural significance. The assignment falls on Walter’s shoulders, a parting shot for the photo editor’s talent.
Out in the field and only intermittently reachable by phone or letter is noted war photojournalist Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), who has shipped to Walter a set of negatives, one of which is deemed to be his best work ever.
The problem is that Walter is unable to find this mysterious negative in the roll of film that has arrived from an undisclosed location. Now he has to dodge the odious Ted Hendricks, trying to buy time in a frantic search for one lousy frame.
Meanwhile, Walter has developed a fruitless crush on lovely, clueless colleague Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), a single mother with a young son, who hardly takes notice of his clumsy, pointless efforts to initiate a conversation.
Walter also has to contend with moving his aging, meddling mother (Shirley MacLaine) into an assisted living facility, while enduring the taunts of his oddball sister (Kathryn Hahn).
Thurber’s Walter Mitty was a henpecked husband whose fantasies carried him away from the constraints of his marriage. Stiller’s version is a modern bachelor dreaming of romance and trying to make a connection on an Internet dating service.
There’s amusement in Walter’s attempts to create a profile for eHarmony, since he’s never done anything or been anywhere of interest. Walter fields the occasional phone call from his excited eHarmony advisor (Patton Oswalt) who tries to spur him into action.
What finally dislodges Walter from his reveries is not just looming unemployment, but the absolute devotion to his craft of running the photo department in all of its analog world glory. To that end, he must find the missing negative, in a hurry.
At this point, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” undergoes an almost complete tonal shift, as Walter must suddenly act in an unaccustomed role of being a doer rather than an inattentive observer on the sidelines.
Life for Walter must quickly take the shape of LIFE magazine’s famous motto, emblazoned on its building, which in part encourages people to “see things thousands of miles away.” It may be uncharacteristic for him, but Walter plunges into a reckless search for the elusive Sean O’Connell.
Following up on a few leads, Walter flies off to Greenland, only to find himself a few steps behind the famous photojournalist. From Greenland he ends up on a fishing trawler but not before having to swim with sharks in the ocean.
After the boat docks in Iceland, Walter’s next adventure takes him skateboarding in the direction of an erupting volcano, only to be rescued at the last moment by a passing motorist in a hurry to evacuate from the path of billowing smoke and lava.
The search must continue onto even more treacherous terrain as Walter makes his way to the remotest mountain region of the Himalayas, where finally he locates Sean O’Connell on the verge of capturing an image of a nearly extinct wild animal.
By this point, Walter is no longer a “Walter Mitty”-type character, having blossomed into an intrepid adventurer willing to go to great lengths in pursuit of a goal, becoming more like his idol Sean O’Connell.
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” though clever and amusing, is not easily pegged as the standard comedic vehicle for Ben Stiller. Instead, it’s a humorous fantasy adventure layered with conflicting emotions, resulting in an enjoyable confection.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.