Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
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Is 1985’s “Back to the Future” one of the greatest movies ever made? Opinions vary, but science says “yes,” and the city of Shelton agrees, because it’s running the sci-fi classic as the final installment of this summer’s free-admission “Movies in the Park” series, starting between 8:30-8:45 p.m. on Friday, in Kneeland Park. The 1970s and the 1980s produced scores of excellent films, but what the recent passing of William Friedkin, who directed 1971’s “The French Connection” and 1973...
If you're the sort of binge-viewer who can't stand to start a new season of a show until it's all online, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that all 10 episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 2 are now on Paramount+. The bad news is that, at the risk of revealing spoilers, the "Strange New Worlds" Season 2 finale ends on the biggest cliffhanger since "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I," on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." "Strange New Worlds" continues to be the best...
The Hoodstock Music and Arts Festival, at the Hood Canal Marina in Union on Aug. 19-20, aims to be bigger and better this year, thanks to event organizers Kelli Kohout, Meghan Maes and Shannon Crabb-Stanton. Each has a role in staging the festival, with Kohout handling promotions, Maes coordinating vendors and managing the Union City Market, and Crabb-Stanton booking concert acts while shouldering her share of marketing. When asked what this year's more significant upgrades are, Crabb-Stanton...
When Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, the most popular superhero comics on the market during the early '80s included Marv Wolfman and George Perez's "The New Teen Titans," Chris Claremont's "Uncanny X-Men" and Frank Miller's "Daredevil," so angsty teen heroes, outcast mutants and ninja crime-fighters were all the rage. Ever since, the popularity of teenagers, mutants and ninjas in superhero stories has remained relatively strong, but what's been...
Live performances by more than 20 bands and solo musicians, laser and pyro shows, a circus tent and an 80-foot illuminated sphere are among the offerings at the Peace Valley Barefoot Festival, hosted Aug. 11-13 at Peace Valley Farmgrounds between Shelton and Matlock. The festival at 2620 W. Little Egypt Road is staged by the nonprofit Sweitzer Strong Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting and educating people who are affected by traumatic brain injury. The organization's major goal is to b...
Shelton's free-admission "Movies in the Park" are heading into back-to-back sports films, with 1992's "The Mighty Ducks" on Friday, and 1996's "Space Jam" on Aug. 11, both of which start between 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. in Kneeland Park. It seems every generation needs its own "Bad News Bears," and for a lot of 1990s kids, Disney's pee-wee hockey-playing Ducks were that hard-luck team of underdog misfits, coached by an obligatory disillusioned adult authority figure who didn't want to be there. If you'...
I devoted the latter half of last Friday to what has been christened the "Barbenheimer" double-feature, screening Christopher Nolan's three-hour "Oppenheimer" that afternoon, before going to dinner for an hour, then taking in Greta Gerwig's two-hour "Barbie" that evening. Nolan and several "Oppenheimer" actors have praised "Barbenheimer" in the press, touting it as proof of a healthy cinematic marketplace, and indeed, watching those two films back-to-back made me feel like I'd gazed into the...
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For this week’s “In the Dark” column, I’m reviewing two weeks of the Shelton’s free-admission movies in the city’s Movies in the Park series — for July 21, “Holes” from 2003, and for July 28, “Shrek” from 2001. Both start around 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. on Fridays in Kneeland Park. For next week’s column, I’ll be doing a double-decker review of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” both of which are scheduled to premiere that same weekend. Since Michael Bay’s first “Transforme...
Shelton is running its Movies in the Park series this summer, showing free-admission films every Friday from July 14 through Aug. 18 in Kneeland Park, so I'm running six weeks of reviews of each week's featured films, starting with the 1995 safari fantasy "Jumanji," starring Robin Williams. "Jumanji" kicks off the city's movie series this Friday. Among my fellow film nerds, director Joe Johnston gets a bad rap for being a solid yet unambitious meat-and-potatoes filmmaker, who's responsible for...
Fans of music, fine dining and supporting early childhood education can partake of all three at 6:30 p.m. on July 22, at the Union City Marina when the Pearl Django ensemble demonstrates its three decades of hot club jazz artistry to help generate support for the Great Bend Center for Music's collaboration with Sound Scholars. Great Bend General Director Matthew Melendez noted that this year marks Pearl Django's third year of performing at the Hood Canal to help raise money for his music...
After some of the dire (albeit nonspoilery) reviews I'd read going into "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," I was expecting a much worse movie than James Mangold - the first non-Steven Spielberg director of this film franchise -delivered. As it stands, "The Dial of Destiny" is a solidly OK entry in the series, certainly much better than 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," that nonetheless suffers for failing to measure up to the first three installments. "The Dial...
The Kristmas Town Kiwanis Club's 18th annual Bluegrass From the Forest features eight bands, camping, jamming, vendors and the Chick Rose School of Bluegrass from July 7 to 9 at the South Mason Youth Soccer Park at 2102 E. Johns Prairie Road. For ticket information, go to bluegrassfromtheforest.com or call 360-490-8981. The musical lineup ia Alan Bibey and Grasstowne, the Kathy Kallick Band, the Bar K Buckeroos, The Rusty Hinges, Heartbreak Pass, Terry Enyeart and the Steelhead Bluegrass Band,...
“Secret Invasion” began its six-episode run June 21 on Disney+, with new episodes dropping Wednesdays. Welcome back, Nick Fury. The Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t the same without you. While Samuel L. Jackson still brings the same fire to the role, he’s visibly a different Fury. He walks with a limp. His beard has gone gray. And he no longer bothers to wear an eyepatch to cover his scarred face and cloudy eye. These changes are verbally reinforced by the former spymaster being told he’s lo...
Meet the women who jumpstart their lives in the comic play "The Savannah Sipping Society." Boisterous Texan Marlafaye has blasted unto Savannah after losing her tom-cattin' husband to a 23-year-old dental hygienist. Also new to town is Jinx, a spunky ball of fire offering her services as a life coach. Randa is a perfectionist and workaholic without a job or a life. Dot is also alone after the death of her husband and the loss of her plans for an idyllic retirement. Fate throws these four Souther...
Last week in streaming, the 21st century's best "Star Trek" series returned for a second season on Paramount+, and the honorary godfather of superhero comics was treated to a highly sympathetic documentary on Disney+. In some corners of the internet, I saw the second-season premiere of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" described as "underwhelming," and I can only wonder what alternate timeline version of this show those people were watching. Just as its first season did, the return of "Strange...
Many amateur — or “ham” — radio hobbyists develop their skills to provide lines of communication when other avenues of communication have failed, and they need to practice to keep those skills current. During the weekend of June 24-25, hams across the country will set up operations to make as many contacts as possible within 24 hours for this year’s American Radio Relay League Field Day. The Mason County Amateur Radio Club, which operates under the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, will join...
Seeing the Michael J. Fox biopic "Still" on Apple TV+ last month stuck with me, so I skipped the latest "Transformers" film to raid Fox's catalog for a couple of his lesser-loved films to see how they hold up in retrospect. Writer-director Paul Schrader's "Light of Day" cast Fox alongside rock 'n' roll musician Joan Jett in 1987, while Jay McInerney wrote the screenplay for the 1988 movie adaptation of his own novel, "Bright Lights, Big City," which starred Fox in 1988. Both films were released...
Cody Morris, head brewer and founder of Potlatch Brewing Co. in Hoodsport, credited Kelli Kohout, co-founder of the Hoodstock Music and Arts Festival on the Hood Canal, with inspiring him to brew custom ales for community events. It started with a recipe for last year's Hoodstock, and expanded for this year's Hoodstock and Fjordin Crossin events. Morris debuted his farmhouse ale, which employs a largely traditional Scandinavian recipe and kviek yeast, May 19 at Potlatch Brewing to lead into the...
As the Hardware Distillery and Hood Canal Events team up to stage the fifth annual Fjordin Crossin festival on June 17, event co-founder Jan Morris wants to ensure returning and new attendees know the festival's features. Morris, co-founder of the Hardware Distillery with her husband, Chuck, said a free shuttle is set to run roughly every half hour from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. that Saturday to cater to those arriving early and to encourage them to explore the area later that afternoon. The shuttle...
Just as 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” beat 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” in introducing the concept of the multiverse to live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, so did 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (and 2021’s “What If…?” streaming series for the MCU) beat both films in introducing the multiverse to Spider-Man and Marvel fans alike in animation. (Warning: Multiple spoilers ahead.) Between all those big (and small) screen works, plus 2022’s “Every...
After her unexpected but characteristically meditative revisionist Western "First Cow" in 2019, Oregon filmmaker Kelly Reichardt returned yet again to her stomping grounds with "Showing Up" in 2022, which I finally had a chance to catch in the Rose Theatre's Starlight Room in Port Townsend. This film could have been subtitled "The Portland Scene," because not only does it capture the subculture of working-class artists and the murmuring, occasionally circular conversations that define their...
It’s a tradition that has been put on pause just once, during the first year of the pandemic. Shelton Cinemas’ Summer Movie Mondays returns June 26, starting with the musical comedy “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.” Brittney Kick, head manager of Shelton Cinemas, recalled how the event got started in 2013 as “our gift to the community,” with prices to match. “It’s a milestone for this program, but we hope we can continue it for many more years to come,” Kick said. “Regardless of the pandemic or the eco...
The Shelton-based nonprofit Sound Learning hosts the 27th annual Spell-E-Bration fundraiser June 2 in the Shelton Civic Center. The silent auction begins at 5:30 p.m., and the spelling competition begins at 6 p.m. Teams of three spellers, some in colorful outfits, will showcase their skills during the spelling bee. Each team is sponsored by a business or group. The event features a silent and live auction, a band, loads of desserts and other food, banter between the teams and the judges -...
'Mrs. Davis' on Peacock I promised I would offer a final verdict on Peacock's "Mrs. Davis" streaming series once it had aired all eight of its episodes. As of May 18, its entire run is now online, but I still find myself left with mixed reactions to the whole affair. First off, credit to series co-creator Damon Lindelof for not choking in the clutch on "Mrs. Davis" in the same way he did on "Lost," because it wrapped up with all its plot threads tied up so neatly that, in retrospect, it becomes...
