Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
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I entered "The Apprentice" wary from the failures of Oliver Stone's "W." in 2008 and Adam McKay's "Vice" in 2018, worried that yet another attempted biopic of a right-wing leader would fall short in spite of its acting and directorial talent. What I instead saw was a nonspectacular but nonetheless solidly competent film, directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Gabriel Sherman, that succeeded by focusing less on the mannerisms of its real-life subjects than on examining the consequences of their...
Folk singer/songwriter Kate MacLeod, who bills herself as a "neo-traditionalist," performs at 3 p.m. Friday at a house concert at Lake Cushman. Admission is the suggested donation of $15-$20. A potluck will follow. To make reservations and get the directions to the show, call 360-877-5862. MacLeod - who divides her time between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Harper's Ferry, West Virginia - plays her original songs, fiddle instrumentals and creative renditions of traditional and popular music on...
For our Halloween review, I'm going back a couple of months to a streaming series on Amazon Prime Video, that's suitably dark for the holiday, and legitimately clever, even though it contains some nagging flaws. "Batman: Caped Crusader" is 10 half-hour episodes of a Dark Knight who's styled more closely to his original appearances in the comics, albeit with a much broader diversity in the character's supporting cast. Artist Bruce Timm had co-created the original "Batman: The Animated Series"...
Switching things up, we're taking a week to cater to readers who spend more time streaming media than screening films in the theaters, especially because it allows me to squeeze in a couple of Halloween-themed reviews. 'Agatha All Along' The latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been airing new episodes on Disney+ every Wednesday since Sept. 18, and it's scheduled to wrap up its run Oct. 30. As a lifelong Marvel Comics fan, if you'd told me years ago that a nine-episode TV...
Writer-director Chris Sanders' big-screen adaptation of Peter Brown's "The Wild Robot" series of illustrated books for children gains an appeal for parents as much as for their kids by empathizing with the role of mothers. Our "Wild Robot" protagonist is a ROZZUM-model multi-purpose helper robot that eventually adopts the nickname "Roz." Roz was manufactured in the future by the Universal Dynamics company to assist human families, but wound up lost in midtransit on an island inhabited only by...
Editor's note: This is the second of two parts. The first appeared in the Sept. 26 edition of the Journal. As the Journal runs my remaining reviews from this year's Port Townsend Film Festival, I just want to thank my readers for caring about films. We watch movies about everything from the mundane to the fantastical, to question and make sense of ourselves and our existences. Who we see on the screen is who we are, and their stories are our own. Which is why, for yet another year, I spent a wee...
The Olalla Celtic musical duo Pam and Philip Boulding perform as Magical Strings at 3 p.m. Oct. 5 at a Lake Cushman house concert. Admission is a suggested donation of $15 to $20. A potluck will follow the performance. For reservations and to find out the location of the concert, call 360-877-5862. Since 1978, Magical Strings has recorded 22 albums showcasing traditional Irish arrangements, original compositions and what the group's website describes as "subtle world music influences." They...
The 25th annual Port Townsend Film Festival's virtual schedule of films became available from Monday through Sunday, but I followed my semiannual tradition of catching as many of those films as I could in the theaters, from the single film that screened immediately after the opening night dinner gala Sept. 19, through the festival's final day of theatrical screenings Sunday. Four days, 12 films and one review to rule them all, with no rest until it's all wrapped up. Total coverage. Maximum...
The 25th annual Port Townsend Film Festival runs from Sept. 19 through Sept. 22. Because its lineup includes two films that premiered several years ago, I'm reviewing them beforehand to give readers a taste of what they might expect from this year's lineup, regardless of whether they're able to attend. First-time director Catherine Hardwicke co-wrote the screenplay for what would become 2003's "Thirteen" with Nikki Reed, who was 14 years old, and would make her acting debut as one of the...
Watching "Alien: Romulus" offered me the rare experience of seeing a solidly entertaining, well-executed movie that left me feeling less optimistic about the future of the film franchise it's tied to. The original "Alien" film premiered in 1979, and it officially became a franchise with its first sequel, "Aliens," in 1986. Both movies are regarded as critical and commercial successes, but the track record of the roughly half-dozen feature films that followed has been uneven, to put it mildly....
An eclectic lineup of rock, country and funk bands can be enjoyed from land or sea at the seventh annual Hoodstock Music and Arts Festival staged Aug. 15-17 at the Union Marina and a new venue, Robin Hood Village Resort in Union. "It's a fun, community-based, all-inclusive weekend," said Shannon Crabb-Stanton, who books the bands. "We're going to showcase our local talent." The concert has been on the water the past four years, and Hoodstock co-founder Kelli Kohout said she's hearing from people...
It's not often I watch a film and am left wondering whether to recommend it, but Yorgos Lanthimos' "Kinds of Kindness" fits that description. I'm writing this review primarily because this film will appear on enough critics' choice lists that I don't want to leave prospective viewers unarmed. Among this film's positives are its innovative format and its casting, but those threaten to be overwhelmed by its gratuitous violence and incoherent ideology. Imagine something akin to a CBS anthology...
Even in the midst of superhero movies going mainstream, for so long, with multiple waves of serious articles written about the supposed onset of "superhero fatigue," I remain amazed that a film like "Deadpool & Wolverine" was able to get made. "Easter egg" references and inside jokes for the most devoted of super-fans have gone from being unexpected treats to being obligatory inclusions in any new superhero movie. Yet, "Deadpool & Wolverine" still stands out by being nothing other than an Easter...
The folk duo The Angel & The Outlaw combine harmonious folk tunes and original motorcycle poetry at 3 p.m. Sunday at a house party in Hoodsport. Admission is a suggested donation of $15 to $20 per person. For reservations and the location of the show on Lake Cushman Road, call 360-877-5862. Bring a dish for the potluck. The duo of Kathy Jonas and Craig Gurney met at a table at an open mic in Belfair in 2019 and began their musical and personal partnership. The couple married in 2020 and live in...
When a film includes a conspiracy theory about the Apollo 11 moon landing being staged, one wouldn't expect it to get a thumbs-up from NASA, but according to Greg Berlanti, director of "Fly Me to the Moon," NASA shared real-life footage from the Apollo program for the film. This speaks to how gravity-defying "Fly Me to the Moon" is. It entertains a long-held paranoid fantasy about the space program while wholeheartedly honoring the real achievements of the men and women who worked to get us to...
Author and healer Heather Hawk, an artist in residence at Hypatia-in-the-Woods outside Shelton, will read from her memoir "What is Still Wild" at 4:30 p.m. July 25 at the Shelton Timberland Library, W. 710 Alder St., Shelton. In her book, Hawk chronicles her diagnosis of a massive uterine fibroid and three-year healing experience while navigating grief and divorce. Her story also illustrates larger social issues related to the body, such as menstruation, virginity, female agency, pleasure and...
Streaming shows for fans of mature legal thrillers and all-ages superhero adventures are reaching the peaks of their season arcs. "Presumed Innocent" on Apple TV+ When I was in high school, I saw the 1990 big-screen adaptation of Scott Turow's novel, which boasted acting heavyweights Harrison Ford, Brian Dennehy and Raul Julia, so this latest adaptation was up against stiff competition to impress me. Fortunately, legal dramas lend themselves to expanded treatments, as Steven Bochco proved when...
For as much as action thrillers such as "Mission: Impossible" aim to put audiences on the edges of their seats, I have rarely felt secondhand tension as uncomfortable as the opening sequence of "Thelma," in which an elderly widow falls prey to a phone scammer. The scene has a pitch-perfect suspense-building lead-in, as we see 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb) receiving gentle guidance on navigating the internet from her doting 24-year-old grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger), who's so good to his...
Grapeview Water & Art Festival July 27 The 28th annual Grapeview Water & Art Festival is hosted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 27 at Fair Harbor Marina and the Port of Grapeview on Grapeview Loop Road in Grapeview. Admission is free. Offerings include live music, free children’s activities, and arts and crafts created by local artists. From the shore, patrons can test their golfing skills by trying to sink a ball in a hole on a floating dock. Frito’s chili pie and steamed clams are among the food offerings. Parade, vendors at Tahuya Day Fes...
The Harstine Island Theatre Club stages the comic murder mystery "You Have the Right to Remain Dead" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, and 7:30 p.m. July 5-6 and 2 p.m. July 7 at the Harstine Island Community Hall, 3371 E. Harstine Island Road N. Admission is $10. Tickets are sold at the door, at Olympic Bakery on Pickering Road and Williams Gifts and Flowers in downtown Shelton. To get to the theater, take a left after driving off the bridge to the island and drive about 3 miles. In the...
For a concept that was coined by a 1985 New York magazine cover story, the appeal of "The Brat Pack" has proven more enduring than a number of major political movements, and now, nearly 40 years later, "Brat Pack" member Andrew McCarthy has returned to the well, to wonder what it all meant, by directing the documentary "Brats" for Hulu. The good news is that McCarthy, who was notable for his characters' kvetching introspection, weaponizes that contemplative streak really effectively as a...
"Run Lola Run" has returned to select theaters for the 25th anniversary of its American release, and rewatching it reminded me of everything that made the independent cinema wave of the 1990s so special. The period between the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, stands as a unique island of relative serenity within global political history, because with the Cold War of the preceding four-and-a-half decades seemingly resolved, and the "War on...
"Jim Henson Idea Man" sees Ron Howard apply his best directorial strengths to a fittingly heartfelt biography of the man who made his name as the creator of the Muppets, although Howard follows Henson's own example of being quick to credit all of Henson's many creative partners, starting with Jim's since-deceased widow, Jane. Jim Henson was only 53 years old when he died in 1990, and yet, his imagination birthed more characters, television shows and movies than even his more devoted fans can...
The musical "Little Shop of Horrors" spotlights a mutating plant in a skid row florist shop that feeds on human blood and flesh while commanding "Feed me!!" and a sadistic dentist who saves the laughing gas for himself. But the heart of the musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken is the love between the hapless florist Seymour Krelborn and his co-worker Audrey, a pretty blonde with a colorful fashion sense who's dating the abusive dentist. "There's authenticity, but with the touch of ridiculous...
"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" is the direct sequel to 2015's "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the fifth installment in writer-director George Miller's "Mad Max" series, which started with the first "Mad Max" film in 1979. Reports of its apparently underwhelming box office over the Memorial Day weekend leave me wondering whether audiences have grown weary of this 45-year-old franchise. If so, it would be a shame, because "Furiosa" sees Miller firing on all cylinders, not only in staging engagingly elaborate...
