Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Sorted by date Results 176 - 200 of 342
Recommended viewing: 'The Last of Us' on HBO I have noted before that I am not an avid video game player, but I have several friends who are, and they all recommended I check out the TV series adaptation of "The Last of Us" on HBO. I'm glad they did, because what the first episode on Jan. 15 delivered was a genuinely novel twist on the zombie apocalypse genre, that managed to be both surprisingly plausible and all too relevant to our modern era of global pandemics and ongoing climate change....
Writer-director Brion Rockwell knows film, and he knows the Northwest, so he's hoping the next year or two will help him launch his latest in-progress feature films, set in the Northwest, to an audience of his fellow residents, and possibly beyond, starting with a select screening at the Roxy Theatre in Bremerton on Jan. 21. Rockwell boasts a bicoastal film and writing education pedigree, with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from The Evergreen State College in 1990, a Trustee Scholarship...
What occurs to me first, after having watched a sampling of four films by Brion Rockwell, is that some of the best film footage of the Pacific Northwest comes from those who spend just enough time elsewhere to appreciate this region more deeply. David Lynch's childhood began in Missoula, Montana, Sandpoint, Idaho, and Spokane (one of my own early hometowns) before the rest of his youth was spent in the South and Northeast, and he captured this region's flavor flawlessly in "Twin Peaks."...
The Port of Allyn addressed the damage its dock sustained over the holidays and heard about the latest progress on the Sargent Oyster House at its Jan. 4 meeting. The king tides between Christmas and New Year’s severely damaged the Hood Canal Marina dock. Port of Allyn Executive Director Lary Coppola said port insurer Enduris had hired a consultant and marine surveyor to assess the damage. The consultant has already inspected the dock, and Coppola is waiting for a report to see how Enduris w...
The Port of Hoodsport closed out 2022 by discussing the state of its dock going into 2023. When Katherine Yackel, operations manager of the YSS Dive Shop in Hoodsport, asked whether donations or fundraisers could be organized for the dock, Port Commissioner Cody Morris said the port is working with attorneys to establish an account for funding any dock work. After a recent dock inspection, Morris said the dock was in "much rougher shape" than he'd realized, so dock work will be emphasized, but...
I'm starting 2023 by recommending a streaming series I was remiss in not reviewing in 2022, even though it was easily one of the best TV shows of last year. "Severance" was the show that persuaded me to subscribe to Apple+, and not only is its first season still available on the streaming service, but it's been confirmed to receive a second season this year. "Severance" is like Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" if it was remade for the post-COVID era. In an unnamed wintery state, the Eagan busin...
Port of Allyn lobbyist Holli Cocci reviewed the port’s priorities and what she will be requesting from the Legislature during its “long” 105-day session that begins Jan. 9. She spoke to the commission Dec. 19. Cocci noted the port’s pier is a primary priority, so she ceded the floor to Port of Allyn Executive Director Lary Coppola, who said the pier’s pilings are deteriorating. Coppola said the piling beneath the alcove on the pier has rotted out, compelling the port to close that section o...
The Port of Grapeview completed a hectic agenda of new business Dec. 20 as port commissioners agreed to a memorandum of understanding with Mason County for rural county 0.09 sales tax funding in 2023. Port Commissioner Jean Farmer said the money has been available for applications “for a while,” but the Belfair sewer had precluded that money from being available to the port. Under the memo, the port will receive a $20,000 grant it can use to pay for maintenance of its facilities. The port must s...
What made Rian Johnson's 2019 "Knives Out" so much fun is also present in his 2022 "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" sequel on Netflix, in that it can be appreciated on more than one level. Both films, whose sole shared character is Daniel Craig's master detective Benoit Blanc, are metafictionally unabashed celebrations of the murder-mystery subgenre within murder-mystery stories. Whereas the petty, feuding family of "Knives Out" was bound together by their common interest in the fortune of...
The Dewatto River Campground has been closed since September, but it has not lain fallow. The Port of Dewatto Commission recently reviewed how the campground has been worked on while it’s been closed to campers. Port of Dewatto Commissioner David Haugen said he bought and installed two new gates, replacing the existing gates at the front of the campground, due to their continued damage and poor condition. Haugen brought the existing gates to the Port of Dewatto building, where the port might be...
The North Mason School Board's meetings Dec. 8 and Dec. 15 drew testimony from three area residents on the proposed transfer of the Theler wetlands, trail system and associated properties from the school district to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Herb Gerhardt and Don LePere supported the transfer, while Ken VanBuskirk requested certain conditions for the transfer to proceed. Gerhardt's written comments, which were read into the record by district Superintendent Dana Rosenbach,...
For chef Sara Harvey, making good meals is more than a profession - it's an ethos, a way to help improve her corner of the world by practicing her values and doing something pleasing for other people. Back after a three-year hiatus, Harvey has worked at Alderbrook Resort & Spa for two years this go-around, starting as the chef and retail manager of the Union City Market, the resort's sister property, before stepping into the Alderbrook's executive chef role, overseeing the menus and food...
How does James Cameron expect this franchise to sustain three more films? When I saw Cameron's first "Avatar" film in 2009, my reaction was similar to most reviewers and moviegoers. Its immersive, richly realized visuals absolutely blew me away, but its story and characters felt like a ham-fisted mashup of "Dances With Wolves" and "FernGully: The Last Rainforest." The plotlines and relationship dynamics of "Avatar: The Way of Water" are more complicated and populous than the original film, but...
"She Said" is a solidly competent, impeccably well-acted true-crime journalistic procedural film, essentially serving as an entirely deserved paean to how the efforts of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey helped expose the serial sexual predation of film producer Harvey Weinstein, but one might be forgiven for thinking they've seen this film before. The first impulse of a lazy reviewer is to compare such films to 1976's "All the President's Men," but closer comparisons are...
The Port of Allyn’s Dec. 5 public hearing, to address adjusting its water system’s residential and commercial connection fees, ended with commissioners unanimously adopting a three-tiered commercial connection fee scale, without adopting the proposed increase to residential connection fees. Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said the port’s rates adjust annually on a scale adopted in 2019, running through the end of 2024, which needs to be reviewed and re-evaluated before the beginning of 20...
One month after the works of her wife and "muse" made a second appearance at Belfair Self-Storage, multimedia artist Alice Durrie has followed suit, with her artwork returning to manager Barbara Treick's art wall in December. Durrie's pursuit of Asian art techniques has continued - her fascination with bonsai miniature tree cultivation has evolved into a new form of self-expression. "I live alongside the Tahuya River, which provides an ever-changing beach canvas of sand, gravel and rock,"...
'Wednesday' on Netflix "Wednesday Addams attends Hogwarts" is such a stupidly obvious idea for the next young adult horror dramedy franchise that I'm amazed it wasn't rolled out sooner. Ditto hiring Tim Burton as one of the streaming series' directors and executive producers, especially when you remember that this is Burton's first real involvement with the Addams Family, beyond a planned stop-motion film that was announced in 2010 but never developed. Both 1991's "The Addams Family" and 1993's...
Port of Grapeview Commissioner Art Whitson closed out the fall by informing port officials of the list of maintenance projects and procedures he’s been compiling. Whitson said he’s inventoried port assets whose sustainability needed to be addressed, including landscaping, the port bathroom building, the boat ramp and dock systems, the oil/water separator, inspection and maintenance of port signs and buoys, and parking lot surfaces on the ramp side of the port, which is primarily asphalt and conc...
Port of Hoodsport officials recently contacted the Shelton-Mason County Journal to sum up the work being done at the Hoodsport Trail Park and the Hoodsport Hills Disc Golf Course, both of which are closed to the public. Port Commissioner Lori Kincannon said the removal of diseased, dying and fallen hazardous trees at the Hoodsport parks started in mid-July, and upon assessment of those trees, workers discovered that poria-laminated root rot was widespread and that the Douglas fir bark beetle...
Stallone triumphs on TV with “Tulsa King,” while Netflix takes us for a wild ride with “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?” ‘Tulsa King’ One of the themes of the later years of Sylvester Stallone’s career has been his ongoing struggle to stay relevant in an ever-changing world, whose changes always seem to be turning away from the sorts of conditions that helped make him a success in the first place. In this sense, “Tulsa King” on Paramount+ seems ideally suited to the big man, casting him as a Mafioso wh...
The Port of Dewatto’s 2023 budget discussion began with port volunteer Kris Tompkins going over what the port accomplished in 2022, from replacing four fire rings to repairing the campground’s electrical system. The concrete parking area next to the port building was cleaned, new striping was painted, as were picnic tables and doors. The port also implemented the campground’s online reservation and payment system. Tompkins said she and Port Manager Jeana Crosby budgeted $4,000 for new blind...
The Port of Hoodsport’s budget hearing last week saw its port commissioners unanimously approve all three budget-related measures, which included a $40,000 transfer of money to the port’s parks and a $5,000-per-year increase in the annual contracted fee for Port of Allyn Executive Director Kathleen Wyatt. Wyatt outlined the specifics of next year’s port budget. Wyatt said the port’s ending balance for 2022 had originally been projected at $95,956, but its true ending balance for 2022, and the...
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is a film tasked with multiple missions. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe expect it not only to pay tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020, but also to show how the concurrent death of Boseman's King T'Challa would affect his fictional African nation of Wakanda, all while introducing the long-awaited Marvel Comics character of Namor the Sub-Mariner to the MCU. Ryan Coogler co-wrote and directed both "Black Panther" films, and given...
Port of Allyn commissioners’ discussion of its 2023 draft budget on Nov. 7 concluded with commissioners scheduling a public hearing later this month to finalize and approve the budget.Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said the budget’s only staff increases were for cost of living, at the same 8.7% rate as Social Security’s increase. The lack of revenue figures from Mason County as of Nov. 7 would mean refining those figures before the port’s budget is to be voted on on Nov. 21. “We used last...
The original "Quantum Leap," which ran for five seasons and 97 episodes from 1989 to 1993 on NBC, is one of the most well-built shows in the history of television. It used its sci-fi premise of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) time-traveling within the span of his own lifetime, by "leaping" into the lives of other people, to stage a stealth anthology series. Each episode, the time, the place and just about all the characters except for Sam and his holographic best friend, retired Navy Adm. Al...
