Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 205
This past week on streaming offered a quartet of spooky and suspenseful films to get folks into the Halloween spirit. Mr. Harrigan's Phone "Mr. Harrigan's Phone," released Oct. 5 on Netflix, has the ominous buildup of a monkey's paw undead revenge thriller, but ultimately resolves itself into a compelling, nuanced character study, told from the perspective of small-town New England adolescence. Yes, it's based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, and it even stars Jaeden Martell from...
Bewitching ladies in blasts from the past dominated this past week's streaming releases, targeted toward different ages of audiences, and to wildly varying degrees of success. Blonde Christopher Lee said actors occasionally can't avoid appearing in bad films, "but the trick is to never be bad in them." Ana de Armas has made a career out of abiding by that advice, with breakout roles in quality films, including 2017's "Blade Runner 2049" and 2019's "Knives Out." When I saw that Netflix's...
Belfair Self-Storage's artist of the month for October is visual artist Sharon Taylor, for whom business manager Barbara Treick will display a sampling of her pieces this coming month on the self-storage offices' art wall. "Describing the type of art that I create is somewhat difficult, because I don't have one particular type," Taylor said. "I love all art. I see art in just about everything. It really comes from my heart. I love to paint with acrylics and watercolor. I love using various...
I attended the Port Townsend Film Festival from 2016 to 2019, and wrote reviews of its films that were published in The Port Townsend Leader from 2017-19. After 2 years of COVID-prompted cancellations, followed by virtual screenings, the Port Townsend Film Festival has returned, under new management, to offer both virtual and in-person screenings for 2022. So, from Sept. 22 through Sept. 25, I planned to screen 12 feature-length films - eight documentaries and four narratives - plus two short...
From the first impeccably staged fight scene of "The Woman King," it's impossible not to hear its implicit sales pitch in your head: Hey, kids, do you like the Dora Milaje of Wakanda, from the Marvel Cinema Universe's "Black Panther?" Because these African warrior women were the Dora Milaje in real life. During the 19th century, the West African kingdom of Dahomey did indeed maintain an all-female fighting force known as the Agojie, which was one of the only standing armies (and one of the only...
After a three-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic, the Mason County Concert Association kicks off its 2022-2023 season with The Everly Set performing a tribute to the Everly Brothers at 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at the Shelton High School Performing Arts Center. The series continues with Seraph Brass at 7 p.m. Oct. 24, the four-piece rock band Vinyl Radio at 7 p.m. Jan. 25, and the Sultans of String International String Trio at 7 p.m. March 17. All the shows are in the PAC at 3737 N. Shelton Springs...
As fond as I remain of the original "Karate Kid" films, Parts I through III never quite hung together well as a trilogy, even before they attempted to resurrect the franchise on the big screen - twice, with Hilary Swank and Jackie Chan (and we won't even get into the cartoon). Which makes it all the more impressive that the "Cobra Kai" streaming series, whose fifth season debuted on Netflix on Sept. 9, has not only managed to retroactively recast those disparate films as chapters of a...
Harlequin Productions in Olympia marks the changing of its seasons with its September stagings of the play “This Flat Earth,” followed by its annual gala and the season announcement for 2023. “This Flat Earth,” a 2018 play by Lindsey Ferrentino, depicts students and parents navigating the aftermath of a fictional middle school shooting in a seaside town. Admission to the play, which runs today through Saturday and starts at 7:30 p.m., is $35 for general audiences, $32 for seniors and militar...
I entered into the first two episodes of Amazon Prime Video's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" with considerably mixed feelings, and in spite of finding myself impressed by a lot of what I saw, I'm approaching the rest of the season with mixed feelings still. Thanks to the subsequent significant stumbles of the "Star Wars" film series, Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy seems even more flawless now than when it was first released, but Jackson's "Hobbit" trilogy was an...
'Emily the Criminal' I went to see "Emily the Criminal" expecting a brisk, taut crime caper that would afford one of my favorite comedic actresses a well-deserved showcase to stretch her dramatic muscles, but what I also got was a political Rorschach test whose concerns seem especially relevant in light of debates about student loan debt forgiveness. It's easy to dismiss Aubrey Plaza's Emily as an adult child of squandered opportunities, who dropped out of college after racking up a felony...
This week's reviews are densely packed, including two well-received streaming shows and ... a book of poems? 'She-Hulk' Disney+ continues to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe through surprisingly societally conscious streaming series. And now that Bruce Banner's cousin, up-and-coming career lawyer Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany from "Orphan Black"), has acquired Hulk powers of her own from accidental exposure to Bruce's gamma-irradiated blood, I look forward to the office sitcom promised...
Once upon a time, there was a family of seven virtually godlike siblings, known as the Endless, each of whom embodied a core concept of mortal existence. From oldest to youngest, they were Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium, the last of whom was originally known as Delight. During World War I, British aristocrat and occultist Roderick Burgess sought to capture Death, but instead accidentally bound Dream, aka Lord Morpheus of the Dreaming, whose captivity lasted...
Cofounders Kelli Kohout and Shannon Crabb-Stanton are presenting the fifth year of Hoodstock, which runs from just before 11 a.m. to well after 8 p.m. on Aug. 20 near the Hood Canal Marina in Union. A hallmark of Hoodstock has been its evolution, most notably when COVID prompted the concert to move to the water last year. This year, event sponsor Alderbrook Resort & Spa in Union has contributed the use of the Lady Alderbrook private ship, which has scheduled three sailings for concert...
A common criticism of certain films is that they're "formulaic," which I dislike as a criticism, because it's imprecise. A formula, after all, is simply a set of descriptions and measurements of specific ingredients, illustrating how and when to combine them, in order to achieve the results you're looking for. In that sense, a formula is a rudimentary story, and while it's true certain stories can feel hindered, or perhaps even trapped, by their underlying formulas, it's a mark of a versatile...
Quirky comedic New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi has more than earned my love over the years, but after watching "Thor: Love & Thunder," I'm starting to wonder whether someone should be exercising control over his sugar and caffeine intake. Waititi's 2017 "Thor: Ragnarok" elevated the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Thor" franchise from its competent yet uninspired onscreen origins, in the Norse God of Thunder's previous two MCU films, by abandoning the mock-Shakespearean aspirations for which...
June 30 and July 1 were some rough streaming viewing days for fans as the ninth episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 1 and “Stranger Things” Season 4 bid final farewell to a pair of fan-favorite characters. As much as I miss them both, and as much as I’m trying not to spoil too much of either episode, I feel like other TV shows and movies could glean storytelling lessons from these two characters’ deaths. In two franchises dominated by their fictional histories and recurring c...
After four seasons on Netflix, and six years at the forefront of pop culture consciousness, I'm suddenly hearing a lot of people ask what "Stranger Things" is all about, even though its focus has hardly shifted. "Stranger Things" is set almost entirely during the 1980s, and mostly in the American Midwest, and revolves around a loosely affiliated group of teens and tweens, plus their occasionally present parents. The group members have overcome their adolescent relationship drama to band...
Anyone who swings by the Skyline Drive-In Theater in Shelton tonight (June 9) can catch a two-hour-long screening of 22 short student films from The Evergreen State College Mediaworks department, all for free. Gates to the theater open for “Stars at the Skyline” at 8 p.m., with the screening set to commence around 9 p.m., depending on when it turns sufficiently dark. Mediaworks faculty members Suree Towfighnia and Julia Zay said they’re excited to share the work of their students, inclu...
It's never too late to join a choir or learn an instrument, and the Great Bend Center for Music in Union is an organization that hopes to help kids and adults find their sound. Founder and general director Matthew Melendez described the organization as "an organization that explores the research-based ways that music can be used as a tool for community development." Melendez said he wanted to create the organization as an institute for applied research, figuring out how to "programitize" the...
My review of "Stranger Things" Season 4, Part 1, will be forthcoming next week. I wasn't about to binge seven episodes in a single weekend. Instead, we'll be looking at another recently released tribute to the 1980s. Even speaking as a self-confessed generational chauvinist on behalf of the Eighties, I keep expecting everyone to get sick of that decade, and to move on from reviving its pop culture. Since the start of 2020, "Bill & Ted" and "Ghostbusters" released critically and commercially...
The summer and fall series of art and music fairs at the Rest-A-While RV Park in Hoodsport kicks off from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. It will include a memorial to recently deceased Journal columnist and writer Mark Woytowich at 2 p.m. “Mark was such a treasure in our community, and is very missed,” said Rest-A-While Operational Manager Elizabeth Bennett, who recalled Woytowich as being warmly received by his fellow vendors and attendees at her seasonal fairs, where he sold his book “Where Waterfalls and Wild Things Are.” “Being the Shelton-M...
I'm trying something different for this week's reviews. Please let me know if it works for you. I often review the start of new shows (or the start of new seasons of returning shows), but unless the entire season dumps at once, rarely do I review the conclusions of those season-long arcs. This matters because most modern television and streaming shows are written as season-long arcs, which was absolutely not the case with TV shows when I was growing up in the 1980s. Eighties TV had notable...
As I'd anticipated, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" was well exceeded by "Everything Everywhere All at Once" as a free-for-all romp across multiple universes, but what I suspect surprised a lot of moviegoers over the weekend is the "Multiverse of Madness" pales even in comparison to "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which benefited from focusing more on fan service than on fan homework. While I'd still defend the "Doctor Strange" sequel as a solidly entertaining and well-made Marvel...
What's perhaps most notable about "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," a charmingly affectionate sendup of the iconically bizarre public persona of Nicolas Cage, is that its most compelling performance doesn't come from the actor you'd expect. In both his best and worst work as an actor, Cage has always managed to distinguish himself from his peers, in no small part because he never gives any performance less than his all. To his credit, he commits just as wholeheartedly to this film's...
Tell me a tale of the past, and I'll often spot what you're saying about the present. The first two "Godfather" films ostensibly chronicle the ascendance of the Mafia in American culture in the 20th century, but they're as much about our country questioning its faith in its own institutions in the wake of Watergate. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created Indiana Jones and "Star Wars" as tributes to the Saturday morning adventure movie serials they grew up with, but they prophesied how their...
