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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘THE RIP’ RATED R on NETFLIX
A solid action thriller with a strong cast is a great recipe for the Netflix film “The Rip” that rests in the capable direction of Joe Carnahan whose resume includes films like “Narc,” “Smokin’ Aces” and “Copshop.”
The title refers to police jargon for the seizure of cash, drugs and contraband from criminals. As the film opens, an elite Miami Police task force loses one of its members, Jackie Velez (Lina Esco), to an ambush from masked gunmen.
Setting the pace for a violent evening for a “rip” of a stash house is the notion that Jackie’s murder may have been the result of corruption inside the ranks, and unknown parties wanted her sidelined. After all, Captain Jackie was leading the elite unit hunting down drug cartels.
Stepping into breach for the task force is Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon), assisted by his colleague and friend Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Ben Affleck), a hothead turning more erratic even before the raid begins.
Miami P.D. has identified a suburban home on a cul-de-sac in neighboring Hialeah as the target. Dane and J.D. are joined by Miami detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno) for the bust.
Before they even leave the police station, the belligerent J.D. gets into fisticuffs with FBI Agent Del Byrne (Scott Adkins), who just happens to be his brother. Territorial boundaries are apparently more important than family ties.
The Feds intervene in the investigation into Jackie’s murder, but they are more interested in possible corruption in the force confiscating illicit cash for themselves. Dane gets agitated with his superior officer (Nestor Campbell) holding back their task force.
Dane and his crew operate without regard to rules, showing up at the house where the only occupant is a young woman named Desi (Sasha Calle), who seemingly has no clue as to why they want to search her deceased grandmother’s house.
A stash of $20 million is found behind a fake wall in the attic, and that’s when things get interesting. Rumors have been floating around that corrupt cops keep the loot for themselves.
Now suspicion falls on everyone, and red herrings pop up as expected. Which cops might be dirty? Who’s working with clean hands and wants to be sure the money gets back to the evidence locker?
When a pair of Hialeah police officers show up, what’s their angle? An anonymous caller warns the police to get out of the house. The team members even start questioning their colleagues. The action blasts off full throttle when criminals assault the stash house with machine guns.
“The Rip” may not quite be on the same level as Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” with Matt Damon or “The Town” with Ben Affleck, but like these two crime thrillers a big screen release would have been optimal. Nevertheless, the bigger the TV at home, the more enjoyable for this riveting action thriller.
‘STEAL’ ON AMAZON PRIME
A crime thriller about a British pension fund being robbed of billions, the six-episode “Steal” set in London is certainly bingeable entertainment on Amazon Prime, which suggests it could just as well be trimmed down to a two-hour heist movie.
Remarkably talented, Sophie Turner (“Game of Thrones”) is one of the key players as a trade processor at Lochmill Capital, an investment firm managing portfolios for retirement funds. Her Zara Dunne toils in a midlevel job.
Zara works closely with friend and colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe) at the trading desk. All hell breaks loose when a gang of thieves in prosthetic disguises storms the office, locking management in a meeting room and separating the rest of the staff into a conference room.
To make the point that they mean business, a couple of employees are brutally beaten to a bloody pulp for talking out of turn. The leader, London (Jonathan Slinger), forces Zara and Luke at gunpoint to drain the pension funds of four billion in British pounds.
It’s not too soon in the first episode to wonder if there is an inside man or woman involved with the heist. The police arrive on the scene not long after the thieves scrammed to their hideout.
What makes the heist particularly distasteful is that the pension funds being purloined belong to working stiffs who can ill-afford losing their retirements. Moreover, the thugs are just horribly malevolent.
Leading the police investigation is sharp-minded DCI Rhys Kovac (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), who happens to be hiding his own secret of a gambling addiction and owing a large sum to ruthless loan sharks.
Other players are drawn into the plot, including corrupt billionaire Sir Toby Gould (Peter Mullan), and for some inexplicable reason spooks from the MI5 espionage agency. The aptly named Sniper (Andrew Howard) may be the most unhinged member of the heist crew.
“Steal” delights with plenty of twists and a few surprises. The survival instincts of Zara make her the pivotal player that ensures the series remains interesting to the end.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Middletown Art Center
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The public is invited to enjoy the Be My Valentine Dance this Saturday, Feb. 14, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at the Middletown Art Center, or MAC.
DJs Nick and Scarab deliver an energized dance party, with reggae, deep house, and UK garage beats, rhythms and mixes.
Come with your sweetheart, friends, family, or solo and enjoy uplifting energized music, and community. There will be bass!
Suggested donation is $10; no one turned away for lack of funds. Beverages, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, will be available for purchase. Multiple generations and families are welcome.
Movies and art supplies in the back for kids will also be available (supervision is not provided).
Nicholas Hay is a veteran DJ who specialized in reggae mixes in LA during the ’90s. Lately, he has been exposing locals to UK garage, a mashup of house and bass music borrowing heavily from jungle and incorporating elements of R&B, disco, and reggae.
DJ Scarab (Matthew Barash) came up in San Francisco’s underground scene and started spinning vinyl around 1994 as the rave movement was emerging. More than 30 years later, he still enjoys sharing those influences with community members who love music and dance.
Experience uplifting sounds, rhythms, and beats that are getting people up and dancing across the world, right here in the heart of Middletown.
Middletown Art Center is a nonprofit dedicated to engaging the public in art making, art education, and art appreciation, and providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, striving to create an inclusive and accessible space for all.
To learn more and donate to support this or other MAC arts and cultural programs, visit www.middletownartcenter.org.
For inquiries or further information, please contact the Middletown Art Center at 707-355-4465 or email
The MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 in Middletown.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘PUPPY BOWL XXII’ on WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY PLATFORM
The Super Bowl features a clash between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, and one wishes there could be another halftime show as great as when Prince performed in 2007.
An alternative to the gridiron contest, at least as pre-game entertainment, would be “Puppy Bowl XXII” simulcast on Sunday, February 8, 2026, across the platform of the Warner Bros. Discovery universe that includes Animal Planet, HBO Max, Discovery, and more.
This year’s three-hour sports spectacular includes a record-breaking 150 rescue dogs from 72 shelters across the United States, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands and will feature heartwarming adoption stories and show-stopping matchups.
Referee Dan Schachner returns for his fifteenth year to oversee the action, ensuring fair play as these furry athletes compete for championship glory and their forever homes.
The show starts with Schachner rounding up players at the Marriott Bonvoy Puppy Bowl Hotel as they get ready for the big game. The starting lineup then sprints through a tunnel to take the field.
Reigning champions Team Fluff will send players including Benito (Siberian Husky-Chihuahua from Puerto Rico) and Showgirl (Chow Chow-Rottweiler) to defend their title.
Meanwhile, Lobster Roll (Bulldog-Border Collie), Brulee (Boston Terrier-French Bulldog), and Miso (American Cattle Dog-Beagle) will compete to bring the coveted Walmart “Lombarky” trophy to Team Ruff.
As the game unfolds, one standout pup will earn the prestigious Bissell MVP (Most Valuable Puppy) title while another will claim the Subaru of America, Inc. Underdog Award.
Fifteen special needs dogs, including Wynonna, a determined pup with only three legs, and Eleanor, who is both deaf and vision-impaired, will also compete to prove that nothing can hold them back.
For the first time ever, Puppy Bowl will spotlight senior dogs in a special exhibition game, as Team Oldies and Team Goldies go head-to-head in the all-new Pro-Dog Halftime Showdown.
“Puppy Bowl XXII” has a lot going for family fun, and sportscasters Steve Levy and Taylor Rooks provide play-by-play commentary emulating pro football.
‘HIS & HERS’ on NETFLIX
The opening scene of “His & Hers” is that of a bloodied woman spread on the hood of a red sports car in a rainy wooded area at night. Her arm twitches slightly, an indication she’s barely alive but about to expire.
A sudden shift takes us to Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson) in a hooded jacket, acting somewhat suspiciously before entering an unkempt apartment strewn with empty liquor bottles and piles of unopened mail.
The next morning Anna’s voiceover intones “There are at least two sides to every story. Yours and mine. Ours and theirs. His and hers. Which means someone is always lying.”
This somewhat facile observation about the human condition is the driving force behind the contrived six-episode unraveling of a murder mystery that takes place in the small Georgia town of Dahlonega (a weird name but an actual place).
On leave from her position as a news anchor in Atlanta due to the death of her child, Anna learns the next day that this murder took place in her hometown where her aging mother Alice (Crystal Fox) still lives.
Annoyed that a vacuous blonde, Lexy Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse), has taken over the anchor desk, Anna returns to the station to insist that she needs to return to Dahlonega to report on the crime scene.
Strangely, she stipulates that cameraman Richard Jones (Pablo Schreiber), Lexy’s husband, must accompany her on the assignment. Does she have an ulterior motive you may wonder?
At the small town an hour away from Atlanta, Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal) and Priya Patel (Sunita Mani) are the Sheriff’s detectives who arrive at the crime scene, needing to fend off a slew of reporters, including ambitious Anna hoping to score a big scoop.
Anna wants to know if Jack is familiar with the dead woman, who happens to be Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), stabbed so brutally that all signs point to a crime of passion rather than being victimized randomly.
Suspiciously, Jack acts like someone hiding a secret, going so far as to evade the coroner’s request for a DNA sample that is expected of every first responder dealing with the crime scene.
Anna is also hiding something, which has to do with promiscuous Rachel, Jack’s alcoholic sister Zoe (Marin Ireland), and Helen Wang (Poppy Liu), the headmaster of the elite school they all attended.
The prime suspect is Rachel’s cuckold husband, Clyde Duffie (Chris Bauer). The spouse is always suspected in these situations, but that seems like a red herring.
In any event, Anna and Jack, though married but living separately, are the “two sides” to a his and hers story, but there never is enough suspicion that either one is the true suspect.
“His & Hers” has enough plot twists and turns, some of that involving a “mean girls” club at the school the adult women attended long ago, to entertain, at least until the final episode that takes a wildly improbable leap.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘ELIE WIESEL: SOUL ON FIRE’ ON PBS
Fittingly timed with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, PBS, through its “American Masters” documentary platform, releases the film “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire,” recounting the life of an author, educator, activist, and humanitarian committed to fighting antisemitism and injustice.
Famously saying, “For the opposite of love, I have learned, is not hate, but indifference,” Wiesel’s sentiment in this statement underscored his commitment to recollecting his own experience as a survivor of the Holocaust.
With a devotion to justice that ran deep, Wiesel was one of the key figures who spearheaded the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is dedicated to ensuring that “Never Again” is more than a slogan that the horrors of the Holocaust should never occur once more.
It’s illuminating that the museum’s website contains a statement condemning the misuse of the Holocaust in public discourse, recognizing how comparing contemporary situations to Nazism is not only offensive to its victims, but also inaccurate and misrepresenting Holocaust history and the present.
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” begins with his early life in Romania and his family members' tragic murders in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, followed by Wiesel’s liberation from Buchenwald by American soldiers and his migration to France.
Born in 1928, Wiesel was raised in a Jewish family with three sisters. In 1944, shortly following German occupation, his life irrevocably changed after he and his family were deported to Auschwitz.
His mother and younger sister Tzipora were killed almost immediately, while Wiesel and his father were eventually forced to march to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. After the death of his father, Wiesel was liberated on April 11, 1945.
Wiesel was subsequently transported to France with other orphaned survivors known as the Buchenwald Boys. His sister Hilda discovered him through a photo in a French newspaper, and he eventually reunited with his sisters Beatrice and Hilda.
As a young man, Wiesel began his journalism career in Paris, where he used his writing talents to report on political and foreign affairs. During this time, he also led a children’s choir and studied at the Sorbonne.
His writing of the memoir “Night,” along with “Jews of Silence” and “Four Hasidic Masters,” would be the foundation for his career as a speaker, writer and university professor, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although he frequently wrote about global events as a journalist, he was initially hesitant to recount his own experiences as a Holocaust survivor, which is easy to understand when one must relive unimaginable horrors.
It wasn’t until he began writing the book “Night,” first in Yiddish as “And the World Remained Silent,” then in a shortened version in French titled “La Nuit” and finally in the English translation, that he was able to speak candidly about the horrors endured during the Holocaust.
In 1985, accepting a Congressional Medal of Honor from President Ronald Reagan, Wiesel expressed his gratitude as to how the American liberators “gave us back our lives, and what I felt for them then nourishes me to the end of my days.”
In his career, Wiesel penned 57 books and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. As a professor at Boston University for over 30 years, he influenced thousands of students, and his memoir “Night” is still read in schools around the world.
Wiesel died in 2016 at the age of 87 in New York City and is remembered as one of the most prominent Jewish writers, activists and educators of the last 60 years. Every Holocaust Remembrance Day should include a memory of his life.
The Holocaust Museum features on its website oral testimonies of survivors, and what it was like to live through the horror, the actions they had to take to survive, and the choices they had to make.
For example, the story of Martin Weiss who at the age of 15 was deported with his family from Hungary and loaded onto cramped boxcars for a grueling journey to Auschwitz, a place they had never heard of before.
In his own words, Weiss recalled as they disembarked from the train, that “if you ever saw bedlam, or if you could imagine hell, that must have been it.” And this was happening as “everybody was trying to hold on to their children.”
It seemed almost incongruous to Weiss that once at the camp, the prisoners were surrounded by German police dogs, and this made no sense because “it was enclosed in a yard with electrified fences, and nobody could run any place.”
Men were soon separated from women, and then everyone had to go through a line, and an officer would direct you to go left or right. “If you went to left, you went to your death. If you went to right, you went to work. This was our initiation or our first experience with Auschwitz.”
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire” adds authenticity to the documentary with interviews of the subject himself and family members.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.