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William Powell and Myrna Loy start in the 1941 mystery-comedy, “Shadow of the Thin Man.” Courtesy photo.


LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1941 mystery-comedy, “Shadow of the Thin Man” starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, March 13, at 1 and 6 p.m.

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FIFTY SHADES FREED (Rated R)

The tag line for the last chapter of the “Fifty Shades” trilogy is “Don’t miss the climax.”

However, there is no good reason for anyone other than the most ardent, indiscriminate fan of this series to plunk down hard-earned money for “Fifty Shades Freed.”

For a franchise steeped in kinky sex, “Fifty Shades Freed” manages to complete the trifecta of sexual banality.

The sum total of this cumulative homage to the ecstasy of bondage in a secret chamber filled with S & M pleasures is about as dull as watching infomercials on power tools.

On a cursory glance, Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey, the eccentric billionaire of dubious character, and Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia Steele, a fiction editor at a Seattle publishing house, are charismatic characters at a superficial level in their social strata.

If memory serves, the first two “Shades” films focused an inordinate amount of attention on erotic bondage, with Christian exerting domination over the pliable Anastasia in the secret Red Room equipped with enough toys to satisfy a modern-day Marquis de Sade.

It seems to be more of the same in this third installment, only now the story begins with a big wedding of Christian and Anastasia and again, though it’s hard to keep track, Anastasia exposes herself from the waist up on a basis that appears more frequent than in the past.

Notwithstanding the consistent nudity, where Christian is also shirtless more often than Vladimir Putin riding a horse, the sex scenes in “Freed” are about as steamy as microwaving a bowl of vegetables to a nutritiously damp delight.

Realizing that mechanical sexual passion only goes so far, the filmmakers decided to spice up the story with cheap thriller action to keep the audience from drifting into stupor. Hence, the return of Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) ready to act on a nasty grudge.

First, Jack sneaks into Grey Enterprises to cause mischief, but then quickly turns to stalking Anastasia, somehow slipping past a security detail to terrorize her on the interior of the figuratively impenetrable swanky penthouse.

Romance takes a back seat to a high-speed chase in a flashy Audi sports car, and ludicrous melodramatic surprises spiral in wild directions and a menacing villain poses threats almost as devoid of thrills as the tedious couple targeted for revenge.

It is doubtful that an evisceration of “Fifty Shades Freed” would steer the intrinsic audience to a comparable conclusion. Forgettable to some, but stimulating to others – that’s the likely outcome of a divided verdict.




‘A.P. BIO’ ON NBC NETWORK

Some of us may not have been good enough students in high school, even if college-bound, to take any A.P. classes, and don’t even know that the initials stand for “Advanced Placement.”

The NBC network has had a good run of comedy programming on Thursday nights, and by all accounts “A.P. Bio” may be a very good addition to the lineup with its subversive take on a wayward teacher failing to deliver scholarly excellence to his students.

The teacher in question is disgraced former Harvard philosophy professor Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton), who ends up for reasons unknown consigned for a year to teach advanced placement biology at a high school in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio.

During the winter TV press tour, Howerton, who is best known as snarky Dennis Reynolds on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” described his flippant character on “A.P. Bio” as one “who is intellectually smart and emotionally immature.”

Self-absorbed and egocentric, Jack lost his dream job at Stanford University to his arch-rival, philosophy scholar Miles Leonard (Tom Bennett), and his thoughts are consumed with dislodging his nemesis from an exalted position in academia.

But first, Jack’s confronted with the task of taking over the biology class, where he informs his smart, nerdy students that he doesn’t care about biology and that “we’re not going to do any biology in here.”

He candidly admits to his stunned pupils that his goal is “mentally breaking my nemesis with the ultimate goal of taking his job as the head of Stanford philosophy” and then having “sex with as many women as I possibly can throughout the entire state of California.”

Well, he does have ambition but it has nothing to do with teaching, leaving his perplexed students to figure out ways to outwit a teacher who tells them that “I know more than all of you combined,” as he explains that he’ll learn nothing from them.

Jack also learns nothing from the bumbling Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt), a spineless administrator who seems to be easily manipulated by his new teacher as well as everyone else on the faculty. But he’s a great comic foil, and that’s all that really matters.

“A.P. Bio” taps into the demented sense of humor that Glenn Howerton brings to his role of egotistical jerk, and for that reason alone, this show should be given a chance. You may ascertain that while this show is fun, it’s not really family friendly.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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Paul Reubens stars as Pee Wee Herman in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.” Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The GenX Cinema series presents the 1985 adventure-comedy, “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” starring Paul Reubens, on Wednesday, March 7, at 7 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.

Entry is by donation.

Directed by Tim Burton, with script by Phil Hartman and Paul Reubens, and score by Danny Elfman, this is an engaging, very funny film for both kids and adults.

Reubens’ famous man-child character, Pee Wee Herman, is off on a country-wide search for his stolen bicycle, meeting a bizarre cast of characters along the way.

The film features delightful walk-ons by Milton Berle, Jan Hooks and Twisted Sister.

The film is rated PG with run time of 1 hour 31 minutes. It is sponsored by Redwood Empire RV, and presented by the Lake County Theatre Co. and the Soper Reese Theatre.

The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com.

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