CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Second Sunday Cinema's March film will be “Inequality for All.”
The film will be shown on Sunday, March 9, at Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave, Clearlake.
The free showing will begin at 5:45 p.m.
A passionate argument on behalf of the middle class, this documentary film features Robert Reich – diminutive professor, best-selling author, and President Clinton’s secretary of labor – as he demonstrates how the widening income gap has a devastating impact on the US economy as a whole and the middle class in particular.
Through his singular perspective, Reich explains how the massive consolidation of wealth by a few threatens the viability of the US workforce and the foundation of democracy itself.
Out of 141 countries, the US has the fourth-highest degree of wealth inequality in the entire world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine and Lebanon.
The greater the wealth gap, the less happy the nation as a whole. And Reich has solutions in addition to a warm wit.
Li-Young Lee is an important American poet of Chinese parentage who lives in Chicago. Much of his poetry is marked by unabashed tenderness, and this poem is a good example of that.
I Ask My Mother to Sing
She begins, and my grandmother joins her. Mother and daughter sing like young girls. If my father were alive, he would play his accordion and sway like a boat.
I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace, nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers running away in the grass.
But I love to hear it sung; how the waterlilies fill with rain until they overturn, spilling water into water, then rock back, and fill with more.
Both women have begun to cry. But neither stops her song.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 1986 by Li-Young Lee, whose most recent book of poems is Behind My Eyes, BOA Editions, Ltd., 2009. Poem reprinted by permission of Li-Young Lee and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Artists are invited to submit their original artwork to the 2014-2015 California Duck Stamp Art Contest. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will accept submissions from April 25 through May 23.
The contest is open to U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older as of February 19, 2014. Entrants need not reside in California.
The winning artwork will be reproduced on the 2014-2015 California Duck Stamp. The top submissions will also be showcased at the Pacific Flyway Decoy Association’s art show in July.
The artwork must depict the species selected by the California Fish and Game Commission, which for the 2014-2015 hunting season is the scaup (lesser or greater).
The design is to be in full color and in the medium (or combination of mediums) of the artist’s choosing, except that no photographic process, digital art, metallic paints or fluorescent paints may be used in the finished design.
Photographs, computer-generated art, art produced from a computer printer or other computer/mechanical output device (air brush method excepted) are not eligible to be entered into the contest and will be disqualified. The design must be the contestant’s original hand-drawn creation.
The entry design may not be copied or duplicated from previously published art, including photographs, or from images in any format published on the Internet.
All entries must be accompanied by a completed participation agreement and entry form. These forms and the official rules are available online at www.dfg.ca.gov/duckstamp .
Entries will be judged at a public event to be held in June. The judges’ panel, which will consist of experts in the fields of ornithology, conservation, and art and printing, will choose first-, second- and third-place winners and an honorable mention.
Since 1971, CDFW’s annual contest has attracted top wildlife artists from around the country. All proceeds generated from stamp sales go directly to waterfowl conservation projects throughout California. In past years, hunters were required to purchase and affix the stamp to their hunting license.
Now California has moved to an automated licensing system and hunters are no longer required to carry the physical stamps in the field (proof of purchase prints directly onto the license).
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Around the world, millions of girls face barriers to education that boys do not. And yet, when you educate a girl, you can break cycles of poverty in just one generation.
At 3 p.m. Sunday, March 23, the Lake County Girls Circle will host a special showing of “Girl Rising” at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.
This is a groundbreaking film that has already been seen by millions around the world.
“'Girl Rising’ will stir your heart,” said Marie Giovanna, a founding mentor of Girls Circle. “In our Circle meetings, we are learning about the immense oppression facing young women in far off regions of the world. By bringing this film to the Soper Reese Theatre, we hope to inspire the girls here in Lake County, as well as help guide their focus to appreciating education as a privilege that opens a world of possibilities to them.”
Everyone is welcome to attend this “must see” epic film; it truly is a documentary every mother, sister and daughter should see as well as the men who love and support the women in their lives.
The film is 101 minutes long and is guaranteed to be the most inspirational 101 minutes of your weekend.
Tickets are available at the Soper Reese Theatre, located at 275 S. Main Street in Lakeport, or online at www.soperreesetheatre.com .
Price is $10 for adults and admission is free for anyone under the age of 16.
All proceeds benefit the Girls Circle, a volunteer based affiliate program of Lake Family Resource Center (LFRC).
Girls Circle is run by LFRC volunteers and seeks to serve the youth of the Lake County community by giving them the experience of belonging to something that is whole and healthy while they make their natural and challenging passage from puberty to adulthood.
For information about the film “Girl Rising” or the group Girls Circle contact Marie Giovanna at 707-508-7556 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or email Vicki Crystal at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
French director and writer Luc Besson has an extraordinary cinematic resume, having directed “La Femme Nikita” and “Leon: The Professional.”
His action style is most evident in his scripts for the “Taken” franchise, starring Liam Neeson as the tough guy.
For “3 Days to Kill,” directed by McG, no slouch himself in the high-octane action department, Luc Besson is co-screenwriter along with Adi Hasak, the script writer for “From Paris With Love,” another film in the same genre.
The interesting thing about these hard-boiled thrillers, other than an affinity for location shooting in Paris, the beautiful City of Lights, is the use of mature actors for tough guy roles.
Now Kevin Costner, dangerous international spy Ethan Renner, is in good company with the likes of John Travolta and Liam Neeson. Nearing retirement age, Costner’s CIA operative convincingly beats the stuffing out of guys half his age.
The film kicks off explosively at a hotel in Belgrade, Serbia, once the capital city of the former Yugoslavia. The bad guys show up in shiny blacks SUVs, ready for a major firefight, and Ethan is only too willing to oblige.
Trying to save the world from Europe’s most dangerous terrorists, including a creepy-looking guy known only as the Albino and the elusive mastermind who goes by the moniker of “The Wolf,” Ethan wants to finish the job and get out of the game.
Having been on the road for so long, Ethan is only a faint, distant memory to his teenage daughter Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld) and his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen). Now, he desperately wants to reconnect with his family.
Ethan also has a seemingly terminal disease and he’s got little time left. Enter the mysterious vixen named Vivi (Amber Heard), with lips painted bright red and wearing leather latex like a dominatrix, Ethan’s new handler sent from CIA headquarters in Langley.
Beautiful and seductive, Vivi offers the dying CIA operative an offer he can’t refuse. Experimental drugs may extend his life, but first he’s got to accomplish one more extremely dangerous mission.
The good news is that the job gets him back to his home base in Paris, where he finds his shabby apartment has been taken over by squatters and his complaints to the local police go nowhere because the law won’t evict them during the cold winter months.
Zooey is attending an international school in Paris, while Christine has made a new life for herself with museum work that sometimes takes her to England. Ethan’s first encounters with his daughter are awkward and tentative.
One of the film’s running gags is that he buys a purple girl’s bike for Zooey, who prefers to ride the Metro with her friends, since her absent father never taught her how to ride a bike as a child. Ethan lugs the bike all over Paris, vainly hoping she will eventually use it.
Based upon intelligence reports about terrorist activities, Vivi recruits Ethan to eliminate “The Wolf” when he comes to Paris to meet with his accountant and to supply dirty bombs to the usual bad guys.
The mission becomes more complicated when, trying to balance his job and family for the first time ever, Ethan agrees to care for Zooey when Christine takes off for a three day business trip to London.
Not hip to the modern digital world, Ethan has a lot to learn about teenage behavior, having to show up for a conference with her school principal and then saving Zooey from sexual aggressors at an underground rave.
Ethan could be in the middle of gunning down a bunch of thugs in a fancy hotel room or interrogating a suspect, but then he’ll take time out to answer a cell phone call from Zooey, who usually rings at an inconvenient time.
As part of his planning for a quiet family dinner at home, Ethan interrupts his grilling of an Italian hoodlum to force him to tell Zooey over the phone his family recipe for a nice spaghetti sauce.
There’s also the running gag of Ethan having taken a Middle Eastern limo driver into custody, keeping him locked in the trunk, but seeking advice from him about fatherhood because he’s met the driver’s polite teenage daughters.
The comic relief is a welcome palliative to the surfeit of violence that comes with hunting down the terrorists. Director McG takes great pains to create terrific action sequences, from volatile shootouts to fist fights in the Paris subway system.
Most spectacular of all, reminiscent of “Ronin,” is an incredible, breathtaking multi-car chase sequence on the streets of Paris, which culminates with Ethan crashing a car into the Seine.
Kevin Costner’s talent shines in his role as the world-weary, put-upon CIA operative grappling with family issues. He’s tough, witty, resilient and consequential. Let’s hope his Ethan Renner can be called out of retirement one more time.
Over-the-top in its thrilling action, “3 Days to Kill,” not to be taken too seriously, is unorthodox at its core but absurdly entertaining and one heck of a lot of fun.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
