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CREED II (Rated PG-13)

Outside of the “James Bond” and “Star Wars” films, few movie franchises seem as durable as what Sylvester Stallone created over forty years ago with the underdog boxing legend of Rocky Balboa in “Rocky.”

We may have seemingly run out of Roman numerals for the “Rocky” films, but the shift is now to boxer Adonis Creed, trained by the Philadelphia legend, and as a result, “Creed II” ably carries on the “Rocky” universe to please the fan base.

The story gets off to a rousing start when Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) slugs it out in a brutal match to become the heavyweight champion of the world. With victory comes the inevitable burden of having to defend the title.

Yet, there is life outside the ring and most of it revolves around Adonis and his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a talented singer, worrying about the child they are expecting could inherit her mother’s deteriorating hearing disability.

Meanwhile, Rocky still copes with the loss of his beloved wife, running her restaurant while still yearning to remain a worthy mentor to Adonis, who fails to take the legend’s advice on which opponents to fight in future bouts.

The specter of Rocky’s bout with Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) from years ago looms large here. Recall that Drago killed Apollo Creed in the ring before losing a match to Rocky, so bad blood still lingers.

Now that Apollo’s son, Adonis, is being challenged by Drago’s son, Viktor (Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu), for a big showdown in Russia, it is merely the elder Drago’s desire for revenge by way of his hulking, menacing progeny.

For Rocky, however, the loss of Apollo in the match with Drago is not something he can easily forget, and as a result, he really wants no part of a fight with the Russian’s offspring because remorse cuts so deep.

For his part, Adonis considers Rocky the putative father figure he longs to have, and so there is plenty of drama of whether they will reconcile their differences about the boxer’s future.

In the end, of course, the fateful match is set for a big arena in Moscow, but not before Adonis undergoes arduous training in the Arizona desert with exercises that seem incredibly unorthodox.

As expected, “Creed II” resolves the storyline with an expertly choreographed fight between Adonis and Viktor that is truly spectacular. The payoff is visceral and stunning, and likely to be everything a fan of the “Rocky” franchise could want.



‘THE KOMINSKY METHOD’ ON NETFLIX

The work of Chuck Lorre in sitcom television is filled with huge hits. “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” stand among his popular shows. For Netflix, Lorre has created “The Kominsky Method,” which though providing humor, is not a traditional sitcom by any means.

This new series streaming on Netflix is not easily pigeonholed for any genre. It’s all about the human condition, mostly about two aging characters in the throes of pending mortality, familial grief and unfortunate medical conditions.

Michael Douglas stars as Sandy Kominsky, an acting coach running his own workshop, and Alan Arkin is Norman Newlander, his longtime agent and best friend. Both of them have reached that stage in life where griping about matters trivial and significant is a daily routine.

Thrice married Sandy mentors many young students eager to get into show business. The interactions with his charges can often be surprising and humorous. If he were about four decades younger, he’d probably be dating some of them.

The best part of the series is when Sandy and Norman banter with each other, and fortunately that happens often enough to keep it interesting. When Sandy mentions that one of his students is “age appropriate,” Norman cracks that a woman half of Sandy’s age is “still an old woman.”

And yet, one of the students in Sandy’s class is the middle-aged Lisa (Nancy Travis), who starts dating the acting coach with some mixed results in the beginning. She’s recently divorced with a teenage son that one would charitably describe as difficult.

Sadness intrudes early on when Norman’s beloved wife is bedridden with a terminal illness, and the fact she passes away gives way to some powerfully emotional scenes before, during and after the memorial service.

During the eulogy, Sandy says he was the one who set up Norman with his wife because he “had no patience for women with integrity and self-respect.” Mind you, the service included a Barbara Streisand female impersonator to perform her favorite song.

Sandy challenges his students about being hung up on political correctness, managing to drag his travails with a prostate exam from his flippant urologist (Danny DeVito) into the conversation. Indeed, quite a bit of time is spent on Sandy’s troubles with urination.

“The Kominsky Method” it touching and amusing, and Douglas and Arkin are certainly worth watching as they joke as well as commiserate about the inevitable struggles of the aging process.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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‘MORTAL ENGINES’ Rated PG-13

There is a temptation to declare “Mortal Engines” dead on arrival, but for a film advertised as coming from the filmmakers of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” it cannot be easily dismissed as a complete misfire.

Fascination usually follows storylines about a dystopian future that is so bleak and disturbing that one has to be gratefully satisfied to be alive in our contemporary times.

What is unique, if at all, about “Mortal Engines” is that unlike the violent marauders on motorbikes and souped-up vintage cars in the post-apocalyptic “Mad Max,” here the pillagers of the land run an entire city on wheels.

The premise is rather simple. Under the cutthroat vision of Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), the city of London (minus many of its famous monuments) is a gigantic moving metropolis roaming the earth and preying upon smaller so-called traction cities.

The story takes place centuries after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event known as the Sixty Minute War. Mankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved, but definitely not a better one.

Dwelling in a lower tier of London, Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) is a historian and custodian of artifacts from the ancient world (mostly household items from our current world).

In the film’s best scene, the great traction city of London devours a smaller one in a tense chase across desolate rural lands. The inhabitants are captured and auctioned off into slavery. Apparently, human behavior has not evolved beyond a more primitive time.

One of the captives is the feral Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), a fiercely-driven young woman with a deep facial scar who only has in mind revenge for the death of her mother at the hands of Valentine.

Hester’s primitive nature is explained by the fact she was raised by Shrike (Stephen Lang), a nine-foot tall, dead-eyed resurrected soldier robotic in appearance who possesses a human soul that has him turn violently possessive when Hester strikes out on her own.

Besides linking up reluctantly with Tom, who gets expelled from London by the wicked Valentine, Hester finds an ally in Anna Fang (Jihae), a dangerous outlaw with a bounty on her head who gets fully engaged in the fight against Valentine’s plans to use a deadly super-weapon.

The filmmakers describe this futuristic world as a “Victorian steampunk aesthetic,” which explains that science fantasy blends technology with designs inspired by 19th century industrial steam-powered machinery.

Fittingly enough, steampunk tops everything else, from script to acting, to create some impressive visuals that mask the otherwise banal and incoherent plotting of “Mortal Engines,” which seemed to have the potential to do so much better.



‘REL’ ON FOX NETWORK

Standup comedians have successfully taken their talent to the confines of the small screen in television series, probably none more profitably than Jerry Seinfeld. Moreover, Tim Allen and Ray Romano, to name a few, have been and remain popular TV stars.

Lil Rel Howery, who gained notice as the TSA Agent in “Get Out,” has moved on from lounge acts into the new sitcom “Rel,” a show that seems at least loosely based on the central character’s past experiences.

An interesting twist in “Rel” is that Sinbad, who could be considered one of the earlier black standup comedians (okay, I’m leaving out Bill Cosby but not Redd Foxx) transitioning to TV stardom, plays the role of Rel’s cynical father.

Working at a Chicago hospital as a male nurse, Rel’s life is turned upside down when he discovers that his wife is having an affair with his barber. As the series begins, she’s already moved to Cleveland, taking their two young kids and the furniture.

Rel’s father doesn’t have the most delicate touch. Upon entering church for Sunday services, he expresses disappointment with his son’s marital status, saying “All that money I spent on you for glasses and you didn’t see this coming.”

In the early going, Rel finds himself the butt of jokes in the neighborhood, getting teased mercilessly, even by strangers on the bus, for the adulterous cause of his marital meltdown. His father is bound to pile on to punctuate the laughter before a live audience.

Meanwhile, his family and friends, to some extent, try to provide moral support. His best friend Brittany (Jessica Moore) amuses with her sassy behavior, while younger brother Nat (Jordan L. Jones), recently released from prison, throws in some zingers.

Trying to get back into the dating game, as you can imagine, won’t go smoothly, especially when Rel hopes that dancing with a girl could get others to think he’s stealing her away from her boyfriend. Yeah, the ruse explodes like a hand grenade tossed in a foxhole.

Appreciation of “Rel” could well depend on one’s familiarity with Lil Rel Howery’s standup routines. The show itself comes off as relatively formulaic but there are glimmers of creative possibilities in the early going. Enjoyment of the series could become a waiting game.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

Tod Marshall, Washington's State Poet for 2016-2018, with the help of that state's humanities and arts programs, put together a fine anthology of Washington poetry, “WA129: Poets of Washington,” and here's just one of many poems I liked.

Sally Green lives on Waldron Island. Her first collection of poems is “Full Immersion” from Expedition Press. Showing someone how to do something is, I think, a fine and noble part of living.

Shank

for Cora

Though she lives in a world of Velcro, snaps
and zippers, I'm showing my granddaughter how
to sew on a button. She's nine, same age I was
watching my mother pick my favorite one, shaped
like a flower a child might draw, color of sunshine.
Her homemaker hands held everything together,
needle and red thread lickety-splitting up, over,
down, up again attaching the blossom to grass-
green cloth: Colors no bee could pass by. Now, before
the last tug of thread through the button
my granddaughter brought me, I point out the pinch
of space––width of a scissor-blade––between it
and the fabric, a shaft of stitches with a half-dozen
twists of thread around it before tying off. Shank,
I tell her, same as Mother named it. It strengthens
the bond between button and garment, less
friction than ready-mades, fasteners that loosen
too soon. Like love, my mother said. Close, but not too
close. A snip of thread and my granddaughter's ready
to go, fluorescent-pink button back on the nose
of her dog-faced school bag, the shank fixing us
together in this world my mother could trust
only so long as everything was done right, only
when she didn't forget to check I was buttoned up
proper, buttoned up tight.

American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Sally Green, "Shank," from WA129: Poets of Washington, (Sage Hill Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Sally Green and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2018 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.
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“Marx Brothers At the Circus” will be shown at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport, Calif., on Tuesday, January 8, 2018. Courtesy image.


LAKEPORT, Calif. – The zany 1939 Marx Brothers comedy, “At the Circus,” starring Groucho, Chico and Harpo, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, Jan. 8, at 1 and 6 p.m.

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