Previews For once, our overlords at Coming Attractions have scheduled the week’s big release to open at the mall (and only at the mall). Notorious is a Fox Searchlight biopic of slain rap star Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G., aka Christopher Wallace, and as such it should appeal to the teen-tween filmgoers to whom […]
Arts + Scene
Reviews, interviews and upcoming highlights from the week in visual and performing arts around Humboldt County.
Posted inArts + Scene
Hot, Flat and Crowded
In Hot, Flat and Crowded, Friedman provides his readers a broad set of ideas for an energy-climate revolution in which nations will develop renewable energy, preserve biodiversity and, quite literally, save the world. In an ambitious and important book, Friedman moves the conversation from what we can do as individuals to what we can do […]
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Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles To Psychological Balance and Compassion
Paul Ekman is one of the most respected scientists in the Bay Area, internationally famous for his painstaking work in identifying emotions from facial expressions, even "microexpressions" that indicate when someone is lying. He developed training based on these findings that the Secret Service uses. He also proved one of Darwin’s more obscure theories, that […]
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Happy Days, Here Again
PREVIEWS In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays a cranky old codger in Detroit who finds a purpose — staring down street gangs, Dirty Harry-style. This after working through some personal issues and befriending the Hmong families who have moved into his neighborhood. Rated R for language and some violence. 116 m. At the Broadway, Mill […]
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Earthrise: How We First Saw Ourselves
On Christmas Eve 40 years ago, Frank Borman looked out the window and saw something no human had ever seen before. He saw the Earth rise. At the time Borman was in a space capsule, with the first crew to orbit the Moon. They were on the dark side, in their fourth orbit of looking […]
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*The Post-American World *
In The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria shows us a world in which the “rise of the rest” — the development of countries around the globe — will not necessarily overtake the United States economically, politically or militarily, but will drastically change the current geopolitics. “Look around,” writes Zakaria. “The tallest building in the world is […]
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The Year Not in Reviews
By way of a year-end summing up, this column is about what doesn’t normally get into reviews. The plays we see may have several purposes. Many — including productions by Humboldt State, CR, Dell’Arte International School, local high schools and organizations like the Laurel Tree Learning Center — are part of the participants’ education. Community […]
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Holiday Downers
Previews The only film opening this week is The Reader, a post-WWII dramatic love story starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. A young Berg (Fiennes) engages in a brief and passionate love affair with Hannah (Winslet), a woman twice his age, until Hannah disappears mysteriously. After years apart, Berg is stunned to learn that Hannah […]
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Yes Yes Yes
Previews The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, has generated Oscar buzz. Benjamin is born looking 80 years old; aspiring ballerina Daisy meets him in a nursing home. They fall in love, but he’s getting younger and she older. Seems very promising. Rated PG-13 for brief war violence, sexual content, […]
