A&E

Don’t miss a special evening with Occidental native, Daniel Ziblatt, currently Harvard Professor of Government and co-author of the best seller “How Democracies Die,” at Occidental Center for the Arts on Friday, May 18 at 7 p.m. (THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.) This enlightening (and frightening) new book examines the ways democracies die at the hands, not of generals, but of elected leaders. The authors outline several key ways this happens, drawing from global examples, then show how those same processes are at work in our own country.

It’s been over a decade since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) decided it was a wise (and popular) move to bundle the Oscar-nominated shorts together and release them in theaters just before the gold statuettes are awarded. All three of the 2018 collections are being screened locally.

Seen from space, most of Africa can accurately be labelled “The Heart Of Darkness”— for although it is home to nearly a billion people, it generates just 1% of the world’s electricity. One of the darkest places on the continent is the East African nation of Wakanda—but in Ryan Coogler’s film, Black Panther we learn that our perceived lack of electric lighting is very, very wrong. For Wakanda is the only place on Earth depository for a rare-earth, meteorite called vibranium, and centuries of isolationist leadership has invested in a vibranium-powered infrastructure so modern, it makes other countries seem antiquated. It can’t be seen from space (or on the ground, either) because decades before the first satellites were launched, the technologically advanced nation erected an invisibility force-field around itself to protect it’s secrets, its people and its culture. 

100 YEARS OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE—Mayor Joe Palla (pictured right) and the Cloverdale City Council recognized the 100th Anniversary of Santa Rosa Junior College, in January of 2018, by presenting a proclamation to (pictured left) Ricardo Navarrette, vice president, SRJC Emeritus (retired) – 2016. Navarrette said access to quality higher education for all residents in the district continues to be the same motivation that drives the district 100 years after it was chartered in 1918.  Over its one hundred years, SRJC has served more than 1.7 million individuals with a vision of being an inclusive, diverse and sustainable learning community that engages the whole person, thus reflecting the legacy of its imprint on the entire North Bay region, a vision guarded vigorously throughout the test of time. Photo Patricia M. Roth

HONOR AND SACRIFICE—Mayor Joe Palla presents a City of Cloverdale proclamation to Bob Cox, honoring and recognizing Private William Russell Ledford on the centennial of his death. Cox thanked the council on behalf of the American Legion and the Sons of the American Legion. “We buried this soldier with full honors at the Cloverdale cemetery,” Cox said. On March 19, 1924, the William Russell Ledford Post 293 of the American Legion was chartered in honor of William Russell Ledford, and in addition the Sons of the American Legion were also named in his honor on May 13, 2013. January 18, 2018, marked the centennial of Ledford’s death on a battlefield “Somewhere in France” during World War One. The City Council recognized and honored Ledford’s service and sacrifice to our country. Photo Patricia M. Roth

Way back in the pre-fake-news time of 1971, the New York Times began publishing excerpts from the classified “Pentagon Papers,” stolen from the Rand Corporation. The damning revelations about four American Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson) lying about the real reasons for the Vietnam War rattled President Nixon so much that his Attorney General John Mitchell invoked the Espionage Act and a judge ordered the Times to “cease and desist.”

All of Guillermo Del Toro’s movies (i.e. Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy), are lush, intensely sensual imaginings filled with scenes of dreamlike wonder. In The Shape of Water, sexuality finally takes center stage, and since Del Toro is the writer/director, the sexuality is like nothing ever seen before. The sexy female is an unlikely candidate named Elisa Espisito (Sally Hawkins), a mute, mousey, and orphaned Baltimore cleaning lady who mops up blood in a top-secret laboratory. The sexy male is even more unlikely. He is “The Asset” (Doug Jones), an amphibious Creature From the Black Lagoon-stye humanoid stolen by the American military as “research” from the Amazon River.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opens in 1996, with the  discovery of the old board game on a sandy beach. When the box is opened, a video game cartridge is inside which just happens to fit the Sony Play Station the teen-aged son has in his bedroom. We then flash forward 20 years, where (echoing the plot points of the The Breakfast Club), four teens end up in detention for various reasons: Spencer, the Wimp (Alex Wolf) is called into the principal’s office for writing a history paper for  Fridge, the Jock (Ser’Darius Blain); Bethany, the Babe (Madison Iseman) is busted for using her cell phone during a test;  and Martha, the Brain (Morgan Turner), talks back to her PE teacher. The foursome discover the Jumanji video game in the school basement, and are magically transformed into the game avatars they select. The wimp becomes  Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), a muscular, self-effacing “expert” with a “smoldering look.”  The brain develops sex appeal, long, shapely legs, and deadly martial arts skills as Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) who is clad in a ridiculous,  midriff-baring jungle outfit.  The Jock becomes the wise-cracking, short-statured zoologist named Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart), and when the babe selected “the curvy genius cartographer” named Dr. Shelly Oberon, she did not envision Jack Black’s body. It takes awhile for the teens to learn to utilize their avatar’s skill sets, but fortunately, the game gives them two extra lives.

In The Florida Project, writer /director/editor Sean Baker takes us to a place most of us would only get stuck in if we took the wrong exit on a trip to Walt Disney World. It is a neighborhood of huge, bright orange juice stands, cheap Disney knock-offs sold beneath the spreading arms of a garish plaster wizard, gun shops that advertise “shoot real machine guns,” discount gas stations, abandoned condominium projects, and a couple of super-cheap motels ironically-named Magic Castle and Future Land. Both places are inhabited by people who wish they were somewhere else, but are still glad to have a place to sleep, clean sheets and towels, and a swimming pool. Many residents are “semi-permanent” meaning that they have to move out of their rooms for one night every month so the motels won’t lose their licenses.

Opening with Joan Didion’s quote: “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.” writer/director Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age movie, Lady Bird, proves that the universality of high school angst can be fresh, alive and exciting. The title is the self-chosen nick-name of a Sacramento teen (2-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan) attending an all girls Catholic high school in 2002. As her overly critical mother (2-time Emmy and Tony Award-winner Laurie Metcalf) keeps reminding her, they can’t really afford the private school tuition, but are forced to because her older brother, Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues), “saw a knifing right in front of him” at the public school.