Sam Elliott touches hearts playing Sam Elliott-like character

white haired man with moustache standing outside hair blowing in wind

It’s so nice when a movie gives you more than you expect. That’s the case with The Hero, a gentle tale that continually surprises us.

The biggest surprise involves the relationship that develops between 71-year-old actor Lee Hayden (Sam Elliott) and 30-something Charlotte Dylan (Laura Prepon). Romances between young women and older men are so common in Hollywood flicks that you expect this one to be treated as no big deal. Instead, Lee himself questions Charlotte’s obvious interest, only to be told she has a thing for old guys.

A smaller surprise occurs when Lee tries to mend fences with estranged daughter Lucy (Krysten Ritter) after a lifetime of disappointing her. We suspect he’ll end up disappointing her yet again—and, actually, he does, but not in a way we could have foreseen.

Lee—a role director and co-writer Brett Haley created especially for the gravelly voiced Elliott—is a movie star whose best days are behind him. Forty years behind him, to be precise, because that’s how long ago he made an iconic Western called The Hero. Now, he spends his days smoking weed with former co-star Jeremy (Nick Offerman) and waiting for roles that never come.

ColumbusMediaInsider: Lieutenant Governor Platform Offered

Large black words Columbus Media Insider with the M like shattered glass

The lieutenant governor is the afterthought of Ohio politics. Little attention is paid to the No. Two in state government. Candidates for the post are usually selected in order to balance the ticket rather than on issues. The usual white male nominee for governor needs a woman or better yet a Black woman.

I am stepping forward to break the mold by offering to be a candidate for lieutenant governor based on my stands on issues important to Ohioans.

This month I will offer the Hartman Platform on education issues. In future columns I will detail my stands on other issues.

The first plank in my platform changes the taxpayer subsidies for state-assisted colleges and universities. It could save hundreds of millions annually. I would change the system to provide tuition subsidies based on the normal time is takes to earn a degree. For instance, a student seeking an associate degree will receive subsidized tuition for two years. After that, the rate without the subsidy will be charged. Similarly, bachelor's degree students will receive a subsidized rate for four years. After that, full price will be paid.

Transformers finds its soul with The Last Knight

Scary looking flying dragon-like creature with open mouth and fangs

So, fair disclosure: Transformers is my primary fandom, and it has been since before Michael Bay got involved. That means I have Opinions. Yes, capital-O ones.

Two years ago, I wrote that the fourth movie in the series, Age of Extinction, was as soulless as its (literally soulless) villain Galvatron. It had all the flaws of the movies before it – a meandering, nonsensical plot, female characters who served as little more than eye candy and plot devices, and action setpieces that drew on to the point of making bombastic battles between factions of giant alien robots genuinely boring – then added on some heavy-handed pandering to the growing Chinese box office up to and including Chinese products placed where Chinese products ought not be (like the Texan main character’s Chinese ATM card).

It felt bland and cynical and exhausting.

Album Review – the Devil Doves’ Also Playing

Illustration of movie theater with Also Playing on marquee and strange animal people standing on the street and a rat running by

On their new release, “Also Playing,” the Devil Doves’ sound has departed significantly from their 2015 eponymous debut album. The ultra-percussive attack that characterized the previous effort has been filled out and somewhat sweetened by the addition of keyboardist Jeff Straw and the occasional lead guitar riff. While there is still plenty of crunch, Straw’s whimsical organ and saloon piano offer a welcome bit of melody to fill out the space between Junior Kauffman’s vocals.

Lyrically, Kauffman continues to display his ability to blend the harmless and the deadly serious with his trademark wry humor. This time around, though, he’s more willing to explore relationships. He addresses both regret and the paralyzing ambivalence we have all fallen into at one point or the other. On the other side of the coin, he celebrates resiliency and the possibility of renewing a sense of adventure.

Wayne National Forest Under Threat from Gas and Oil

What looks like a crane and extracting equipment within trees in a forest

Nearly 90 percent of what we know today as the state of Ohio was once old growth hardwood forest. The Appalachian southeastern corner of the state was a particularly diverse bioregion.

During the 18th and 19th centuries European settlers clear cut and mined the area beyond recognition, leaving behind a wasteland of barren, eroding hills. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a public work relief program that employed men aged 18-25 to do manual labor related to conservation and development of natural resources such as planting trees, constructing trails, roads, and lodges, fighting wildfires and controlling erosion. Ohio’s legislature agreed to allow the federal government to purchase land in the state for the purpose of establishing a national forest and the Forest Service was tasked with restoring the land.

DIAL ‘M’ FOR MURDER Theatre Review

Group Rep’s production of Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder is an old-fashioned, veddy British mystery. Many theatergoers will consider this murder most foul play to be deliciously enjoyable. But in a day and age of androids and iPhones, et al, which are not dialed, other viewers may find this two hour-long three act play with two intermissions to be outdated and that the actors trod very creaky boards indeed at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre.

 

[PLOT SPOILER ALERTS!] The complex story unspools in the living room of the London apartment of retired tennis pro Tony Wendice (British actor Adam Jonas Segaller who is appropriately snide and snarky) and his adulterous wife Margot (Australian actress Carrie Schroeder). They are visited by American crime writer Max Halliday (Justin Waggle), with whom posh Margot had an affair. Unbeknownst to the secretive lovers, Tony has found out all about their sordid sextracurricular activities, and he hires a sketchy former classmate, Captain Lesgate (Michael Robb), to liquidate unsuspecting Margot.

 

Against Ignoring the KKK

When a small number of heavily armed Ku Klux Klanners from North Carolina are given vast amounts of media attention for holding a rally here in Charlottesville, Va., on July 8th, I believe people opposed to violence and racism should go nowhere near them but in no way ignore them.

Military Recruiting and How to Confront it

This year the

Global Warming in a Nutshell

http://warisacrime.org/2017/06/28/global-warming-in-a-nutshell/

Last week the 29th anniversary of James Hansen’s historic appearance before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health & Natural Resources passed by virtually unnoticed.  Hansen, a climate scientist with NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, testified back on June 23, 1988, that “Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

Hansen added, ”It is already happening now.’’

"Cutting Off" North Korea to "Denuclearize" Pyongyang

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T. Davies
recently asked Bangkok's coup-installed military government to support
international sanctions against North Korea, he reflected concerns by
analysts that Pyongyang could build nuclear and other weapons with
dual-use imports and profits from exports.
   "As a leader of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations),
Thailand has an important role to play in the broad effort to signal
to North Korea it will be isolated if it does not suspend its weapons
programs and return to talks on the basis of a verifiable commitment
to denuclearize," Mr. Davies said.
   "Cutting off the financial lifelines that enable North Korea's
proscribed programs," is vital, the ambassador said.
   When asked what, if any, businesses in Thailand enable Pyongyang's
prohibited programs, U.S. Embassy Spokeswoman Melissa Sweeney replied:
 "The ambassador's op-ed speaks for itself."
   The envoy's 827-word statement was published on the Bangkok Post's
opinion page on May 22, the third anniversary of the coup when

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