Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 13, 2014

9

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, December 13, 2014 


Jeff’s Book Picks By Jeff Brown

SEAN’S SHAMELESS REVIEWS: 

THE ROAD TO THE OSCARS STARTS NOW

By Sean Kayden

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE: A NOVEL 

by Anthony Doerr 

A New York Times bestseller about a blind 
French girl and a German boy whose paths 
collide in occupied France as both try to survive 
the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure 
lives with her father in Paris near the Museum 
of Natural History, where he works as the master 
of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-
Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect 
miniature of their neighborhood so she can 
memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. 
When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and 
father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of 
Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-
uncle lives by the sea. With them they carry 
what might be the museum’s most valuable and 
dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, 
the orphan Werner grows up with his younger 
sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. 
Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing 
these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins 
him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, 
then a special assignment to track the resistance. 
More and more aware of the human cost of his 
intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of 
the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his 
story and Marie-Laure’s converge. 

THE ALIENIST by Caleb Carr

1896 - New York City. On a cold March night New 
York Times reporter John Moore is summoned 
to the East River by his friend , former Harvard 
classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, 
or “alienist.” On the unfinished Williamsburg 
Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body 
of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one 
of Manhattan’s infamous brothels.The newly 
appointed police commissioner, Theodore 
Roosevelt enlists the two men in the murder 
investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler’s 
intellect and Moore’s knowledge of New York’s 
vast criminal underworld. They are joined by 
Sara Howard, a determined woman who works as 
a secretary in the police department. Laboring in 
secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline 
of psychology, are viewed by the public with 
skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks 
on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- 
amassing a psychological profile of the man 
they’re looking for based on the details of his 
crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into 
the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer 
who has killed before. and will kill again .Fast-
paced and gripping, infused with a historian’s 
exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded 
Age and its untarnished underside: verminous 
tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops 
and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses 
and seamy gin mills.A wonderful ride.

THE BURNING ROOM (A Harry Bosch 
Novel) by Michael Connelly 

Detective Harry Bosch and his rookie partner 
investigate a cold case that gets very hot... very 
fast.In the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, not 
many murder victims die a decade after the crime. 
So when a man succumbs to complications from 
being shot by a stray bullet ten years earlier, Bosch 
catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but 
any other clues are virtually nonexistent. Even 
a veteran cop would find this one tough going, 
but Bosch’s new partner, Detective Lucia Soto, 
has no homicide experience. A young star in the 
department, Soto has been assigned to Bosch so 
that he can pass on to her his hard-won expertise. 
Beginning with the bullet that has been lodged 
for years in the victim’s spine, they must pull 
new leads from years-old evidence, and these 
soon reveal that the shooting was anything but 
random.As their investigation picks up speed, it 
leads to another unsolved case with even greater 
stakes: the deaths of several children in a fire 
that occurred twenty years ago. But when their 
work starts to threaten careers and lives, Bosch 
and Soto must decide whether it is worth risking 
everything to find the truth, or if it’s safer to let 
some secrets stay buried.


The award season for next 
year’s Oscars heats up this 
month. It is abundantly 
clear that December is a 
crowded month for films. 
Additionally, the quality 
of films arriving in theaters appears to be the 
finest the year has to offer. While superior films 
such as “Boyhood,” “Whiplash,” “Birdman,” 
“Foxcatcher,” and “Nightcrawler” have already 
hit theaters; there are a whole new slew of 
contenders making their way into the arena. 
This month alone features Reece Witherspoon’s 
nature/wilderness film “Wild.” It centers on a 
woman going through a tumultuous time in 
her in life who sets out alone to hike the Pacific 
Crest Trail—one of the country’s longest and 
toughest through-trails. Jean-Marc Vallee, who 
helmed last year’s “Dallas Buyers Club,” directed 
“Wild”. On Christmas day in limited release 
before expanding nationwide in January, “Selma” 
tells the real story of Martin Luther King and the 
civil right rights marches he once led in Alabama. 
At the end of the month, writer and director J.C. 
Chandor (“All Is Lost,” “Margin Call”) returns 
with “A Most Violent Year.” It’s a crime drama set 
in New York City during the winter of 1981 and 
focused on the life of an immigrant and his family 
trying to expand their business and capitalize on 
opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, 
and corruption of the day drag them in and 
threaten to destroy all they have built. In addition 
to what’s coming out, there’s Tim Burton’s “Big 
Eyes,” Ridley Scott’s “Exodus,” Disney/Rob 
Marshall’s “Into The Woods,” Peter Jackson’s 
final installment of The Hobbit series, “The Battle 
of Five Armies,” and Angelina Jolie’s directorial 
effort of “Unbroken,” which is based on a US 
Olympian prisoner-of-war solider at a Japanese 
war camp during WWII. 

 I want to focus on the three films I am most 
excited for this month. They might not be 
considered typical Oscar contenders yet they 
appear to be the most entertaining of all the films 
coming out. The first one is “The Gambler.” It 
features a solid cast consisting of Mark Wahlberg, 
John Goodman, Brie Larson, Michael K. Williams 
and Jessica Lange. It’s the modern day remake of 
the 1974 film starring James Caan as a college 
professor with a dangerous gambling addiction. 
That one was loosely based on the true-life story 
of James Lee Toback, who wrote the original. 
For this latest re-imagination, Wahlberg lost 60 
lbs. for the role. Up and coming director, Rupert 
Wyatt (“The Escapist,” “Rise of the Planet of 
the Apes”) is behind the camera while William 
Monahan, who also wrote the screenplay for “The 
Departed” in 2006, penned the screenplay for 
“The Gambler”. This one looks like a winner.

 Next up is “Inherent Vice,” which is based 
on the novel by Thomas Pynchon. This crime-
dramedy centers on a private investigator named 
Larry “Doc” Sportello as he investigates the 
disappearance of his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend. 
It takes places in Los Angeles during the 1970s. 
“Inherent Vice” was directed by the superbly 
talented P.T. Anderson. He’s responsible for writing 
and directing such films as “Boogie Nights,” 
“Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” “There Will 
Be Blood” and “The Master.” This motion picture 
contains probably the best ensemble of actors this 
year has to offer. This includes Joaquin Phoenix, 
Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, 
Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena 
Malone, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short. From 
the era it takes place in, the themes of the film, 
as well as the actors Anderson attracted to his 
screenplay, I’m hoping for a wild, unhinged, and 
humorous tale to come to life on the big screen.

 Lastly, there’s Clint Eastwood’s “American 
Sniper,” which he directed based on Chris 
Kyle’s autobiography. He was once considered 
the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. 
While Eastwood has had a number of directing 
misfires over the last several years, “American 
Sniper” appears to be a return to form for the 
iconic actor. The movie focuses on Kyle and his 
numerous involvements of secret raids on Al-
Quaeda. Leading man, Bradley Cooper takes on 
the important main role alongside Sienna Miller, 
who portrays his wife in the film. While the 
trailer for this one was brief, it was utterly taut. I’m 
anticipating the feature length version to be just 
the same. In the end, there are so many movies 
December has to offer. I’ve attended a Christmas 
released film for the past several years now and 
this year will be no different. Only choice I need 
to make is which film to see? 


ARCADIA PERFORMING ARTS 

CENTER SEASON 

THREE DOG NIGHT SEASON OPENING! 


Arcadia Performing Arts Foundation presents 
Three Dog Night, for the first performance of its 
second season, on Saturday, January 10 at 8pm. 
For over four decades, Three Dog Night has 
propelled popular music with a long list of smash 
hits, many of which are staples of American rock 
music. 

Tickets, available online by visiting www.
Arcadiapaf.org, are $39.50 to $109.50 with VIP 
Meet and Greet Packages available. The theatre 
is at 188 Campus Drive at North Santa Anita 
Avenue, Arcadia CA 91007. For more information 
please call 626-821-1781. 

 Legendary music icons, Three Dog Night, 
continue to perform to sell-out crowds, bringing 
along some of the most astonishing chart statistics 
in popular music including 21 consecutive Top 40 
hits, including 3 #1 singles, 11 Top 10’s, and 12 
straight RIAA Certified Gold LPs. 

 Perfectly re-creating their larger than life 
songs with customary impeccable harmonies 
and exciting arrangements, Three Dog Night will 
perform their hits including “Mama Told Me 
(Not To Come)”, “Joy to The World”, “Black and 
White”, “Shambala”, “One”, “Liar”, “Celebrate” 
and many more songs that drive their chart and 
sales success. 

 Three Dog Night, which is made up of founding 
members Cory Wells and Danny Hutton on lead 
vocals, original band mates Jimmy Greenspoon 
(keyboards) and Michael Allsup (guitar) and 
completed by Paul Kingery (bass and vocals) and 
Pat Bautz (drums), now perform for audiences 
spanning several generations.

 Initially brought together in 1968 by Danny 
Hutton and Cory Wells, Three Dog Night recorded 
the music of the best (and mostly undiscovered) 
new songwriters of their time including Harry 
Nilsson, Randy Newman, Elton John, Laura 
Nyro, Paul Williams and Hoyt Axton among 
many others. The group’s eclectic taste, combined 
with their ability to recognize and record hits in 
a unique, distinctive and appealing style, resulted 
in Three Dog Night dominating the charts for 
years. The now-famous name came from a story 
about Australian hunters who, on cold nights in 
the outback, sleep with their dogs for warmth. 
The coldest evenings are known as a “three dog 
night”.

 Recently Three Dog Night added new songs 
to their arsenal with the release of their first 
double-A sided single in nearly 25 years. These 
new tracks, “Heart Of Blues” and the a-cappella 
ballad “Prayer of the Children”, are available 
now in an exclusive online release. See www.
threedognight.com for more information.