'Wind River' - a film you can't take your eyes off

 POINT RICHMOND - The film Wind River is so gripping a tale, it's unlikely most in-theater viewers will even glance at their watches at any juncture in this fast-moving, one hour and 47-minute film.

Jeremy Renner

    And this is a must-see-in-the-theater movie.
    The full-screen winter Wyoming scenery is haunting. Plus, the grittiness of life on the Indian reservation is best viewed on the big screen - large enough for it to hit hard.
    It's not pretty. 
   
   But that not-prettiness helps highlight the resilience of the residents of the reservation, reeling from the murder of an 18-year-old girl. The Native Americans are the descendants of great warriors. And it shows.
   Jeremy Renner - as a veteran game tracker - does a steady job as the film's hero. Underneath a classically western steely persona, Renner's character is a man tortured by the earlier loss of his own child and a divorce.

Elizabeth Olsen and Graham Green

   After he discovers the body of the murdered girl, he ends up paired with a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based FBI agent (played by a doe-eyed Elizabeth Olsen) to solve the crime. At first they are as unlikely a pair as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. But that resolves itself quickly.
  
 One of the best supporting roles in the film is played by Graham Greene as the tribal police chief. His ability to convey complex emotions with just his facial expressions is amazing.

   Wind River is fast-paced and directed nearly to perfection.
      It also offers several moral/ethical questions to ponder in post-movie hours.
     And it's a film of details and nuance - which is why taking yours eyes off the screen for even a moment is a bad idea.
      If you only see one movie this fall, watch Wind River.
      Really.

Running for her life - barefoot 

A Kickstarter project that's all about dog wisdom - Really!

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - If you love dogs, you will probably go absolutely barking crazy over this Kickstarter project Divine Dog Wisdom Cards and Guidebook.
   It was developed by Randy Crutcher and Barb Horn - both amigos of mine.

    Out skiing two years ago they came up with the idea of producing a whimsical deck of cards and guide book with some of the things they had learned from - and through - dogs over the years.
    Some are hysterical. 
    Some are almost Buddha-like. 
   All are very well done.

    The deck has 62 different images of dogs in various settings and poses portraying a theme like Passion, Purpose, Balance, Cooperation, Breakthrough - even Boredom.
You probably didn't think dogs get bored. They do...

Each card has a phrase that is also in the guidebook to share a little deeper dog wisdom.

The Kickstarter Campaign underway right now is to help fund the first printing - and to get these cards into stores. The campaign has 15 days left to run.

If you know a dog lover, are a dog lover, know someone who you think should be a dog lover or simply someone who would find these clever cards amusing, check out the Kickstarter Campaign page HERE and consider making a pre-purchase.

Randy Crutcher

 

You can choose from 10 different rewards. Admiral Fox and I are in for cards and t-shirts, so far. And we don't even have a dog. So far.

Barb Horn

Here's what the authors say about their project rewards.
 
"You can choose from more than 10 different rewards you’ll receive when you contribute. Rewards come with contributions as low as $15 and include purchasing one or more decks signed by theauthors, limited edition T-shirts, stickers or posters with art from the cards.  You can get your name or your pooch’s photo in the guidebook itself or a chance to put your beloved dog in their memorial dog park (website), and have personal readings with the authors using the cards."

Napa icon & journalist L. Pierce Carson passes away at 76

NAPA, Calif. - I landed in the Napa Register newsroom in April of 1973. The Watergate political pot was coming to a hard boil. L. Pierce Carson would run home at lunchtime all summer, watch part of the hearings  on television and come back, breathless about what was going on.

L. Pierce Carson

He ran home because he didn't drive, didn't own a car, and was the most skilled guy at bumming rides I have ever met.

He was also one of most skilled journalistic-style writers I have ever met, skilled in a low-key way.

My first encounter with Pierce came weeks after I started a quasi-internship in the newsroom. I had graduated with a degree in English and thought all paragraphs had to be looooooong affairs (300 words was a nice length), strewn liberally with semicolons and other grammatical flourishes.

After being shredded publicly numerous times by the late Harry Martin, then city editor of the Napa Register, Pierce secretly looked over a story I had typed, made some alterations and had me retype it before I turned it in.

It flew past Martin and into the newspaper - my very first byline.

With Margrit Monday

And so I started studying how Pierce would write stories about county government, stories that could have been so dull without his touch, but were as interesting as fiction I was reading. He had a bagful of writing tricks, plus he knew his stuff. I studied his style and learned well.

Several generations of students at CSU Chico and CSU Sacramento learned the LPC writing method in my journalism classes, not always knowing where it came from.

My favorite image of L. Pierce Carson is of him challenging someone in the Register advertising department to a duel right in the middle of the newsroom. They retired to their desks, returning with umbrellas, which they poked playfully at each other to the delight of the newspaper staff.

Pierce won the duel by making the ad salesman laugh so hard he couldn't hold his umbrella.

Rest in peace, L. Pierce Carson. And keeping 'hooking' paragraphs the way you taught me.

'Then Came Bronson' star Michael Parks pulls away for last time

   POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - I have television and film actor Michael Parks to thank for my moving to California in 1970.
     No, he didn't offer me a job, cash, or even talk me into to fleeing the Rust Belt Village of Lakewood, NY.
     What he did do was star in a television program called Then Came Bronson that probably launched thousands of guys like me on wandering trips around the country.
     I just happened to land in California.

     The opening episode actually begins in San Francisco - not that far from where I am writing this today.
     His character was emblematic of a generation of young men who were convinced that something out on the road was calling them. It certainly grabbed my attention from the first episode.
     But at the time the program was getting underway, so was my young family.
     Married with a three-month-old infant son, a motorcycle like the one driven by Michael Park's character was an unlikely vehicle for the three of us.

    So the compromise vehicle was another icon of the era - a beat up VW microbus, complete with a peace symbol painted on the front in place of the metal VW symbol. That peace symbol was painted over just before we left NY for points west.
    Watching the iconic film Easy Rider convinced me a slightly less 'in-your-face' vehicle might get me through some of places that sported signs in those days that said things like "NO HIPPIES ALLOWED" and "YOU WANT EAT HERE? GET A HAIRCUT."
     The details of that sojourn will take an entire book to tell.
   
     Michael Parks died earlier this week. He was 77 and had a fabulous film and television career acting in many great roles.
     But for me, he will always be Bronson on his motorcycle.
     In the video clip below (at about 1:12), a tired commuter driving a station wagon pulls alongside at a stoplight and asks Bronson where he's going.
     "Oh, I don't know," Bronson says. "Wherever I end up, I guess."
     The commuter responds, "Man, I wish I was you."
     "Really?" Bronson says. "Well, hang in there."
     Well, hang in there, Michael Parks, wherever your celestial motorcycle is taking you.
     I'll hang in here.
     Maybe someday we'll meet up going down that Long Lonesome Highway.