Film

Jerome Edwards, Board of Directors, Secretary

HOPES saved my life

“I came to HOPES as a patient six years ago, being diagnosed as HIV positive and having AIDS. From the beginning, I have been treated with the utmost professionalism, and I have received the very best medical care possible, from experienced, high-caliber physicians. I am in very good health; my viral load is undetectable.

I have also been treated with respect, friendliness, courtesy and with a very welcoming attitude from the entire staff. I know that this is true for all patients.

Having AIDS and also being on the Board of Directors gives me a unique viewpoint, because I can look at the organization from all sides.

HOPES is in the process of becoming a community health center. I think it is excellent that it is now opening its doors to the general community. Now, patients of HOPES have access to primary medical care, chronic disease management, women’s health services, behavioral health and counseling, social services, a full-service pharmacy and more. HOPES saved my life, and I am truly grateful for its excellence.”

• PRIMARY MEDICAL CARE • CHRONIC DISEASE MANAGEMENT • HIV, HEP C, STD TESTING • MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING • SUBSTANCE USE COUNSELING • SUPPORT GROUPS

NORTHERN NEVADA HOPES

Your partner in health

WE ACCEPT MOST INSURANCES, MEDICAID, MEDICARE & THE UNINSURED

MONDAY – THURSDAY: 8AM – 7PM • FRIDAY: 8AM – 5PM 580 W 5TH ST., RENO (775) 786-4673 • NNHOPES.ORG

Ding dong

Oz the Great and Powerful

I like James Franco more often than not. I loved him as a stoner, loved him as a hiker with an unfortunately small knife getting his arm stuck behind a boulder, even liked him opposite a motion-capture chimp. As much as I often like him, he is all wrong for the central character of Oz the Great and Powerful. The role of Oz calls for somebody with swagger and snark factor. Franco is just too laid back and too normal for a role that requires old school charm. Yes, he’s charming in a modern sort of way. Hey, he was a killer on General Hospital. In director Sam Raimi’s take on the wonderful wizard, you just get the sense that Franco is really straining. When he smiles in this movie, it almost looks like he’s going to tear his face because he’s putting so much into it. His line deliveries are all forced and wigged out. Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. were offered the role leading up to production. Either of them would have been much more sensible choices. The movie acts as a sort of prequel to the 1939 The Wizard of Oz. We see Oz’s origins as a desperate carnival magician in Kansas. His eventual trip to Oz via twister is much like the one Dorothy took on her voyage, and the movie plays out in black and white before arrival in Oz, just as it did in ’39. The movie offers up the three witches from the original film as well (one of them, of course, being the one that got squished by Dorothy’s house). There’s Theodora, played by Mila Kunis as a sort-of-nice witch with a bad temper that is going to cause a major

change in her complexion at some point during the movie. We also get Michelle Williams as bubble-riding good witch Glinda in what is probably the most obvious casting of the year. Finally, there’s Rachel Weisz as Evanora, who may or may not be bad. Of the three, my vote goes to Weisz for best portrayal of an Oz witch. There’s a nice by Bob Grimm mystery to her, and she looks fabulous in her getup. Williams is fine, if not all that adventurbgrimm@ ous, as Glinda. Williams has far less warble newsreview.com in her voice as young Glinda. Glinda in The Wizard of Oz always freaked me out when she 2 spoke. Sounded like somebody was standing next to her and rubbing their finger on her throat really quick while she talked. The worst of the three is easily Kunis, who just blows it as the character once played by—SPOILER ALERT— Margaret Hamilton. Raimi’s film gives her a reason for becoming wicked, and that reason—jilted love—is stupid. When Kunis, obviously a sweet woman, is asked to scream and cackle it’s unintentionally funny. She sounds like her voice has never gone to such places before, and it just screams “Bad casting!” She comes off like somebody playing the role in a high school production, and if that production were a graded element of some class, she would get an “F” and be asked to think of another trade in life. You have the option of seeing Oz in 3-D, and you’re probably OK to skip that option. The effects are nothing to get excited about. I wasn’t impressed with the looks of the Emerald City. Raimi is obviously going for the fairytale charm of the original Oz, but he should’ve shot for more detail and less gloss. You get no real sense of these characters inhabiting another world. They just look as if they are part of a screensaver. So, even if the movie had some better casting, the special effects would still pull the whole thing down. Big special effects movies are looking rather crappy lately, with The Hobbit, Jack the Giant Slayer and this one all looking odd. I’m sorry, but I just look at Franco sometimes in movies and expect him to take a hit off a hash pipe or something. As for Oz, he’s just too aloof for this sort of thing. Ω

Monkeys and dollys and Francos! Oh my!

1

Poor

2

Fair

3

Good

4

Very Good 5

excellent

121 and Over Directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the writers of The Hangover, basically serve up yet another strain of that film, this one set in a college town with college kids drinking a lot and getting into all kinds of college trouble. Miles Teller (who was in the similarly stupid Project X) headlines as Miller, friend to one Jeff Chang (Justin Chon). Jeff Chang is turning 21, and Miller takes him out for a night of partying with pal Casey (Skylar Astin) and, guess what, they all get crazy drunk and stuff. Nothing even close to new or original in these scenarios. The only thing keeping this from being totally lousy is that the actors play off each other well, especially Teller and Astin. If you crack up when people eat tampons or get their asses branded, well, this one’s for you. If you get mildly annoyed at racist humor coupled with guys playing drinking games, go ahead and stay far away.

2Dead Man Down Director Niels Arden Opley, maker of the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films, makes his English language feature debut with a familiar face heading up the cast: Noomi Rapace, who played Lisbeth Salander. She plays a woman badly scarred in a car accident, who witnesses a murder and decides to blackmail the murderer (Colin Farrell) into killing the drunken driver who scarred her face. The Farrell character is working a complicated agenda of his own in the service of Alphonse (Terrence Howard), a Manhattan crime lord. The performances are very good here, and the movie looks absolutely great. The problem is Opley’s decision to stuff his movie with so many plotlines twists and turns that you just get exhausted by the halfway point. I think Opley has some good movies in him, and this one isn’t all bad. It’s just something you don’t really need to see.

1A Good Day to Die Hard The Die Hard franchise has been one of the more reliable action movie franchises in cinematic history—until now. Bruce Willis looks tired, beaten down and embarrassed in this useless installment of the adventures of John McClane. The action takes him to Russia this time, which is a mistake. While there, he helps his son with some espionage crap, another storytelling mistake. He goes up against villains who do not distinguish themselves at all, and this would be the film’s biggest mistake. Die Hard needs a big villain. All of the prior installments had good villains, and that includes naked William Sadler in Die Hard 2. I think McClane has got some good stuff left in the tank, but enough with this garbage involving his kids. And stay the heck out of Russia; that place has lost all of its cinematic bad guy appeal. Little in this movie makes sense and it just doesn’t belong in a category with the first four chapters. Reboot, forget this thing, and start fresh the next time out, sort of like how Rocky Balboa forgot the previous two chapters and restored the Italian Stallion’s dignity.

1Identity Thief Cashing in on her Oscar-nominated turn in Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy gets a headlining role alongside Jason Bateman in Identity Thief. While both performers are talented and make the best of the crap heap of a script they are handed, it’s not enough to make this anything more than a desperate misfire. From the director of Horrible Bosses, this is just another riff on Planes, Trains & Automobiles minus much of the fun. Bateman plays a sorry sap who has his identity stolen by a free shopping weirdo (McCarthy). He gets into some legal troubles, and vows to capture the thief and bring her back to his hometown. So it’s another odd couple road movie, and pretty exploitive when it comes to McCarthy. She’s a talented woman, and she deserves much better than this.

2Jack the Giant Slayer Director Bryan Singer’s big budget take on the classic fairytale was delayed from last summer, and they should’ve left it in the vault. He’s put together a movie that lacks any real magic because the special effects are bad, and the performances are mostly flat. Nicholas Hoult, so good in Warm Bodies, plays the title character, a farm boy who gets some magic beans, lets them get wet and … ah, you know. Stanley Tucci and Ewan McGregor have supporting roles in what amounts to a whole lot of nothing that cost lots of money. The budget is something in the neighborhood of $200 million, and that budget must’ve gone to Moon Pies for everybody, because it doesn’t show on the screen. Too bad, because I was just telling somebody a couple of months ago how the world could really use a good movie about giants getting hit with stuff. Actually, that’s not true. I’m totally lying.

4Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper is on fire as Pat, a troubled man recently out of a mental institution and obsessed with his ex-wife. He’s so obsessed hat he can’t see the value in Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recently widowed neighbor trying to befriend him. Directed by David O. Russell, the movie is a funny, slick treatment of people with real problems that works because Russell and his performers find the right balance. Robert De Niro does his best work in years as Pat’s obsessive father, and Chris Tucker gets big laughs as Pat’s former mental institution buddy. Cooper and Lawrence make for one of the year’s most interesting screen couples. They are certainly unique. Russell is establishing himself as one of the industry’s most reliable and innovative directors.

3Snitch Dwayne Johnson—ACTOR! He has dropped his alias, “The Rock,” from his screen name, and now stars in a movie where he doesn’t even fire a machine gun or show off his glorious tattoos. Johnson plays the father of a young man who gets into trouble after a friend mails him a whole lot of drugs. Unless the son turns in somebody for distributing drugs and “snitches,” he will face a long jail sentence. Johnson’s character decides to take matters into his own hands, find some drug dealers, and turn them in so his misunderstood son can walk free. This one was a lot better than I was expecting because Johnson really steps up and makes the whole thing work. It’s predictable, yet well paced, a good-looking and well-acted action thriller. Johnson will be coming to a theater near you firing many guns and showing off his ink in the near future (quite often in 2013). For now, it’s kind of cool to see him do something a little different, and doing it effectively.

4West of Memphis If you are not familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, Amy Berg’s thorough documentary (produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh) gets you up to speed. Three young boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, were found dead in a ditch in West Memphis, Ark., on May 5, 1993. The circumstances of their deaths seemed to suggest some sort of satanic ritual, or so authorities thought. They arrested three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr., and eventually put them in jail for 17 years. The film presents much of the information shared in the three prior Paradise Lost films, with new emphasis on another stepfather and his possible involvement in the murders. If I have a bone to pick with these documentaries, it’s that they point fingers at other suspects with little to no evidence to back their claims. (John Mark Byers, a stepfather to one of the murdered boys, was accused in the second Paradise Lost film; Terry Hobbs, another stepfather, is scrutinized in this film). The three prisoners have been released, but the actual killer still walks free. That’s a travesty, and the state of Arkansas should be ashamed of itself.

5Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow getting snubbed by Oscar for this taut, scary, intelligent movie about the war on terror and hunt for Bin Laden is a travesty. Well, it’s a travesty when it comes to movies and stuff, not so much in the grand scheme of things. Still, Bigelow deserves praise for putting together a movie that is both exciting political thriller and terrific action movie. Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain is deserving of the accolades as Maya, a composite character of CIA agents who managed to find Bin Laden in Pakistan and end his life. The film contains scenes of torture, but it doesn’t feel “pro-torture” by any means. It’s a great movie that will only get greater with time, and yet another reason to call Bigelow one of the best in the business.

Friday, March 22nd

Doors open at 8pm, Show starts at 9pm. Tickets: $12.

Featuring: SambaDa

with Special Guests: Drinking With Clowns Drinking With Clowns

Aerialist performance by Siren Society. Also Performing DJ Mario B Mixing the Best Latin and Club music. Belly Dancing lessons by Namira at 8:15pm

www.bodeganightclub.com

Bodega Night Club

555 East Fourth Street, Reno

VICTORY OVER YOUR HAIR LOSS

No Plugs • Rugs • Drugs

Micrograft Surgery is the Gold Standard in Hair Restoration for both MEN & WOMEN. Dr. Wesley W. Hall, a leader in our region in General & Vascular Surgery for over 35 years, has helped countless WOMEN AND Holiday Special MEN with their hair loss. Read his free MEN 20% OFF Procedure Must schedule procedure before 3-31-13 report Candid Answers About Hair Restoration.

FREE CONSULTATION

AKROS- THE INTELLIGENT CHOICE IN HAIR RESTORATION WESLEY W. HALL MD FACS

DIPLOMATE AMERICAN BOARD OF SURGERY MEMBER INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY HAIR RESTORATION SURGERY

AKROS HAIR RESTORATION

635 Sierra Rose Dr. Ste A • Reno 775.284.3331 • 866.424.7548

www.welcometoakros.com

EXCLUSIVE MULTI-MEDIA COMMISSION CELEBRATING THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER CHESAPEAKE: SUMMER OF 1814

WORLD PREMIERE

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013, 4 PM –and – SUNDAYMARCH1720134 PM TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013, 7:30 PM

AT THE PIONEER CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

The Reno Philharmonic Orchestra with music director Laura Jackson celebrates the bicentennial of the Star-Spangled Banner with an homage written exclusively for the orchestra and chorus by the acclaimed composer Michael Gandolfi. This concert combines visual direction and design by renowned artist Anne Patterson.

MICHAEL GANDOLFI: Chesapeake: Summer of 1814, World Premiere Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner, an Exclusive Commission for the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus WILLIAM SCHUMAN: Casey at the Bat, Cantata from The Mighty Casey, Featuring the Reno Philharmonic Chorus MANUEL DE FALLA: The Three-Cornered Hat

CONCERT PREVIEW: SUNDAY AT 3 PM IN THE MAIN HALL | TUESDAY AT 7 PM IN THE EXHIBITION HALL

–you are invited –

AUDIENCE APPRECIATION RECEPTION AUDIENCEAPPRECIATIONRECEPTION: : OPEN TO EVERYONE | REFRESHMENTS | MEET THE MUSICIANS SIENA BALLROOM, DOWNTOWN RENO - JUST BEHIND THE PIONEER CENTER IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE PERFORMANCE

TICKETS FROM $25 PLUS FEES | RENO PHIL BOX OFFICE (775) 323-6393 PIONEER CENTER BOX OFFICE | M-F 11-6 (775) 686-6600 OR RENOPHIL.COM