Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
A former Jackson County sheriff's deputy was awarded more than $200,000 by a federal jury Tuesday, in a case in which he claimed he was fired because of his 2009 arrest of a retired deputy near Gold Hill. The jury in Medford's U.S. District Court deliberated for about two hours before unanimously deciding to award Jacob Franklin $209,492 in economic damages, said Franklin's Portland attorney, Charles Merten. Franklin, 38, said he was fired April 7, 2009, because on March 31 he arrested Ron Oachs
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Nine films by local filmmakers are official selections in the 15th annual Ashland Independent Film Festival’s "Locals Only" category. The nine films chosen are all shorts or short documentaries created by filmmakers who live in the Siskiyou region. Two films by Medford director Ray Nomoto Robison ("Dear Future Self" and "The Settling") were accepted. Robison is not a newcomer to the film festival. His film "Model Rules" screened at the 2009 film festival, and his three-minute short, "Four
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
I work at a local gas station/convenience store in the Medford area. Some of our customers occasionally need to put air in their tires. Some locations offer free compressed air and some charge a nominal fee for use of their air machines. Our location charges for air and water. That said, I occasionally  have customers who insist it is illegal for our establishment to charge for air and water. Apparently there is a state law that requires gas stations to supply the public with such services
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Peace House will hold a film series called "Latin America Rising Up" Tuesday evenings in June. The films will be from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Gresham Room of the Ashland Branch Library, 410 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland. Here is the schedule: June 9 — "Venezuela Bolivariana." Venezuelans discuss their revolution and its programs on human rights, the environment, women's rights, indigenous people's rights, and resistance to Venezuela's ruling elite. June 16 — "A Little Bit of So Much Truth
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Charles Dickens gets the “Shakespeare in Love” treatment in the slight, but enjoyable, “The Man Who Invented Christmas.” “A Christmas Carol” it’s not, but it is about how that holiday classic came to be during a harried six-week write during fall 1843. The novel was a hit, of course. And it could not have come at a better time for the author, who was in the throes of a bank-breaking slump resulting from having written three straight flops. Or, tha
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
There are no canapes or hors d’oeuvres, but there’s a lot of punch at “The Party.” And just about everyone in attendance leaves Sally Potter’s acerbic soirée battered and bloody — if not dead. Even better, all this black and blue is delivered in glorious black and white by a septet of splendid actors spewing deliciously venomous discourse rendering you dazzlingly dizzied. Even if you’re afraid of Virginia Woolf you’ll drink in this vol
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
If you don’t know anything about the controversial events surrounding the figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan in early 1994, and you intend to see this movie, you’re in for a flabbergasting story. But even if you are aware of what went down on that cold Detroit night (it involved someone being struck with a blunt object), you’ll still be flabbergasted by what’s told in the film. “I, Tonya” isn’t exactly a proper biography of Tonya Hard
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Is the Western still a viable movie genre? Over the past few years, even though lots — mostly low-budgeters — have been made, very few have seen wide theatrical release. I enjoyed, “The Revenant,” “The Hateful Eight,” and “The Magnificent Seven.” I loved the Kiefer Sutherland/Donald Sutherland pairing in “Forsaken,” didn’t know what to make of the cannibal Western “Bone Tomahawk,” walked out on the listles
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
As I was leaving the press screening of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” I overheard a loudmouthed fellow critic, probably in his late 20’s, say, “What garbage! All they did was remake ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’” What I think he meant to say was, “This is one of the best, most exciting, well written, finely acted, terrifically directed ‘Star Wars’ movies since ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’” Put into the hands of t
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
It’s early morning on Sept. 11, 2001. Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) has recently come home after a training mission in Kuwait. He’s hanging out with his family when live footage of the World Trade Center attack comes on a TV in the background. The scene switches to a short while later, and a group of soldiers in the midst of a rural training mission on American soil. They’re wondering why jet fighters are flying so low. Could it be part of a drill? That answer has a
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
If you haven’t already seen the first two entries of the “Maze Runner” series, there’s not much reason to see this one. Due to so much plotting that has come before, that’s directly dealt with in part three, you won’t know what the heck is going on. If you have seen the first two, and liked what you saw (a lot of people did like them; combined box office returns were $650 million), you’ll be happy to know that with the same director and screenwrit
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
About five years ago, Steven Soderbergh made the surprising announcement that he was done directing feature films. Now, this guy had been an absolute lion in the business, on movies both large and small. A career that began with “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” also included “Out of Sight,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Ocean’s Eleven” (and Twelve and Thirteen), “Magic Mike,” “The Girlfriend Experience,” and many more. Bu
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Oh, the games people play. And the games played on them. Just ask the group of friends caught up in the unexpected chicanery of “Game Night” when they discover the all-for-fun murder-mystery contest they’ve engaged in turns out to involve a very real kidnapping. Suddenly, instead of turning over clue cards, they’re outrunning mobsters, dodging bullets and trying to stop a Learjet from taking off. Maybe the premise isn’t the most plausible, but it’s lot m
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
The precious metal vibranium might be abundant on Wakanda, the fictional homeland to Black Panther, but the country’s greatest natural resource is its valiant and dauntless women. And wowza! Director Ryan Coogler hits the jackpot. He draws up a supporting cast of fierce females and turns them loose. Yes, it’s the women of Wakanda — Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright — who kick butt and take names while the boys are left to avenge the misdeeds of past
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
If the new espionage thriller, “Beirut,” seems a tad dated in manner and approach, it might be because Tony Gilroy, he of Jason Bourne fame, wrote the script more than 25 years ago. But in chipping off the rust and applying a fresh coat of 21st-century technology, director Brad Anderson unveils a twisty-turner with all the irresistible trappings of a Reagan-era John le Carre novel. It’s set largely in Lebanon, circa 1982, but just as easily could be modern-day Syria, itself
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Los Angeles is best known for being the place that most movies are made. But it’s also infamous for its traffic jams and its electrical system brownouts and, according to the statistics printed across the screen in the opening moments of “Den of Thieves,” for being the bank robbery capitol of the world. Yes, it’s another heist movie, a popular genre (“The Brink’s Job,” “Ocean’s 11,” “Dog Day Afternoon”) that in 2
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Shia LaBeouf started popping up on TV screens and cinema screens about two decades ago. Yet though he’s turned in some excellent performances — think “Bobby,” “Lawless,” “Fury” — and played the lead character, Sam Witwicky, in the first three “Transformers” films, an inordinate number of fans seem to know him more for being at the center of public disturbances or for his outspoken dislike of President Donald Trump. It c
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Here’s some assorted snatches of conversation heard as people were leaving a packed preview screening of “Annihilation”: “What the hell was THAT?” “I kind of liked it, but it was too long.” “No, it wasn’t; it was too short.” “Man, I wish I was still doing acid.” Any film that triggers that sort of talk must have something going for it. This one sure does, as is made evident in what happens just during the first f
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
Pop a couple of Advils before seeing DC Comics’ “Justice League.” You’ll need it to ward off the acute migraine brought on by a nonstop exercise in incohesion and unnecessary loudness. I usually find superhero movies to be fun, albeit flawed. But “Justice League” is fatally flawed from the get-go. The lone exception, naturally, is Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who steals the show. The movie picks up in the aftermath of “Batman V. Superman: Dawn
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2018-08-09
The most recent film based on a true account about the world of tennis was last fall’s “Battle of the Sexes,” one of the biggest flops of the year. The acting was good, the directing was competent, but maybe the story — about the supposed rivalry between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs — still left a bad taste in the mouths of anyone recalling the actual unfolding of events. The match, focusing on man against woman and young against old, was nothing more than