Saturday, April 17, 2010

“Monrovia artist draws inspiration for `cowboys' stamp ... - San Gabriel Valley Tribune” plus 2 more

“Monrovia artist draws inspiration for `cowboys' stamp ... - San Gabriel Valley Tribune” plus 2 more

Monrovia artist draws inspiration for `cowboys' stamp ... - San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 08:49 PM PDT

He had the hobby horse, the cowboy hat and six-shooters. He even had the cowboy bicycle, with the horse head, fringe and stirrups.

And each day after school, as the TV test pattern shifted to the Wild West, Robert Rodriguez would mount up with Gene Autry or Roy Rogers and gallop across the dusty range.

"Cowboys were my life," said Rodriguez, now 62 and living in Monrovia. "They wore the white hats. They taught kids good from bad, right from wrong. They were our heroes."

They still are.

Today, four commemorative U.S. postage stamps illustrated by Rodriguez for the Cowboys of the Silver Screen series, featuring William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, will be unveiled at The Autry National

Center in Griffith Park and the Hart Park and Museum in Newhall.

"The era of the white-hat cowboy, the good guy, has gone, but Westerns are starting to come back," said Jeffrey Richardson, assistant curator of film and popular culture at the Autry. "America wants its white-hat heroes again."

The western expansion after the Civil War sent droves of settlers pushing toward the Pacific, including many willing to work as cowpunchers to satisfy a growing American hunger for beef.

But new barbed wire helped lock up the open range. And by the late 19th century, the cattle drives were done. The American cowboy lived on, however, in gun-totin' spectacles like Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.

But it was Hollywood

that won the mythic West, with hundreds of B-movies that turned silent screen stars such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix into idols.

Then came Gene Autry, known as "America's Favorite Singing Cowboy," a dapper pioneer in radio, film and TV. While flying supplies over Burma during World War II, he was the only American serviceman allowed to wear his non-regulation cowboy boots.

Jackie Autry is thrilled with her late husband's stamp, which Rodriguez drew from a movie poster for "Gold Mine in the Sky."

"I think it's wonderful," she said from her home in Palm Springs. "I think it's a wonderful tribute to the man who entertained three generations of children.

"I think the stamp does him justice."

For Rodriguez, who has illustrated a dozen other stamps, the cowboy series was a special project.

"They weren't Clint Eastwood-style heroes," he said. "They were the real heroes."

Roy Rogers, "King of the Cowboys," may have been the flashiest of them all, with his tasseled shirts and more rhinestones than Elvis. He and his wife, "Queen of the West" Dale Evans, lived in Chatsworth before moving to Apple Valley.

"It's a beautiful stamp," said their eldest daughter, Cheryl Rogers-Barnett of St. George, Utah. "It's the life in Dad's face: He looks like somebody you would want to talk to. That's how he was. He was very approachable until the end.

"I'm thrilled."

dana.bartholomew@dailynews.com

818-713-3730


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Kick-Ass explores dark side of super-heroes - Examiner

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 04:39 PM PDT

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Kick-Ass, based on the series by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., tries to operate on two distinct, seemingly contradictory levels: On one hand, it wants to be a send up of traditional super-hero adventure stories; on the other hand, it is also a graphicly violent and darkly humorous commentary on the potential dangers if costumed vigilantes patrolled the streets.

It definitely succeeds at the latter. If it succeeds at the former it's totally up to the viewers interpretation.

Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, an average teenage boy with typical problems. He has trouble paying attention in class. He's invisible to almost everyone except his closest friends, and even among them he's not the funny one. He wonders why nobody, inspired by the super-heroes in comic books, has ever donned a costume to fight criminals.

The difference here is that Dave does something more than just speculate: he orders a wetsuit and a mask online, and he goes out and tries it as the masked adventurer Kick-Ass.

He promptly gets his ass handed to him and instantly becomes an internet celebrity in the process. In doing so, he inspires a father (Nic Cage) and daughter (Chloe Moretz) who are looking to take revenge on the mob boss who framed the father and caused the death of his wife.

Kick-Ass goes down a very dark road pretty quickly. The violence and gore becomes epic on a level not seen on this side of a Tarantino movie, and it plays into the entire idea of vigilantism that super-hero comics are based on. If half a dozen armed mobsters are attacking you at the same time, how likely is it that you'll be able to disarm all of them without incidentally killing at least some of them. In the Army, soldiers are not trained to disarm terrorists with black-out bombs; they're trained to kill.

And thus, so does Big Daddy (Cage) train his daughter Hit-Girl (Moretz), which leads one to the question: what kind of person would train his child to be a costumed crime-fighter? In super-hero comics, sidekicks and junior partners come standard with the other tropes, but here director Matthew Vaughn (Stardust), shows what kind of person Big Daddy is: a sociopath intent on turning his pre-teen daughter into a killing machine. It doesn't help matters that half of Cage's dual-persona is Ned Flanders from The Simpsons and the other is Adam West's Batman.

However, the break-out performance is Moretz's. She plays the blends the morally desensitized Hit-Girl persona with the wide-eyed innocence that only a pre-teen girl can have. In a perfect world, when Robin is finally brought back to the silver screen, they'll use Moretz's performance as a template.

Some people are already calling Kick-Ass a game-changer. It's no more a game-changer for super-hero movies than Kick-Ass the comic book was a game-changer for comic books. It's certainly going to expand the genre, and possibly cater even more to the young male demographic than, say, Spider-Man did, but there's an element of blind optimism that is core to most other super-hero movies that Kick-Ass replaces with cynicism. Already, movies like The Losers, Jonah Hex and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World premiering in the next few months, the phrase "comic book movie" doesn't mean what it did even a few years ago. And with movies like Iron Man, Green Lantern and Captain America already either around the corner or in production, it's unlikely that optimistic super-hero movies are going anywhere.

Kick-Ass is showing at Rave Motion Pictures at Polaris and other movie theaters around Columbus.

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Unsung Heroes: Dedication to disabled leaves tireless ... - New Zealand Herald

Posted: 14 Apr 2010 09:10 AM PDT

To nominate an Unsung Hero for their community service and for terms and conditions go to: www.unsungheroes.org.nz

Sally Holbrook savours the quiet moments in the evening when she has completed her jobs for the day. Spare time is rare, and she hasn't had a holiday in 18 years.

Since moving to Tauranga in 1991, the 52 year-old has spent nearly every waking minute working with disabled children.

Mrs Holbrook struggles to list the non-profit organisations she has held positions with - Tauranga Special Olympics, IHC, Girl Guides, Puppet Vision Charitable Trust and others have all benefited from her leadership.

When her second daughter, Wendy, was born was a brain defect, Mrs Holbrook found special-needs children were kept separate from their community, often locked in institutions.

Through her tireless work with IHC and Special Olympics she has ensured her daughter, now 22, and other disabled youngsters can participate fully in their community.

"I had one daughter who was talented and another at the other end of the spectrum. We had to ask what [Wendy] could do ... and sports gave her a sense of purpose," she said.

After busy weeks volunteering and working part-time as a legal executive, she spent every Saturday and Sunday coaching basketball and indoor bowls.

Her most rewarding moment came last year when five out of six of her B-grade bowling teams won medals at the National Special Olympics in Palmerston North.

"When I saw their smiles of satisfaction it made it all worthwhile."

Her daughter Stacey says that at the beginning of every week, Mrs Holbrook writes down exhaustive lists of everything she wants to achieve.

"It ends up being three A4 pages. There are days when I think, 'how the hell do you do all this?"'

Her mother says she might consider a rest when she reaches "60, or maybe 65".

She says the families of adults with special needs have often died or moved to a different city, leaving them without proper support systems.

"If I'm not there to [support] them, who will be? If I can keep busy helping people all my life I know I will have made the most of it."

By Isaac Davison | Email Isaac

The Unsung Community Heroes series is run annually in the The Herald and on nzherald.co.nz in partnership with P&O Cruises. We invited nominations from readers to recognise people who selflessly work to make a difference in their local communities.

Some will be selected to feature in the paper and on nzherald.co.nz. Five will be chosen to join a P&O winter cruise.

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