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4A Daily News – Thursday, December 26, 2013 Pastimes & Arts entertainment A look inside New Clairvaux Mancasola performance postponed The Sydney Mancasola benefit concert for Mercy Foundation North, scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 28, at the Cascade Theatre, has been postponed due to illness. The event has been rescheduled to May 31, 2014. Tickets will be honored for the new performance date, or ticketholders can call the Cascade Theatre at 530 243-8877 for refunds. Mercy Foundation North is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the works of the Sisters of Mercy in Tehama, Siskiyou and Shasta Counties, which include Shasta Senior Nutrition Programs, Golden Umbrella, Mercy Medical Center Redding, St. Elizabeth Community Hospital, and Mercy Medical Center Mt. Shasta. Mercy Foundation North and Sydney Mancasola are looking forward to the support of the May 31 performance. For more information, call 530 247-3424. 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty': A winsome, attaboy appeal Courtesy photo The State Theatre For The Arts is proud to host John Beck's beautiful documentary "The Monks of Vina at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18. The film brings us into the world of the brotherhood of Trappist monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux, in the scorching climate south of Red Bluff. Their property, once part of the extensive Leland Stanford agriculture compound, includes 15 acres of vineyards that produce grapes for their small production-run wines. That crop, one of several on site, represents the sole support for their monastery and its activities. The film follows the grapes on their journey to fruition, as well as the experiences of two new potential monks as they try to adjust to life in the order. With the wine harvest of 2012 as the backdrop, director John Beck (Harvest, Worst in Show) explores the rituals and curiosities of monastic life. Along the way, the monks' faith will be tested, especially among the new arrivals who recently relinquished all worldly possessions, taking vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. Directly following the film, there will be a question and answer period with Beck and New Clairvaux winemaker Aimée Sunseri. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children 17 and younger. For more information, visit http://www.statetheatreredbluff.com/. 'Wolf of Wall Street' a decadent gem On face value, Martin Scorsese's altogether rude and spunky "The Wolf of Wall Street" fits the bill of exploitative junk. A "Boys in Pinstripes Gone Wild," if you will, that is classed up by a wildfire of a performance from Leonardo DiCaprio playing a real-life Wall Street dealmaker and lawbreaker. Take one look at the hard-R-rated debauchery on display, the scenes of excessive partying that lead to tossed-off tops and bottoms. The marathon drug-taking sessions that fuel shady deals and high jinks on yachts and in offices big and shoddy. And the rampant disregard for anything remotely associated with political correctness. All of it comes scandalously, gloriously into focus because of the sprybeyond-his-years direction from Scorsese, a dead-on screenplay by Terence Winter and the dexterous, seamless editing of Thelma Schoonmaker Powell. But Scorsese's in-yourface exploration of Wall Street swindling and powertripping isn't a cheesy wallow designed for the raincoat crowd. It has a sharp point to it that stabs at the heart of the American way of moneymaking and at those who worship the mighty dollar and see hucksters like Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) as soothsayers with a magic formula worth learning from. Few films have so blatantly portrayed the amoral absurdities of Wall Street fat cats like this naughty, adults-only ride through the lifestyles of the rich and infamous. If you thought your holiday office parties spun out of control, you haven't seen anything yet. The decadent antics that unspool seem over-the-top, but they're all rooted in reality, since "The Wolf of Wall Street" is based on Belfort's best-selling confessional of his flashy ascent and fiery descent as a stockbroker who cofounded New York's Stratton Oakmont. The dashing Belfort took nothing and turned it into something by corralling a posse of wanna-get-rich compatriots to help lead others into bad investments during the 1980s and '90s. Soon enough, the FBI caught a whiff of what was really going down. DiCaprio is ideal to play a cunning smoothie like Belfort; using that twinkle in his eye and boyish charisma even better than he did as Jay Gatsby. This is his finest three hours of work and his most demanding role yet, one that requires him to be raw, unhinged and showier than ever. Whether he's on the phone luring someone to send him a check for a dicey investment, or flopping around the floor after ingesting too many quaaludes, DiCaprio hits the jackpot. He's not alone. In a small, sharply written role, Matthew McConaughey is electrifying as coke-snorting mentor Mark Hanna, who engages in a bawdy, off-the-rails lunch conversation. Funnyman Jonah Hill elicits his usual big laughs as Belfort's kooky neighbor and eventual partner, Donnie Azoff. 3.5 stars, R Tehama District Jr. Livestock Annual Meeting Thurs., Jan 16th 6pm held The Washington Post. This has been such an exceptional year in movies that calling a movie "perfectly likable" or even "good" starts to sound like faint praise. Which means that "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," Ben Stiller's contemporary adaptation of the James Thurber story, may well get lost in the shuffle of its betters. But that shouldn't detract from the strengths of a film that, while imperfect, has much to recommend it. As the title character, Stiller brings his jut-jawed, laser-blue glare to a character who starts off as something of a passive cipher. As a longtime manager for "negative assets" at Life magazine, Walter processes the magazine's photographers' celluloid in other words, he's an obsolete guy working in an obsolete media platform within a soon-to-be alldigital art form. The film's opening scene - wherein Walter hesitantly "winks" at a woman on an online dating forum - makes it clear: This is a man working at Life, rather than living it. As a bland, ineffectual drone harboring fantasies of romance and adventure, Stiller's Walter is without a doubt a direct descendent from Thurber's 1939 creation. But, working with Steve Conrad's screenplay, Stiller eventually takes enormous liberties with the story's plot, which in his hands takes increasingly digressive and literal flights of fancy. Thurber purists will be appalled, but, as yet another tale of a man coping with the 21stcentury onslaught of technology, downsizing and alienation, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" feels very much of its time, cinematically and otherwise. Because the film is so rooted in present-day anxieties, the filmmakers don't need to underline, italicize and repeat its message - crystallized in the oft-repeated Life motto, about seeing things "thousands of miles away," "hidden behind walls" and "dangerous to come to." Holiday Special NOV. 25 THRU JAN. 5TH, 2014 2 Games Bowling or 1 Game Bowling & 1 Round Mini Golf $ 98 9 ea. before 6pm $ 1098 after 6pm Some restrictions apply in the Tehama Ro @ Tehama Districom t Fairgrounds & MINI GOLF 365 S. MAIN ST, RED BLUFF 527-2720 • www.lariatbowl.com The digressions that Stiller takes as a director don't always bear fruit, and the movie - in which the main plot driver is Walter's nascent love for a coworker played by Kristen Wiig - ends with an odd whimper, especially considering the spectacular set pieces that have gone before. But there are moments of real value in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Conrad sneaks in lots of clever puns on Life, both humorous and dark, and the movie benefits from a bright, attractive visual design that lingers as lovingly on its most colorful interludes as on the magazine's most iconic black-and-white portraits. When a company arrives to oversee the end of the print edition (an effort headed by a tiresomely one-note jerk played by Adam Scott), scenes of the wall-size pictures being de-accessioned suggest an entire history and cultural patrimony being carelessly discarded. And there are passages of astonishing beauty in the film, which not only stages impressively produced scenes of daredeviltry within Walter's imagination, but also situates him against backdrops of magnificent natural scenery. One scene in particular - involving the David Bowie song "Space Oddity," an errant helicopter and a mad dash for redemption - looks for all the world as if he's flying directly into a Rockwell Kent painting. (The MacGuffin coincides with a charming cameo appearance from a flawlessly cast actor in top self-effacing form.) The unevenness of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," and Stiller's recessive characterization of the title character, keep it from being an all-out crowdpleaser. As a similar exploration of being in the moment and staying there, Spike Jonze's "Her," also opening this week, is far more subtle and fully realized. Still, there's a winsome, attaboy appeal to "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" that deserves to be honored. It's a perfectly likable movie, and sometimes that's good enough. —2 stars. PG. Contains some crude comments, profanity and action violence. 114 minutes. Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.