Sunday, June 13, 2010

“Cultural district will honor Grant Wood - Des Moines Register” plus 3 more

“Cultural district will honor Grant Wood - Des Moines Register” plus 3 more

Cultural district will honor Grant Wood - Des Moines Register

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 02:22 AM PDT

Cedar Rapids, Ia. - The artist best known for painting "American Gothic" is to be honored with a cultural district in downtown Cedar Rapids.

The State Historical Society recently certified the "Grant Wood Cultural District" and a dedication ceremony is set for July 12, the Cedar Rapids Downtown District said.

Officials say the district is a walkable, mixed-use area that includes the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, a theater, a library and many other cultural and historical facilities.

Wood died in 1942 at age 50. He was born in Anamosa and spent his childhood there before moving to Cedar Rapids.

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Comm. makes recommendations for polar bear hunting - Juneau Empire

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 07:23 AM PDT

ANCHORAGE - A joint commission is recommending lifting the ban on harvesting polar bears for traditional and cultural purposes in Russia.

The U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission met this week in Anchorage to determine the potential for a coordinated and sustainable subsistence harvest of polar bears by Native peoples of Alaska and Chukotka in Russia. The commission determined that the harvest should be limited to up to 58 polar bears a year, with no more than 19 being females.

The move will end a 50-year ban on the Russian side. However, it is expected to improve monitoring and decrease poaching in that country.

In Alaska, a team will develop implementation procedures to be presented at the next meeting of the commission in June 2011. Alaska Natives harvested an average of 38 polar bears from 2004 to 2008.

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Hawaii launches sites of heritage program - News-Leader.com

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 03:12 AM PDT

Honolulu -- The Hawaii Tourism Authority has launched the new Heritage Sites of Hawaii program to promote some of the state's special places.

HTA said that 20 "must see" historical, cultural and environmental places of interest will be marked with a Heritage Site of Hawaii sign, acknowledging their significance to the islands.

Visitors will be able to download a guide to all the sites, which will be available in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

Sites include Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park on the Big Island, Kauai's Kilauea Lighthouse, Iao Valley State Monument on Maui, Lanai's Kaunolu Village, Kalaupapa Lookout at the Palaau State Park on Molokai and Queen Emma's Summer Palace on Oahu.

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Jaden Smith all wrong for 'Karate Kid' remake - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 04:53 PM PDT

Let's put the shortcomings of the new "Karate Kid" in perspective. The 1984 original, directed by "John G. Avildsen ("Rocky"), was hardly a cultural treasure. It was wildly implausible and corny, but if it hit you at the right point in your underdog-like adolescence, it still generates warm memories.

The remake is equally far-fetched, but lacks the innocence that made the first film so likable. The new "Kid" feels like a big-budget audition reel for Jaden Smith, with parents Will and Jada Pinkett Smith hovering above the bloated 135-minute project as doting parents-producers. An air of calculation overhangs the whole enterprise like a storm cloud.

The film follows 12-year-old Dre Parker (Smith) and his single mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson), on a job transfer from Detroit to Beijing. Dre's transition is complicated by his lazy, disrespectful nature, his crush on his Chinese classmate Meiying (Wenwen Han) and vicious bullying by schoolyard thug Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) and his henchmen.

Dre begs his mom to enroll him in a kung fu academy for self-defense, but finds an unlikely mentor in his apartment's laconic handyman, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). In the course of many training montages, he drops his bratty attitude, absorbs a dose of Buddhist humility and learns to stand up for himself.

Smith is a cute kid, but he's fundamentally miscast. The protagonist in the original film was in his mid-teens, a young man in the making. Here, prepubescent seventh-graders enact heart-thumping romance and bone-thumping beat-downs that make for uncomfortable viewing.

Oddly, Smith radiates a self-possessed confidence that makes him seem less vulnerable than his puppyish predecessor, Ralph Macchio. The little leading man has a couple of scenes in which he weeps with a doe-eyed professionalism that verges on the robotic. He's impressively agile in his endless training scenes, but his acting muscles are not so limber. His mushy kissing scene with his girlfriend looks more painful than the endless walloping he gets from the brutish Cheng.

And what about Jackie Chan? He is stuck with some Zen howlers as he explains how kung fu is like life. His tragic back story, like the film's needless excursions to the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, really ought to have been saved as DVD extras. Chan is playing an older, wearier character here, and his shambling body language is persuasive. Either he nailed this duffer's physicality or all those stunt injuries are finally catching up with him.

The climactic scene, the standing-room-only kung fu championship, is a numbing flurry of fast cutting, ear-bruising sound effects and spinning crane kicks. Director Harald Zwart ("The Pink Panther 2") is better at drawing out the tension before the bouts, when the opponents eye each other warily. The David and Goliath mismatch plays out as it must, but it's hard to shout approval for pint-size lads clobbering each other.

The recent superhero spoof "Kick-Ass" had the wit to turn that kind of child-abuse imagery into a grand sick joke. "The Karate Kid" invites us to cheer the spectacle for real, and even when the good guy triumphs, there's little that's enjoyable.

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