The ninth annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival On Tour will be in Stateline on March 27.
Doors open at MontBleu casino at 6pm, with the show starting at 7pm.
The film tour combines award winning environmental and adventure films with the energy of local activism.
The event is a benefit for the Sierra Nevada Alliance.
Tickets are available online.
For more information, please call Taylor at (530)542.4546, ext. 303 or taylor@sierranevadaalliance.org.
Lake Tahoe Community College is having auditions for the Tony Award-winning musical “Man of La Mancha” on Feb. 3 at 7pm in the Duke Theatre.
Callbacks will be Feb. 8 at 12:30pm.
For its production, LTCC will be casting men and women of various ages and types. All of the roles are open, except for the role of Don Quixote. Actors are required to sing. Audition material and information may be found online, as well as at the theater department’s callboard. A short dance audition will follow the vocal audition.
Rehearsals will be held Mondays through Thursdays beginning April 7. Performances are June 13 -22.
For more information, call (530) 541.4660, ext. 240.
Truckee based landscape photographer Elizabeth Carmel has four black and white prints of Lake Tahoe in HGTV’s 2014 showcase dream home.
The 2014 HGTV dream home is located in Truckee at Shaffer’s Mill. It will be given away during the HGTV sweepstakes. Truckee-based Ward-Young Architects designed the HGTV Dream Home. Proceeds from tours of the home benefit the Tahoe Forest Health System Foundation.
Carmel’s photographs are “Night Journey”, “Clearing Fog”, “Winter Sunset”, and “Silver and Gold II”. They are featured in an upstairs landing seating area of the house.
By Richard Chang, Sacramento Bee
A small gold rush is taking hold in the foothills of Placer County, where prospectors young and old are taking advantage of record-low water levels to search for precious metal.
The Gold Rush of 1849 it isn’t. But the real possibility of finding new gold – even a few flakes – has people giddy. Prospectors say unusually low rivers are opening up areas that haven’t been touched by man in decades, if not over a century.
“Stuff that’s normally submerged in water is now available. It opens up the possibility for nuggets,” said James Hutchings, Sacramento chapter president of the Gold Prospectors Association of America.
By Stefanos Chen, Wall Street Journal
You could say that Zari Mansouri’s Lake Tahoe home has views to die for.
“The colors from the West Shore are just so spectacular,” she says about the vistas from her roughly 4,100-square-foot Lake Tahoe condo — the same golden hues in Fredo Corleone’s fatal scene in “The Godfather: Part II.”
Zari Mansouri outside her Homewood are house. Photo/Jason Henry/Wall Street Journal
That scene, in which Fredo, played by the late John Cazale, takes a one-way fishing trip after betraying the family, was filmed in what is now known as Fleur du Lac Estates, a 22-unit condominium development near Homewood. Originally built in the 1930s by industrialist Henry Kaiser, who was instrumental in the creation of the Hoover Dam, the 15-acre compound was converted in the early 1980s into this gated luxury development.
The property won over WSJ.com readers: Mansouri’s home received the most votes, 88,957, out of the 897,478 votes cast in the 2013 U.S. House of the Year contest. Mansouri’s home is on the market for $6.499 million; the other homes in the poll were also on the market at one point during 2013.
By Jeremy Miller
Based on the incredible true story of Operation Red Wings, “Lone Survivor” is a true to life, super charged thrill ride depicting the battle between four soldiers and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster star. Behind the camera and screenplay was director Peter Berg.
Let me just say that it’s extremely fulfilling to see Berg finally do something worthwhile with his talent. I feel like the past 10 years he’s been so up and down (“Hancock” and “Battleship” to name a couple), it’s nice to see him finally nail down something worth watching.
The four soldiers are deployed to Afghanistan to pursue a tier 1 target by the name of Ahmad Shahd. One thing I absolutely loved about this film was how Berg set the scenes in Afghanistan. He opened almost every scene with a beautiful wide aerial shots to show you just how massive the mountains of the area really are, which in turn boosts your reality on just how impossible it would be to escape such a place. They hike up a mountainside just outside a little village, where days prior the villains assassinated several innocent villagers.
Early on you get the picture that communication is near impossible, just like finding cell service in a mountainous area, they too struggle with secured and unsecured satellite phones. They decide to post up and rest before they execute their mission and take out their targets. Danny Dietz (Hirsch) is on watch and suddenly a heard of goats starts flocking toward him, followed by three men and a boy. The soldiers wake up and start frantically trying to decide on their next move … kill the compromise and sacrifice integrity and break rules of engagement? Or let them go and risk the entire operation, not to mention they are tremendously outnumbered. After a pretty deep pros and cons list and some debate, cursing and yelling they make a decision and let them go, and within a very short time they’re completely surrounded by Taliban.
They enter into one of the most intense gunfights I’ve seen in years. They’re completely outnumbered and their odds seem impossible. Here is where each of them shows off a little acting talent. From this point forward there’s an equal amount of badass action shoot ’em up war scenes, along with immensely powerful emotion highlighting camaraderie between them that is incomparable.
These four Navy Seals prove their reputation as the toughest men on Earth, and certainly earn the title through the beating they take not only through firefight but the terrain as well. Brutal.
I loved this film because unlike a lot of the war films I have seen in the last five or 10 years this wasn’t solely based on character. “The Hurt Locker” was a great flick, but there was no plot, it was simply character-based drama with occasional explosions and action. “Lone Survivor” hit me much like Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” or “Black Hawk Down” but with an extremely stimulating modern look and feel. The costume design and special effects were also commendable as I truly felt like I was watching real soldiers.
The performances were all tiptop, especially Ben Foster. I’ve always been a huge fan of all four of the lead actors, but Foster just really impresses me and he held true to that in this flick. The one and only thing I didn’t dig in this flick was the overuse of dramatic music. The beginning almost had a Michael Bay feel to me, which forces me to cringe like nothing else. Overall, I absolutely loved the film and I recommend it for anyone wanting an epic, masterfully told story of courage, brotherhood and bravery.
South Lake Tahoe resident Jeremy Miller has more movie reviews online.
The Incline Village Crystal Bay Historical Society’s next History Happy Hours will feature David Antonucci, author of “Snowball’s Chance – The Story of the 1960 Olympic Winter Games – Squaw Valley & Lake Tahoe”.
The event is Feb. 5 at Tunnel Creek Café, 1115 Tunnel Creek Road, Incline Village.
Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Doors open at 6pm, presentation begins at 6:30pm.
Autographed copies of his book will be available for purchase.
Suggested donation of $5 for the historical society.
Film-television, journalism and social media college students in California may compete for cash prizes while doing social good.
Generation Next competition is accepting submissions through Feb. 14.
The purpose of this competition is to empower the next generation of content creators to use the power and influence of media to promote accurate and authentic portrayals of mental health in storytelling, news reporting and social media campaigns, by recognizing their immense talent.
Twelve semi-finalists will be mentored by entertainment, journalism, and social media professionals, as well as mental health experts. Three winners – one from each of the three categories (film and television, journalism and social media) – will be rewarded with $4,000 cash prizes and will receive recognition at the 2014 PRISM Awards Ceremony. In addition to this, winners will have their student productions aired on EICnetwork.tv, a global Internet television network, and have the opportunity to take part in a collaborative program with Active Minds, a mental health organization led by college students.
For a complete list of health and social issues addressed by EIC and local projects, visit EIC’s website. Here is the Generation Next website.
Jasper
Jasper is a sweet little dwarf bunny with beautiful markings who is probably less than 1 year old.
He was brought to the shelter as a stray, but he is not a wild bunny. He will make a very nice pet for just about any family who has the time to pay him some attention every day. Jasper will need his own cage, and he will be available for adoption Wednesday afternoon.
Jasper is neutered and vaccinated. He is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.
Go online or go to the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.
Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.
For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.
— Karen Kuentz
David Young, a doctor with Barton cardiology, will give two lectures in February about cholesterol health.
The first is Feb. 5 from 6-7pm at Lake Tahoe Community College in the board room. The other is Feb. 12 from 6-7pm at Sierra Nevada College, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, Room 139, Incline Village. Both are free.
Attendees will learn about cholesterol metabolism and how to understand cholesterol results, discover natural ways to manage cholesterol, and the risks and benefits of cholesterol therapy using statins.