Kingdome

Here lies Mark Langston. If ever a picture was worth a million words, this was the one. If ever one frozen moment in time embodied the essence of a tortured franchise that, let's face it, has to be cursed--were they Caligula's Angels in a previous lifetime?--it was captured on the floor of the Kingdome in the bottom of the seventh inning of Monday's one-game playoff for the American League West championship. What could Langston have been thinking as he lay in the dirt of the batter's box, back on top of home plate, eyes glued to the gray concrete ceiling above him, hands clasped and folded across his chest, for what seemed to be an eternity?

JABIR, Jordan - The Jordanian officer slowly cut the rudimentary dressing that covered the boy's left arm. Patches of red ooze seeped through the gauze. No one seemed to notice the boom of distant shelling. A few hours earlier, the boy, 16, along with his brother and uncle, had made their way from their home in the embattled southern Syrian city of Dara to a rebel field hospital. From there, a driver took them to the border zone, where the Jordanian army picked them up. "We were standing outside my uncle's house, and a plane came and bombed the street," the boy recounted, explaining how he and his brother, who was wounded in the leg, had become injured.

You thought things couldn't get any worse for the Raiders? Ha, ha. For whatever sins they're being punished--try excessive pride and failure to plan ahead in an intelligent manner--after seven straight losses, they get this for tonight's Mission Improbable: Dropped behind enemy lines and ordered to the Kingdome, where they have been getting their arms and legs torn off by the Seattle Seahawks for almost the entire length and breadth of the '80s.

In spring we previewed the 3.5-acre North Campus at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which was putting the finishing touches on a garden designed as urban wildlife habitat, a place where L.A. critters could come to escape city life just like the rest of us. Cameras set up throughout the Mia Lehrer-designed landscape were intended to capture feathered and four-legged residents, day and night. To find out exactly what the cameras have recorded, we recently checked back with Sam Easterson, senior media producer for the museum's Nature Lab, who described the results as nothing less than “thrilling.” The opossum babies that we pictured atop their mama in a night-vision photograph have grown up, Easterson said.

The Angels were quite aware of Randy Johnson's reputation before they stepped on the field Saturday night at the Kingdome. They've seen the antics, the head-hunting, and all of the brawls that Johnson has incited over the years. Then, they had the privilege of becoming the latest chapter to Johnson's zany behavior. They first were humiliated at the plate, and then embarrassed that they could never get even, losing 7-2 to the Seattle Mariners.

ther Kingdome appearance, another wipeout. The Raiders found out that they'd just been missing one little thing here. That was their potential one-man wing of the Hall of Fame, Bo Jackson, who put on one of the great performances in pro football history as the Raiders trounced the Seattle Seahawks, 37-14, ending their longest losing streak in 25 years at seven games. There went the Raider six-year local skid, too. Forget that Temple of Doom stuff; now it's the Bo Dome.

Oooh, not this place again . . . Of all the possible venues for the Raiders' most important game, they get this house of horrors where they have been used as a punching bag for most of the decade. They're 1-6 since Chuck Knox arrived here in 1983, and their misadventures have been landmarks in their decline. Here's how it has been, game by grisly game: 1983--Seahawks 38, Raiders 36. Quarterback Jim Zorn goes four for 16 . . .

There are places the Raiders would rather go for their biggest game of the season: Mongolia. Death Valley. Hell. No such luck. They get the Seahawks in the Kingdome. What's a poor coach like Art Shell to do? Consult his predecessors? Try Tom Flores. He has a different perspective now, as the Seahawks' general manager. He says he doesn't think crowd noise is that big a factor and swears that the Seahawks never put the decibel counts on their scoreboard.

Seattle is making a bid to hold the 1989 Davis Cup final in the Kingdome, where the event could have the biggest audience in tournament history. Brian Parrott, a spokesman for Louisiana Pacific Corp., said a proposal was being sent to the U.S. Tennis Assn., calling for the final to be held in the Kingdome Dec. 14-16 if the United States wins its semifinal round match against West Germany. Others expected to bid include Los Angeles, Washington, Charlotte, N.C., and Louisville, Ky.

The Seattle SuperSonics said they won't play any games in the Tacoma Dome next season. They have played eight regular-season contests in the Tacoma Dome during the past two seasons, averaging 8,789 fans. The rest of the home games were played in the Kingdome in Seattle. The Sonics are moving from the Kingdome to the Seattle Coliseum for the 1984-85 NBA season.

It could be a dark and stormy Oscar night. Among the historical epics, political thrillers and romantic dramas on the awards scene, several films that feature nature's fury are clouding the horizon. "Life of Pi," "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and "The Impossible" are wildly different films, but all share the mighty power of the environment and their protagonists' helplessness against it. Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" features a boy shipwrecked by a massive storm who winds up sharing a lifeboat with a deadly tiger.

Wes Anderson won't formally begin his next movie, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," until the new year, but he's on the phone after a busy day spent filming "little shots" in Saxony with a very good German driver named Peet who's quite adept, Anderson says, at weaving through traffic behind the wheel of an old car that Anderson's production team has meticulously converted into a taxi. Anderson admits he's still puzzling over the success of his last film, the coming-of-age comedy "Moonrise Kingdom," which has received best picture nominations for the Spirit Awards and Golden Globes and grossed more than twice the box office of each of his previous three films.

It's as if this year filmmakers remembered why God made movies. In a world of nonstop data where most of the static is gossip in 140 soul-destroying words or less, cinema has had a transcendent 12 months - a visual renaissance that has burned past convention. The creative surge has not led to a perfect world. At times the performances stumbled, the stories struggled. But what we saw on screen was mind-blowingly inventive - the stuff of imaginations unbound. Though visually evocative films are always a part of the landscape, the artistic leap of 2012 is particularly significant.

For most directors, there is usually one moment in their film that brings it all together while they are shooting - or sometimes before production has even started - one scene that unlocks key relationships among the characters or clicks so well the director knows the film as a whole is going to work. Or sometimes it depicts in just a minute or two the whole point of the film. The Envelope talked with five directors with films out this year who experienced just such a moment. David O. Russell / 'Silver Linings Playbook' "The obvious candidate is the 'parley' scene, when Jennifer [Lawrence]

David O. Russell's screwball comedy "Silver Linings Playbook" and Wes Anderson's coming-of-age romance "Moonrise Kingdom" led the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards with five nominations apiece, including feature, director and screenplay.  The bounty for Anderson's acclaimed "Moonrise" comes half a day after the film won best feature honors at Monday's Gotham Awards, boosting the movie's end-of-the-year profile and maybe providing an impetus for...

Two offbeat comedies dominated the 28th annual Film Independent Spirit Award nominations Tuesday morning. David O. Russell's quirky "Silver Linings Playbook," starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and Wes Anderson's charming coming-of-age comedy "Moonrise Kingdom," each earned five Spirit Award nominations, including best feature, director and screenplay. It was the second nod of support this week for "Moonrise Kingdom," which was named best film Monday evening at the Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York.

King County might allow owner Jeff Smulyan of the Seattle Mariners to move the team before the 1993 season if Puget Sound businesses can't raise the team's revenues enough by next spring, County Executive Tim Hill said. But Hill said he is confident a public-private group headed by businessman Herman Sarkowsky will meet a goal of $13 million a year in new revenues for the team. Sarkowsky's group so far has raised between $4 million and $5 million.

The Seattle Mariners will launch their 1986 Cactus League baseball schedule against the Oakland A's Saturday, March 8, at their spring training home in Tempe, Ariz. The Mariners, heading into their 10th American League season, will play 26 games in Arizona, with 13 of them in Tempe. They will wind up exhibition play with a three-game series against the Montreal Expos of the National League at B.C. Place Stadium at Vancouver, British Columbia, April 4-6.

Wes Anderson's quirky coming-of-age comedy "Moonrise Kingdom" was named best film of 2012 Monday evening at the 22nd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. Anderson did not attend the awards, presented at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, because he is prepping his next production.  Emayatzy Corinealdi won the breakthrough performance award for her role as a young woman whose husband is in prison in "Middle of Nowhere," and Benh Zeitlin earned breakthrough director honors for "Beasts of the Southern Wild.

AMMAN, Jordan - In a sign that the U.S.-backed kingdom of Jordan may yet be vulnerable to the "Arab Spring" upheaval, angry demonstrators Friday denounced King Abdullah II and his ruling circle as "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and demanded swift reform or an end to the monarchy. Across the country, demonstrators this week have been calling for the king's ouster, a demand previously muted in the strategically situated kingdom, which has mostly avoided the political tumult that has convulsed the region.