Robin Hood

The original musical "Robin Hood" gets the royal treatment from Fullerton Civic Light Opera--fabulous storybook sets and costumes, atmospheric effects and honest-to-gosh real sword fighting. But for all its grand trappings and its undeniable entertainment value, there's nothing new about this new musical. It's a diffused grab bag of a show, very pretty to look at but unsatisfying dramatically. First, the good news.

Now we know what Gov. Jerry Brown really cares about - what gets him riled and raring to rumble. "The battle of their lives," he promises opponents. "This is a cause. " When a governor bares his soul like that, not only is he waving a nasty stick, he's tacking up a big sign that reads, "Name your price. " Brown's passion: pouring more tax money into inner-city schools at the expense of the suburbs. It's not that simple, of course. Nothing about California school finance is. Not all urban districts would benefit from Brown's school funding redistribution scheme.

Now we know what Gov. Jerry Brown really cares about - what gets him riled and raring to rumble. "The battle of their lives," he promises opponents. "This is a cause. " When a governor bares his soul like that, not only is he waving a nasty stick, he's tacking up a big sign that reads, "Name your price. " Brown's passion: pouring more tax money into inner-city schools at the expense of the suburbs. It's not that simple, of course. Nothing about California school finance is. Not all urban districts would benefit from Brown's school funding redistribution scheme.

The further adventures of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle were on full display in the "Lacey" episode of "Once Upon a Time," and despite substantial misdirection onto a Robin Hood path, it was the Evil Queen who stole the show. It starts off with a violent dream wherein Mr. Gold kills his grandson Henry after turning him to porcelain.  Heck of a dream. Back in the real world, Gold gets to be the one to tell Regina that his son is Henry's father.  The Evil Queen believes that Gold set it all up. She drops a curious fact when she says: "When I adopted him, it was you who procured him for me. " Wow, didn't know that.

The worst grade i ever got in a literature class was on a paper I wrote about "Moby Dick." The teacher's spin on the book was that it concerned a valiant man battling against inexorable and indifferent forces that had mutilated both his leg and his soul. Me, I was rooting for the whale. Some years later, I met Paul Watson. He, too, is rooting for the whale. And while he may be an inexorable force, he is not indifferent, and no one who encounters him is indifferent to him.

If "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" whets your appetite for more adventures of the bandit of Sherwood Forest, you might check your video store for other movies about this heroic character. The following are available for rent or for sale at $20 or under: "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (MGM/UA, 1938). Until the Costner movie, this one, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland, was the most popular Robin Hood film, serving as a model for most of '40s and '50s versions.

Brochures besmirching the legend of Robin Hood were ordered publicly burned by an unlikely defender of the medieval hero, the sheriff of Nottingham. Sheriff Royce Young told Councilman Brian Marshal, chairman of the city's tourism committee, to get rid of the glossy color leaflets that took a skeptical view of the hero of Sherwood Forest. A pile of the brochures, which had been on display at the Nottingham Information Center, were burned publicly last week.

Here's a look at new tapes you'll find in the video store this weekend, starting with one of the year's most eagerly awaited releases: "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (Warner, $24.98, PG-13). In distancing itself from the classic '30s movie, this 1991 hit tries a little bit of everything--dark tones, social stances, Spielbergish action scenes, gross-out violence and even farce (especially in Alan Rickman's over-the-top playing of the Sheriff of Nottingham).

Saying the public must be protected from Robin Hoods, a judge has sentenced a 70-year-old grandfather to 3 1/2-years in jail for carrying out burglaries to finance beach trips for deprived children and elderly couples. Edward Gibbs was described by Old Bailey criminal court Judge Jack Abdela as a latter-day Robin Hood, the legendary English bandit and folk hero of the Middle Ages who stole from the rich to give to the poor.

The legend of Robin Hood is firmly entrenched in British folklore — an archer and swordsman who, with his band of merry men, robbed from the rich and gave to the poor during the early 12th century in Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest. Originally portrayed as a commoner, Robin's image changed so that he was later thought of as a nobleman who lost his lands and was cast out as an outlaw. The earliest surviving ballads telling his story are dated to the 15th century or early 16th century.

NEW DELHI -- India's Supreme Court issued a stay of execution Wednesday, delaying for at least six weeks the hanging of four members of a notorious gang, after defense attorneys argued that a nine-year delay in hearing their clemency appeal is inhumane. The decision awaits the verdict from a similar case in which delay arguments are being heard. India's justice system is notoriously slow, and counsel for the gang members maintains that their sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment given their long wait for a hearing.

As he scooped up cash in Connecticut, President Obama dubbed the tax proposals of his Republican rival an example of "Robin Hood in reverse. " "It's Romney-hood," Obama said Monday night to laughter and whistles of approval at a fundraiser in Stamford, Conn. Obama's play on the prince of thieves was a new dig in an now-familiar theme. Obama has been attacking Mitt Romney's plan to cut income, corporate, estate and other taxes since last week, when an independent policy group concluded that the proposals would either increase the deficit or force lawmakers to increase taxes on the middle class.

Here's the instruction book for the newest/oldest/oddest sport you'll hear-ye, hear-ye about today: First, you dress like a Buick. Next, you mount a horse. (I know what you're thinking — nothing out of the ordinary so far.) Third, you charge at full gallop toward your opponent, then attempt to bosom him off his horse with an 11-foot lance. You get 10 points if you "de-horse" him (my new favorite verb). Five points if you shatter your lance against the opposing tin man. If you woke up this morning thinking that life no longer excites you, that Wednesday is the same as Thursday, that there's nothing to hold your attention now that football season has expired, meet full metal jousting, a renaissance of the Renaissance.

Shakespeare meets the Beatles, Robin Hood and Beatrix Potter on a guided 13-day coach tour in summer 2012 of England, Scotland and Wales. The trip begins and ends in London , host of the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, and covers cities and villages as far north as Edinburgh, Scotland, and Durham, England. Visit William Shakespeare's birthplace (Stratford on Avon, England), the Beatles' home turf (Liverpool, England), Beatrix Potter's house (Lake District) and Sherwood Forest (legendary English digs of Robin Hood)

Olivia de Havilland rode a horse that later became famous as Roy Rogers' faithful Trigger in what movie? "The Adventures of Robin Hood"

Robin Hood Universal, $29.98/$34.98; Blu-ray, $39.98 The Robin Hood legend has been told so many times on screen that anyone who wants to give it a go had better have a great idea for how to make it fresh. Unfortunately, director Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" — starring Russell Crowe as the aristocracy-thwarting archer — heads down the wrong path, aiming for somber historical accuracy. The result is a familiar medieval action adventure that's not so bad on its own merits, but that is so far removed from the swashbuckling spirit of the original tales that it seems pointless.

When you call a movie " Robin Hood," you set up expectations: a gallant archer, a maid named Marion, a band of Merry Men, a crusading king and a certain camaraderie in Sherwood Forest. The latest version has those elements, but they don't play out in a way that's easy to recognize or respond to, and that's a problem. It's an especially frustrating problem because the key creative people involved in the film are among the best in the business and their work here is for the most part solid.

Hollywood's Robin Hood Derby took a new turn Monday when 20th Century Fox announced plans to make "The Adventures of Robin Hood" as a three-hour made-for-TV movie instead of a feature film. The studio suspended the project when it was learned that Morgan Creek Productions had signed Kevin Costner to "Prince of Thieves," a $40-million Robin Hood saga to be distributed sometime next year by Warner Bros.

Location: 1000 Robin Hood Lane, Lake Arrowhead 92352 Asking price: $15 million Previously sold for: $2.3 million in 1998 Size: Six bedrooms, six full bathrooms and three half-baths in 11,000 square feet General contractor: Robert Prentice, Lake Arrowhead Additional features: Built-in Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer, radiant heat, fire sprinkler system, integrated sound system, three-stop elevator, boathouse...

Paris — As the players came together to make an era-spanning two-film biopic on larger-than-life French gangster Jacques Mesrine, there was plenty of pressure to play to his outlaw legend. After all, as director Jean-François Richet suggests, not a lot of gangsters have been voted "the most popular man" in their country, as Mesrine was in 1978. If ever a modern gangster's popular mythology lent itself to a grandiose rebel treatment, it is Mesrine's. His 20-year career in crime included death-defying prison breaks, frequent police shootouts, sassy rejoinders to judges and journalists, and dozens of bank robberies — sometimes two in one day. In a stultified France, Mesrine himself suggested that his goal was to live as a truly free man. Mesrine's path through life seemed to deliver him to the very doorway of celluloid, where so many of his predecessors — Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone and John Dillinger — have been immortalized as the people's outlaws.