Usually these three-day weekend holidays sap all the juice from the news cycle, but we’ve had bank robberies, celebrity divorce scandals and the death of Jesse Helms to contend with.

As much as I love movies, I have to admit that it took me awhile until I liked Westerns. Once I did, however, I took to westerns like a horse to water. In many ways, it is the quintessential American genre.

Zeljko Ivanek plays a suicidal amnesiac known only as John Doe #83.� Incarcerated at a mental institution, he is treated by Dr. Gail Farmer (Kathryn Harrold), who is quickly exposed to his uncanny psychic abilities.

We’ve endured a lot under George Bush. First it was the stolen election of 2000. Then came the illegal invasion of Iraq. Next was denial of global warming and obstructing development of alternate sources of energy. That was followed by leaving thousands of poor people stranded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the outing of a CIA operative.

But you can expand those horizons from home, too, or at least close to it. Here’s a suggestion: Attend a modern dance concert like Multiple Exposure,.

Water, like many other things, runs downhill. And North Carolina acts as a sluice, with water running from the highlands out west to the flats east of Raleigh, filtering through every community large and small.

(Severin Films): Perhaps best described as a “spaghetti war film,” director Enzo G Castellari’s memorably-titled, rip-snorting 1978 World War II yarn finally makes it way to DVD.