There’s a reason why San Simón has won the Best Bar in Bend award from readers of the Source Weekly for the last two years in a row and why its sister bar, The Flamingo Room, took the runner-up prize in 2023. They’re both specifically cocktail bars that, while both having deep benches of flavors […]
Jared Rasic
Film critic and author of food, arts and culture stories for the Source Weekly since 2010.
Posted inCulture
Wrestling With Our Demons
"The Iron Claw" grips tightly
During the quarantine period of COVID I got pretty scared. I’ll always remember lying in bed at night and feeling a tickle in the back of my throat, making me positive that I was going to start struggling to breathe by the morning. Every day it was some new aspect of fear that would creep […]
Posted inCulture
Spooky Pools and Film Preservation
All movies should be protected…even the bad ones
Historically, January is widely considered to be the dumping ground for theatrical movies studios don’t have any faith in. They slide them into the multiplex after the prestige movies of December, but before Oscar nominees start getting re-released in theaters leading up to the big show. I’ve been taking the doldrums of Theatrical January for […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Hi, Honey! A Reboot for a Beloved Bend Thai Food Chef
Chef Kaew brings her Thai creations to a new location in a gas station
OK, yes, there are a lot of Thai food options in Central Oregon. Too many? No way. The expression “too much of a good thing” is impossible to really prove, especially when it comes to Thai food. You could eat Thai seven days a week and not repeat restaurants or dishes for a hot minute, […]
Posted inCulture
Looking Ahead to the Big Screen
2024 at the movies
The best thing about my job as a film writer and the even better thing about my lifelong love affair with cinema is that the movies never stop coming. I mean, they do; COVID showed us what a world without new movies looked like and, at least for this boy, that was indeed the darkest […]
Posted inCulture
Another Year of Greatness
The best shows and movies from 2023
It seems surreal to me that we’re already at the end of another year. This one just started like five months ago. It went by fast, but that’s probably because I spent another year consuming as much pop culture as I possibly could while being lucky enough to write about it for you fine readers […]
Posted inCulture
One Book at a Time
Author! Author! returns to Bend with three world-class writers
I‘m sure there have been more than two great books written about the act and art of writing, but there were two of them in particular that helped me inch ever closer to finding my voice as a writer. Stephen King’s “On Writing” was filled with great advice from the master about how to treat […]
Posted inCulture
Nic at Night
"Dream Scenario" misses even as Cage goes hard
OK, so do we think Nicolas Cage is a brilliant actor who doesn’t get the credit he deserves or is he an overrated hack who only made it in Hollywood because of his nepo baby bonafides? I’m not sure a middle ground exists, as everyone I talk to falls in one camp or another, some […]
Posted inCulture
This Godzilla Adds Up
Here there be monsters
This is one of those movies that none of you are going to believe is actually great until you see it, so right here is a good time to just quit reading and maybe go check out the new “Godzilla” movie. Even if you don’t like Kaiju films (although, really, what is there not to […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Hot, Hot, Heat
Fire on the Mountain rains spice on Bend
I have designs on being a spice lord. I used to think I could hang pretty hard when it came to spicy food, but I’m nowhere near as badass as I thought I was. When word hit me back in February that Bend was going to get its very own Fire on the Mountain location, I […]