There are usually like two types of music documentaries – the ones that are about discovery, like Searching For Sugarman that won the Academy Award a few years ago for the story about this 60s folk singer who was huge in South Africa but unknown in America, or like the really great Band Called Death, […]
Phil Busse
Phil Busse has done his tour of duty with alt-weeklies, starting in 1992 right after graduation from Middlebury College as the first environmental beat reporter for San Francisco Weekly. After a brief detour through the University of Oregon School of Law, Phil returned to writing as the first Managing Editor for Portland Mercury. In 2006, he started the Media Institute for Social Change in Portland, through which he continues to host a summer program teaching college students to produce documentaries.
Until he was 25 or so, Phil thought that he would be a spy, and took scuba lessons to prepare, and learned to drive a motorcycle and an 18-wheeler. Perhaps, then, it is unsurprising that his favorite holiday is the Fourth of July (he loves blowing stuff up). He feels at home with Joseph Conrad's fictional characters.
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The Source Reviews “Return of the River” on MyWindow
One of the hallmarks for this year’s film festival is the number of documentaries. BendFilm Festival doesn’t necessarily have a specific genre it presents; it’s a grab bag. But increasingly, documentaries seem to be its calling card. There are some really strong entries this year. A couple true crime ones: murder mystery Love and Terror […]
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The Source Reviews “Big in Japan” on MyWindow
Big in Japan. You know, it is that age-old joke with musicians: “Oh, you know, we’re big in Japan.” Cheap Trick or any number of 70s/80s bands that weren’t anything special in America, but had these Beatlemania like followings in Japan. There is a sort of Spinal Tap’esque humor going on, but a bit more […]
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PICK: Spooky Stories
SPOOKY—Why do we enjoy scaring ourselves so much? And perhaps nothing is scarier than a real ghost story—it just stirs the imagination so. What’s even more gripping about these stories is that they all happened here! And are told by those who survived! 6 pm. Deschutes Public Library, 601 NW Wall. Free.
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PICK: Bend Film Festival kickoff
FILM—The annual whirlwind of cinema, Bend Film Festival brings nearly 100 movies to town, with an impressive collection this year of documentaries and short films (for a more complete rundown, check out our feature, page XX). The festival kicks off tonight. Hold on to your eyeballs! Kickoff party with The Winding Stream, a documentary about […]
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Two Is the Loneliest Number
Measure 90 wants to limit candidates
One of the quietest debates on the ballot this November concerns the so-called “top two” primary system. Measure 90 proposes to create a system similar to Washington, California and Louisiana that detaches the primaries from political parties and allows independent voters to weigh in, and then sends the top two candidates to the general election. […]
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PICK: Psycho
SCARY MOVIE—What is most remembered about Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho is a shower scene where a young woman is stabbed. But really, the plot is much more dynamic—about a tryst, embezzlement, and even the death of small towns. Though quaint in the context of current slasher films, it’s not a hair less scary. Tonight’s screening kicks […]
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PICK: Quick & Easy Boys
MUSIC—The Quick and Easy Boys, as the name suggests, are a fun band. But they also are coolly and calmly talented, with Beatles’ (circa “Octopus Garden”) playfulness, jingling guitar chord, heavy backbeat bass drum, and, oh boy, such great harmonizing—mind you, not your hippie-granddad’s harmonizing where it is just two voices singing at once, but […]
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Editor’s Note: This week’s issue goes back to school
It was only this summer that I became a fan of reality TV when I started watching “America’s Got Talent.” I was hooked because, unlike other reality TV show, like “The Bachelor” or the granddaddy of them all, “Survivor,” which are simply cat fights and showcase selfishness and triteness, “America’s Got Talent” actually celebrates people’s […]
Posted inCulture
Too Good For Its Own Good
The Congress blurs between real and virtual
Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir (2008) was an underrated film, using animation to document both the physical and emotional battles from a massacre of 3000 Palestinian refugees in 1982. Although smart and beautiful, it was not a particularly easy film to watch. And, in spite of the high-powered stars (Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel), it […]
