Culture

You’re lucky you’re not a stage hand, my friend…Terminator Salvation could very well be the best action blockbuster of
the summer and by far the best of 2009. This flick excels in delivering
non-stop and well-timed action scenes without skimping on plot. As a
great, high energy battle-for-survival adventure, Terminator
Salvation's level of intensity never stops.

The prequel to the first
Terminator takes place in 2018 wherein John Connor (Christian Bale) has
to find and save young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin of Charlie Bartlett
fame) from the artificial intelligence military organization Skynet
(based in a dilapidated San Francisco) and their robot machines. Connor
has to make sure Reese stays alive so he can eventually be sent to the
past to have sex with his mother so he (Connor) can be born. Got it?
Connor must then battle the terminator army and move mountains
(sometimes literally) to convince the underground resistance to help
save mankind from an evil transport machine while they attempt to
overthrow the machine-protected government. Introduced to move the plot
along, a new character, Marcus (Sam Worthington) helps to reveal the
underlying motives and prejudices of both sides. To the plot's credit,
it stands alone as an action flick, but also works well as the
beginning to the Terminator series, incorporating all the things any
loyal fan would pick up on (the photo of Sarah Connor from the
original, her recorded instructions to Connor). What works so well with
this flick is that it follows a bunch of distinct sub plots, from
Marcus' origin to Reese's underground resistance and capture to
Connor's quest and blatant disregard for authority against all odds.
Connor's motivational radio messages come across like a good version of
Mata Hari.

The Banana and the Monkey Man – seen around town.Solidifying our place as Bicycle Town U.S.A. has taken some work. We
have miles and miles of trails, locally grown road-riding talent of the
highest order as well as a massive number of bike commuters and cycling
shops. But now we can add another notch in our bicycling belt in the
birth of the Bend Bicycle Film Festival.

Similar in format to the
always popular Powderhound Review, the event is a catch all of sorts
for all films relating to bicycling. Given our community's penchant for
two wheelers, there was hardly a shortage of submissions. One of the
festival's organizers, Bill Warburton, says that they received 24
submissions and hope to get somewhere between 15 and 20 of those films
into the hour and a half slated for local programming.
A
fundraiser for the Central Oregon Trail Alliance and the Bend Cycling
Club, the Bend Bicycle Film Festival covers the wide variety of cycling
mediums, including a piece on unicycling as well as footage from last
year's Cyclocross championships.

I told you pesky kids to stay off my porch.Early in Up-the tenth feature from the cinematic quality machine called
Pixar-there's a sequence that distills all of the best that the
animation powerhouse brings to filmmaking. After a brief prologue
introducing us to a pair of simpatico kids named Carl and Ellie in the
1930s, we watch without a word of dialogue as the childhood friends
become sweethearts, then follow them through 50 years of married life.

As
Up moves into its primary storyline, that's the challenge
co-writer/director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) faces. In the present
day, Carl (Edward Asner) is now a curmudgeonly septuagenarian, living
alone in his house while high-rise development goes on around him.
Facing the prospect of life in a retirement home, Carl instead sends a
massive cascade of balloons through his chimney, launching the house
into the air with a plan to head to a remote South American jungle
There's also an unexpected hitchhiker: Russell (Jordan Nagai), a young
Wilderness Explorer who didn't take the hint that Carl didn't want to
be helped across the street.

Filmmaker and yoga enthusiast Kate Churchill had a goal for her
documentary: find a novice yoga student and give him six months to
transform physically and spiritually through yoga. She picks Nick
Rosen, a rock climber/journalist whose father is a corporate lawyer and
mother is a shaman healer. She introduces Nick to many of the American
"Baskin Robbins choices" of yoga, and then takes him to India to learn
directly from the great masters.

Enlighten Up! skims the surface of
every encounter, not to mention yoga in general. And the by-the-numbers
documentary has its moments, but not enough of them. Beginning with
talking head testimonials from internationally known yoga instructors
who explain that there are exceptions and contradictions to all rules,
it briefly cuts back and forth with mixed messages and innuendoes
instead of information. It's easy to tell from the first five minutes
that Nick isn't going to get it. Even as every single spiritual guru
tells him that "the brain is not the boss," "don't dwell on thoughts,"
"keep practicing yoga and let it happen," Nick constantly resists and
stonewalls.
While the focus is on Nick the skeptic, the
narration amateurishly switches between Nick and Kate, with both
figures having dramatic moments. Thanks to Kate's off-camera remarks
and input, it's obvious she is being affected by the events in the
film. But behind the scenes, she proves to be more distracting than
beneficial.