Culture
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BendFilm Roundup: Diverse films capture wide range of audiences’ attention

Mike Bookey

The New Year Parade shows strong at BendFilm.BendFilm's list of movies once again can be summed up in one word:
Diverse. That seemed to be the overriding theme of almost every movie I
saw

The New Year Parade (Best Director Award, Tom Quinn) was
perhaps the most interesting, focusing on a divorce and the subsequent
fallout of family and friend alliances. The context is South
Philadelphia and its marching band orchestra. Using actors and plain
ordinary people gave it a forceful character study of good people, bad
reactions and even worse relationships.

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the week of 10/16-10/22

Mike Bookey

Catie Curtis
friday 17
This Boston native plays a sweetly blended mix of melodic vocals and crisp Americana guitar to produce a thriving brand of folk rock that you might have heard on Dawson's Creek. She's coming to the Old Stone as part of her national tour and for the female singer songwriter junkies out there, this is a must-see show.

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Northwest Crossing goes contemporary

Notice, no jumping trout or nesting eagles. It’s been seven months since Andy Wachs and Colleen Dougherty began the process of creating a contemporary art
Eric Flowers

Notice, no jumping trout or nesting eagles. It's been seven months since Andy Wachs and Colleen Dougherty began the process of creating a contemporary art gallery in Northwest Crossing.

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Get Your Eyeballs Ready for BendFilm

Mike Bookey

Big Names at BendFilm
There are several facets of a film festival,
but in one respect, the festival can be split into two areas: there's
the excitement of film buffs taking in day after day of independent
cinema and then there's the filmmakers who show up in town to well,
watch other people watch their films. Oh, and those filmmakers are
hoping that the big names also in attendance take notice of their work.
This
year's BendFilm features the most significant gathering of industry
powerhouses in the festival’s existence. The most notable name
appearing is Tony Safford, head of Acquisitions Worldwide for Twentieth
Century Fox, which means he's been behind films like Little Miss
Sunshine and Thank You For Smoking. Before getting into the world of
acquisitions, Safford was the program director at the Sundance Film
Festival. So yeah, this guy knows how the festival world works - and
filmmakers are certainly hoping Safford takes a look at their flicks.

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A Base on Balls: Mario Super Slugger is a decent addition, but no home run

Shawn Wallbaum

Over the years there have been many Mario games that feature Mario in
different sports, including Mario Super Baseball, which was released on
the Nintendo GameCube in 2005. Like many other Mario sports games it
had a fun arcade feel, great graphics, comic voices, special super
moves and lots of fun stuff to do. Now the Wii gets its own turn with
Mario Super Slugger, a game that has its share of fun for the baseball
and Mario lover
Publisher Namco has done a great service by making
this game feel like a first-party Nintendo game by using all the great
Mario characters with a nice polish. Following in the footsteps of
Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Super Sluggers takes the best part of
its predecessor and molds them to the Wii's controller. You can play
exhibition games on Princess Peach's new baseball island resort, or in
a RPG-type challenge mode where that rascal Bowser Jr. causes players
mayhem. There is also a collection of mini games that hone your basic
baseball skills and a welcome return of Toy Field, which adds a dash of
darts to the pitch-and-hit experience.

Posted inCulture

Reviving the Western

Somewhere in the slipstream, between nostalgia and morality, resides the American western. It’s proved to be a worthy packhorse for values clarification and sagas about
Eric Flowers

Somewhere in the slipstream, between nostalgia and morality, resides the American western. It's proved to be a worthy packhorse for values clarification and sagas about justice for generations.

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Blind Man’s Bluff

Blindness is a strange movie. It’s like a diary of someone paralyzed by fear, a metaphor for socio-politico human tendencies, plus a vision of personal
Eric Flowers

Blindness is a strange movie. It's like a diary of someone paralyzed by fear, a metaphor for socio-politico human tendencies, plus a vision of personal chaos and mass insanity.

Posted inCulture

Make A Joyful Bosom Affair: One woman’s birthday gift is another’s force majeure

Mike Bookey

“A woman needs a man,” by Kristin ProvostLenora James was in a pickle. This last May, the Bend woman forgot to
send a birthday gift to a friend celebrating her "Happy Boobday."
James, inspired by the breast theme, applied paint to her breasts and
imprinted them on a blank canvas

She soon realized this was a
perfect fund-raising project to fight breast cancer. Members of James'
family had struggled with the disease, and she had just helped a close
friend cope with the Easter Sunday death of her mother. James soon
contacted the Sara Fisher Project (the breast cancer education and
assistance powerhouse based in Bend) and the Joyful Bosom Affair was
born.
The original goal of the Affair was simple: get women to
paint their breasts, press them onto a canvas and incorporate the
imprints into a painting. The paintings would then be displayed and
sold at the First Friday Art Walk on October 3 as well as the Bend Fall
Festival with the proceeds going to the Sara Fisher project.

Posted inCulture

Doing the Thing Right: Spike Lee scores with epic saga

Mike Bookey

Is that a head you got there?You gotta hand it to Spike Lee. He's willing to take risks. With
Miracle at St Anna, the risk is a larger-than-life mainstream war movie
that tries to hold onto his visionary/radical/art-house/civil rights
themes
From the first scene of an ex-Buffalo soldier watching The
Longest Day with John Wayne on TV, to a final scene of extremely
questionable merit, this is an epic saga of redemption cloaked in a war
story mystery. While working at the post office, Hector Negron (Laz
Alonso) shoots a man he recognizes from his past. Subsequently, the
head of an extremely rare statue is found in his closet. His story is
then told in flashback form, following the trials of the Buffalo
soldiers' of the 92nd Infantry Division. A big oafish soldier, Train
(Omar Benson Miller), carries around (for good luck) the aforementioned
statue head he found in some ruins. The soldiers, under the command of
Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke), travel out of radio contact to an
Italian village and hole up with an Italian family. The impending
arrival of German troops adds tension and the plot gets almost too big
to handle, but even when it meandered I liked it. The use of clips that
could've easily hit the editing floor captures the kind of idiotic
small talk that might prevail when doom waits around every corner.

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