Culture
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The Art of Darkness: Comic book icons reconvene in chaos-ridden Gotham

one more time, kids. Who stole my damn wig?After a record breaking weekend at the box office the question is: Does the Dark Knight live
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one more time, kids. Who stole my damn wig?After a record breaking weekend at the box office the question is: Does the Dark Knight live up to the hype? The answer is yes and no.

In the latest and best installment of the long-running serial, writer/director Christopher Nolan plunges ever deeper into the realm of madness and self-doubt, adding more evil and more complexity to the story. The result is a film so dark, at least by the series' standards, that not even the director can find his way through to a consistently coherent plot.

When a triumvirate of crime-fighters-Batman (Christian Bale), Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, who also plays Two-Face)-believe that they've finally mopped up a notorious mob crime-ring, a demonic Joker returns to spread chaos throughout the city. From then on, the challenges of betrayal, corruption, and sadism, combine to generate a relentlessly nerve-wracking sense of dread.

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Our Picks for the week of 7/24-7/30

Mike Bookey

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
thursday 31

It's the Bright Eyes front man out on his own with a new band. Read more about it in the Sound section. All ages. $22 Advance, $25 at the door. Midtown Ballroom, 51 NW Greenwood Ave.
4 Peaks Pre-Fest Party
thursday 24
Before you head out to
Tumalo for the 4 Peaks Festival, hop on over to the Astro Lounge for a
meet-and-greet party with members of bands playing at the festival.
Rumor has it that several of the acts will be playing acoustic sets as
well. But the best reason to attend is to get $5 off the already
discounted ticket prices. 8-11pm, Astro Lounge, 147 NW Minnesota Ave.
No cover.
 

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You Have Died of Dysentry: Five friends from Bend make a Flugtag flyer

Prepare to be Fluged.Imagine careening off a 30-foot deck into the Willamette River wearing nothing but a Speedo, life jacket and helmet in a covered
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Prepare to be Fluged.Imagine careening off a 30-foot deck into the Willamette River wearing nothing but a Speedo, life jacket and helmet in a covered wagon made out of aluminum, two-by-fours and children's bicycle tires while hopped-up on Red Bull (and probably trace quantities of alcohol). If you're Christopher Rosch, Kyle Dover, Robby Marshall, Kevin Mozingo or Pat Tyvand of Team Oregon Or Bust, this is exactly how you will be spending the first Saturday in August.
 
This group of five friends, all of whom grew up on the Eastside of Bend and attended Mt. View High School, decided that spending their summer floating the river with friends wouldn't be enough excitement this year.
"We saw the commercials [on TV] and every time we heard the music we would just get stoked," says Tyvand, who is currently housing the work-in-progress in his garage, "We just decided 'we have to do this.'"

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In the Beginning…There was Genesis

After the video game crash of the early 1980s, Nintendo was able to dominate the video game market with its original Nintendo Entertainment System until
Shawn Wallbaum

After the video game crash of the early 1980s, Nintendo was able to dominate the video game market with its original Nintendo Entertainment System until the Sega Genesis was released in 1989. The Genesis was part of a wave of the first 16-bit game systems released that also included the TurboGrafix 16, Neo Geo, and the Super Nintendo.
 
The Genesis initially competed with Nintendo's 8-bit system and had trouble selling in both the U.S. and Japan. Sega of America made a smart move by dropping the price of the system and including with the system its own Mario-type mascot in the form of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega also went head to head in print and TV ads with Nintendo, showing off the quality of the Genesis next to the NES, and the Genesis finally took off.
The biggest test, however, was to compete with Nintendo's 16-bit giant, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) which was released in 1992. Sega had a big advantage due to a two-year head start with its Genesis and a slew of games including big entertainment names like Michael Jackson and sports giants like Joe Montana, Arnold Palmer and Mario Lemieux. Having been labeled the "cooler" game system through marketing, the Sega Genesis had almost 50 percent of the gaming market in 1992 and owned the video game market through 1993. From that point, Sega started losing market share to Nintendo, which was releasing some fantastic games. To compete with the Super Nintendo, Sega introduced the Sega CD late in 1993.

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What Happened, Man? New Murphy movie is a must miss

Eddie Murphy is obviously trying to hurt the world on purpose. Why else would he inflict this “movie” on the masses? (I say “movie” with
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Eddie Murphy is obviously trying to hurt the world on purpose. Why else would he inflict this "movie" on the masses? (I say "movie" with quotation marks because stringing together one poop joke after another is not what I'd call a movie. I'd call that sixth grade.)
 
Remember Raw-era Eddie Murphy? The Eddie Murphy who shit-talked Bill Cosby and wore the tightest leather pants in the universe? Or remember Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop? Yeah, well, forget about that Eddie Murphy. All we have now is an Eddie Murphy who lazily fulfills contractual studio obligations by making stupid comedies about spacemen who poop money. I'm not kidding. This actually happens in his new movie. And it happens inside an Old Navy.

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Burning Love: Hellboy’s campy twisted vision pummels onward

nuthin’, waddya you doin’?What is it this year with the superheroes? Bringing to life more comic book superhero blockbuster razzle-dazzle, we now enter the monster-dwelling
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nuthin’, waddya you doin’?What is it this year with the superheroes? Bringing to life more comic book superhero blockbuster razzle-dazzle, we now enter the monster-dwelling realm of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The original showed Hellboy (Ron Perlman) as the demon-turned-super-hero battling present-day Nazis and inter-dimensional monsters, and the sequel continues pulling out all the stops.
 
The movie begins with a sickeningly cute Hellboy (as a boy) brushing his teeth, excited for his bedtime story. And the story is? Yep, the saga of the Golden Army, and told in wooden puppet form, it looks pretty cool. Cut to: the present-the bedtime story is now a reality. An evil prince has to assemble three scattered pieces of a golden crown to raise the evil Golden Army from its dormancy to unleash Hell on earth…here's where Hellboy excels. He likes to kick monster butt.
Hellboy resides in a paranormal research center that is actually the home of a bunch of human oddities that would fare well in a freak sideshow. Oh, and they fight crime. Everyone's back, including sidekick fish-boy Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), but without David Hyde-Pierce's voice. Stepping into the webs-flipper-gills, Jones brings some credibility. Hellboy's girlfriend, Liz the Fire-Girl (Selma Blair) returns as does their totally lame love story. Manning (Jeffery Tambor) is once again the head of the government funded super-freak hideaway.

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Our Picks for the Week of 7/18-7/23

Mike Bookey

Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
friday 18
Ottmar Liebert is one hell of a flamenco guitarist, but you've never heard him correctly until you've taken a listen to Up Close, his binaural recording that when listened to with headphones sounds like you've got strings vibrating around your brain. Pretty intense. Check him out at the Tower with his ensemble, Luna Negra for some high-class sounds. 7pm Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St., 317-0700. $28.50/advance, $31.50/day of show.

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Deschutes Brewery: Black Butte Double XX

Intern

Editor's Note: This is the first in an occasional column spotlighting local beers
and breweries
My own research into beer drinking habits leads me to believe that the number of true "porter" aficionados is a small one. With its big malty body, and chocolate overtones, a good porter pretty much overwhelms the palate - it's the drinking equivalent of double fudge cake.

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Roll the Film: Newfound stability in tow, BendFilm takes its show on the road

Sandy Henderson and her 400 submission.You don’t have to look past the name of BendFilm to ascertain where the festival originated. While the non-profit independent
Mike Bookey

Sandy Henderson and her 400 submission.You don't have to look past the name of BendFilm to ascertain where the festival originated. While the non-profit independent cinema festival is, of course, rooted in our mountain town, this month will see BendFilm cross the Cascades for its first ever out-of-town event.
 
The screening of the documentary Breast Cancer Diaries in Portland at the end of the month marks a step forward for a festival that organizers say is doing well both fiscally and artistically - which they say wasn't exactly the case only a year ago.
"With the economy the way it is now it's important to reach out to other areas. I would always want it to be a Bend-based festival because I think Bend as a town provides part of the festival's charm," says Sandy Henderson, who is in her first year as executive director of BendFilm.
The screening is set for July 28 at the Portland Center Stage, and like the Indie Reels edition of the film in Bend this past winter, features an expert panel on the subject.
"We kept trying to think of a way to reach out to Portland and make the city more aware of BendFilm and breast cancer and Bend as a destination - so it's really a three-fold mission," Henderson says.

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Call Him Lego Jones, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

It’s okay to tell your kids about these swingers. When developer Traveller’s Tales put out two Lego Star Wars titles, audiences snapped them up. So,
Shawn Wallbaum

It’s okay to tell your kids about these swingers. When developer Traveller's Tales put out two Lego Star Wars titles, audiences snapped them up. So, it only made sense to tap yet another George Lucas goldmine and take Indiana Jones to Lego land, with a focus on the three original Indy films. So could the Indiana Jones games be at least as good as the Star Wars ones?
The original Lego Star Wars games seemed at first like children's games, but ended up being quite fun. The presentation for the Indy game is just as fun and is extremely well done. It does a solid job of presenting the stories of the original three movies.
Lego Indiana Jones looks great and has some solid colors, well-drawn animations and shows a nice touch with the visual effects. This game really looks fantastic on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and even the good ol' PlayStation 2. The sound is also quite well done; you get to hear John Williams score from all three movies, along with some nice sound effects. There's nothing like hearing the crack of Indy's whip with a well-played move. The sound effects can get a little bit repetitive, but manage add to the action going on around you.

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