Hits from BendFilm: The gamut of cool, eye-opening, heartfelt and comic flicks just keep coming

Posted inCulture

Hits from BendFilm: The gamut of cool, eye-opening, heartfelt and comic flicks just keep coming

The Source Staff

note: Our film critic, Morgan P. Salvo, spent the weekend taking in the movies of the BendFilm Festival, where he's long been a volunteer. Here's a list of the flicks that caught his eye and also may have caught your eye, too, if you made it out to BendFilm.
NARRATIVES:
Cold Storage (Directed by Tony Ellwood) This was by far my favorite, although in a semi-packed house I was one of only four people who applauded. A very warped and disturbing movie, it features the same hillbilly perspective of Norman Bates' Psycho world. This gory, graphic and darkly comic flick will make you think twice about taking that trip through the mountains.

Posted inFood & Drink

Feel the Love: Alpenglow Café casts a warm light

The Source Staff

When you name a place Alpenglow in a ski town, you better be able to back it up. For mountain dwellers, the very utterance of the word conjures a Zen oneness with nature and feelings of peace and serenity. After a tough day when you look up toward the horizon and see that reddish glow cast on snow-covered peaks at sunset, you are reminded that life in the shadow of the Cascades isn't too shabby. The Alpenglow Café, fortunately, does the term justice. Serving only house-made breads, locally smoked meats, dairy from area farms and fresh foods – absolutely nothing canned or frozen – Alpenglow has the whole oneness-with-nature locavore thing down. In fact, their mission statement offers a $1,000 reward to anyone who can find a can opener on the premises (“no fair bringing in your own!”).

Posted inFood & Drink

Feel the Love: Alpenglow Café casts a warm light

The Source Staff

When you name a place Alpenglow in a ski town, you better be able to back it up. For mountain dwellers, the very utterance of the word conjures a Zen oneness with nature and feelings of peace and serenity. After a tough day when you look up toward the horizon and see that reddish glow cast on snow-covered peaks at sunset, you are reminded that life in the shadow of the Cascades isn't too shabby. The Alpenglow Café, fortunately, does the term justice. Serving only house-made breads, locally smoked meats, dairy from area farms and fresh foods – absolutely nothing canned or frozen – Alpenglow has the whole oneness-with-nature locavore thing down. In fact, their mission statement offers a $1,000 reward to anyone who can find a can opener on the premises (“no fair bringing in your own!”).

Posted inMusic

The Gift of Kottke: The guitar legend on recording, collaborations and Brett Favre

Source Weekly

Going to see guitarist/songwriter Leo Kottke perform live is a lot like walking downstairs on Christmas morning and seeing all of the brightly wrapped presents under the tree – you'll receive several gifts you expected, some flat-out surprises and a few more that make everyone in the room glance at each other with beaming smiles.
Kottke, whose personal life is as ambiguous as his chord phrasings, doesn't give many interviews, but he talked to the Source via e-mail about his long career and his recent exposure to a younger audience.

Posted inMusic

Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs

Source Weekly

No, it's not a covers record. Nor is it a greatest hits collection. In fact, you may not know Yo La Tengo yet. Well, here's the quick rundown. The Hoboken trio has been twisting the alt-rock genre since 1984 and are heralded by critics and underground rock fans for their ability to create often catchy yet strangely unpredictable songs.
Popular Songs, their 14th studio album, is a fine representation of the group's skill in penning songs with incredible depth. “Here to Fall” opens the record as a perfect example of said depth. From quiet beginnings, the song builds a complex layer of dreamscape melody packed with a bunch of interesting instrumentation. By contrast, the super-catchy “Nothing to Hide” is one of those tracks that in my ideal world would be played all over mainstream radio. “When It's Dark” is a wonderfully easygoing acoustic-based tune that a Wilco fan might dig. Completing their overtly dynamic range is “If It's True” which uses Hammond organ as a backbone and clean string section to deliver a tight thoughtful pop song.

Posted inNews

Spare Change?: Local non-profits cut back as donors tighten their purse strings

Source Weekly

On the final day of business at the Working Wonders Children's Museum, Jason Friedman watched his two sons intensely engaged in their tactile experiences. The 15-month-old, Levi, squeezed the mysterious substance “moon sand” into a ball, then crushed it gleefully. Five-year-old Maxwell ran around dressed up like a firefighter, role playing with other kids in costumes.
“All this realistic setting is very healthy for brain development,” Friedman said. “The kids can learn to be builders, veterinarians, chefs. It's hard to recreate that at home.”
With Working Wonders closed, parents now have to find other places for their children to play. And there's nothing else quite like the museum here: a hands-on environment where kids could immerse themselves in “exhibits” such as grocery stores, veterinarian offices or foreign countries.

Posted inOpinion

The Greening of Bend

Source Weekly

President Obama would be proud of Bend for the vision it has shown on issues like the original cash for clunker program with our junk busses, massive debt being incurred at Juniper Ridge for no benefit to the public, bailouts for BAT, gross overspending on employee health care, new taxes on water and sewer during a severe economic downturn, and urban growth expansion designed for the big money in town. Let's examine these issues in greater detail.
CITY COUNCIL
The “Bully Blockers” rode into town on their black stallions early this year to facilitate those with money and influence. Following a coup to fill a vacant position with an old crony who possesses serious conflicts of interest, another councilor called the back-door deal “crap” giving us a second faction of “Crappers.” A third Councilor rolled over in support of the bullies which demonstrates that “when money talks, ideology walks,” creating a 3rd faction of “Floppers.” The only things that they seem to agree on are higher fees for utilities and massive debt at Juniper Ridge.

Posted inOpinion

From The Meddle East: Phony heroes, justice delayed but not

Source Weekly

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a place called Narnia, where a lion rules, this evil witch is everywhere, yet Viggo Mortensen is nowhere to be found, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Liar Liar
Richard Strandlof has led quite a life: At the Pentagon on 9-11 when it was attacked, surviving again when a bomb went off in Iraq (four of his fellow Marines weren't so lucky), living with a metal plate in his head and starting a charity to help other injured vets. Except none of it happened; Strandlof now faces charges of “stolen valor” (akin to Cheney but Iraq-status-justice) – including up to a year in prison and $100,000 fine. On 9-11, he was actually in a San Jose, CA, homeless shelter, and never served in the military; still he formed the Colorado Veterans Alliance, and appeared with at least one politician hoping to benefit from Strandlof's heroism. “Hopefully the people that I hurt can in some way gain closure from that, and I myself don't know what I can do, short of leaving them alone and not being in their lives, to make that happen,” somewhat-apologized Strandlof. Didn't disgraced Samurais fall on their swords? Give this guy a dull butter knife, or 10 minutes in a locked room with real Marines.

Posted inOpinion

Poll Was Full Of Poop

Source Weekly

Seldom have I read a more tragic story than the extinction of the passenger pigeon, flocks that stretched as far as the eye could see, one tier above another, taking an entire day to pass overhead.
In just 200 years, Europeans arrived in America and decimated 5 billion birds for cheap meat, feathers, target practice and fun. Sometimes they would bring down several birds at a time, merely because they could. The passenger pigeon died out in the wild in Ohio about 1900. The last survivor died (of loneliness I'm sure) in captivity in 1914.

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