Who’s your enemy?: Depression era crime saga is heavy on the depressing

Posted inCulture

Who’s your enemy?: Depression era crime saga is heavy on the depressing

Intern

dances with the devil in the pale moonlight. Public Enemies is bound to score some real fans, but I am sure it will make its share of enemies as well. Director Michael Mann takes a true Depression-era crime story and interprets it with ultra-heavy handedness beyond any sense of realism. As an art/crime film, this is an impressive flick, but its brooding quality breathes hollow.

Rising from Indiana crime sprees to Public Enemy number one, John Dillinger was regarded as a latter-day Robin Hood. Robbing banks that had gotten fat while foreclosing on famiy farms. But Dillinger embraced his rock-star status, exuding bravado and charisma. Yet the film plays out in one somber moment after another, as if everyone was still reeling from The Depression and acting all…depressed.
Johnny Depp (playing Dillinger) brilliantly festers in a uniquely restrained performance. Depp has the ability to slide into whatever role he takes and it was nice to see him in one that didn't require an English accent. A sorely miscast Christian Bale, gives us a one-note performance as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, pensively staring into space. We see him slip in and out of accents covering maybe five different Southern regions. Captivating actress Marion Cotillard, as Dillinger's love Billie Frechette, does a good job with a poorly written part. Billy Cruddup is convincing and entertaining as J. Edgar Hoover. There's a veritable avalanche of cameos and appearances by recognizable actors and some really well picked unknowns. Still, most characters come off empty. I don't care how many cool handheld shots you surround them with, it's hard to care for any character at all.

Posted inCulture

Allen A Day’s Work: Woody comes back to form with Whatever Works

Intern

Or we could shoot hoops?Woody Allen's filmmaking career has been like one long, good conversation. He knows that sometimes he's been talking to himself, with the audience acting as psychiatrist, nodding and saying, "I see" in the right places. But Whatever Works is Woody's second wind-after losing track of the conversation to stumble about woozily, searching for the right bases; he's returned to form with a very funny, very smart farce-like comedy that beats out Annie Hall for quotable witticisms.

His last film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is brilliant but our enthusiasm was wary, as we'd waited patiently asking of each six-monthly release, "Is this the one to get excited about?" The assumption was that he'd lost it, and so even though his most mediocre effort can be ten times better than most of what makes it onto the big screen, fun films like Anything Else got ignored. After seeing Whatever Works, you'll want to rent Vicky Cristina Barcelona, to watch it through without holding your breath.
Filmmaking is Woody Allen's way of life, and the day he wraps one film he begins to pull together the next and as he travels from country to country. Whatever Works is as much about his place in Hollywood as it is about our place in the universe. While critics complain scripts restrict his actors, to merely impersonating Allen. This time around he cast Larry David for the central character, Boris Yellnikoff – a natural fit given that David's HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm is the illegitimate child of Allen's comedy stand-up.

Posted inFood & Drink

Classy or Trashy via Velvet

Intern

Looking for a chill, lodge-style lounge with a touch of swank? Enter 805 NW Wall and Velvet, where 40oz PBRs are chilled in a champagne bucket or served trashy in a brown bag, and an array of homemade infused drinks left me rather whoozy. A cozy duplex setup featuring “somewhat healthy” (quoting the staff) Tapas foodstuffs – flatbread pizzas, quesadillas, caprese salad, soup and sliders – Velvet fills a void downtown, with a friendly staff (tell Jill and Nolan I said, “Howdy!), a nouveau yet rustic air, and a Happy Hour running from 5-9pm Tuesday-Saturday.
Word-of-mouth has already made Velvet a hot spot after hardly a month in biz, and the attention to detail – flat screens bordered by rough timber, velvet couches where George Costanza would be proud to place his derriere – is what makes Velvet truly unique. Consider the Beer Baller: An invention to rival the pacemaker, which Velvet partner Sky Pinnick discovered while shooting for his Rage Films in France – ice-chilled drafts with a self-serve tap, brought to your table in a quantity to satisfy a Rugby team. Drink up, eat well, and don’t miss DJ Moksha every Thursday night.

Posted inFood & Drink

Cork: Chapter Two: A new era for an old favorite

Alice Finer

Piling on the flavor with cork’s braised lamb shankWhenever a tried-and-true formula changes, there’s a good chance that the revision won’t hold up to the original. New Coke. Van Hagar. The X Files sans Duchovny. Such was the concern last spring when, after seven years at the forefront of Bend’s fine dining scene, Cork’s co-owners Carin Cameron (formerly Hill) and Chef Greg Unruh decided to part ways. Fortunately for Cameron, who stayed on as sole proprietor, as well as Cork’s loyal following, the perfect replacement was waiting in the wings. Chef Chris Ericsen, a young and talented chef who trained under Unruh, has taken over the kitchen. A progression rather than a transformation, the current menu is very much in keeping with Cork’s longtime signature style of creative, New American cuisine featuring bold yet intricate flavors and fresh, local ingredients.

As Cameron was always in charge of the front of the house, nothing there has changed. The elegant dining room and more casual bar area are attended by a solicitous and knowledgeable staff. The wine list of 150 bottles and over 30 by the glass focuses on the Northwest and is well organized, relatively easy to navigate and versatile. While you can get that $265 bottle of Heitz Cellar Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1999 for a special occasion, there are a couple of options in nearly every category for around $30 or less. There is also a list of small plates available at the bar for $4.75 that is representative of what the kitchen has to offer, providing a great way to preview the menu without committing to a full sit-down. However, I highly recommend doing so.

Posted inFood & Drink

Cork: Chapter Two: A new era for an old favorite

Alice Finer

Piling on the flavor with cork's braised lamb shankWhenever a tried-and-true formula changes, there's a good chance that the revision won't hold up to the original. New Coke. Van Hagar. The X Files sans Duchovny. Such was the concern last spring when, after seven years at the forefront of Bend's fine dining scene, Cork's co-owners Carin Cameron (formerly Hill) and Chef Greg Unruh decided to part ways. Fortunately for Cameron, who stayed on as sole proprietor, as well as Cork's loyal following, the perfect replacement was waiting in the wings. Chef Chris Ericsen, a young and talented chef who trained under Unruh, has taken over the kitchen. A progression rather than a transformation, the current menu is very much in keeping with Cork's longtime signature style of creative, New American cuisine featuring bold yet intricate flavors and fresh, local ingredients.

As Cameron was always in charge of the front of the house, nothing there has changed. The elegant dining room and more casual bar area are attended by a solicitous and knowledgeable staff. The wine list of 150 bottles and over 30 by the glass focuses on the Northwest and is well organized, relatively easy to navigate and versatile. While you can get that $265 bottle of Heitz Cellar Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1999 for a special occasion, there are a couple of options in nearly every category for around $30 or less. There is also a list of small plates available at the bar for $4.75 that is representative of what the kitchen has to offer, providing a great way to preview the menu without committing to a full sit-down. However, I highly recommend doing so.

Posted inMusic

Dancing in the Moon Shine

Mike Bookey

Poor Man’s Whiskey Dark Side of the Moonshine
We love Poor Man’s Whiskey here in Bend so much, in fact, that we built an entire music festival around them in 4 Peaks…sort of. During all of these appearances in Bend, there has always been chatter surrounding the band that goes something like this: “These guys can play a complete bluegrass version of Dark Side of the Moon.” But the problem has always been that PMW – although playing ass-kicking shows, has never given us a taste of this project.
Well, time to taste the whiskey. PMW has finally released Dark Side of the Moonshine, the miraculously ambitious and nearly frighteningly dead-on acoustic (or at least mostly acoustic) recreation of the Pink Floyd classic as well as a second disc of 10 original cuts. The Darkside portion of the record plays almost precisely like the original, including the eerie laughs and dog barks included on “Speak to Me/Breathe” and the choral backing vocals on “Brain Damage.” But they take plenty of liberties along the way, including changing the title of “Money” to “Whiskey” and replacing each lyrical mention therein, as well as singing, “I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon…shine” on “Brian Damage.” We heard some recordings of Dark Side when PMW played it live in San Francisco a while back and knew these guys could pull off the seemingly impossible feat of melting together bluegrass music with the world’s most well-known piece of psychedelia, but we were nonetheless impressed by the finished studio product. Yeah, Dark Side has been manipulated before, as it was when the Easy All-Star’ Dub Side of the Moon, but PMW has stretched Floyd’s vision even further.

Posted inMusic

Blues, Beer, and Men of the Corn

Intern

Denson’s Tiny Universe in a big crowd…with beer!

Sound Check found itself over in Portland for the weekend, celebrating the long-standing tradition of inexplicably going out of town for each Independence Day weekend. While long lines of recreation vehicles and non-recreational vehicles full westsiders passed us on Mt. Hood as they headed east, thus did he head west and right into the middle of the Waterfront Blues Festival.
We dropped our two cans of food and ten bucks at the gate and promptly joined, oh, probably about 50,000 other fans inside Tom McCall Waterfront Park. We staked out a postage-stamp-sized spot near the stage just in time to see the funk machine that is Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe hit the stage and promptly get at least 20,000 asses (maybe more) moving, despite the 95-degree heat. The last time we saw Denson in action, it was the Domino Room with his other crew, the Greyboy Allstars, so it was certainly a change to see him in front of about 50 times as many sets of ears.

Posted inMusic

Dorm Ditties: Head for the Hills on breaking the freshman band curse

Mike Bookey

There was probably at least one band that formed in your freshman dorm, if, that is, you ever had the pleasure of living in the strangely scented and often concrete confines of a freshman dorm. And that band probably didn't make it through that first year of collegiate life. Inner-band turmoil, conflicting class schedules or maybe "artistic differences" brought these bands to an end all too often.

But Fort Collins' Head for the Hills is an exception to the freshman dorm band curse. What was once a group of musicians that coincidentally wound up housed on the same floor of a Colorado State University dormatory, is now one of the brightest young acts on the acoustic music landscape. A strange sidenote: in 2003 a friend of mine lived in this dorm with Head for the Hills and told me all about them. I promptly forgot about them - until I noticed their name listed as the winners of the Northwest String Summit band competition in 2007. Clearly, they'd broken the curse, and maybe that's because they started as an almost reluctant bluegrass outfit.

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the Week 7/9-7/16

Mike Bookey

Suzanne Burns/Matt Love Book Release Party
thursday 9
Flip back into the culture section and check out a review of Source contributor Suzanne Burns's new short story collection, Misfits and Other Heroes. Also appearing at this reading is Matt Love, author of Super Sunday in Newport: Notes From My First Year in Town. 7pm Thursday, Jul 9. Between the Covers, 645 NW Delaware Ave. 385-4766.
The Pimps of Joytime
friday 10
Just by hearing their name, you know when you head down for The Pimps of Joytime show, you're going to have a good time. This Brooklyn-based foursome blends funk, soul and indie rock, creating beats that have you grooving in a throwback sorta way. If you missed them in February, here's your chance to catch the funky four before they head back east. 8pm The Summit Saloon & Stage, 125 NW Oregon Ave. Free.

Posted inNews

In The Toilet: Hoodoo’s day fees, revenge of the septic and more

Eric Flowers

No Harm, No Fee

Following what Forest Service staff described as complaints and confusion, the agency quietly decided this week to eliminate a new day use fee at concession run campgrounds on the Deschutes Forest, a supervisor confirmed last week in an interview with the Source.
Ronda Bishop, special use coordinator for concessionaires and resorts on the forest, said that the agency informed Hoodoo Recreation that a newly instituted day fee that amounted to half of the camping fee (roughly $5-6) would have to be temporarily rescinded because of complaints about the policy that was instituted this past spring without public input. Bishop said the Forest Service initially signed off on the fee in order to help Hoodoo cover the maintenance cost at the campgrounds where day visitors use toilets and trash facilities but traditionally have paid no fee for those privileges. The impact of those users adds up for the concessionaire.

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