Posted inCulture

Pre-Historically Crappy

Where is siegfried when you need him. From the director responsible for Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow comes a movie without "day" in the title.
I didn't care for Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow is one of the worst movies ever made. As if that's not enough, Emmerich's list of credits also includes Stargate - the first movie I ever walked out of. Perhaps not surprisingly, 10,000 BC is a worthy successor to all those half-efforts.
I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure that tribal cave-like men hunting mastodons didn't co-mingle with the Egyptians building the pyramids, as this movie wants us to believe.
They speak in English, but their phony "accents" are anywhere from Bulgarian to German to British to Pathetic. Unbelievably, it's narrated by Omar Sharif, who I thought might have even been faking an accent.

Posted inCulture

High-Level Hanky Panky: The heist film gets even grittier

No Life Til Leather The title of the new heist thriller, The Bank Job, doesn't begin to describe the twists and turns this film takes, as it delves into 1970s British society. What initially appears to be another buddy-burglary story, much like the Ocean franchise, Snatch, or The Italian Job, instead unravels into a Serpico-style exposé. Only because we know from the outset that the film is based on true events is the audience able to believe an otherwise nearly implausible story.
The 1971 Baker Street bank robbery was under a government gag order for 30 years; no arrests were made, nor was any money ever recovered. After thieves tunneled into a bank vault in London's Baker Street, they looted safe deposit boxes of cash, jewelry, and incriminating evidence. Though the robbery made headlines, the story disappeared almost immediately, because of a "D" notice, which gagged the press.

Posted inFood & Drink

Dinner Club Rules!

As of late, Bend is becoming known as a food destination. It wasn’t always that way.
When I first moved here in 1996, eating out was a rare event. I was working for peanuts, just like everyone else I knew. And there were only a few good places to go. Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company were always a good bet, and my husband liked Dude’s Night at McKenzie’s, where he could grab a cheap burger and beers with the guys, or indulge in Bend’s only salad bar. Ethnic food was even more challenging. We could get decent Thai at Toomie’s, or basic Italian at Giuseppe’s. But even good Mexican food was hard to come by in those days – never mind Indian, Spanish or Ethiopian.
So potluck dinner parties became the default dining option among our 20-something crowd. Nary a week went by that we didn’t bring “something to grill and something to share” to one friend or another’s Westside hovel.

Posted inFood & Drink

Dinner Club Rules!

As of late, Bend is becoming known as a food destination. It wasn't always that way.
When I first moved here in 1996, eating out was a rare event. I was working for peanuts, just like everyone else I knew. And there were only a few good places to go. Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company were always a good bet, and my husband liked Dude's Night at McKenzie's, where he could grab a cheap burger and beers with the guys, or indulge in Bend's only salad bar. Ethnic food was even more challenging. We could get decent Thai at Toomie's, or basic Italian at Giuseppe's. But even good Mexican food was hard to come by in those days - never mind Indian, Spanish or Ethiopian.
So potluck dinner parties became the default dining option among our 20-something crowd. Nary a week went by that we didn't bring "something to grill and something to share" to one friend or another's Westside hovel.

Posted inFood & Drink

Mo’ Bo, Mo’ Betta: The Typhoon! family expands up

Typhoon! with a twist at RestobarBo and Steven Kline continue to expand their Asian restaurant empire throughout the Northwest with the opening of Bo Restobar in downtown Bend. The restaurant/bar is located just a few paces from their other new restaurant, Thypoon!, in the Franklin Crossing building.
While Typhoon! has a vast menu of traditional – and not so traditional – Thai dishes, Chef Kline bills Bo Restobar, as more of an “artisitc approach” to Asian foods, blending Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese dishes, and tossing in some choice Thai recipes for good measure.
Keeping with the Klines’ honed sense of interior space and clean, atmospheric décor, Bo Restobar greets diners with lots of glass, a sleek bar and a wall-sized fountain. Tropical floating flowers adorn the tables and stylized portraits of Chef Kline grace the walls.

Posted inFood & Drink

Mo’ Bo, Mo’ Betta: The Typhoon! family expands up

Typhoon! with a twist at RestobarBo and Steven Kline continue to expand their Asian restaurant empire throughout the Northwest with the opening of Bo Restobar in downtown Bend. The restaurant/bar is located just a few paces from their other new restaurant, Thypoon!, in the Franklin Crossing building.
While Typhoon! has a vast menu of traditional - and not so traditional - Thai dishes, Chef Kline bills Bo Restobar, as more of an "artisitc approach" to Asian foods, blending Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese dishes, and tossing in some choice Thai recipes for good measure.
Keeping with the Klines' honed sense of interior space and clean, atmospheric décor, Bo Restobar greets diners with lots of glass, a sleek bar and a wall-sized fountain. Tropical floating flowers adorn the tables and stylized portraits of Chef Kline grace the walls.

Posted inOpinion

In Washington, Golf Becomes a Handicap

Make par, not warOregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith is one of Capitol Hill's most enthusiastic and skillful golfers - so much so that he made Golf Digest's 2005 list of Washington's Top 200 Golfers.
But Gordo's name is missing from the 2007 list.
Smith, whose handicap was given as 4.5 in 2005, told the magazine he hadn't been playing enough last year to determine his handicap - too busy campaigning for re-election.
Overall, the Washington golf scene has changed quite a bit since 2005, Golf Digest (golfdigest.com) reports: "Ethics legislation passed in 2007 has curtailed the kind of 'let-me-explain-my-issue' rounds that enabled congressional staffers to play in groups co-hosted by lobbyists on Friday afternoons.
As a result of a ban imposed on gifts and services, lobbyists have to pay thousands of dollars to play in elected officials' fundraisers to spend time with them on the golf course - hardly a bonding opportunity." Also, the storm of scandals swirling around Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists has created "a greater-than-ever hesitancy among golfers to admit they play."

Posted inOpinion

WHY WE PROTEST

This week's letter of the week goes to Phillip Randall. Thanks for the hyperbole-free letter, Phil. You can pick up your $25 gift certificate to Dinner's Ready this week at our offices, 704 NW Georgia. For all the rest of you, the woodshed if officially open for business.

After all the polarizing letters about the ongoing wars and recruiting it is nice to see a letter like Stephanie Bearse's (letters 2-27). Since she seems to be listening, I'm replying in the same spirit of reconciliation.
We in the peace movement have spent the last five years protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and though there has been a dramatic shift in popular opinion against the wars this work has been at times dangerous and frustrating.
I would like to address her point about talking to our representatives. And I'm going to give Rep. Greg Walden, Sen. Gordon Smith and Sen. Ron Wyden grades based on their listening skill. We have really tried to lobby our three representatives, and to be perfectly honest I'm disappointed by their responses.

Posted inOpinion

Politics of Paranoia

Desperate to catch Barack Obama, Hillary let a nasty secret escape: Her affinity for power exceeds her fidelity to the public interest.
This became clear in a recent campaign commercial tailored to the politics of paranoia. The gist of the commercial was that she was better suited than Obama to "answer the phone" when the ominous call (exact context unspecified) arrives at 3 am in the White House and "your children are asleep in bed." The ad implied that she, not Obama, is the one who can safeguard your spawn from the overseas evils that daily threaten our excellent (not to mention skillfully governed) domestic existence. It is pathetic to watch the Hill-Billy campaign play the Republican bogeyman card: Elect me, or your kiddies will be killed!

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