Not only is Shopgirl a great movie featuring a Bill-Murray-like career turn for Steve Martin, the film’s strengths are great enough to force me to reconsider other films that I’ve enjoyed. Shopgirl (from Martin’s own adaptation of his novella) is a sweet and tender love story that eschews irony and sarcasm as well as treacly […]
Chas Bowie
Posted inMovies & TV
Hate the War?
That Doesn’t Mean You’ll Hate Jarhead
Given the current collective revulsion toward the clusterfuck that is our involvement in Iraq right now, it’s hard to imagine people banging down the doors to see Jarhead, which is a shame. Based on Portlander Anthony Swofford’s experience in Desert Storm v. 1.0, director Sam Mendes’ (American Beauty) Gulf War flick is a highly worthy, […]
Posted inBooks
The Truth Book
Every year growing up, Joy Castro began the school year with an explanatory note for her teachers. She was not to say
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
Music Video Déjà Vu
When Palm Pictures released the first round of the “Director’s Label” series in 2003, the music video comps—which canonized Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry as the holy trinity of music video directors—became must-see tokens of ADD hipsters and confirmed the auteur theory of MTV. Now that Palm’s dropped the second wave of discs […]
Posted inNews
Chicks on Skates
The Rose City Rollers: Just Your Average All-Girl, Ass-Kicking Roller Derby Team
The scene on Monday and Wednesday nights at the Oregon National Guard Armory is a high-octane blend of righteous babes, bruised thighs, and flying elbows. It’s a Rose City Rollers (RCR) practice session, where the fledgling roller derby team gathers to sharpen their sprinting, slingshotting, jamming, and showmanship skills. Nearly 40 girls with names like […]
Posted inArt
PAM Misses the Mark
The good news: The Portland Art Museum’s new Center for Modern and Contemporary Art is bursting with more great artwork from the past 125 years than we ever imagined existed on the Park Blocks. Prior to the opening of the North Building galleries, most of the museum’s 20th century holdings had been sequestered away in […]
Posted inArt
Art Beat-Down
It’s October, which means the Portland arts train is chugging at full steam. Last weekend’s Affair at the Jupiter Hotel was dampened slightly by nasty weather. Art dealers from all three coasts (East, West, Gulf) huddled in their makeshift hotel-rooms-turned-art-galleries as local collectors and looky-loos sloshed from room to room “soaking in” hundreds of pieces […]
Posted inBooks
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
George Saunders, author of the brilliant collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia, is one of
Posted inMovies & TV
Scary Monsters/Rebel Bowlers
Succinct Reviews for the Discerning Cinephile
Like a regenerating tentacle from one of H.P. Lovecraft’s creepy-ass stories, the annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is back for
Posted inArt
Thanks, Just Looking
Not only is Oprah reviving her contemporary authors book club this October, but the Portland Art Museum is finally opening
Posted inArt
It Doesn’t Get Any Artsier Than This!
Affair at the Jupiter Hotel Provides Portland with the Artiest Affair of the Year
Last year, Portland art audiences—and hundreds of those who would never classify themselves as such—proved that Stuart Horodner’s vision was not in vain. At the inaugural Affair at the Jupiter Hotel, throngs of visitors packed into the East Burnside hotel-turned-art mini-mall for the city’s first art fair. Just as PICA’s TBA Festival is the equivalent […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Suck That Thumb!
Mike Mills’ Sweet, Complex Thumbsucker
Thumbsucker dir. Mills Opens Fri Sept 30 Fox Tower “With a project like this—that you have to spend so much time on, and that you only get a few chances in your life to create—this doesn’t seem like the time or place to be satirical or cynical,” director Mike Mills told me during his recent […]