The new video releases for July 18 are a gentle reminder that, even with a famous cast, Hollywood can still make a pretty entertaining Grade B Movie. Break out the gravity bong! € The Whole Nine Yards (2000)–In his most challenging role to date, Chandler from Friends plays a dentist. In his least challenging role […]
Julianne Shepherd
Posted inMusic
Language of Angels
The Swords Speak Without Speaking
MUSIC, if it’s doing its job effectively, should be moving. It should reach inside your stomach and pull out whatever core you’re hiding; it should access every fear, desire, hope, and either embody them brilliantly or stomp them out like crumbled ashes. In a way, it should be poetry, a medium that has the power […]
Posted inMusic
Johnne Eschleman’s MÉnage À Trois
Experimental Film, Surround Sound, and Carpentry Do the Nasty!
TOURING–it’s a great love and mystery, traveling the country as a vagabond minstrel, making barely enough money to get to the next town. Its roots can be found in a Steinbeckian Americana, a time when transient vaudevillians hopped trains and hitched to sing for their supper, town by town. Johnne Eschleman, like the troubadours of […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Trippy, Dippy, Hippie
News Flash: People Who Feel Disenfranchised Bond Together to Form Subcultures!
RAVERS, especially glow-stick toting candy ravers, really get a bad rap, and after seeing rave documentary Better Living Through Circuitry, I can see why. It was most likely not director John Reiss’ intention to paint rave culture as a long-running surface study in vapidity (and later, a spooky, dogmatic pseudo-spiritual cult), but that’s exactly what […]
Posted inMusic
Making Out With Andrew McCarthy
Put this Song on “Repeat” NOW!
WHEN I FIRST HEARD One Star’s “E.U.R.O.P.A.” (track two on Triangulum), I totally fell in love. Or rather, the Andrew McCarthy and the starlet version of me inside my head fell in love. It was the Pretty in Pink Andrew McCarthy–only updated slightly for the 21st century. See, in my dream he’s wearing Ducky/Jon Cryer’s […]
Posted inBooks
Book Review
THE MOTHER TRIP by Ariel Gore (Seal Press) Book release party: Tues June 20, 7 pm, at the Old Church, 1422 SW 11; Call Reading Frenzy, 274-1449 for info. Ariel Gore consistently does right by moms. Longtime publisher of the witty Hip Mama magazine, her first book, Hip Mama Survival Guide, is more like an […]
Posted inUncategorized
Marathon Taverna
1735 W BURNSIDE, 224-1341 So grease is gross and starches are bad for you and carbohydrates turn you into a grotesquely obese sloth, but who wants to eat a fruit plate the morning after you’ve been drinking like a goddamn fish? Booze isn’t exactly health food; you might as well make it a double-header of […]
Posted inMusic
Elfin’ Magic!
Of Montreal and Songs for Storybooks
“THERE ARE THESE TWO FAIRIES that I call efeblums named Pastille and Coquelicot; they supply the world with happiness and creativity and inspiration. They put these bells in peoples’ hearts to allow them to create music.” No, it’s not a Hans Christian Andersen tale. It’s Kevin Barnes, singer of “songles” and guitar leader of Athens […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Imaginary Museum
Scorsese’s Guide to World Cinema
IF THERE’S ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE to a scientific argument for the existence of a collective unconscious, it’s film. Never mind the jillion dollar ad campaigns and Taco Bell tie-ins; the tentacles of movies unfurl into the mind’s darkest recesses, resulting in a branch of pop culture that’s more recognizable, universally speaking, than any other. Just […]
Posted inMusic
Soda Pop!
Boycrazy’s Back (Now with Extra Fizz!)
THE MUSIC SCENE IN PORTLAND has baked for the last year or so (in more ways than one), and now it’s ready to bubble over. Little clues are scattered about the city like secret love notes; as always, you gotta know where to look. The openings of pro-community venues like Meow Meow and The Robot […]