GO TO CAMP

FOOD | OPENING Happy Camper

The tiny pop-up beer bar Camp Taps debuts in the North Monroe Business District

BY CHEY SCOTT

When Blaise Barshaw and Laurie Ann Greenberg approached local and state government agencies with the proposal for their seasonal beer trailer, Camp Taps, they were mostly met with skepticism and hesitation.

It took months to get clearance for the idea at various phases of construction and implementation, but Camp Taps in the North Monroe Business District finally got the nod of approval from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, and opened last week.

“I called Liquor Control, and talked for like an hour explaining what I wanted to do with the beer trailer, and they were having a hard time wrapping their brain around it,” Barshaw says. “No one had ever done this before.”

Located in the back corner of the parking lot for local vintage and antique shop 1889 Salvage Co., Camp Taps is a cozy, intimate bar, with capacity for only 12 people in its tiny enclosure, which is open to ages 21 and over.

The bar itself is a 1969 camp trailer the couple completely gutted and retrofitted, with a space in the front end to cool and store kegs for its eight tap handles.

All of those taps showcase regional craft beers, and everything is $6 a pint. Upon its opening, featured breweries included nearby Bellwether, plus Mountain Lakes, Lumberbeard, YaYa, Humble Abode and the Golden Handle Project, and a regional guest tap with Coin Toss Brewing in Oregon.

“All the microbreweries around here, everyone has been so nice to us and so helpful,” Greenberg says. “That is what is really nice about the beer community and craft beer. Everyone is on each other’s side.”

Barshaw and Greenberg, both professional artists, say their initial plan was to open a permanent venue that paired craft beer with arts and served as more of a community creative center. But finding a location that didn’t need extensive and expensive renovations proved difficult. After both lost their part-time jobs in retail and the service industry when the pandemic hit last spring, they had more time to focus on retooling their vision into the beer trailer concept.

“We originally thought of having the trailer with beer and this big deck and a yurt out here for all-year use that was heated, but we went to the city and they listened to our idea, and it ended up being unfeasible,” Barshaw says. While Camp Taps is theoretically mobile, the couple plan to operate it seasonally at its current spot from April through mid-fall. When the trailer’s front end is filled with kegs, it can’t easily be moved anyway, and due to the restrictions of their operating licenses, it also can’t travel around like a food truck can.

When Camp Taps is operating most afternoons and evenings, drivers along North Monroe may notice Barshaw’s hand-painted sandwich board signs out on the sidewalk with a red stop sign symbol and the word BEER in the center. He also designed the trailer’s logo, which is featured on screen-printed T-shirts for sale in Camp Taps’ tiny “gift shop,” along with 16-ounce, cup-sized koozies, stickers and postcards to “send from camp,” Greenberg says. Laurie Ann Greenberg and Blaise Barshaw in the beer trailer. LAUREN REY PHOTO Each of the trailer’s tap handles is made from repurposed finds from some of the many antique shops along Monroe Street, including a 1920s flashlight, and badminton and croquet racket handles. The seating area around the beer trailer is mostly covered and walled off to create a shady hangout, with bar stools that pull right up to the trailer’s two windows. Customers can bring in their own food, but must follow the camp rules to “pack it in, pack it out,” as well as to be kind, make friends and not smoke. Since the trailer is too small to hold a dishwasher for pint glasses, beer is served in compostable single-use cups, which the couple are currently trying to figure out how to recycle locally, since they can’t go into the city-issued yard waste bins. Camp Taps’ owners hope next year to offer some version of a mug club, perhaps by selling reusable aluminum vessels that customers can bring back to use and get a discount on beer in return. “There is something for everyone,” Greenberg says. “It’s kind of fun. It’s different and unique and is like coming around the campfire. You can’t get lost here.” n Camp Taps • 2824 N. Monroe St. • Open Wed-Sat 3-8 pm, Sun 3-7 pm • facebook.com/ CampTaps

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REVIEW LETTING LOOSE

Director James Gunn’s new take on The Suicide Squad succeeds in gloriously gory fashion where its 2016 predecessor failed

Ihated 2016’s Suicide Squad ... and I love this brandspankin’-new The Suicide Squad. Like the 2016 movie, this one is based on the comic books about literal psychopaths let loose to do as much damage as possible in the putative name of freedom and democracy.

About the previous movie, I said it “should be grim, bitter, and as horrifyingly alluring as Hannibal Lecter.” But it wasn’t. This one? Well, perhaps love is too pleasant a word. For this movie is all those things, and more. It is incredibly gory, positively reveling in the sort of extreme violence that does massive bodily harm to anyone who gets in the way of it. It’s funny, but only in a bleak way. It is utterly lacking in sentiment (the first one drenched us in it), and yet it engages you with its psychopaths in ways that you may find disturbing.

That The in the title? That is writer-director James Gunn’s way of spanking the 2016 film and sending it off to the corner to think about what it did. This one is the definite article.

Gunn keeps only those members of the team worth telling another story about. Viola Davis is back as Amanda Waller, the prison warden who runs this dubious secret program, offering the monsters in her charge years off their sentences in exchange for accepting missions from her. But this time Davis is allowed to go full bore, her immense screen presence and power fueling the suspicion that Waller is as much a psychopath as her prisoners. Joel Kinnaman is back as Colonel Rick Flag, the soldier who has to wrangle the monsters in the field. He’s not a psychopath, and this time around he is much more our stand-in for how he inevitably gets caught up in concern for their well-being.

Also returning is punky social irritant and force of nature — like a tornado is a force of nature — Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, who steals the movie). Gunn has hardly been the most feminist of filmmakers in the past, but he manages not to shoot Quinn like he’s drooling all over her, and has written her a subplot about bad boyfriends and the romantic fantasies that are fed to women that lead some of us to get involved with the wrong sort of guy. (Princess tropes will come in for heavy snarking.)

The mission this time involves a coup on the fictional South American island nation of Corto Maltese, where a secret military weapons project has fallen into hands not friendly to the United States. So the Squad is being sent in to destroy it. Along for the ride with Quinn and Flag are absolute lunatics Peacemaker (John Cena), who isn’t kidding when he says he believes in “peace at any price,” and assassin Bloodsport (Idris Elba), whose unloving relationship with his teenage daughter (Storm Reid) would appear to be a smack at a similar dynamic in the 2016 movie that was portrayed with absurd schmaltz.

BY MARYANN JOHANSON

If you were tasked with saving the world, wouldn’t you bring a CGI shark along?

But the other members of the Squad don’t seem to be actual psychopaths. Dangerous, yes, but for reasons understandable and full of pathos. Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) controls rats, a pretty useful superpower, as we see. PolkaDot Man (David Dastmalchian), who bears the burden of an unlikely superpower, is a deeply damaged survivor of extreme child abuse. King THE SUICIDE SQUAD Rated R Directed by James Gunn Starring Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis Shark, who is a sharkman (CGI, with the voice of Sylvester Stallone), is merely very lonely and always hungry. He has a taste for human flesh, it’s true, but it doesn’t appear he has a lot of other dietary options. And he doesn’t chow down indiscriminately.

The Suicide Squad is not without a sense of morality, even given its protagonists. It’s not subtle, but Gunn shivs in pointed commentary on American military adventurism and its carceral state: Shouldn’t we consider this psychopathic, too? But this is mostly a movie about style: The energy here is feverish and anarchic, winkingly aping conventions of the 1970s grindhouse flicks it has more in common with than most superhero movies. This is not a movie for children. This is not a movie for many adults, either. Its cynicism is exhausting. I wonder if we will look back 10 years from now and mark this as the beginning of the end of the current cycle of comicbook movies as bombastic cinematic explosions. Because it’s difficult to see where they can go from here except smaller, quieter and kinder. n

Thursday August 12th 5-8PM

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FOOD & DRINK SPECIALS

Emma (Zazie Beetz) is key to the soulful Nine Days.

Beautiful Isolation

First-time filmmaker Edson Oda delivers a masterful drama with Nine Days

BY CHASE HUTCHINSON

Every once in a while, there is a film that is just soul shatteringly good. It creates a powerful vision all its own and breathes life into a world that is wholly unique, from its acting to its direction. It demands your attention, earning both your intense awe and overwhelming respect in every moment you spend with it. It is a film that expands what cinema can be.

Nine Days is one of those films.

With a command of craft that is methodical yet measured, it is an outstanding feature debut from writer-director Edson Oda. It follows Winston Duke’s Will, a lonely recluse who is tasked with selecting souls to be born into life on Earth. In order to do this, he must interview a group of hopeful candidates over the course of nine days and select only one to be given a chance at life. The five souls are all different, even deeply flawed, though they all must undertake the same journey that Will has laid out for them.

The impetus for the interviews is that one of Will’s previous selections, a young woman named Amanda, has died. Will is devastated as it was he who served as a watchful eye over Amanda and the other souls he selected through small television screens. That means he got to see the very moment Amanda met her end in a car accident, a loss that he will spend the rest of the film seeking to understand. Duke is utterly riveting in this role as he expertly balances playing the caring protector who only wishes to help those he is interviewing while also working through his own loss. However, he will soon find a connection with the interviewee Emma (Zazie Beetz), who defies all his understanding and rules about what it takes to be given the gift of life.

Their dynamic serves as the heart of the film. Will is closed off, living alone in an ethereal desert where he spends his days observing his visually striking panoply of screens. He lives a one-way relationship, detachedly watching the lives of others in what feels like a reverse version of The Truman Show. His only friend is Kyo (Benedict Wong), who sees how Will is struggling yet is unable to help him. It will be Emma who holds the key to breaking through the cage of isolation that Will has built around himself. This cage comes in the form of the aforementioned desolate desert whose vast beauty is captured perfectly by Oda, revealing how haunting this empty world is. It is in a single home in that landscape where most of the film is set.

While certainly a slow burn of a film, Oda instills every moment of stillness with a vibrant light that shines in even the quiet moments. There is a deep sense of looming sorrow hanging over everything, as it is clear most of the souls Will interviews will not be selected, though there is also a prevailing sense of joy. As the characters spend their days watching the lives of others on the screens before them, it reveals how much of our life is a mixture that is equal parts pain and jubilation. There is mundanity, yes, but there is also triumph. It is much like the film itself which is built around deceptively simple scenes of characters talking with each other. As the story progresses, it is these scenes that begin NINE DAYS to overflow with glorious wondrous reflections on life. To say more would be to rob one of the experience of watching this film with as fresh and open a mind as possible. It is a truly out of this world film that is epic in ambition while being laser focused in crafting its characters. Oda has delicately revealed what it means to be alive in a masterpiece of filmmaking. By looking at the trials of a select few who would like nothing more than to take part in the multifaceted experience that is life, he has held a mirror up to our very souls. For a first-time filmmaker to create so much profound beauty with such a humble story is an outstanding triumph of cinema. n

Rated R Directed by Edson Oda Starring Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong

FILM | SHORTS OPENING FILMS

NOW PLAYING

This documentary on dance pioneer Alvin Ailey shines the spotlight on how his choreography reflected his Black American experience. At the Magic Lantern. (DN) Rated PG-13

FANTASTIC FUNGI

A visually stunning documentary about fungi’s contribution to life on Earth. At the Magic Lantern. (DN) Not Rated

NINE DAYS

Winston Duke stars as a mysterious figure tasked with determining which souls deserve a trip to live on Earth. (DN) Rated R

THE SUICIDE SQUAD

Director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) takes the realm of this team of violent ex-con supervillains including Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, King Shark and more on a mission to save the world. (DN) Rated R

BLACK WIDOW

A flashback in the Marvel Universe in which the title character (Scarlett Johansson) is overshadowed by her spunky sister (Florence Pugh) in an action-packed affair. (DN) Rated PG-13 THE GREEN KNIGHT

Dev Patel stars in a twist on King Arthur’s story as the king’s nephew who adventures to confront a giant greenskinned knight and prove his character. (DN) Rated R

THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS

The boss baby (Alec Baldwin) and his big brother (James Marsden) are all grown up in this sequel, and they’ve drifted apart only to come back together when a new boss baby shows up in their lives. (DN) Rated PG THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson are an odd couple hitman and bodyguard combo back for another actionpacked adventure, this time with Salma Hayek in the mix as a world-class con artist. (DN) Rated R

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

The latest chiller about supposed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, investigating a murder suspect who claims to be possessed by a demon. (NW) Rated R

ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

The original Escape Room movie was a lot less fun than actually going to an escape room, but was enough of a hit to warrant watching six new contenders try their luck. (DN) Rated PG-13

F9 THE FAST SAGA

The long-awaited ninth episode finally hits theaters, bringing Vin Diesel’s Dom back into action to foil a plot hatched by his long-forsaken brother Jakob (John Cena). (DN) PG-13

THE FOREVER PURGE

On the morning after the annual bloodletting purge, a masked gang attacks a wealthy ranch family in Texas, and the family of ranch hands who work for them, forcing the two families to band together and fight. (DN) Rated R JOE BELL

Mark Wahlberg is the incredibly unlikely choice to play an Oregon father who walks across America to bring attention to the dangers of bullying in honor of his gay son. (DN) Rated R

JUNGLE CRUISE

Disney taps Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for a river adventure based on the famous ride in which they journey down the Amazon and search for an ancient tree with healing powers. (DN) Rated PG-13

NO ORDINARY MAN: THE BILLY TIPTON DOCUMENTARY

This documentary explores the complex life of Spokane jazz musician Billy Tipton, a trans pioneer whose life was largely misrepresented after his death revealed he was born a woman. At the Magic Lantern. (DN) Not rated

OLD

M. Night Shyamalan is back, this time with a tale of a secluded beach that makes its visitors age rapidly, reducing their entire lives to one day. (DN) Rated PG-13 Ailey

PIG

Nicolas Cage plays a truffle hunter who has to leave the wilderness and head to Portland to find the person who stole his beloved pig. A recipe for some John Wickish fun. (DN) Rated R

A QUIET PLACE PART II

A sequel to the hugely popular 2018 horror hit, following the original film’s family as they continue to evade monsters with hypersensitive hearing. (NW) Rated PG-13

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN

If you’re already a fan of the chefturned-TV personality and travel host, this documentary on Bourdain’s life should be pretty satisfying. (DN) Rated R

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS

Henry Golding plays a loner who finds a home in Japan, where he learns the ways of the ninja, only to have his past catch up with him, potentially costing him everything he’s found in his new home. (DN) Rated PG-13

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY

Hey look, it’s another reason for people to argue over who is better, the Michael Jordan of the original Space Jam or Lebron James in this new version. (DN) Rated PG

STILLWATER

Matt Damon plays a working-class Oklahoman who has to travel to France in hopes of exonerating his daughter from a murder charge while navigating the obvious cultural barriers. (DN) Rated R n

FRIDAY, AUG 6TH - THU, AUG 12TH

TICKETS: $9

NINE DAYS (124 MIN) FRI-SUN: 1:50, 6:00 MON-THU: 6:00 THE GREEN KNIGHT (130 MIN) FRI/SAT: 8:20 SUN-WED: 6:10

AILEY (93 MIN) FRI/SAT: 1:00, 4:05 SUN: 12:00, 4:05 MON-THU: 4:05 NO ORDINARY MAN: THE BILLY TIPTON DOCUMENTARY (84 MIN) FRI-THURS: 4:20 FANTASTIC FUNGI (78 MIN) FRI/SAT: 2:45 SUN: 11:30AM, 2:45 MON-THU: 2:45

PIG (93 MIN) FRI/SAT: 8:35 SUN: 1:00 MON-THU: 2:15 25 W Main Ave #125 • MagicLanternOnMain.com

Fall Arts

Preview

SEPTEMBER 24-30, 2020 | SUPPORT THE ARTS!

Creativity Through Chaos

Art or Die! Meet artist Amber Hoit Lights, Camera... Livestreaming gets sleek Seeking Inspiration What local art lovers are turning to during the pandemic PAGE 19

POP-UP CLASSROOMS 11 COPS ARE WATCHING YOU 14 THE BIG SCREEN 43