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VOL 37/07 12.22.2010
M e e u a r n T i n e g h T f Christma s o Holiday tales about a monk, drunks and a megastore flunky. page 12 By Stacy Brownhill, Christina Cooke & Jessica Lutjemeyer
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
CONTENT
BREAK TIME: Read which City Council member took the most vacation in 2010. Page 8.
NEWS
4
DISH
20
LEAD STORY
12
MUSIC
31
CULTURE
18
SCREEN
44
HEADOUT
19
CLASSIFIEDS
50
STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing News Editor Henry Stern Arts & Culture Editor Kelly Clarke Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, James Pitkin, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Kat Merck Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Peggy Perdue, Sarah Smith Special Sections Editor Ben Waterhouse Screen Editor Aaron Mesh Music Editor Casey Jarman Assistant Music Editor Michael Mannheimer Editorial Interns Stacy Brownhill, Christina Cooke, Leighton Cosseboom, Kevin Davis, Rebecca Jacobson, Jessica Lutjemeyer CONTRIBUTORS Stage Ben Waterhouse Classical Brett Campbell Dance Heather Wisner Visual Arts Richard Speer
Erik Bader, Ruth Brown, Nathan Carson, Shane Danaher, Robert Ham, Whitney Hawke, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, Nilina Mason-Campbell, John Minervini, Katrina Nattress, Rebecca Raber, Alistair Rockoff, Jeff Rosenberg, Anika Sabin, Matt Singer, Chris Stamm, Mark Stock PRODUCTION Production Manager Kendra Clune Art Director Ben Mollica Graphic Designers Soma Honkanen, Adam Krueger, Carolyn Richardson, Dylan Serkin Production Intern Taylor Schefstrom ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Jane Smith Display Account Executives Sara Backus, Alisha Barnes, Maria Boyer, Carrie Hinton, Janet Norman, Kyle Owens Classifieds Account Executives Michael Donhowe, Jennifer Lee Advertising Assistant Ashley Grether Marketing and Events Manager Jess Sword Marketing and Promotions Coordinator Brittany McKeever
Our mission: Provide our audiences with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference. Circulation: 80,000 Though Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law. Willamette Week is published weekly by City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115 Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388 Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be
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INBOX WWEEK.COM READERS COMMENT ON “CARTPOCALYPSE” “We all know the rules for mobile units going in. It’s clearly stated in their handouts and on the website that any remodeling, menu changes or location change plans need to be submitted to the Environmental Health Dept.Mobile Unit Division for initial processing/ approval. It’s also stated that owners will have to inquire with other agencies such as Building/ Zoning, Fire Marshal, etc. The Goodmans are not expected to know regulations for government agencies; that’s the responsibility of the cart owner. If you failed to follow procedure, you only have yourself to blame. …Once you’ve attached a structure to your “mobile” cart, you are no longer mobile and have to follow a different set of regulations for brickand-mortar restaurants. We’ve had our cart for over 10 years. The addition of new carts hasn’t hurt us at all. In fact, we feel more carts in the lot have drawn more customers. If you deliver a quality product, consistent and reliable service, you will have continued business.” —Sausage Queen “Last week in Tucson a food cart with propane at a neighborhood fair blew up, injuring three people. It will happen in Portland soon. I wonder if Leonard will visit the burn victims in the hospital and then pay out $1.5 million per person for not enforcing code?” —Jerry
They count the unemployed by the applications for benefits, but if I decide to rejoin “the workforce” by looking for a job, I don’t call the state to let them know. How do they count newly active job seekers? Do they have a camera pointed at my couch? —Paranoid
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
They do have a camera pointed at your couch, but it’s strictly for laughs—the employment stats are derived by more scientific means. First, forget that business about applications for unemployment—as anyone who’s ever taken a dump in their boss’s backpack can tell you, not all of the unemployed collect benefits. Instead, the feds rely on an ongoing effort called the Current Population Survey, where census workers call a scientifically selected sampling of Americans to ask them about their employment status. In other words, they use a poll. Oregon uses this data, combined in a complicated way with
“…Yes, there are many food carts in Portland, and yes, a LOT of them won’t make it to next summer. But that is the case with any new restaurant, not to mention many other sectors of the economy at the moment. One of the most widely used statistics for new restaurants is that 95 percent of them won’t make it past the first year (Educational Institute for Hospitality Management at MSU source). Food carts are no exception to this rule. To think of food carts as anything other than a restaurant operation is absurd. Sure there are many carts out there that put out sub-par food, but the EXACT same thing could be said about restaurants. The fact is there is an outstanding number of actually talented chefs putting out amazing food from carts. In this economy where banks aren’t lending, and commercial real estate is pricey, carts are the only viable option for those of us who dream of getting our businesses off the ground. For many, it’s a step toward opening an actual restaurant.… Perhaps there’s a misconception about how well educated/trained many food cart owners are. Ask around—many have thorough business plans. I was under the impression Portlanders loved supporting small business, DIY and good food. After reading this article, it seems more like we love to criticize those who are doing something that they are truly passionate about. Disheartening indeed. —Jargus LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Fax: (503) 243-1115, Email: mzusman@wweek.com
numbers from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program, to create the figures you hear. Anyway, if census workers get an unemployed person on the phone—and say what you will about the unemployed, they’re usually at home— they’ll ask if that person has looked for work in the past four weeks, which is the accepted standard for “actively seeking employment.” If you say “no,” congratulations: You’re not unemployed! Instead, you’re a “marginally attached worker” (more accurately, “non-worker”), and you don’t count toward the unemployment total. The downside to this neat bit of statistical trickery is that sometimes these statistical non-persons decide to start looking for work again, as happened in Oregon last month. We (I use the term loosely) created 15,000 jobs, but the employment rate still rose 0.1 percent due to 17,000 new workers in the labor force. So do us a favor—don’t look for a job unless you’re sure you’ll find one. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
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HOLIDAYS: WW’s charity check. CITY HALL: Who took the most vacation in 2010. LEGISLATURE: Big changes potentially ahead for PSU. ROGUE: The man trying to destroy a Sellwood Bridge deal.
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Repeat offense: After feeling heat from police-accountability activists, Police Chief Mike Reese and Mayor Sam Adams fired Officer Ronald Frashour last month over the fatal January shooting of 25-year-old Aaron Campbell. Now activists are once again calling for the termination of officers, this time Jonathan Kizzar and Kelly Jenson, who fatally shot Darryel Dwayne Ferguson on Dec. 17 outside a Southeast Portland apartment. The case is expected to go to a grand jury next week, says Multnomah County Chief Deputy District Attorney Norm Frink.
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The recounts from November’s general election have barely finished, but one group is already well on its way to the 2012 ballot. A group called Protect Oregon Homes 2012 has raised $250,000 to help pay for the 110,358 signatures required to propose amending the Oregon Constitution to prohibit a real-estate transfer tax. Variations of such a mechanism, effectively a sales tax on property transactions, exist in other states. And although there’s no active push for one here, realestate interests want to forestall any such possibility. “This is more of a prospective effort,” says Lake Oswego developer Barry Cain.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
The Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association has raised $60,000 in private donations to maintain seven blocks of century-old linden trees lining Reed College Place (see “Revenge of the Fallen,” WW, Dec. 16, 2009). Mayor Sam Adams promised the Southeast Portland neighborhood that the city would maintain the trees. But the city has not done so. Robert McCullough, a resident active in raising the funds, says Adams shouldn’t view private donations as a way to pay for city services. “The mayor’s job in The City That Works is to keep things working,” McCullough says. Says Adams, “I’m looking forward to the city and the neighborhood continuing to work together.”
Thanks to our incredible readers, WW’s Give!Guide has blown past the $500,000 mark in donations. And at $531,000plus at press time, our holiday helper for 79 area nonprofits is about 20 percent ahead of where it was last year at this time. The deadline for giving is midnight on New Year’s Eve, so please help us make this year’s goal of $1 million by going to wweek.com/giveguide and contributing what you can.
NEWS
GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM
FLABBY CHARITIES TEN PORTLAND NONPROFITS THAT SPEND MORE THAN AVERAGE ON OVERHEAD. BY JA M E S P I T K I N
jpitkin@wweek.com
’Tis the season for do-gooders in our recession-hit city to reach deep and choose among hundreds of worthy causes to support with their hard-earned dollars. But not all charities are alike. Some spend more than
others on overhead costs, including fundraising and management expenses. Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based group that evaluates nonprofits, sets 65 percent as the bare minimum charities should spend on actual charity work—rather than fundraising and administration. Nine out of 10 charities nationwide meet that standard. “Anybody out of that realm is really underperforming, according to industry standards,” says Matt Viola, a senior program analyst at Charity Navigator. For discerning donors, the Oregon Department of Jus-
tice runs an online database (doj.state.or.us) that tracks spending by all 14,826 nonprofits registered in the state. The database breaks down each nonprofit’s spending for program services, fundraising and management. With Charity Navigator’s standard in mind, we used the state database to calculate how much Portland-based nonprofits are spending directly on programs. Below is a list of 10 Portland charities that failed to exceed the 65 percent bar, according to the DOJ. (Yes, we include two that are right on the line.) We applied our test only to charities that bring in more than $500,000 a year—a line Viola recommends because it includes only significant players. And because we’re focusing on charities that want your money, we removed from the list nonprofits that do not solicit donations or perform charitable work.
Charity:
Mission statement:
Program spending:
What they said:
1. The Oregon Jewish Museum
“To preserve history as it relates to the Jewish people.”
48 percent
Museum director Judy Margles says an accountant put the entire $60,000 salary for the director of development and programming under fundraising, when some of that money should have been listed as providing services. “We’re sort of the model of fiscal caution and conservatism,” Margles says.
2. p:ear
“Builds positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth through education, arts and recreation.”
56 percent
“The administrative staff of P:ear works directly with kids, [and] we straddle doing all of the administrative work as well,” says Executive Director Beth Burns. P:ear is in this year’s WW Give!Guide.
3. Boy Scouts of America, Cascade Pacific Council
“To administer Boy Scouts of America program of character development and citizenship training.”
56 percent
Scouts spokesman Don Cornell did not reply to a phone message seeking comment.
4. Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association, Oregon Chapter
“To offer support and assistance to the families of Alzheimer’s patients.”
59 percent
Board president Karen Garst says the nonprofit wrongly listed some expenses, such as the annual Memory Walk, as purely fundraising. “That’s not just fundraising. That’s also public awareness,” Garst says. “We’re incredibly frugal.”
5. All Classical Public Media
“Classical Music Public Radio/Community Engagement.” (It operates All Classical 89.9 FM.)
60 percent
“It all depends on interpretation and allocations,” says Sharon Johnson, vice president of marketing and development. She declined to speak further by phone, requesting questions by email. An email sent Dec. 17 received no response.
6. CASA for Children
“To intervene on behalf of neglected or abused dependent children.”
63 percent
“I don’t know if that’s true, first of all, and if it is, the person you need to talk to just walked out the door two minutes ago,” said CASA supervisor Letha McCleod. She referred WW to finance director Joni Spencer, who did not return a message from Dec. 17.
7. BodyVox
“The creation and performance of dance-based theatrical presentations.”
63 percent
“We just recently completed a capital campaign and moved into a new building. That would explain where some of the expenditures on overhead were,” said general manager Una Loughran. “Most of what we do is program-driven.”
8. Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington
“To acquire, develop and manage a facility for housing leukemia/oncology and other child patients and their families.”
63 percent
“Rather than rely on a single standard to measure our effectiveness, we constantly evaluate our performance using many different criteria,” Executive Director Tom Soma said by email. “I invite anyone to visit our two Ronald McDonald houses, meet some of the 1,500 families with seriously ill children who stay here each year, and then determine if we’re delivering on our promise.”
9. Equity Foundation
“To benefit gay and lesbian people through grants.”
65 percent
“Our focus is very much on being cautious with expenses and focusing on our core mission,” says Executive Director Peter Cunningham. “Fundraising is a huge component of a nonprofit these days.”
10. Junior Achievement of Oregon and Southwest Washington
“To educate boys and girls in the basic concepts of Americanism and the American private enterprise system.”
65 percent
“We acknowledge it’s close,” says president John Hancock. “We’re happy to be at the...standard, especially in challenging economic times.” Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
7
NEWS
CITY HALL W W I L L U S T R AT I O N
VACATION, ALL I EVER WANTED ENJOYING YOUR HOLIDAY? HERE’S HOW MUCH TIME OFF CITY COUNCIL TOOK IN 2010. BY BE T H S LOV I C
bslovic@wweek.com
If you’re scrambling to finish your Christmas shopping, there are five Portlanders you can safely cross off your last-minute gift list. Why? Because you’ve already given those five people, Portland’s four city commissioners and the mayor, a precious gift—unlimited vacation time. That’s on top of annual salaries of about $100,000 for a commissioner and $118,000 for the mayor. One of the perks of elected office in the “City That Works” is no official cap on vacation days. That means the only thing between an elected official and a weekday pass at Mount Hood Meadows is the voting public. It’s up to them to judge whether a commissioner or the mayor is using too many vacation days—or just the right amount. Which is why WW this week brings you a year-end report focused on how much vacation Portland leaders took in 2010. 1. Commissioner Randy Leonard, who got remarried in 2010, took the most vacation days, with a total of 34 days. During one of Leonard’s vacations in May, the mayor and the rest of the commissioners diverted money from the Portland Fire & Rescue Bureau’s maintenance fund while finalizing Portland’s 2010-11 budget, Leonard says. That decision riled Leonard, a former firefighter who oversees the Fire Bureau, and prompted him to place a $72.4 million fire maintenance bond on the November ballot to replace aging safety apparatus. Voters narrowly approved that money measure. Leonard also took a two-week trip to Scotland in October. Leonard’s vacation time doesn’t approach that of former City Commissioner Charlie Hales, a potential mayoral candidate in 2012, who in 2002 famously called it “a sin” to be indoors in August. In 2001, Hales took 48 vacation and personal days, The Oregonian reported. 2. Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who won re-election to his fourth term last May, took a total of 29 vacation days in 2010, or 30 if you include Rosh Hashanah. For sake of comparison, the most senior city bureaucrats with 25 or more years of service get 25 days of vacation
FREQUENT FLIERS: City commissioners’ 2010 travel took them to New York, Spain, England and Scotland.
a year. That means Saltzman, who oversees the Bureau of Environmental Services, took more vacation than BES director Dean Marriott earned in 2010; as a 16-year employee, Marriott got 20 days. All but two of Saltzman’s 29 days off came after his election win (and after Mayor Sam Adams stripped him of the Portland Police Bureau). His longest time off came in September and October, when he spent three weeks in Spain. “I took my daughter to Spain and dropped her off at school there,” Saltzman says of his fall break. “It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime [trip]. I don’t think I can think of the last time I took that much time off at one time.” 3. Commissioner Nick Fish sits in the middle of many issues, serving as a swing vote on PGE Park’s renovation for Major League Soccer and other contentious topics. He is similarly placed in the middle of our survey with 21 days of vacation, not including a four-day trip to New York City to accept an award from an anti-homelessness nonprofit where he once volunteered. “Many of us [commissioners] work seven days a week,” Fish says. “We don’t get credit for working on weekends.”
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4. Mayor Sam Adams may be known for his frequent trips to promote Portland’s “green” reputation. In 2010 he flew to Stockholm, Detroit, Calgary and Washington, D.C., among several other cities. But in terms of actual vacation, Adams is stingier. The mayor took (or plans to take) 15 days, mostly around the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays. “Sam likes to take ‘staycations,’” a spokesman writes in an email. “During these times, however, he often ends up working.” 5. A scheduler for Commissioner Amanda Fritz offered a complicated formula for calculating Fritz’s vacation days. It comes down to this: Fritz did no city-related work on just 23 days, as of Dec. 20. However, only nine of those “off ” days were workdays, including six days in England to celebrate her mom’s 80th birthday. (The others fell on weekends or holidays.) She also worked 52 weekend days and holidays, but we’re offering no bonus points for that, since most commissioners could boast similar records. Between now and year’s end, Fritz may take six more days, which would tie her with Adams. “I don’t compare myself with others,” Fritz writes in an email. “I simply work as hard as possible to serve the people of Portland.”
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the 14 urban universities it compares itself to (41 percent). PSU professor Sukhwant Singh Jhaj, also a special assistant to the provost, is leading a project to identify reasons more students are not graduating. Jhaj says there are two important points to conBY NIGEL JAQU ISS njaquiss@wweek.com sider when looking at graduation rates: First, it’s only one measure of a university; and second, as an Portland State University is doing a great job at urban, mostly community university, PSU does not attracting students but not such a great job of operate in the same world as UO or OSU because graduating those same students. PSU is not an enclosed traditional campus. And that fact will be a pressure point for Still, Jhaj says, neither he nor his colleagues in PSU if the 2011 Legislature passes a mammoth, the provost’s office are defending the status quo. 400-page higher-ed reform bill that proposes “We know our graduation rate must improve,” to give Oregon’s seven public universities far he says. greater autonomy in exchange for a higher level Jhaj’s project has involved crunching data of accountability. PSU had not previously analyzed to figure out The bill would mean PSU must become less who was falling through the cracks en route to of a warehouse and more of a finishing school, graduation, and why. because the focus of future public univerTheir findings are not terribly surprising but sity funding would shift from do suggest that if the Legislaenrollment to outcomes. ture approves the reform bill, FACT: Of the 14 urban universities “ We ’ l l s et t a r g et s f o r PSU compares itself to, the best PSU could look very different. graduation rates,” says Senate six-year graduation rate for the class Jhaj’s analysis found three in 2003 was at University Education Committee Chair- entering primary factors determine of North Carolina-Charlotte (54 man Mark Hass (D -Beaver- percent). The worst was at the whether students succeed at ton). “And funding will be set University of Arkansas-Little Rock PSU: academic preparedness, (14 percent). according to those goals.” the level of “connectedness” Hass co-chaired a biparthey feel to the university, and tisan panel that wrote the bill and introduced it their “financial and physical well-being.” to an interim committee last week. The measure Although PSU nominally requires entering enjoys strong bipartisan support, although a students to have a grade point average of 3.0 or competing University of Oregon plan could higher, Jhaj found nearly one-third of students muddy the waters. enrolled in basic courses that most entering stuC u r r e n t l y, t h e L e g i s l a t u r e a l l o c a t e s dents take had not met that standard. money—$821 million in the 2009-11 biennium— Second, students often skipped fundamental to Oregon’s seven public universities based on a steps such as attending freshman orientation formula that largely depends on enrollment. As and displayed little awareness of counseling or part of an ambitious expansion in recent years, other support services that could help when they PSU has recruited foreign and out-of-state stu- encountered difficulties. dents and competed for those who might previThe new plan is to “front-load services,” Jhaj ously have headed to Eugene or Corvallis. says, so students know what resources are availBut even as PSU’s enrollment of 28,522 able when they are struggling to pay tuition or soared above that of Oregon and Oregon State, worried about other obstacles to graduation. the university’s graduation rate remained low. Hass, the Senate education committee chairFederal stats show only 33 percent of those man, applauds that approach. He says there’s students who entered PSU in 2003 graduated limited benefit to students or the state when both within six years. spend scarce dollars without having a diploma to The national rate was 57 percent. At the Uni- show for the effort. versity of Oregon, 70 percent graduated within “At some point it’s incumbent on these instisix years, and at Oregon State the number was tutions to take some responsibility for helping 60 percent. PSU’s six-year graduation rate also these kids succeed,” Hass says. “Setting some places it well below the 41 percent average of goals here should help change that.” 10
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DAN HOLLADAY A POLITICIAN WHO’S NOT A BRIDGE BUILDER. A happy holiday story this isn’t. In fact, this week’s Rogue, Dan Holladay, is trying to extend misguided anti-government political activity to new depths. So how is Holladay misspending his holidays? Trying to gin up support for a ballot initiative that would let Clackamas County voters reverse a $5 biennial auto-registration fee the county recently passed to raise money toward the county’s $22 million contribution to the $300 million cost of building a new Sellwood Bridge. Two data points provide some context: Safety inspectors rate the 85-year-old span a two out of a possible 100 points, and a Metro traffic study found 70 percent of all trips across the bridge either begin or end in Clackamas County. The latter finding provides a rationale for Clackamas County commissioners’ unanimous Dec. 9 vote to increase vehicleregistration fees by a little more than the price of a Happy Meal. Soon afterward, Holladay announced he would try to gather the 6,332 signatures needed by Feb. 17 to qualify for the May ballot. Holladay says the tax is simply backfilling money Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants to divert from the bridge project to Milwaukie light rail, and he objects to “cross-jurisdictional” payments. “We have political subdivisions in Oregon,” he adds. “Clackamas County doesn’t pay for Multnomah County’s jails.” Holladay, an Oregon City electrician, is no political neophyte. He won election in 2003 to the Oregon City School Board and to the city commission in 1998. He has also run unsuccessfully for mayor and the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. As Holladay should know from his service on the school board and city council, one of the fundamental principles of democracy is shared sacrifice. That’s why everybody pays for schools and prisons, even though relatively few families use either. Micromanaging $5 fee increases—especially those that would rebuild the only bridge between Oregon City and downtown Portland—is not what our forefathers envisioned when they created citizen access to the ballot. HOLLADAY
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M e e u a r n T i e n Th Christma g s of Holiday tales about a monk, drunks and a megastore flunky.
OK, so maybe it’s not such a wonderful life. You’re broke and don’t feel like holiday shopping, even for a refrigerator magnet. You hate the whole season as one more contrived reason to be happy. Or you’re depressed because you don’t have a secret Santa. Relax. We’ve got three holiday stories from Portlanders who have unique viewpoints on this supposedly merriest of seasons. One tale is about what the Christmas and New Year’s seasons look like when you’re working behind the counter of a liquor store. A second takes you through the holiday buying frenzy that is Target from the point of view of that most disposable of elves, the “seasonal temp worker.” And a third tale is a Upper West Side child modelturned-Zen monk/couch surfer’s take on the city’s “gift economy.” As Clarence told George Bailey in that black-and-white TNT classic, “Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw this away?”
Let the Holiday Spirits Move You “Baby, it’s cold outside…well, maybe just a half a drink more.” —Frank Loesser BY STACY B R OWN HILL sbrownhill@wweek.com
Remember that Christmas when you ran out of booze at 10 am and hustled to the liquor store rather than face your in-laws sober? Or that New Year’s Eve when you made three separate trips because your buddies’ livers morphed into sponges? The holiday season is a gold mine for liquor stores. Just ask Ruth Dentler, a garrulous, no-nonsense lady in her 40s who’s worked the register at Uptown Liquor on West Burnside Street and Northwest 23rd Avenue for the past 20 years. Better known as “Ruthie” to customers, she says Portlanders seek her advice 12
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
year-round on everything from pet health to stocks. But during the holidays, familydrama counseling takes center stage. “I wouldn’t say I’m a psychiatrist,” muses Dentler, “but I’m someone to vent to. I try to tell people as best as I can.” Last Thursday, nine days before Christmas, a weary customer griped to Dentler about procrastinating on his holiday shopping. “Don’t you stress,” she told him while ringing up his two fifths of whiskey. “It’ll be fine no matter what happens.” A Portland mother of two adult children, Dentler couldn’t imagine doing anything else, even when the rest of us might snap at hearing holiday tale after tale from strangers.
She got into the liquor business after burning out on bartending, a job in which “people weren’t as friendly by the end of the night.” Dentler has a lot of stories from her two decades of selling booze around the holidays. She recalls dealing with a sloppily dressed man in his 40s who made the mistake of sticking a bottle of cheap vodka down his pants one afternoon around Christmas. “I pulled it right out,” says Dentler. “He was shocked.” She chuckles remembering the time a group of Santa Clauses from local department stores came into Uptown to stock up on an assortment of mini-liquors before their pub crawl. Why? They told her they needed it after having demanding kids sit
LEAHNASH.COM
RUTH DENTLER: “Even people without a lot of money have money to buy liquor.”
on their laps all week. And she’s fond of an old lady in Nob Hill who buys dozens of miniature liquor bottles, one of each kind, as glittering ornaments for her Christmas tree each year. There are multitudes of the unemployed who seek Dentler’s sympathetic ear, a larger class this year as unemployment remains above 10 percent. “It’s not a good thing, but they get their release here,” says Dentler. “Even people without a lot of money have money to buy liquor.” Besides the free advice, people come to Dentler to witness her eclectic holiday costumes. For Christmas she wears blinking lights or a Santa Claus outfit. For New Year’s she dumps glitter in her hair and dons a
glamorous party shirt. (Dentler has been nearby restaurants and caterers. The reva basket of eggs, bunny rabbit and duck for enue from over-the-counter sales is double Easter, and a pregnant lady for Labor Day.) the usual—Baileys Irish Cream, Grand The woman clearly knows her hard Marnier and vodka fly off the shelves. stuff—small-but-mighty Uptown has been Uptown store owner Russ Kelley has the No. 1 selling liquor store in Oregon for developed a few theories over the years as more than 10 years, according to the Ore- to whether quantity or quality raises sales around the holidays. gon Liquor Control ComBoth play a role. Christmas mission. The store hauled FACT: Uptown Liquor will in nearly $8 million in gross finds folks shelling out for be open on Christmas Eve till 6 pm and New Year’s Eve alcohol revenue this past pricier liquor. “You have till 7 pm. Pets are welcome. family in town; you’re going fiscal year alone. And it’s when candy to buy the best and show canes, dreidels and relatives start to crowd off,” says Kelley. your sanity that this 2,500-square-foot New Year’s, on the other hand, is about Uptown Shopping Center outpost really excess. “People who usually buy Stoli will comes alive. The winter holidays increase the store’s overall sales between 70 percent downgrade to Smirnoff because they’re just and 80 percent, including bigger sales to drinking with buddies,” he says, “and not
necessarily trying to impress the family.” Liqueurs such as Baileys, Frangelico and peppermint schnapps are big sellers this time of year and find their way into people’s hot cocoa or coffee, says Kelley. Flavored vodkas are popular and new kinds come out each year, including chocolate, pomegranate, blueberry, whipped cream and plum. Any concern about contributing to holiday alcoholism does not keep Dentler or Kelley up at night. “Potato chips, Coke, candy…it’s all not good for you,” says Dentler. “At least we’re controlling who buys [liquor]. People have the choice to buy it; we’re not holding a gun to their heads. After you walk out the door it’s your responsibility what you do.” The True Meaning of Christmas cont. on page 14 Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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cont. LEAHNASH.COM
CHRISTMAS
A Very Target Holiday My life as a megastore flunky dealing with “zombies.” BY JE SS I C A LU TJ E M EYER jlutjemeyer@wweek.com
As an unpaid intern at WW, I had to find a paying job so I could keep the journalism dream alive. And, fortunately for me, Target goes on a year-end holiday hiring spree to handle the hordes of shoppers who descend on the store like zombies in search of flesh. After three days of training in the Mall 205 store two weeks before Black Friday, I now wear one of the megastore’s shirts in the signature red, five days a week, as a temporary seasonal cashier at $8.50 an hour. I’m often the last employee people deal with before they wheel their red carts full of oversized red-and-white bags out through the double doors, under the giant red bull’s-eye logo. I’ve learned during this holiday rush that most customers—er, I mean “guests”— can be sorted into six groups. The bespectacled hipsters who rarely make eye contact and whisper hello and goodbye as they’re scurrying away, bag in hand of DIY gingerbread-house kits and mini-bags of coffee from the dollar bin. The mysteriously tan-in-winter, stroller14
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
pushing moms with their Louis Vuitton wallets, Gucci purses and too-big diamond rings there to buy baby clothes, diapers, milk and multicolored Christmas lights and beaded garlands. The strung-out meth heads with toothless grins, oblivious to the holidays while they split their bill for a cell phone with prepaid minutes between debit card and cash. The geriatric patrons who demand a large plastic bag for each embroidered Christmas sweater they’re buying, afraid they’ll be accused of stealing by not having a bag. The brazen bunch who try to pay almost entirely in coupons and are determined to get a bargain a few days before Christmas, regardless of whether the DVD of classic holiday movies is on sale or damaged. The patchouli-scented hippies who I’m sure swear on their dreadlocks their contemporary-craft Christmas ornaments are locally handmade and vegan, and certainly not from Target. Most guests are friendly enough despite the holiday frenzy. But one incident surely harshed my mellow in the run-up to peace on earth and goodwill toward men. I was working alone at a check lane near
IT’S A WRAP: Tales from one Target cash register.
the store’s mall entrance two days after Thanksgiving. A disheveled homeless man in his early 30s, with knotted hair, a saltand-pepper beard, torn clothing and an overpowering urine smell, came through the line. The guests behind him pretended not to notice the odor. I didn’t breathe the whole time he stood in front of me. He asked me if the juice he wanted was still $1.69. I nodded as I dizzily waited for him to count his change in pennies, nickels and dimes. I hesitantly stuck out my hand as he dropped one coin at a time into my cupped palm. As I counted his pennies, I noticed he was fumbling with his heavily stained and ill-fitting black trousers. I looked up and saw him touching himself beneath his sagging, unzipped pants. With a growing line of guests, I prayed he wouldn’t do what I thought he was going to do. I quickly counted the rest of the change, shoved the juice into his hand and, relieved, watched him as he shuffled away in his no-longer-white sneakers. I felt like an insensitive creep for exuding so little compassion, but this definitely wasn’t your happy holiday scene. In fact, it now ranks with a family Christmas dinner when I was 11 and my grandfather’s dentures clacked and his hearing aids rang the whole time, unbeknownst to him.
Truth be told, though, working in a big-box store hasn’t been as dispiriting or brainlessly commercial as I imagined. In the weeks before Christmas, I’ve rung up a basketball, a soccer ball and two Barbies for a twentysomething couple who intended to donate the goods to a toy drive. And I’ve rung up $360 worth of toys, clothing, toiletries, food and decorations for a couple in their 30s who wanted to donate all that to needy children. While I’ve encountered other generous guests, perhaps the most memorable act of benevolence occurred when two women in their early 70s entered my check line about 10:45 pm on Dec. 14. It was an hour and 15 minutes before closing, and they had four shopping carts filled with microwave ovens, blenders, coffee makers, portable grills and other kitchen appliances. My manager had just finished explaining to me that Target policy doesn’t let guests buy more than two or three of certain items, as Target isn’t a wholesale store. So I called my manager over to get his OK for the $500 purchase. He asked why they wanted to buy so many of the kitchenwares, and they explained they planned to donate them to veterans in the Portland area. They seemed pretty nice for zombies. The True Meaning of Christmas cont. on page 16
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Presents of Mind Satya Vayu knows the reason for the season. It’s not under the tree. BY C H R I ST I N A CO O KE
ccooke@wweek.com
Satya Vayu and I are sitting across from each other on floor pillows in the sparse living room of the house where he’s staying in Southeast Portland. His legs are crossed and his feet are bare, the bottoms calloused and dirty from walking around shoeless outside. He’s telling me how he’s gotten by without working for an income or spending a substantial amount of money for almost two decades. He calls his way of life voluntary simplicity. “We already have what we need and it’s time to enjoy it, instead of trying to get more and make more,” he says. “The more you do it, the more you realize there’s joy just in attentiveness in and appreciation of each detail of life.” The 41-year-old ordained Zen monk thrives on practically nothing. He lives where he is invited, crashing in the spare bedrooms, basements and backyards of acquaintances. He finds all of his clothes, including the billowy wool pants and chunky wool sweater he’s wearing now, in curbside free boxes. He collects food from the dumpsters and the throwaway piles of bakeries, grocers and farmers markets. And he walks or bikes everywhere he goes, even if it’s in Wyoming. On top of all that, Vayu spends hours a day in meditation, often outside, even in the rain. During this holiday season, as most of us elbow our way through shopping malls, the simplicity of Vayu’s life stands out in especially stark contrast. “The beauty of the holidays has to do with community and sharing, and commercialization and buying things is completely opposed to that,” says Vayu, an Oberlin graduate with striking blue eyes and a closecut beard. “Sharing comes from giving away your time and attention and energy, not material objects.” Vayu, born Matthew Seltzer, was raised in a 15th-floor apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. At the age of 5, his mother secured him the highest-paying job of his life, as a child model. He appeared in a Macy’s ad in The New York Times and on the packaging of a toy football player that punted when you hit its head. “It was $50 an hour,” he says. “It’s kind of funny, because now I think advertising is one of the darkest, most harmful forces in world culture.” 16
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
in 1995 and changed his name to Satya Vayu, Sanskrit for “Truth Wind.” After returning to the States for good in 2000, Vayu lived a transient life for a few years. He settled full time in Portland in 2002 and has since devoted himself to running a meditation community and collecting throwaway (but still good) food for Food Not Bombs community-building gatherings in Colonel Summers Park. “I think some people see him as too arrogant or strong or stuck in his ways, and maybe they feel intimidated because he has a very strong personality,” says Sara Monial, 28, who stopped using money and has lived alongside Vayu since meeting him at a full-moon gathering three years
sleeping bag and stack of wool sweaters, and, in boxes on a shelf, the remains of his monastic robes, Buddhist books, a rocket stove and some pots. Not much, compared with what’s in most people’s houses. Though his parents were atheists of Many people would label him a “freeJewish descent who only halfheartedly celloader,” but Vayu challenges that word. ebrated the holidays, he remembers wakHe explains that in a “gift economy” of ing up extra early on Christmas morning to the Buddhist tradition, people give what open presents. He also remembers thinkthey’re able—in his case, his character, ing, when his parents gave him underwear practice and contemplative teachings—and and socks, “It’s a scam!” naturally receive what they need without In college, Vayu studied creative writhaving to concern themselves with who is ing, but he was more interested in drumgetting how much of what. ming in an improv band with no actual “To me, that’s completely ridiculous, songs except for Talking Heads or Rolling this idea of pulling yourself up by your Stones covers. He was outgoing, but not bootstraps to be responsible, following the trend of what’s expected by society,” he said. “That’s not interesting to me.” Sometimes, Vayu says, his housemates grow resentful of him for getting for free what they’re paying for. “I’m very clear, I would love anyone who feels that way to join me in my privilege,” he says. “I tell them, ‘Stop paying rent. You won’t be able to stay here, but both of us will go somewhere else.’ People don’t want to.” If they argue that it would not be sustainable for everyone to live like he does, for free, he counters, “If we all decided to stop working for money, all these houses would belong to all of us. The whole culture would change.” He says there are times when he wants things, sure—like now, a tambura (a long-necked lute)—but he’s not willing to compromise his principles to purchase them. “I don’t think I’ve ever missed anything I’ve given up,” he says, explaining that because his process has been so gradual, he’s felt ready for each renunciation. “With each step of simplification of my life, there’s an incredible sense of release.” Simon Walter-Hansen, a 32-year-old former software developer who is also in the process of simplifying his lifeSTREET MONK: Satya Vayu (right) serves food he’s collected and prepared at a Food Not Bombs gathering at Colonel Summers Park. style said Vayu recently lived in his basement for four months around women and not in front of large ago. “He knows how he feels about things, and, while there, led daily meditations and audiences (as a DJ for the school radio and he says it, and he’s uncompromising.” introduced ideas such as the Humanure station, he often played half-hour Tibetan For a brief period last year, Vayu, compostable toilet. (Some of the housechants to avoid having to talk on air). Monial and others began setting up a mates resisted the idea, although WalterOnce he discovered meditation, it became meditation community called “Flourish- Hansen eventually embraced it.) an all-consuming passion that led him to the ing Clouds Hermitage” in a half-torn-down “He’s probably the most outspoken Berkeley Zen Center after house with no heat on person I know on the idea of alternative graduation and then on a FACT: Though Vayu still follows the Southeast 50th Avenue lifestyles,” Walter-Hansen said. “I think of near-decade-long journey spirit of Buddhism, he is reluctant near Woodstock, but that him as being someone who has an awareto identify with the institution between Zen centers in because he dislikes the divisiveness fizzled after a neighbor ness of the connections in the world and in the U.S. and monaster- of formal religious groups. reported them to the city the universe, and is living in that presence. ies in Japan and Korea. for not having electricity. I see him as a beacon of information.” His contemplative practice, and seeing the These days, he leads Sunday meditation This holiday season, Vayu will continue happiness of the “poor” cultures at the end sessions from wherever he’s living. living as he does each day, modestly and of a 30-day walking pilgrimage across the Vayu leads me downstairs to check out deliberately. He plans to spend time with Himalayas, inspired him to begin the process the space that’s his in his current house. friends and run a five-day silent meditaof “joyfully renouncing” his material posses- Turns out, it’s a foam mat on the concrete tion retreat in honor of the winter solstice. sions and actions he views as damaging to floor of the single-car garage. Surrounding Oh, and one more thing: “I would like to the earth. He was ordained a Buddhist monk it are all of his possessions: a camping mat, go caroling,” he says. LEAHNASH.COM
CHRISTMAS
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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CULTURE: New Year’s Eve doesn’t have to suck. 25 DISH: The king of tuna tartare; the supreme leader of bulgogi. 20 ONLINE: Only one week left to support local nonprofits through WW’s Give!Guide (wweek.com/giveguide).
SCOOP GOSSIP WITH A BIRD ON IT. WE HAVE OUR INVALID: Portland Center Stage has announced that David Margulies, the very talented character actor who stole the show in last season’s The Chosen (and played the mayor in Ghostbusters), will play the hypochondriac Argan in its January production of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. The show opens Jan. 14. THIS PORTLAND LIFE: Oregon Public Broadcasting is gettin’ cultural this holiday season with the debut of its hourlong radio show The Speakeasy, which sounds a little like a This American Life devoted to Portland music, food, sports, art and “urban exploring.” “We [wanted] to create a show devoted to all the reasons why people live in this corner of the world in the first place,” says Speakeasy producer and journalist Aaron Scott, who created the show with OPB host David Miller. If the pilot, which includes footage of sound artist Ethan Rose animating City Hall, a cyclocross “sonic postcard,” a careening interview with actor Wade McCollum and even a “Secret Portland” love letter to Korean grocer H-Mart from WW’s Kelly Clarke, is well-received, the plan is to continue the show as a weekly OPB offering or “semi-regular special.” The pilot debuted last Saturday and will be rebroadcast at 8 pm this Wednesday night. Visit blogs.opb.org/thespeakeasy to stream or download the full episode.
Join us
for the annual
New Year’s Eve Celebration on Four-Course Dinner Endless Champagne Live Music & Dancing into the New Year Call or email your reservation today. Seatings: 6 pm ($75) & 9 pm ($100)
626 SW Park at Alder • 503-236-3036 • BrasseriePortland.com 18
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
SAIGON SANDO: Not ones to pass up on the glories of synergy, 82nd Avenue banh-mi drive-thru Best Baguette now offers its own take on the Korean taco trend kicked off by Koi Fusion—a Vietnamese taco, filled with the same pickled vegetables, cilantro and marinated meat as the shop’s excellent sandwiches. FRESH BEANS: Soon downtowners can get a cup of Fresh Pot’s French-pressed or Chemex-brewed Stumptown when the barista-beloved Portland cafe, which already has outposts on North Mississippi and Southeast Hawthorne, takes over the lease for Mike Miller’s Coffee Plant (724 SW Washington St.) in early January. Miller’s other cafe, the Corbett Avenue Coffee Plant, will continue satisfying locals’ caffeine jones and gluten-free baked-good needs for the foreseeable future. R.I.P.: WW mourns the passing of Athanasios “Saki” Katsavopoulos, who died unexpectedly at 63 of a massive heart attack on Sunday, Dec. 19. The native of Patras, Greece, owned and ran the former Southwest Stark Street institution and male-stripper palace Three Sisters Tavern along with his wife, Sandra, and his sons Leftheri and Ianni. A former Greek merchant seaman, Saki moved to Portland in 1974. A funeral service is scheduled for 11 am Thursday, Dec. 23, at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Memorial gifts to the Wounded Warrior Project are suggested.
HEADOUT
MUSIC: Best of the year. STAGE: Plays your in-laws might enjoy. GALLERIES: Ted Kaczynski, the painting. BOOKS: Three pounds, nine ounces of film. SCREEN: Jeff Bridges is aimin’ to kill you.
31 40 42 43 44 WILLAMETTE WEEK
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
WEDNESDAY DEC. 22 [SCREEN] SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT It’s Dan Halsted’s Christmas tradition: 1983 coeds show us their chestnuts, as it were, then are stabbed by a psychopath. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. 9:30 pm. $7.
THURSDAY DEC. 23 [MUSIC] TONY OZIER & THE DOO DOO FUNK ALL-STARS In all likelihood your office is closed Friday, which means you can celebrate the holidays Thursday by getting wasted and dancing to Portland’s best funk band. Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.
FRIDAY DEC. 24
FOUR LOCAL HOLIDAY ALBUMS
(AND ONE FREE PARTY) BY CASEY JARMA N
WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION.
[HOLIDAY] PEACOCK LANE No PDX holiday is complete without the saccharine spectacle of thousands of blazing, multicolored lights on one Southeast Portland street. Peacock Lane between Southeast Stark and Belmont streets, one block east of Southeast 39th Avenue. 6-11 pm nightly, 6 pm-midnight Dec. 24 and 31. Free. [DISH] NED LUDD DICKENSINSPIRED CHRISTMAS EVE FEAST Ned Ludd will pay tribute to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with a five-course tasting menu based on its wood-fired stove. God bless us, every glutton. Ned Ludd, 3925 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 2886900. Seatings at 6 and 8:30 pm. $45 for five-course dinner. An additional $20 for wine pairings. Call for reservations (required).
cjarman@ wweek.co m
SUNDAY DEC. 26 Another Gray Christmas 4 ($5 donation to P:ear at anothergraychristmas. bandcamp.com) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Holiday music sucks. And yet, for the fourth consecutive year, I’ve helped create Willamette Week’s compilation of local holiday music and found the process immensely rewarding. Because when you ask awesome Portland musicians for “holiday” music, they define it in a myriad of ways. This year is no exception: The fireside guitar strums of Gabe Hascall’s “Instead of Cold” are a far cry from the synth honks of Key Losers’ “Good King Wenceslas”; Jason Simms’ educational story-song, “Luminarias,” is in a different musical universe from Neal Morgan’s abstract and loose “Will It Snow?” And yet they all sound like the season. I love watching all these visions snowballing into one strange concoction.
Duover, Christmas Volume 1 ($5 at duover.bandcamp.com) Duover, a recently formed Portland duo featuring main squeezes Nathan Junior (M. Ward, Highway) and singer/ multi-instrumentalist Rebecca Rasmussen, is no joke—even if the idea of a brand-new band releasing a 12-song album of original Christmas songs (and ambitiously labeling it Volume 1) seems like a stretch. But Duover’s Christmas Volume I uses the holidays as a thematic and stylistic launching point, then crafts some really striking tunes (and a couple ridiculous ones for good measure) that would fly just fine without the “Christmas” tag attached.
Pink Martini, Joy to the World ($15 at pinkmartini.com or $9.99 on iTunes)
A PDXmas, Volume 2 (free at apdxmas.com)
Most Portlanders probably know, instinctively, whether this is their thing or not. The local avant-pop institution offers classy Christmas standards and all-inclusive holiday fare (“Elohai, N’Tzor” is an operatic album standout) that sounds as if it were pulled from the four corners of the globe. The frenetic Afro-pop/Hawaiian version of New Year’s Eve staple “Auld Lang Syne” is kind of how I imagine the end of the world sounding, but it also single-handedly gives the disc enough staying power to actually be given as a Christmas gift.
I never considered the Zombies’ “This Will Be Our Year” to be a holiday tune, but it is one of the great pop songs ever written, and Oh Captain My Captain does a nice rendition. That’s one of 23 songs on this jam-packed digital compilation (other standouts include Typhoon’s characteristically amazing “Merry Xmas Anyways” and the made-for-Hosannas “We Three Kings”), highlighted by both straightforward standards and irreverent originals like Aan’s “Christmas Brats” and Ghosties’ “I Will Be Hating You for Christmas.” Lovely. And free. SEE IT: The split-release party for A PDXmas 2 and Another Gray Christmas 4 is Wednesday, Dec. 22, at Mississippi Studios, with Duover, Bret Vogel and Sam Cooper. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
[MUSIC] APES TAPES LABEL SHOWCASE Hopefully, Santa will bring you a tape player this year (how retro!), because some of the most exciting music coming out of Portland is being released via cassette by the dudes at Apes Tapes. Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536. 9 pm. Free. 21+. [SCREEN] TRUE GRIT In this Coen Brothers oater, Jeff Bridges is more than the Dude on a horse. But even if he were just the Dude on a horse, you’d really want to see it, wouldn’t you? St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, 8704 N Lombard St., 286-1768, and other locations. Multiple showtimes. $4-$6.
TUESDAY DEC. 28 [STAGE] HAIR The Public Theatre’s Tony-winning revival of the 1967 free-love musical comes to town via Broadway Across America. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-0802, broadwayacrossamerica.com/portland/index.html. 7:30 pm. $23.50-$85.55.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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DISH REVIEW JAROD OPPERMAN
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. PRICES: $: Most entrees under $10. $$: $10-$20. $$$: $20-$30. $$$$: Above $30. Editor: KELLY CLARKE. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22 Castagna Basque Cider House Holiday Dinner
Let’s face it, Basque Cider House rules. And that’s why you should eat Castagna’s Basque Cider House Holiday Dinner, a Spanish-themed meal served with cider or wine. On the menu: Spanish beans with housecured chorizo, omelette with housemade salt cod, mixed salad and rib eye with potatoes. Executive chef Matt Lightner, chosen as one of the 2010 Best New Chefs by Food & Wine magazine, studied in Spain as a member of the ICEX culinary program and spent a year and a half on the culinary team in San Sebastián, so he knows how to be Basque. CHRISTINA COOKE. Castagna, 1758 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 231-9959. Dinner served family-style, with one seating at 7 pm WednesdayThursday, Dec. 22-23. $65 per person. Reservations available at 231-7373.
Butter Up the Holidays Recipe Contest
It’s OK to admit the number of butter sticks you load into your holiday recipes. In fact, when it comes to the Northwest Dairy Farmers’ 3rd-Annual Butter Up the Holidays Recipe Contest, the more the better. The contest is seeking entries through Dec. 31—appetizers, entrees or desserts whose key ingredient is butter. Last year’s winners included a Greek lasagna with butter melted between each layer and an eggnog pound cake. Submit recipes online at butteruptheholidays.com by Dec. 31. Enter as often as you wish, but never the same recipe. Winners will be announced before Jan. 28. Three winners will each receive a $150 Fred Meyer gift card. CC.
FRIDAY, DEC. 24 Gilt Club Spirits of Christmas Eve Dinner
Get a visit from the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future at the Gilt Club’s Christmas Eve dinner. Executive chef Chris Carriker will prepare a three-course meal—one course antiquated, one current, one futuristic—in honor of each ghost. Menu items will include prawn cocktails, Waldorf salad, rabbit with housemade pancetta and salted-caramel ice cream with chocolate-peanut butter “dirt.” The meal promises to make even the biggest Scrooges repent for their bah-humbuggery. CC. Gilt Club, 306 Northwest Broadway, 222-4458 Dinner hours, by reservation only. $35 per person. The six-course meal option costs $60. Call 222-4458 for reservations. View a full menu at giltclub.com.
Christmas Eve at Lincoln
Open on Christmas Eve this year, Lincoln Restaurant will offer a special holiday menu, but also its standard fare, like the hanger steak with blue-cheese butter and onion rings you’ve come to love, and also that roasted chicken with shoestring potatoes. CC. Lincoln, 3808 N Williams Ave., 288-6200. Opens at 5:30 pm for dinner. Regular menu prices. Call for reservations.
Ned Ludd Dickens-Inspired Christmas Eve Feast
Ned Ludd will pay tribute to Charles Dickens’ five-section A Christmas Carol with a five-course tasting menu based on its wood-fired stove. Among the items available: smoked salmon, roast beef and Christmas pudding. God bless us, every glutton. CC. Ned Ludd, 3925 NE Martin Luther King Junior Blvd., 288-6900. Seatings at 6 and 8:30 pm. $45 for five-course dinner. An additional $20 for wine pairings. Call for reservations (required).
Urban Farmer Christmas Eve and Day Dinners Chef Matt Christianson offers Christmas Eve and Christmas Day feasts with an à la carte menu, plus
20
special items like pineapple and maple roasted Oregon pork loin. Or, go for brunch on the day of, where you’ll get to choose between eggs Benedict with hazelnut-finished country ham, fried chicken and waffles, and Bloody Mary bar. CC. Urban Farmer, 525 SW Morrison St., 222-4900. Dinner 4-9 pm. Brunch 6:30 am-2 pm. Regular menu prices. Call for reservations.
SATURDAY, DEC. 25 Christmas Day at the Heathman
Enjoy Christmas morning without worrying about what’s for dinner. Head to the Heathman for the annual Christmas buffet. Open from 2 to 5:30 pm on the second-floor mezzanine, the buffet offers curried butternut squash soup, roasted pear and spinach with goat cheese salad, roasted suckling pig with bourbon-glazed winter squash, baked ravioli pasta with wild mushroom ragout, apple pie and much, much more. Or, if you don’t want to work for it, choose from the prix fixe menu, served in the dining room starting at 2 pm. CC. Heathman, 1001 SW Broadway, 241-4100. Buffet 2-5:30 pm. Prix fixe dinner menu starts at 2 pm. Both the grand buffet and prix fixe dinner are $52 per adult and $18 per child under 12. Call 790-7752 for reservations.
RECENTLY REVIEWED Pizza Contandino
At this little yellow trailer on the east edge of a fledgling St. Johns cart pod the marriage of pie and cart feels so, so right. Maybe that’s because Contadino’s methodology is so scattershot. There are staple slices like cheese and thick-cut pepperoni, sure, but the rotating “fancy” options are where Contadino’s magic happens. On one visit, the “fancy meat” option (cooked on site in about 10 minutes) included housemade sausage rich with fennel, thick-cut mushrooms and stringy kale that tasted fresh and untreated—nothing here is oversalted or overcooked. But it takes more than fresh veggies to make a killer slice, and Contadino’s crust, made from a sourdough starter dating back to the 1890s, isn’t the cracker-thin variation found in many woodfire eateries— it’s the perfect balance of chewy and crispy, doused with a bright, pepperspeckled sauce that’s both sweet like New York and chunky like Portland. CASEY JARMAN. Located at the corner of North Richmond at North Lombard Street, 935-4375, pizzacontadino.blogspot.com. Lunch and dinner TuesdaySunday. $ Inexpensive.
Angel Food and Fun
This place would be yet another hitor-miss neighborhood convenience if it didn’t do one thing so soul-stirringly well that I hesitate to publicize it for fear there will not be any left for me when I return. That thing is called cochinita pibil, and I want to marry it. Angel’s take on the Yucatan’s most famous dish finds citrusy, sunburn-red broth swimming with slow-cooked cuts of tender pork that fall apart at the touch of a spoon; by the time half of the bowl is empty, you will be tucking into a gloriously unified mass of steaming flesh and grease that would not look out of place burbling up from the earth as a lava-slow current of perfect sustenance. You will not be disappointed—unless you hate life. CHRIS STAMM. 5135 NE 60th Ave., 287-7909. Lunch and dinner daily. $ Inexpensive.
Chai Chuski
Rushing through downtown to avoid the rapidly plummeting temperature and the onset of seasonal affective disorder, I almost missed this tiny, unassuming new cart. But huddled under a rickety old cafe umbrella, I met a young woman brewing up delicious, comforting teas gathered from her
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
THE CHICAGO WAY: Kin chef/owner Kevin Shikami in the kitchen with tuna.
BIG TUNA
Still, Shikami does seem to have a consistent yen for ostrich, which tastes a bit like a lean, sweet beef; a recent balsamic seared-ostrich salad with apples, sweet onion and pistachio ($10) was a successful mixture of flavors: tart, sweet, bitter and savory. His pinpoint-balanced preparation of black cod with miso glaze (mated with a slightly less exciting soy-yuzu salmon, $23) is also likely to be one of my BY MATTHEW KOR FHAGE dish@wweek.com dining highlights of the past months, as will a scallop and turnip pairing ($12) felicitous enough that It is probably a testament to the extreme satura- I barely noticed it was accented with bacon. (And tion of Portland’s food scene (or, even more likely, believe me, I always notice the bacon.) to its happily provincial insularity) that a one-time This is not to say that everything on the menu Food & Wine magazine top new chef—indeed, succeeds equally, nor that the menu always keeps one of the pioneers of French-Asian cuisine in pace with the lighter, more esoteric fashions of this country—could open a restaurant this past the current fooderati. Occasionally the continensummer to barely a peep in the food press. Still, tal ingredients serve only to domesticate or even Kevin Shikami (formerly of Jimmy’s Place, Kevin weigh down the more exotic notions—as in Kin’s and Shikago in my own forbland happy-hour cornmer Windy City stomping Order this: Tartare of tuna ($12), every time. and-coconut wontons ($4). grounds) appears to have had Best deal: Try the Malaysian-style chicken Sometimes his ambitiously a soft open, judging from the wings ($6), if they’re around. diversified plating fails to gel pass: I’ll mostly pass on the check, if I sparse crowds on my visits I’ll into any dominant flavor, as can—a meal for two will total about a C-note to his new, casual-chic Pearl if you’re doing it right and slipping around the in a recent under-citrused various small plates before sharing an entree. District restaurant, Kin. hamachi ceviche ($12) feaTake this perhaps-brief turing wasabi tobiko (flying obscurity as a chance, especially, to try Shikami’s fish roe), mango, ginger and cucumbers. I was also longtime signature dish, now newly transported unconvinced that gelatinous pork belly paired to Portland. Kin’s wasabi-spiked tartare of tuna well with the doughy softness of Chinese-style ($12), is a near-grotesquely sensuous pleasure, steamed buns ($9), even with the added crackle of one I felt like I shouldn’t be having in public: ten- Napa cabbage. Go for the straight-up, oh-so-soft der and rich and gently spiced to tease the tongue. pork-belly sushi ($8) instead: trust me. The dish’s wonton pagoda architecture, though The highs of Kin far outweigh the lows, howpretty for plating, was also pretty much irrelevant: ever, and even the missteps are interesting on the I went straight for the meat, and for sex metaphors palate, a side effect of a chef unafraid to reinvent usually reserved for chocolate. each dish over and over—except, of course, for The rest of the menu follows Portland’s tradi- that tuna tartare, which we are assured will always tion of rotating, locally based, seasonal foods; the remain available. menu changes, of course, nearly daily, and oscillates widely between French and pan-Asian influences. EAT: Kin, 524 NW 14th Ave., 228-4546, kinpdx.com.
FRENCH-ASIAN CHEF KEVIN SHIKAMI MAKES FRIENDS WITH PDX AT KIN.
Dinner 5:30-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday. $$$ Expensive.
travels throughout Asia—spicy, fragrant Indian chai, salty Tibetan butter tea, aromatic, umami-rich Japanese matcha green tea and the creamy, complex tea-coffee blend of Hong Kong-style yuanyang. It’s not all completely authentic—cocoa powder is a surprisingly delicious optional addition, and the Tibetan tea (thankfully) isn’t made from yak butter—but the cooking method is charmingly old school, with each individual cup made to order in well-weathered saucepans on a little two-burner stove. Yes, you will have to wait, and it’s cold and damp, and there’s no Wi-Fi, but watching your
brew bubble away as the warm scent of exotic spices tempers the crisp air, winter doesn’t seem so bad after all. RUTH BROWN. Southwest 5th Avenue and Morrison Street. Lunch MondayFriday. $ Inexpensive. Cash only.
Fin
Helmed by chef Trent Pierce and opened over the summer in the space formerly occupied by Sel Gris, Fin determined to boldly elevate Portland’s seafood dining experience beyond boilerplate slabs of grilled salmon. Aside from a few missteps, it succeeds. The ever-changing menu features both raw
and hot sections; glistening hunks of ono were bathed in lime juice just long enough for the surface proteins to denature without turning rubbery, while heat from Thai chiles played nicely off herbs and ginger. The hot dishes are all about luxury. Witness Fin’s treatment of some larger portions of fish, like a lovely hunk of marlin belly, cooked perfectly medium, clad in lardo and perfumed with truffle ponzu and chanterelles. Fin can still produce clunkers. Hand-cut squid-ink tagliatelle looked exotic enough, the blue-black noodles
CONT. on page 22
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PDXMAS
Split release party for Willamette Week’s Another Gray Christmas compilation and Paul Laxer’s second annual PDXMas.
Tonight Lisa Nik necklace $875
Duover, Bret Vogel (of Incredible Yacht Control and Crosstide) and Sam Cooper, plus Holiday Surprises
Mississippi Studios • Wednesday, Dec. 22 Doors at 8:30. Show at 9 pm. Free. 21+. Get the WW compilation for $5 (or listen for free) at anothergraychristmas.bandcamp.com. • All proceeds benefit p:ear. Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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DISH blanketed in a seafood Bolognese. But one bite had a dining companion looking for some crushed potato chips, as the shockingly familiar tuna noodle casserole qualities of the dish became apparent. BRIAN PANGANIBAN. 1852 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 517-7770, finpdx.com. Dinner Tuesday-Saturday. $$ Moderate.
4-4-2
“What can I get nice people today?” This is Muhamed MujcicMufko, owner of 4-4-2, a new Bosnian soccer bar that he’s opened up in his old Taste of Europe market space on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. In his charismatic, heavily accented idiom, everyone is “nice,” the food is the “best in town,” and each couple consists of a “young lady” and a “lucky guy.” The bar’s stock clien-
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with purchase of drink per person. From regular dinner menu only. Discount on food item only. Dine-in only. Cannot combine with other offer. Some restrictions may apply. This promotion is subject to change without notice.
Le Hana South Waterfront
3500 SW River Parkway,Portland OR 97329 (Near OHSU Tram Station. Meriwether Condo) Lunch 11:30 - 2:00, Dinner 4:30 - 9:00 503 - 467 - 7533 www.lehana.com
More Tacos. Our drinks are pretty awesome too.
C RU Z RO OM NE 24th & Alberta • cruzroom.com Since 1974
Never a cover!
GAP
WED 12/22
“BUFFALO BAND STAND” (BAND COMPETITION) 9PM
THURS 12/23
ACOUSTIC ATTIC SPONSORED BY KINK.FM:
DEANNA WALTON BIRTHDAY SHOW (ACOUSTIC POP) 9PM
FRI 12/24 CHRISTMAS EVE
BUFFALO
OPEN 7AM – LATE NO MUSIC SAT 12/25 CHRISTMAS DAY
OPEN 6PM – LATE NO MUSIC SUN 12/26
BREAKFAST SERVED UNTIL 1PM! TUES 12/28 OPEN MIC CONTEST
SIGN UP @ 8:30 WIN $50 MUSIC @ 9PM
HOSTED BY: SCOTT GALLEGOS
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
RACHELLE HACMAC
Less Talk.
Dinner
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tele is mostly drawn from the ranks of the American Soccer Fan, but some come in simply for the bar food. Bosnian lepinja bread, made in-house, is a singular version of the Mediterranean pita. The šiš (rich, spicy sausage patties, pronounced “sheesh”) and cevapi (beef-lamb patties akin to minihamburgers) are served in an array of options; each comes with lepinja bread, sweet-bitter yogurt sauce and ajvar, a spicy pepper-eggplant relish. My favorite, however, is the peka sandwich, which sports wafersliced meat so smoked and cured as to be beef’s own thundering answer to bacon. Dear Lord. MATT KORFHAGE. 1739 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 238-3693, 442soccerbar. com. Lunch and dinner MondayFriday, breakfast, lunch and dinner Saturday-Sunday. $ Inexpensive.
SUPREME LEADER OF THE CARTS: Kim Jong Grillin’ owner/chef Han Ly Hwang with his Bibim Box.
KIM JONG GRILLIN’ The boss of North Korea can now claim a hipster signifier even more hilarious than his enormous spectacles: There’s a food cart named after him. But if Kim Jong Grillin’s owners ever seize Portland, it’ll be a benevolent dictatorship. People will be lining up for their orders; they already are. The cart does basic Korean comfort food, with occasional specials. Traditional barbecued marinated meats (beef, short ribs, pork or chicken) come with seasonally appropriate sides wrapped in butter-lettuce leaves ($8, or $10 for a three-meat combo). The classic banh mi sandwich ($5.50) is renamed the Han Mi, after co-owner Han Best bite: Bibim Box with beef ($8) Ly Hwang (who has cooked Cheapest bite: Lettuce wrap—choice in fancy kitchens all over of meat wrapped in lettuce with rice town, including Couture and and a side ($3) Carlyle). For novelty, get the Taepodong hot dog ($5.50), named after North Korea’s ballistic missile; it’s a grilled Sabrett jammed into a chewy baguette with kimchi mayo, sprouts, jicama-daikon kimchi and pickled mango. Sounds weird, maybe, but those flavors and textures together? Kablammo. Still, the thing to order is the Bibim Box ($8): strips of insanely tender, savory barbecued meat, a fried egg, kimchi, rice, stir-fried potato noodles ( japchae), sprouts and lettuce. Most Saturdays, the cart teams up with Leroy’s BBQ to offer smoked duck. Call ahead to avoid waiting. BECKY OHLSEN. EAT: 4725 SE Division St., 926-2868. Noon-7 pm Tuesday-Friday, 1-8 pm Saturday. $.
CMYK
May your New Year be ďŹ lled with peace, love and great local recommendations. Local recommendations powered by you and your friends.
Start rating at google.com/hotpot
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
CULTURE
NEW YEAR’S EVE
PARTY PLANNER
East End: New Year’s Evil with Sick Jaggers, Gatekeeper, Soft Metals
CR US H
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5736 NE 33rd Ave., 249-3983, mcmenamins.com. 8 pm. $35. 21+.
JIMMY
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The Knife Shop: Federale
426 SW Washington St., 228-3669, kellysolympian.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
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203 SE Grand Ave., eastendpdx.com. 10 pm. $5. 21+.
Kennedy School: The Breakfast Club, Freak Mountain Ramblers
N
1800 E Burnside St., 236-2876, theeastburn.com. 10 pm. Free. 21+.
221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542, jimmymaks.com. 7:30 pm. $20-$25. 21+.
R
East Burn: The Crash Engine
R
Jimmy Mak’s: Linda Hornbuckle
O
Bossanova Ballroom: MCTuff and Devin Phillips, Materialized
1635 SE 7th Ave., 234-2337, duffsgarage.com. 9:30 pm. $20. 21+.
FI
2342 SE Ankeny St., 236-4998, jadeloungepdx.com. 6 and 9 pm. $55 and $40. 21+.
H
3341 SE Belmont St., 595-0575, thebluemonk.com. 8 pm. $10.
Duff’s Garage: DK Stewart Band & The Soul Survivor Horns, Steve Kerin
G
Jade Lounge: Eric Stern and Ashia Grzesik
DA
Blue Monk: Brothers of the Baladi
830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com. 9 pm. $15 advance, $17 day of show. 21+.
U DO
LIN
6000 NE Glisan St., 233-1178, biddymcgraws.com. 9:30 pm. $10. 21+.
Doug Fir Lounge: Weinland’s New Year’s Eve Supergroup, Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, DJ Safi
1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639, holocene.org. 8 pm. $12. 21+.
S
Biddy McGraw’s: Funk Shui
2521 SE Clinton St., 235-0203. 9 pm. 21+. Free.
RI
309 SW Broadway, 228-2000, bensonhotel.com. $100, includes buffet dinner. 21+.
Dots: DJ T-1-11
Holocene: Strength, We Like Cats, Benoît Pioulard, DJ Beyondadoubt, DJ Copy, DJ Zac Eno, Sex Life
CH
Benson Hotel: Copacabana gala with Bobby Torres Jazz Ensemble
4605 NE Fremont St., 287-7067, docgeorgesjazzkitchen.com. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
921 SW 6th Ave., champagneball.com. 8 pm. $80-$110. 21+.
I
9 NW 2nd Ave., clubbarracuda.com. 8 pm. $10. 18+.
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen: Jay Harris and the Moon by Night Trio
L
Barracuda: DJ Jack, Christa Chaos
350 W Burnside St., 226-6630, danteslive.com. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
511 NW Couch St., 796-9364, groundkontrol.com. 5 pm. $15 includes free play on all games. 21+.
T,
bz. 9 pm. $12. All ages.
Northwest Classical Theatre presents Shakespeare’s weakest comedy, in which the best scenes go to a dog. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7 pm. $15-$18. All ages.
AT
Hilton Portland and Executive Tower: Champagne Ball with Hit Machine
115 NW 5th Ave., 248-2900, backspace.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
A
Dante’s: Floater, Iceland
Backspace: The Shaky Hands, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Vanimal
Wade McCollum performs a stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ memoir of a miserable season spent at Macy’s Santaland. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 5 pm. $55, $23 students.
/L
Ground Kontrol: DJ Ghostdad, DJ Epor, DJ Capcom
225 SW Ash St., 226-0430, ashstreetsaloon.com. 9:30 pm. $8. 21+.
The Santaland Diaries
M
Crystal Ballroom: Keith Sweat and Mint Condition, Tracy Harris, Mike Phillips (seated show)
Ash Street Saloon: Pierced Arrows, The Estranged, Don’t, Hairspray Blues
A supremely unfunny comic. 1510 SE 9th Ave., 643-8669, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 7:30 and 10 pm. $25. 10 pm show includes dessert buffet. 21+.
M
Alberta Street Public House: Buster Blue, Left Coast Country
1037 SW Broadway, ticketmaster.com. 7 and 10:30 pm. $26.50-$89. All ages.
Tom Rhodes
AGA
440 NW Glisan St., 227-5494. 9 pm. $23-$33. 21+.
1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047, danceonair.com. 9 pm. $55. 21+.
US CR
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Hair
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1400 SE Morrison St., facebook.com/ cravedanceparty. 8 pm. $7. 21+.
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall: Pink Martini
The recent Public Theatre revival, now on tour. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802, portlandopera.org. $41.95-$85.55.
Groove Suite: Basquerade with El Cucuy of Assemble the Empire, Gray Ayer, CapCom D of Fly by Night, Angry Buddha, Flying J
Crush Bar: Madonna vs. Lady Gaga with DJ Gutter Glamour, DJ Alicious
1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665, myspace.com/albertastreetpub. 9:30 pm.
Competitive improv comedy. 1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888, portlandcomedy.com. 7, 9 and 11 pm. $12. All ages.
28 NW 4th Ave., 206-8866, coutureultralounge.com. 7 pm. $40 includes C Burgers all night. 21+.
2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292, thegoodfoot.com. 9 pm. $10$15. 21+.
Alberta Rose Theatre: Storm Large, Holcombe Waller
3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 7:30 pm. (10:30 pm show sold out). $50. 21+.
Comedysportz
Couture Ultra Lounge: DJ Sovern-T
The Goodfoot: Scott Pemberton Superband, Soul Stew DJs
O
Lonnie Bruhn, Shawn Fleek, Jimmy Newstetter, Mark Kikel, Kyle Harbert, Christian Rickettes, Virginia Jones, Whitney Streed, Travis Jones and Arlo Stone, hosted by Tristan Spillman. 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 467-7521, mcmenamins.com. 10 pm. $10. 21+.
17 SE 8th Ave., 740-9100, copacabanapdx.com. 10 pm. $5-$18. 21+.
C
Comedy Night at the Bagdad
The Copacabana: Barrio Latino
1406 SW Broadway, 477-7335, greathallrestaurant.com. 8 pm. Free. All ages.
K.
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 9:30 pm. $100. 21+.
5474 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-9200, clydesprimerib.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
The Great Hall Restaurant: Color Phobos
OO
Thinkin’ about tomorrow at Northwest Children’s Theater. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. 5 pm. $13-$22.
Clyde’s Prime Rib: Cool Breeze
456 N State St., Lake Oswego, 636-9445. 9 pm. $10 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
FAC E B
Aladdin Theater: Brandi Carlile
6835 SW Macadam Ave., 244-7111, thebuffalogap.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
A AG .G S AV MADONN
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Annie
Buffalo Gap: Ill Lucid Onset, HEMA
Gemini Bar and Grill: Merrill
O
MUSIC
320 SE 2nd Ave., abstractearthproject. com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.
.C
STAGE
Branx: Lazer Sword, Eliot Lipp, Virtual Boy, R/D, Tyler Tastemaker
1708 E Burnside St., 230-9464, portlandwings.com.
A
Well, that was a miserable year. Between the earthquakes, the oil spill, the moribund Oregon economy, the rampant insanity of rightwing rhetoric and the lack of decent summer movies to break up the torment, we can’t wait to commit 2010 to the dustbin of recent history. But worse than all the suffering of the past 12 months would be ringing in the new year at a dull party—the kind where everyone passes out by 11:30 pm; or the hosts vanish, leaving you in the company of strangers; or someone vomits in every room of the house. To help you avoid a fate like that and pick the perfect celebration, we’ve compiled every party in town, in alphabetical order. Choose wisely.
722 E Burnside St., nyeportland.com. 8 pm. $37.50 advance, $50 day of show. 21+.
N
bwaterhouse@wweek.com
Fire on the Mountain East: Scrafford Orser
N
BY BE N WAT E R H O U SE
and Scott Law, DJ Harry and Jans Ingber, Stephanie Schneiderman
DO
WHAT’S HAPPENING WHERE THIS NEW YEAR’S EVE.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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Alberta Street Public House: Buster Blue, Left Coast Country
Crystal Ballroom: Keith Sweat and Mint Condition, Tracy Harris, Mike Phillips (seated show)
Ground Kontrol: DJ Ghostdad, DJ Epor, DJ Capcom
Dante’s: Floater, Iceland
Hilton Portland and Executive Tower: Champagne Ball with Hit Machine
Duff’s Garage: DK Stewart Band & The Soul Survivor Horns, Steve Kerin
309 SW Broadway, 228-2000, bensonhotel.com. $100, includes buffet dinner. 21+.
1635 SE 7th Ave., 234-2337, duffsgarage.com. 9:30 pm. $20. 21+.
Biddy McGraw’s: Funk Shui
East Burn: The Crash Engine
6000 NE Glisan St., 233-1178, biddymcgraws.com. 9:30 pm. $10. 21+.
1800 E Burnside St., 236-2876, theeastburn.com. 10 pm. Free. 21+.
Blue Monk: Brothers of the Baladi
East End: New Year’s Evil with Sick Jaggers, Gatekeeper, Soft Metals
3341 SE Belmont St., 595-0575, thebluemonk.com. 8 pm. $10.
203 SE Grand Ave., eastendpdx.com. 10 pm. $5. 21+.
E IN V
221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542, jimmymaks.com. 7:30 pm. $20-$25. 21+.
Kennedy School: The Breakfast Club, Freak Mountain Ramblers
5736 NE 33rd Ave., 249-3983, mcmenamins.com. 8 pm. $35. 21+.
JIMMY
A M
The Knife Shop: Federale
426 SW Washington St., 228-3669, kellysolympian.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
CONT. on page 26
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Bossanova Ballroom: MCTuff and Devin Phillips, Materialized
Jimmy Mak’s: Linda Hornbuckle
S
Benson Hotel: Copacabana gala with Bobby Torres Jazz Ensemble
K’
830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com. 9 pm. $15 advance, $17 day of show. 21+.
2342 SE Ankeny St., 236-4998, jadeloungepdx.com. 6 and 9 pm. $55 and $40. 21+.
B
9 NW 2nd Ave., clubbarracuda.com. 8 pm. $10. 18+.
Jade Lounge: Eric Stern and Ashia Grzesik
OM
Barracuda: DJ Jack, Christa Chaos
R
E.C
Doug Fir Lounge: Weinland’s New Year’s Eve Supergroup, Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, DJ Safi
bz. 9 pm. $12. All ages.
FI
KL
115 NW 5th Ave., 248-2900, backspace.
1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639, holocene.org. 8 pm. $12. 21+.
G
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2521 SE Clinton St., 235-0203. 9 pm. 21+. Free.
U DO
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Dots: DJ T-1-11
Backspace: The Shaky Hands, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Vanimal
Holocene: Strength, We Like Cats, Benoît Pioulard, DJ Beyondadoubt, DJ Copy, DJ Zac Eno, Sex Life
Z
4605 NE Fremont St., 287-7067, docgeorgesjazzkitchen.com. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
225 SW Ash St., 226-0430, ashstreetsaloon.com. 9:30 pm. $8. 21+.
E
Ash Street Saloon: Pierced Arrows, The Estranged, Don’t, Hairspray Blues
921 SW 6th Ave., champagneball.com. 8 pm. $80-$110. 21+.
D
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen: Jay Harris and the Moon by Night Trio
N
1037 SW Broadway, ticketmaster.com. 7 and 10:30 pm. $26.50-$89. All ages.
R
350 W Burnside St., 226-6630, danteslive.com. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
O
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall: Pink Martini
511 NW Couch St., 796-9364, groundkontrol.com. 5 pm. $15 includes free play on all games. 21+.
H
1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047, danceonair.com. 9 pm. $55. 21+.
DA
1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665, myspace.com/albertastreetpub. 9:30 pm.
LIN
Northwest Classical Theatre presents Shakespeare’s weakest comedy, in which the best scenes go to a dog. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7 pm. $15-$18. All ages.
440 NW Glisan St., 227-5494. 9 pm. $23-$33. 21+.
S
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1400 SE Morrison St., facebook.com/ cravedanceparty. 8 pm. $7. 21+.
RI
Wade McCollum performs a stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ memoir of a miserable season spent at Macy’s Santaland. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 5 pm. $55, $23 students.
Crush Bar: Madonna vs. Lady Gaga with DJ Gutter Glamour, DJ Alicious
3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 7:30 pm. (10:30 pm show sold out). $50. 21+.
US CR
CH
The Santaland Diaries
Alberta Rose Theatre: Storm Large, Holcombe Waller
I
A supremely unfunny comic. 1510 SE 9th Ave., 643-8669, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 7:30 and 10 pm. $25. 10 pm show includes dessert buffet. 21+.
Groove Suite: Basquerade with El Cucuy of Assemble the Empire, Gray Ayer, CapCom D of Fly by Night, Angry Buddha, Flying J
L
Tom Rhodes
28 NW 4th Ave., 206-8866, coutureultralounge.com. 7 pm. $40 includes C Burgers all night. 21+.
T,
Hair
The recent Public Theatre revival, now on tour. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802, portlandopera.org. $41.95-$85.55.
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 9:30 pm. $100. 21+.
2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292, thegoodfoot.com. 9 pm. $10$15. 21+.
HU N
Competitive improv comedy. 1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888, portlandcomedy.com. 7, 9 and 11 pm. $12. All ages.
Couture Ultra Lounge: DJ Sovern-T
The Goodfoot: Scott Pemberton Superband, Soul Stew DJs
O
Comedysportz
17 SE 8th Ave., 740-9100, copacabanapdx.com. 10 pm. $5-$18. 21+.
1406 SW Broadway, 477-7335, greathallrestaurant.com. 8 pm. Free. All ages.
C
Lonnie Bruhn, Shawn Fleek, Jimmy Newstetter, Mark Kikel, Kyle Harbert, Christian Rickettes, Virginia Jones, Whitney Streed, Travis Jones and Arlo Stone, hosted by Tristan Spillman. 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 467-7521, mcmenamins.com. 10 pm. $10. 21+.
The Copacabana: Barrio Latino
The Great Hall Restaurant: Color Phobos
K.
Comedy Night at the Bagdad
5474 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-9200, clydesprimerib.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
456 N State St., Lake Oswego, 636-9445. 9 pm. $10 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
OO
Thinkin’ about tomorrow at Northwest Children’s Theater. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. 5 pm. $13-$22.
Clyde’s Prime Rib: Cool Breeze
A
FAC E B
Aladdin Theater: Brandi Carlile
6835 SW Macadam Ave., 244-7111, thebuffalogap.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
A AG .G S V NA MADON
M
Annie
Buffalo Gap: Ill Lucid Onset, HEMA
Gemini Bar and Grill: Merrill
O
MUSIC
320 SE 2nd Ave., abstractearthproject. com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.
.C
STAGE
Branx: Lazer Sword, Eliot Lipp, Virtual Boy, R/D, Tyler Tastemaker
A
Well, that was a miserable year. Between the earthquakes, the oil spill, the moribund Oregon economy, the rampant insanity of rightwing rhetoric and the lack of decent summer movies to break up the torment, we can’t wait to commit 2010 to the dustbin of recent history. But worse than all the suffering of the past 12 months would be ringing in the new year at a dull party—the kind where everyone passes out by 11:30 pm; or the hosts vanish, leaving you in the company of strangers; or someone vomits in every room of the house. To help you avoid a fate like that and pick the perfect celebration, we’ve compiled every party in town, in alphabetical order. Choose wisely.
1708 E Burnside St., 230-9464, portlandwings.com.
N
722 E Burnside St., nyeportland.com. 8 pm. $37.50 advance, $50 day of show. 21+.
bwaterhouse@wweek.com
Fire on the Mountain East: Scrafford Orser
N
BY BE N WAT E R H O U SE
and Scott Law, DJ Harry and Jans Ingber, Stephanie Schneiderman
AD O
WHAT’S HAPPENING WHERE THIS NEW YEAR’S EVE.
A R L E N E S C HN I
TZ
ER
CO
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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LaurelThirst Public House: Two Beers Veirs’ New Year’s, Jackstraw
2958 NE Glisan St., 232-1504, laurelthirst.com. 9:30 pm. $20. 21+.
Mission Theater: Langhorne Slim and the Law
1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527, mcmenamins.com. 9 pm. $20$25. 21+.
Mississippi Pizza: The Jim Jams
3552 N Mississippi Ave., 2883231, mississippipizza.com. 10 pm. $7. 21+.
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Mississippi Studios: The Helio Sequence, Ramona Falls, Dirty Mittens
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3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 9 pm. $22-$25. 21+.
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Mock Crest Tavern: Donna and the Side Effects
3435 N Lombard St., 283-5014, mockcrest.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
Mount Tabor Theater: Jerry Joseph & Jackmormons, Richmond Fontaine, The Quick and Easy Boys
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The Spare Room: The Caleb Klauder Country Band
4830 NE 42nd Ave., 287-5800, spareroompdx.com. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
TA Event Center: DRC, Roman Zawodny, James Renegade, Phreek D, Dustin Hulton, J2K, TinkFu, Vize, Jaden, Echoik, Ill-Eeze One, Jragon, Monkey, Joel Crane, Hogan 54, DJ Daze, Deformaty, J Funk, Tarzan, Kidlogic, Ronin 300 NE Multnomah St., 750-4020, brownpapertickets.com/event/137415. 8 pm. $30. 18+.
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Jubitz Portlander Marketplace, 10350 N Vancouver Way, 800-523-1193, portlanderinn.com. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
Red Room: Betrayed by Weakness, No Regard, The Ascendents, Aethyrium
2530 NE 82nd Ave., 2563399, redroomportland. com. 9 pm. 21+.
Roseland Theater: King Nicky’s Countdown with Andre Nickatina, Paul Wall, The Jacka, Smoov-E, Cool Nutz
M
8 NW 6th Ave. 224-8499, roselandpdx.com. 8 pm. $55. All ages.
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Rotture: Wajeed, Doc Adam, DJ Kez, Dundiggy, Illmaculate, TxE
ER
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315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683, rotture.com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.
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Secret Society Lounge Masquerade Ball: Midnight Serenaders, Little Sue, Miz Kitty, Dee Settlemier, Captain James Cook
116 NE Russell St., 493-3600, thesecretsocietylounge.com. 9 pm. $25-$30. 21+.
Slabtown: Pure Country Gold, The Pity Fucks, The Sons of Bitches
1033 NW 16th Ave., 2230099, slabtownbar.net. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
Andina
Prix fixe menu of Peruvian holiday fare, with music by the Tracy Kim and Danny Romero trios. 1314 NW Glisan St., 228-9535, andinarestuarant.com. Seatings every half hour from 5:309:30 pm. $60-$185 depending on wine choices, call for details. Reservations required.
Lincoln
A three-course menu with a choice of six appetizers and five entrees. 3808 N Williams Ave., No. 127, 288-6200, lincolnpdx.com. $50. Reservations required.
Metrovino
A luxurious five-course tasting menu featuring caviar, lobsters, truffles and foie gras. Whoa. 1139 NW 11th Ave., 517-7778, metrovinopdx.com. $70, $50 vegetarians. Reservations required.
Avalon Hotel and Spa
Pix Pâtisserie
Beast
Portobello
Tony Starlight’s: The Best of the Tony Starlight Show
Belly
1465 NE Prescott St., 288-5534, tigabar.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543, myspace.com/thetoniclounge.
1420 SE Powell Blvd., 232-3576, twilightcafeandbar.com. 9:30 pm. $3. 21+.
Uptown Billiards: Karaoke from Hell
120 NW 23rd Ave., 226-6909, uptownbilliards.com. 6 pm. Free. 21+.
Urban Studio: DJ Zeem, Nathan Jenkins 206 NW 10th Ave., 928-4547, liquid2011.com. 7:30 pm-morning. Buffet from 7:30-9 pm. $40. 21+.
Seven courses of meaty decadence, wine included. 5425 NE 30th Ave., 8416968, beastpdx.com. 5 and 8:30 pm seatings. $175. Reservations required.
Four-course prix fixe menu featuring black-truffle brioche, lobster risotto, braised pork cheeks and panna cotta, plus sparkling wine. 3500 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 294-9764, bellyrestaurant.com. $65. Reservations required.
Biwa
Eight courses of Japanese New Year’s fare, including fried smelt, sashimi, grilled halibut and simmered duck. 215 SE 9th Ave., 239-8830, biwarestaurant. com. $55, $30 optional sake pairing. Vegetarian dinner by reservation only.
Brasserie Montmartre
Valentine’s: DJ E*Rock
232 SW Ankeny St., 248-1600, valentineslifeblood.blogspot.com.
Four-course prix fixe with music. 626 SW Park Ave., 236-3036, brasserieportland.com. 6 pm seating with Shelly Rudolph and Chance Hayden $75; 9 pm seating with Richard Arnold and Rich Slade $100.
Weird Bar: DJ Troy
Departure Restaurant
3701 SE Division St., 236-8689, weirdbar.com. 7 pm-4 am. $5. 21+.
White Eagle Saloon: The Parson Red Heads, Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers, The Lord’s Own Choir
836 N Russell St., 282-6810, mcmenamins.com. Time TBA. $10. 21+.
Wilfs Restaurant: Tony Pacini Trio with Rebecca Kilgore
800 NW 6th Ave., 223-0070, wilfsrestaurant.com.
Wonder Ballroom: ’80s Video Dance Attack with DK Kittyrox
128 NE Russell St., 284-8686, wonderballroom.com. 9 pm. 21+. $15 advance, $20 day of show.
The Woods: DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid’s New Year’s Eve Dance Party 6637 SE Milwaukie Ave., 890-0408, thewoodsportland.com. 9 pm. $12$15. 21+.
The World Famous Kenton Club: Thee Headliners, Lana Rebel
2025 N Kilpatrick St., 285-3718, kentonclub.com.
W XYZ: The Real Mark Alan, DJ Dub C
9920 NE Cascade Parkway, 200-5678, wxyzportland.com. 8 pm. 21+.
A four-course prix fixe dinner of New Year’s dishes from all over East Asia. 525 SW Morrison St., 802-5370, departureportland.com. $50. Reservations required.
East India Co.
A four-course vegan menu of Italian classics, sans the animal products. Includes many gluten-free dishes. 1125 SE Division St., 754-5993, portobellopdx.com. 5:30-10 pm. $49.
Roost
A New Year’s Eve crab feed, including two salads, chocolate cake and a whole Dungeness crab. 1403 SE Belmont St., 971-544-7136, roostpdx. com. 5:30-10 pm. $50. Reservations required.
Salty’s on the Columbia
Three courses of seafood, with music by Mel Brown. 3839 NE Marine Drive, 288-4444, saltys.com. $45-$80 depending on entree choice. Reservations required.
Simpatica Dining Hall
Five courses, including foie gras, lobster salad, black truffle gnocchi and beef tenderloin. 828 SE Ash St., 235-1600, simpaticacatering. com. Beginning at 7:30 pm. $75. Reservations required.
Suzette Crêperie
A meal of two savory crêpes, salad and pistachio torte, accompanied by Buster Keaton movies. 2921 NE Alberta St., 473-8657, suzettepdx.com. 6 pm. $20. All ages.
Teardrop Cocktail Lounge
A 12-dish buffet of north and west Indian favorites like butter chicken and mutton curry. 821 SW 11th Ave., 2278815, eastindiacopdx.com. 5-9 pm. $25. Kids 3 and under free.
Five-course menu featuring lobster bisque, pork terrine, beet ravioli, venison osso buco and chocolate souffle with cocktail pairings. 1015 NW Everett St., 445-8109, teardroplounge. com. 5:30 pm seating. $100. 21+.
Fenouil
Yakuza
The nouveaux French place with a great view offers five- and eightcourse menus for both vegetarians and meat-eaters. 900 NW 11th Ave., 525-2225, fenouilinthepearl.com. $65 for five courses, $85 for eight, with optional $25 and $40 wine pairings, respectively. Reservations required.
Genoa
Seven-course prix fixe dinner. 2832 SE Belmont St., 238-1464, genoarestaurant.com. 9 pm. $80.
Five courses of sashimi, etc. 5411 NE 30th Ave., 450-0893, yakuzalounge. com. $50. Reservations required.
OTHER DarcelleXV
“The most beautiful and glamorous female impersonators in the Pacific Northwest.” 208 NW 3rd Ave., 2225338, darcellexv.com. 7:30 pm dinner, 9 pm show. $45-$65. 21+.
Gilt Club
Six-course prix fixe menu featuring pineapple upside-down cake and foie gras, grilled lamb steak and motherfuckin’ baked Alaska. 306 NW Broadway, 222-4458, giltclub.com. 9 pm-1 am. $60. Reservations required.
The Heathman Restaurant and Bar
Four courses including lobster bisque, quail stuffed with boudin blanc, dryaged steak and chocolate blood-
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Someday Lounge: Prince vs.
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Late buffet of Italian bites. 2838 SE Belmont St., 235-4900, accantopdx. com. 10 pm. $10 includes a glass of prosecco. 21+.
Tonic Lounge: The Band Who Fell to Earth (David Bowie Tribute), Vellarest
Tiga: Count Lips, Tiny Vinyl, Champagne Jam
Twilight Cafe & Bar: The Proud and the Damned, Southpaw, Deathproof
Ponderosa Lounge: Rodeo Rose
Accanto
orange parfait. Music by the Shanghai Woolies. 1001 SW Broadway, 790-7752, heathmanrestaurantandbar.com. 6:30 pm-1:30 am. $135.
The first 100 customers to purchase a beverage at either Pix location after 11 pm get a free buffet of chocolate delights at midnight. 3901 N Williams Ave., 282-6539; 3402 SE Division St., 232-4407, pixpatisserie.com.
Original Halibut’s: Jim Wallace and the House Cats
1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020, myspace. com/planbportlandbooking. $10. 21+.
FOOD
Four-course dinner for two at Aquariva with two drinks, two dance party tickets and a room at the hotel. 0455 SW Hamilton Court, 802-5800, avalonhotelandspa.com. $245-$299. Reservations required.
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 360-1450, taborpdx.com. 9 pm. $35. 21+.
Plan B: Poison Idea, Antiworld
ISS P I X PÂT
125 NW 5th Ave., 248-1030, somedaylounge.com. 8 pm. $15. 21+.
3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 517-8584, tonystarlight.com. 8 and 10:30 pm. $25, $65 with meal.
2525 NE Alberta St., 808-9601, halibuts.squarespace.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
RE
Michael with DJ Dave Paul
E LL CE R A D
REMEMBER THE 60’S? H O W A B O U T T H E 7 0 ’ S & 8 0 ’ S ?
MUSIC TO REMEMBER SALE
STARTS SUNDAY 12/26 – SAVE 20% OFF ALL UMGD TITLES BY THESE ARTISTS RUSH BOB VAN MARLEY MORRISON 2112 & THE TUPELO HONEY ON SALE ON SALE WAILERS $7.99 CD CATCH A FIRE ON SALE $11.99 CD
$11.99 CD
TRAFFIC
VELVET UNDERGROUND
LOW SPARK OF HIGH HEELED BOYS
ALLMAN BROTHERS DUANE ALLMAN ANIMALS BACHMAN-TURNER JOAN BAEZ BEASTIE BOYS BECK BLIND FAITH
JAMES BROWN JIMMY BUFFETT JJ CALE CAMEO ERIC CLAPTON PATSY CLINE JOE COCKER JOHN COLTRANE
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ARGUS
ON SALE $7.99 CD
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MUDDY WATERS THE WHO HANK WILLIAMS LUCINDA WILLIAMS STEVIE WONDER
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New Year’s Eve 2010 N E W W I N T E R M E N U . . . beginning December 21st
Open New Year’s Eve • Breakfast Served All Day! • Live Music • Free Trivia • All Sports Packages-Tons of TV’s • Outdoor Seating • Great Atmosphere & Happy Servers
Please call for reservations.
830 N Shaver 503-460-3333 just east of the corner of Mississippi and Shaver Open: Tue.-Sun. 5pm; Weekend Breakfast 9am-2pm
28
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
1340 SE 12th • 503-232-8060
Last minute New Year’s Eve seats to fill... Advertise here 12/29
$400 full color included
5627 SW Kelly • 503-246-5040 When in Beaverton, stop by the Sports Page
www.jollyrestaurants.com
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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GET WHAT YOU WANTED FOR THE HOLIDAYS SALE!
STARTS SUNDAY 12/26 SAVE 20% OFF ALL WARNER/ELEKTRA/ATLANTIC TITLES BY THESE ARTISTS AFRO-CUBAN ALL STARS CHRIS ISAAK BLACK VAN AVERAGE WHITE BAND JANE’S ADDICTION B-52’S KINKS SABBATH MORRISON BAD COMPANY KNOPFLER/HARRIS THE BAND BLACK KEYS BLACK SABBATH BOOKER T. & THE MG’S JACKSON BROWNE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND CARS CHICAGO ERIC CLAPTON JOHN COLTRANE RY COODER ALICE COOPER BILL COSBY C,S,N & Y CURE BOBBY DARIN DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE DEEP PURPLE IRIS DEMENT DEVO DIO DIRE STRAITS DOOBIE BROTHERS FACES FLAMING LIPS FLEETWOOD MAC FOREIGNER ARETHA FRANKLIN J. GEILS BAND GREEN DAY ARLO GUTHRIE EMMYLOU HARRIS DONNY HATHAWAY IRON BUTTERFLY
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MISFITS
BLONDIE
KATE BUSH
GENTLE GIANT GORILLAZ GEORGE HARRISON
LUDICRA
MAZE
NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND
BONZO DOG BAND
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THE PARSON RED HEADS +NORMAN
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A hot indie hip-hop bill with Seattle sensations
CHAMPAGNE CHAMPAGNE
SWEET TEN YEARS AFTER GEORGE THOROGOOD
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UPCOMING SHOWS
Victor Wooten 1/10 • Al James /Liz Janes 1/12 Arrington De Dionyso 1/13 • Sunset Valley 1/14 MRS. 1/15 • Reel Music Film Festival 1/16 Queer Night 1/17 • Telluride Mtn Film Festival 1/20 Doors 8:30pm, Show 9pm and 21+ unless otherwise noted
3939 N Mississippi • 503-288-3895 Lighting graciously provided by
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
MUSIC FEATURE
THE SOUND THAT WAS, 2010
THIS YEAR SUCKED, SO WE SPENT A LOT OF TIME WITH OUR HEADPHONES ON. BY WW M U SI C STAFF
243-2122
The number “2010” looks great on paper. It’s a year sci-fi writers and daydreaming schoolkids have spent decades picturing. Where would we be in 2010? What would the world look like? Surely we were expecting magic. And as this decidedly un-magical year crawls to a close, it’s hard to feel good about much. One could easily update the lyrics to Billy Joel’s awful “We Didn’t Start the Fire” using only shit that went wrong this year. And music fans have had their share of disappointments, losing heroes like Alex Chilton, Guru, Solomon Burke and Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous too soon. But music fans—unlike fans of world peace and the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest—always get silver linings. We’re reminded of this often living in Portland—a city that houses some of the best bands and venues in the world. So WW’s music writers got together and compiled a list of some of our favorite albums—local and national—of the year. This year might not have been magical, but its soundtrack pretty much rules.
AND AND AND, A FRESH SUMMER WITH AND AND AND
When a band is known for its frenetic, wild shows, you might worry it will never be able to capture such crackling excitement on record. But on its sophomore release, And And And rocks harder and more rawly than before, pushing the boundaries of its wonderfully messy chamber-embellished quirk-pop and bringing its wild energy into your headphones. REBECCA RABER.
BEACH HOUSE, TEEN DREAM
Baltimore’s Beach House has always been attuned to the dreamy palpitations of the heart, but the duo tapped into a true love-buzz for its third and best album to date. All 10 songs gush with the year’s swooniest melodies; “Silver Soul” is the defining moment, a drizzly ballad that manages to be aching, beautiful and great makeout music all at the same time. MATTHEW SINGER.
BIG BOI, SIR LUCIOUS LEFT FOOT: THE SON OF CHICO DUSTY
Kanye might have more ambition, and Drake might have more charisma, but nobody made a more fun or consistent hip-hop record in 2010 than Outkast’s Big Boi. For years the general consensus pegged Big Boi as the Robin to André 3000’s Batman, but Sir Lucious Left Foot changes the story up a bit, adding adventurous production (check out the trunk-rattling synth-funk on “Shutterbug”) to his smooth flow. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.
BLACK KEYS, BROTHERS
Flirting with complete perfection, Brothers is like a Southern breakfast: filthy where it needs to be; undeniably rich and filling. It’s a masterpiece of projectile Delta blues, gospel-speckled cries and fuzzy vinyl-era rock. Auerbach and Carney’s fiery, infecting musical sermons might as well be religion. MARK STOCK.
BRIAN ENO, SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA
Using leftovers from his soundtrack to The Lovely Bones as a point of departure, the erstwhile art rocker’s improvisations range from ambient to assertive, thanks to the guitar-juiced kick supplied by Leo Abrahams and keyboardist Jon Hopkins’ electronica textures. These “sound-only movies” conjure a greater variety of visions and moods than Eno’s recent instrumental efforts. BRETT CAMPBELL.
BURNING STAR CORE, PAPERCUTS THEATER
A rotisserie-seared collage of 60-some live Burning Star Core sets spanning a dozen years, Papercuts Theater is C. Spencer Yeh’s much-belated answer to Sonic Youth’s hallowed Sonic Death cassette. BSC sends its countervailing humors-qua-horrors sprawling in a way that emphasizes robust, stampeding rhythms and survivalknife noise while disguising the puzzle-piece seams of its construction, somehow signifying everything in the process. RAY CUMMINGS.
ENSLAVED, AXIOMA ETHICA ODINI
Canada claims Rush, the U.S. touts Tool. Sweden owns Opeth, and Norway enjoys Enslaved. Progressive metal is alive and well, and no act in the world can boast more consistently artful output. Enslaved’s 11th album is another career highlight, full of melancholy guitars and aggression. Shades of light and dark are found in the dichotomy of growls and Gilmoreesque melodic vox. If Pink Floyd went Viking metal, this is what it would sound like. NATHAN CARSON.
KANYE WEST, MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY
Some people don’t like Kanye; they see him as an egomaniac with a penchant for oversharing. But on his fifth album, West uses those traits to live up to his own hype. And if the scope of his artistic ambition isn’t reason enough to make you fall in love with this collection, West’s inspired flow (once derided by hip-hop-heads) will. REBECCA RABER.
KEITH JARRETT & CHARLIE HADEN, JASMINE
Two of jazz’s living deities converse in this sublimely elegant night music. Seldom hurrying past a serene stroll and shunning the extended improvs of the pianist’s solo albums, the duo’s spacious take on standards sometimes hews close to the tune (“Don’t Ever Leave Me”), sometimes strays concisely and imaginatively. Neither man overplays; they’ve nothing to prove. BRETT CAMPBELL.
LOVERS, DARK LIGHT
A wrenching, hypnotic collection of mid-tempo synth-pop numbers, Dark Light finds Lovers paring down its sound to plaintive electronic grooves and pulsating beats, the better to foreground singer Carolyn Berk’s perfect poetry of longing. It’s a bracing taxonomy of heartache and desire, an epic affair
reduced to 50 minutes of music made for crying over or dancing with. CHRIS STAMM.
MENOMENA, MINES
A list of adjectives describing Menomena might include the following: pristine, OCD, exacting, scientific, complex, visionary. But Mines adds another word to the mix: human. The trio’s most complete record to date matches Menomena’s musical ambition with an emotional honesty that kicks listeners right in the gut. CASEY JARMAN.
OLD LIGHT, THE DIRTY FUTURE
After playing his music in his taxicab for years, Garth Steel Klippert formed Old Light and unleashed The Dirty Future—and the future looks bright. Old Light takes a cue from the Band and My Morning Jacket in its forceful Americana: This group isn’t afraid to blast into overdrive, rock out sitting down or bust out the autoharp. AP KRYZA.
OPERATIVE, “RAMP B/W PULSE”
Operative’s debut 12-inch single was the first record I truly loved in 2010, 23 minutes of intense, primal and brooding electronic music equally suited for the bedroom and the dance floor. Who else would even dare combining experimental noise with acid house beats? If techno ever took off in the late ’90s, I imagine it would have sounded like this. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.
QUASI, AMERICAN GONG
Who says you can’t teach an old band new tricks—like, say, how to play bass? For their seventh album, Portland vets Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss added a little bottom end, went light on the keyboards and made a full-throttle rock record, with the opening salvo of “Repulsion” and “Little White Horse” ranking among the wildest stuff the band’s ever done. MATTHEW SINGER.
THE ROOTS, HOW I GOT OVER
The Roots took a break from being the only watchable part of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to craft their best album since 2004’s The Tipping Point. How I Got Over has no big bangers like “The Seed 2.0,” just 14 tracks of hip-hop bliss, recorded organically and boasting a hint of jazz from rap’s greatest band. AP KRYZA.
SPOON, TRANSFERENCE
Instead of following up on the success of 2007’s breakout hit “The Underdog,” Spoon went out and made its weirdest, most cryptic album yet. Transference is my favorite record of 2010 because it sounds like my year, warts and all; it’s full of off-center production, songs that fade out when they should hit another verse, and the most biting lyrics of Britt Daniels’ career. Imperfection has never sounded so beautiful. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.
STRENGTH, MIND-READER
We’ve all known since 2006 that it would be groovy when Strength finally churned out a sophomore album. This year, we finally had our wish granted with Mind Reader. The disc is funky, sexual, outand-out fun and danceable as all hell. In short, Strength is the Northwest’s answer to Prince, and we couldn’t be happier about it. KEVIN DAVIS. ALBUM LISTINGS CONTINUED on page 32 Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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MUSIC
DEC. 22 - 28 = WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Addresses for local venues are listed in WW’s Clublist column, page 38, or online at blogs.wweek.com/music/clublist/ Editors: CASEY JARMAN, MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, enter show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitmusic. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: cjarman@ wweek.com Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22 Fallen Parrot, Keeps the Kids Quiet, Lyrica
[NU-TWEE] Although Portland newbies Fallen Parrot’s bright and proudly shambling sound is textbook twee pop, that may not be on purpose. The members of the band are so baby-faced their seeming innocence is probably not a put-on or something used purely for aesthetics. If the lone MySpace sample track is any indication, however, maturity is going to come sooner or later: The band’s knack for melody and jumpy rhythms is already evident. With a debut LP dropping at this show, attention from the music community could follow fast enough that naiveté will no longer be an option. MATTHEW SINGER. Backspace. 8 pm. $5. All ages.
Norman, Joshua English, Pancake Breakfast
[MUTANT AMERICANA] Formed
as a musician collective and now boasting five semi-permanent members (none of whom shares the band’s name), Portland’s Norman initially sounds like a skilled Americana band, with banjos plucking and feet stomping. But Norman’s a tricky beast, and its sound mutates constantly between prog rock, alt-country, moody balladry, a little funk and an assload of straight-up rock on 2010 fulllength Hay, Hay Make a Wish and Turn Away. Bands often wear their genre influences openly: Norman allows each of its members to let his musical love shine. AP KRYZA. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $7 advance, $8 day of show. 21+.
Punk Rock Christmas Party: Taxi Boys, Primitive Idols, Sweet Rock Party & DJ Austin
[DANCING, IN A NEW OLDFASHIONED WAY] The night after solstice and all through the clubs— as rockers schedule visitation rights with each baby mama, indie kids
grudgingly return to Connecticut estates, and DJs settle down for their midwinter naps—punkers alone stir bar sales: Avoiding family gatherings is sort of the point of getting the mohawk in the first place. The Taxi Boys, a loose-limbed hardcore provocateur troupe of naked (nude, rather) aggression hung by local venues with care, aren’t likely to contextualize their psychotic and beautiful stagecraft or even notice the preponderance of Santa hats among the elvish faithful. Gob away, gob away, gob away all! JAY HORTON. East End. 9 pm. Cover. 21+.
Pink Noise, Cold Metal, After Nothings End, Animal R and R
[ANDROID ECSTASY] As if they were replicants from Blade Runner, the dudes from Portland’s Pink Noise sell their brand of goth New Wave like Billy Mays sold OxiClean—they live and breathe it. And it’s hard not to buy their “pitch” just a little bit. Frontman Viktor Nova’s (yes, they even have Space Age names) crooning vocals ring out over Kurtis Aeon’s screaming, flanged-out guitar, and Jake Rose’s New Order-era beats and synths. Flamboyant and unabashed, this Portland trio embodies its sound right down to the gaudy eye makeup and shiny pleather pants. Thank god Billy Mays never tried that. KEVIN DAVIS. Hawthorne Theatre. 9 pm. $4. 21+.
FEATURE CONT’D
SUPERCHUNK, MAJESTY SHREDDING
Punk rock bands are supposed to get weaker with age, but somehow Superchunk—after 21 years in existence as North Carolina’s premier fast-and-sloppy indie-rock band—is still getting better. Majesty Shredding delivers the tight songwriting, emotive delivery and catchy hooks you’ve come to expect from the Chunk, and adds some subtle melody, as well. CASEY JARMAN.
TACO NECK, TUTORIAL
There are a surprising number of talented hip-hop producers in Portland, but Tutorial proves Andrew Glennon (a.k.a. Taco Neck) to be the best. A 10-song showcase that mixes rubber-bandsnapping beats with moody live instrumentation, Tutorial is that rare hip-hop record with a stunning signature sound from start to finish—think Ratatat hanging out with Danger Mouse. CASEY JARMAN.
TITUS ANDRONICUS, THE MONITOR
Hey, punk’s not dead—it’s just been reinvented as a Civil War concept album by New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus. This sophomore release finds the band’s punch-you-in-theface, Pogues-meets-post-punk sound realizing its full potential with an hour of raw, intelligent anthems that repair years of damage inflicted on the image of “emotional punk” by spoiled suburban kids in guyliner. RUTH BROWN.
TU FAWNING, HEARTS ON HOLD
Portland’s Tu Fawning writes the score to my favorite nightmare. The chilling, heart-racing bawls of Corrina Repp walk us through the many misty paths of Hearts on 32
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
Hold, the band’s jazzy, creaking, strangely nautical debut. Repp commands a parlor room like Ella Fitzgerald, assisted by Joe Haege and his delightfully terrifying guitar bellows. MARK STOCK.
TYPHOON, HUNGER AND THIRST
It took a few years, but Typhoon finally pulled itself together in 2010 to make a truly majestic album that delivered on all the band’s early promises. Frontman Kyle Morton is a gifted songwriter with dramatic vocal delivery, and his band is beastly—but Typhoon’s most impressive quality is actually its restraint. Seldom do this many people sound this understated, only baring their teeth when the songs demand it. CASEY JARMAN.
TY SEGALL, MELTED
While it takes cues from greats like the Kinks, the Stones and the Standells, Ty Segall’s Melted is its own beast. A don’t-think, EQ-blasted piece of lo-fi gold, this is classic rock for the ADD generation. Segall never stops to look back, but we do, and we think Melted is one of 2010’s best records. KEVIN DAVIS.
KAIROS
WHITE HINTERLAND,
When Kairos dropped in March, I hailed it as a wonderful record of skewed Art&B. I shouldn’t have been so cute— time proves that it’s actually a bonafide set of R&B jams, dosed with nostalgia, inventive percussion, and Casey Dienel’s obsession with all things Mariah Carey. Who says a breakup record can’t be sexy? MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. SEE IT: Videos and more favorites are online at .
WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY
Paul Brainard’s Fun Machine
[ORGANIC CHRISTMAS] One of Portland’s most esteemed players, Paul Brainard, fires up his Baldwin Fun Machine, which he describes as “a home organ from the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, but not your typical grandma’s house kind. It has some funky beats and bass lines, outerspace sounds, and it lights up in swirly multicolored lighting!” He’s augmenting the gizmo with a full band and horn section, and a host of local singers who (again quoting Brainard) “sacrifice themselves on the altar of holiday cheesiness with me.” Due to appear are Fernando, Little Sue, Caleb Klauder and many others. A freshly cut EP of holiday songs will be available for stocking stuffing. JEFF ROSENBERG. LaurelThirst Public House. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
MUSIC
LIST
A 2010 mixtape
designed to ke
ep your ass mov
ing well into 20
11 .
PDXMAS: Duover, Bret Vogel, Sam Cooper
See Headout, page 19. Mississippi Studios. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
Whiskey Party and amp; Songwriter Showcase II: Rainstick Cowbell, Myrrh Larsen, Leonard Mynx and more [SINGER-SONGWRITERS] The idea here, presumably, is that singersongwriters go better with whiskey. And perhaps there’s some truth to that notion: The warm belly and sentimental disposition that come after a few glasses of Jameson may indeed make acoustic guitar strums seem more poignant and the local crooners onstage seem more vital. But considering the trippy nature of some of the headliners—the Robyn Hitchcock-esque whine and shoegazing strums of Rainstick Cowbell and the smoky, dark drawl of Myrrh Larsen—a magic-mushroom party may have been more appropriate. CASEY JARMAN. Someday Lounge. 8 pm. $3. 21+.
THURSDAY, DEC. 23 The Doo Doo Funk All-Stars
[DO THE DOO] The Doug Fir’s listing for this show refers to Tony Ozier & the Doo Doo Funk All-Stars as Portland’s “best new live band,” and for once, the promotional effusions are correct. The All-Stars’ weekly Dookie Jam is becoming a legendary mix of local talent, and November’s Keep the Funk Alive is a surprising contender for local album of the year. It’s almost counterintuitive to place a funk show so close to Christmas, but then again, it’s almost counterintuitive that one of the best funk bands in the U.S. would hail from Oregon. I’ll qualify both instances as pleasant surprises. SHANE DANAHER. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.
Marv Ellis and the Platform
[EL PAYASO] Marv Ellis’ self-produced Mental Picture Machine is a definite frontrunner for Portland hip-hop record of the year. Ellis calls it his “senior thesis paper,” a 20-song amalgamation of world music, triumphant brass and clever rhyme schemes. His Roots-ian approach to rap is evidenced by the Platform, his flavorful, spunky backing band. Atop his eclectic live backdrop, Ellis delivers cutting, sing’em-out-loud lyrics in the vein of Eminem or Busdriver. Put your shoes on and go get yourself an education from Professor Marv. MARK STOCK. Goodfoot. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
The Honus Huffhines, Lucky Beltran, Metropolitan Farms
[POP ROCK] As far as show gimmicks go, has any local group topped the Honus Huffhines band newsletter? Vocalist Andy Giegerich is well known (at least around these parts) for “Huffin’ and Puffin’,” a printed document containing lyrics, a set list and fake stories about his band. This fall the Huffhines finally dropped their debut EP, A Brief
CONT. on page 36
Janelle Monáe ft. Big Boi, “Tightrope” The best retro-funk R&B dance song since “Hey Ya!”
Here We Go Magic, “Collector” It sounds like the Talking Heads on speed.
Twin Sister, “Lady Daydream” Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” for the chillwave set.
Kanye West, “Power” Put your rare prog-rock records on eBay now!
No Age, “Glitter” Answers that age-old question: “What if Hüsker Dü made an ambient record?”
Pure Country Gold, “King Kong Muthfucking King Kong” Still duking it out with the Mean Jeans for Portland’s most fun punk band.
Sleigh Bells, “Rill Rill” The perfect jump-rope singalong for people of drinking age.
Ratatat, “Bila4” Ratatat sounds better than ever making grown folks’ dance music.
Women, “Eyesore” A tension-filled, anxious guitar jam that would make the Joggers proud.
Real Estate, “Out of Tune” The best song to come out of New Jersey this year (sorry, Bruce).
Rob Swift, “Rabia,” Movements 1-3 Yes, classical music is cool again. We have Rob Swift to thank.
Gorillaz, “On Melancholy Hill” The best Blur song since Graham Coxon left the band.
Ariel Pink, “Round and Round” For once, Pitchfork actually got it right.
Budos Band, “River Serpentine” Daptone Records can do no wrong, and we really wanna go to Egypt.
The-Dream, “Love King” The-Dream has hos in different area codes.
Ted Leo, “Bottled in Cork” A drinking anthem for the next decade.
Soul P, “Heart of a Lion” If Portland hip-hop had a fight song, this would be it.
Lovers, “Don’t You Want It” Lovesick dance jams are sooo 2010.
Shad, “Keep Shining” Who knew dissecting hip-hop’s gender biases could be this fun?
Devin the Dude, “What I Be On” America’s favorite weed rapper assures us his drug use is purely recreational.
Katy Perry, “Teenage Dream” Anyone who says they don’t like this song is a filthy liar. SEE IT: Videos and more favorites at
. Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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MUSIC CALENDAR Editor: Michael Mannheimer. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, enter show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitmusic. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mmannheimer@wweek.com. Find more music: reviews 32 | clublist 38 For more listings, check out blogs.wweek.com/music/calendar/
Alberta Street Public House
Suck My Open Mic With Tamara J. Brown
Aloft
The Andre St. James Trio
Andina
Toshi Onizuka
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
Laura Cunard and Guests
Doug Fir Lounge
Norman, Joshua English, Pancake Breakfast
Dunes
Sissisters, Concrete Shiva, Tracey Trance, Stepmother, SwanOX
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club Cubaneo
Ash Street Saloon
Usalala, Gregory Miles Harris, Molly D and Sam, Rian O’Hara
Backspace
Punk Rock Christmas Party: Taxi Boys, Primitive Idols, Sweet Rock Party & DJ Austin
Fire on the Mountain Joe McMurrian
Fallen Parrot, Keeps the Kids Quiet, Lyrica
Beaterville Cafe
Lowell John Mitchell
Beauty Bar
Baby Ketten Karaoke
Biddy McGraw’s Little Sue
Blue Monk
New Orleans Brass Band
Bo Asian Bistro Jordan Harris
Brasserie Montmartre Kit Taylor
Buffalo Gap Saloon Buffalo Band Stand
Camellia Lounge James Kerridge
Dante’s
East End
Jedi Mindf*ck
Gypsy Restaurant and Lounge Laura Ivancie
Hawthorne Theater Lounge Rockstar Karaoke
Hawthorne Theatre
Pink Noise, Cold Metal, After Nothings End, Animal R&R
Heathman Restaurant & Bar Karla Harris
Jimmy Mak’s
The Mel Brown Quartet
Kells
Cronin Tierney
LaurelThirst Public House Paul Brainard’s Fun Machine Christmas
[DEC. 22-28] Blue Monk
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
WED. DEC. 22
Slabtown
Morgan Geer, Root Jack (6 pm); Paul Brainard’s Fun Machine Christmas (9 pm)
The Knife Shop
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
The World Famous Kenton Club
Muriel Stanton
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Worth from NIAYH
Mississippi Pizza
Find Your Smile (9:30 pm); Mr. Ben (4 pm)
Mississippi Studios
PDXMAS: Duover, Bret Vogel, Sam Cooper
Mount Tabor Theater A Black Christmas Variety Show
Bradley Wik and the Charlatans, Brianne Kathleen
The Stocking Stuffers
Tiger Bar
Karaoke From Hell
Tony Starlight’s
The Tony Starlight Christmas Extravaganza
Vino Vixens 6bq9
White Eagle
Jacob Merlin Duo
Wilfs Restaurant
Ron Steen, Mark Kershner, Phil Goldberg, Dennis Caiazza
Press Club
Swing Papillon
Pub at the End of the Universe
THURS. DEC. 23 Alberta Street Public House
Alan Jones Quintet
Brasserie Montmartre Matt Tabor
Buffalo Gap Saloon Deanna Walton
Camellia Lounge John Whipple
Chapel Pub Steve Kerin
Corkscrew Wine Bar Bobak Salehi
Crown Room
Erotic City Prince Tribute with Julian’s Ride
Dante’s
The Stocking Stuffers, Pamela Goldsmith, Whistlepunk
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
Ron Steen Invitational Jazz Jam Session
Doug Fir Lounge
Tony Ozier & The Doo Doo Funk All-Stars, Guests
Duff’s Garage
Late Night Special
Goodfoot
Marv Ellis and the Platform
Jimmy Mak’s
The Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
Kells
Cronin Tierney
LaurelThirst Public House
Brad Creel & the Reel Deal, The Stumpgrinders, Dave Clarke (9:30 pm); Tree Frogs(6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery Tim Todd
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Michele Van Kleef
McMenamins-Grand Lodge Jack McMahon
Mississippi Pizza Jobo Shakins
Mock Crest Tavern
Bluebird, Ex-Cowboys, Filkoe
Slim’s
Sol Seed
Spare Room
Francine West Holiday Jam
The Tony Starlight Christmas Extravaganza
Dementia
Twilight Cafe & Bar
Welcome Home Walker, The Welsh Bowmen
Eric Allen Band, Peter Boone, Pete Lerch, and many more
White Eagle
Lloyd Mitchell Canyon (8:30 pm); Lincoln Crockett Electric Trio (5:30 pm)
Wine Down East Lew Jones
Alberta Street Public House Mikey’s Irish Jam
Aloft
Gordon Neal Herman Trio
Artichoke Community Music
Danny Romero Trio
Friday Night Coffeehouse
Biddy McGraw’s
Billy Kennedy & Jimmy Boyer
Dante’s
JoyStick
Open Mic
Elvis, And Many Special Guests
Original Halibut’s Terry Robb
East End
Borikuas
Gypsy Restaurant and Lounge
Whiskey Party & Songwriter Showcase II: Rainstick Cowbell, Myrrh Larsen, Will Fries, Naomi Hooley, Brian Altman, Jim Bouse, Jonathon Mitchell, Leonard Mynx
Artichoke Community Music
Hawthorne Hophouse
Funk-Jazz Jam Session
Hawthorne Theater Lounge
The Honus Huffhines, Lucky Beltran, Metropolitan Farms
Spare Room Karaoke
Shug Mauldin & Riders in the Round
The Country Inn
Biddy McGraw’s
Open Mic
Someday Lounge
Dub DeBrie Jam
Karla Lugo
Andina
Songwriter Roundup
Ash Street Saloon Eight53, Autry, Jack Ramsay
Beaterville Cafe
Morgan Grace
The Sale
Sons of Malarkey
Savoir Faire Burlesque
Heathman Restaurant & Bar Johnny Martin Trio
Paddy’s Bar & Grill Plan B
Red Room
East End Christmas Eve Party
Great Hall Restaurant Tworivers Songwriters Showcase
Gypsy Restaurant and Lounge The Sale
Alien Parachute Man, Liquid Kings, Sulpher Valley Wranglers
Karaoke
Sellwood Public House
Rockstar Karaoke
Open Mic Night
Hawthorne Theater Lounge Kells
Chancers
Local Lounge
Noah Peterson Soul-Tet
McMenamins Edgefield Winery Beth Willis
Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge
The Springwater Grill Zenda Torrey and Neal Mattson
SUN. DEC. 26 Andina
Ash Street Saloon
The Last Days of Dreams, Oneiros, Forget the Fall
Biddy McGraw’s Felim Egan
Brasserie Montmartre Ramsey Embick
Buffalo Gap Saloon Karaoke
Clyde’s Prime Rib
Ron Steen Jazz Jam
Dante’s
Sinferno Cabaret, Hopeless Jack & The Handsome Devils
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen Ed Neumann
Doug Fir Lounge
Guantanamo Baywatch, Boom!, Burning Yellows
Hawthorne Theater Lounge
Deklun and Pace, The Secret Whistle
Kells
Irish Sessions
LaurelThirst Public House Billy Kennedy & Tim Acott (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery Sonny Hess & Lisa Mann
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Colleen Raney
O’Connor’s Vault
Mississippi Studios
Don & The Quixotes
Dave Fleschner Trio
Baby Ketten Karaoke
Oak Grove Tavern
Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge
Press Club
Rockabilly Lounge With Kyle Black
Red Room
Muddy Rudder Public House
Highwater and Friends Xmas Eve Party
Irish
Slim’s
Red Room
Oh My Mys, Paris & Delaney
Free Metal Sundays
Spare Room Cool Breeze
Apes Tapes Label Showcase
The Twilight Room
Someday Lounge
Karaoke With the Captain
SAT. DEC. 25 Augustana Lutheran Church
Augustana Jazz Quartet
Bishop Creek Cellars/ Urban Wineworks East Noir Notes
Crown Room
Massive 26: DJ Evil One, Doc Adam, Young X
Dante’s
A Punk Rock Christmas
Goodfoot
The Bell Boys, The Villains
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
Cool Breeze
Mississippi Pizza
Blind Bartimaeus
34
Spare Room
Michael Jackson Christmas Party II
Karaoke
NUCLEAR CHRISTMAS: Guantanamo Baywatch plays Sunday, Dec. 26, at Doug Fir.
Slabtown
Danny Romero
FRI. DEC. 24
Oak Grove Tavern
Red Room
Mount Tabor Theater Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge
Ground Kontrol
Sunny Travels
James Faretheewell with Professor Gall
Tony Starlight’s
Mount Tabor Theater
7th Planet Picture Show, Open Mic Comedy
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
Pop Life!
Baby Ketten Karaoke
Andina
Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge
Karaoke
The Woods
Johnnie Ward Open Mic & Jammin Papagaiyo, Volifonix, WWS
Gypsy Restaurant and Lounge
Rontoms
Bachxing Day, Classical Revolution
Star Bar
Presented by Down Under Rock
Tony Starlight’s
Neil Diamond Tribute
Vino Vixens
Paul Barkett, Susan Linn
White Eagle
Open Mic/Songwriter Showcase
MON. DEC. 27 Aloft
Martini
Andina
Scott Head
Ash Street Saloon Open Mic
Muddy Rudder Public House
Camellia Lounge Weekly Jazz Jam
Backspace
Lloyd Jones
Beauty Bar
Julie and the Boy
The Ed Forman Show, DSL Open Mic Comedy
Red Room
Doug Fir Lounge
Biddy McGraw’s Eric Tonsfeldt
Rock N Roll Mondays with Larsen Vegas Starr
Brasserie Montmartre
Spare Room
Battery Powered Music The Secret Whistle
O’Connor’s Vault
D.K. Stewart
Karaoke
Dante’s
The Knife Shop
Karaoke From Hell
Duff’s Garage
Big “D” Jamboree (8:30 pm); Chris Miller Band (6 pm)
Fez Ballroom Garaj Mahal
Goodfoot
Sonic Forum Open Mic Night
Jimmy Mak’s
The Hailey Niswanger Quartet
Kells
Pat Buckley
LaurelThirst Public House
Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Little Sue & Lynn Conover (6 pm)
Laurelwood NW Public House
Magical Musical Weekly
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
Skip vonKuske’s “The Guest List” with Michael Dean Damron
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Bob Shoemaker
Mississippi Pizza Robert Richter’s Acoustic Holiday Showcase
Travis Wayne, Bottleneck, Rallyway
The World Famous Kenton Club
Dante’s
Baby Ketten Karaoke (9 pm); Javier Nero Jazz Band (6 pm)
Beauty Bar
Mock Crest Tavern
Da Hui
Mudai
Duff’s Garage
Open Mic
Ella Street Social Club
Vox Populi Karaoke
Slim’s
Spare Room
Danny Chavez Karaoke Show
The Twilight Room Karaoke with the Captain
S.I.N. With Lana Rebel & the Love Lasers
Corpus Callosum
Thirsty Lion
Open Mic (6 pm); John “The Voice” English’s Frank Sinatra Tribute (3 pm)
Death Songs, Hookers, Will Stenberg, TLC Country DJs
Ground Kontrol
Will West & the Friendly Strangers
Eric John Kaiser Hosts The PDX Songwriter Showcase
Valentine’s
Hot Face and more
White Eagle
Corpus Callosum, Mood Area Trio
TUES. DEC. 28 Andina
JB Butler
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club
Great Hall Restaurant
Rock Band Tuesdays: MC Destructo
Gypsy Restaurant and Lounge Acoustic Minds
Jimmy Mak’s
Girls Night Out Get Funky with DJ Nealie Neal
Jeff Jensen Band
The Physical Hearts, Rocky and the Proms, Ezra Carey Dover Weinberg Quartet (9:30 pm); Trio Bravo (6 pm)
SAT. DEC. 25
Mississippi Pizza
Valentine’s
White Eagle
WED. DEC. 22 Crown Room
Crush Drum and Bass
Fame
Weekly DJs hosted by DJ Party Martyr
Goodfoot
Future Beats: Ryan Organ, Dundiggy, Brazil, Roane, Carrier
Groove Suite House Call
Ground Kontrol DJ Palomitas
Hall of Records Ill Lordess
Matador
Highway To Hell
Saucebox
The Mel Brown Septet (8 pm); Chris Brown (6:30 pm)
Video Vanguard With VJ Dantronix
Justa Pasta
DJ DirtyNick
Slim’s
Star Bar
Rumberos del Caribe
Anson Wright & Tim Gilson
Ash Street Saloon
Kells
Tiga
Pat Buckley
DJ Swihova
Tube
Blue Monk
LaurelThirst Public House
Whiskey Tooth, The Guttrots Steel Drum Music
Jackstraw
Brasserie Montmartre
Living Room Theaters
Chance Hayden & Sam Howard
DJ Gregarious
Awesome Racket
THURS. DEC. 23
Hall of Records
DJ Lord Smithingham
Mother’s Bar DJ Mumu
Someday Lounge
The Fix: Rev. Shines, KEZ, Dundiggy
Twice As Nice
Groove Suite Soulstice
Matador
DJ Donny Don’t
Radio Room DJ Lo-Fi
Rotture
DJ Nate C
Twilight Cafe & Bar SIN Night
TUES. DEC. 28 Beauty Bar
Crown Room
See You Next Tuesday Weekly Dubstep Party
Labworks
FRI. DEC. 24 Beauty Bar
DJ Remy the Restless, Lionsden
Ella Street Social Club Being Boiled: A Minimal/ Synth/House DJ Night
Goodfoot
DJ Aquaman’s Soul Stew
Groove Suite After Dark
Hall of Records
SUN. DEC. 26 Devils Point DJ Brooks
Ground Kontrol
DJ Hellion, DJ Sacrifyx
Plan B
Mello Cee
Tiga
Bill Portland
Hard Core Punk DJs
Saucebox
Ground Kontrol
Mello Monday’s with DJ Mello Cee
Cafeteria
Gina the Cook, DJ Awkward Silence
Shanghai Tunnel
MON. DEC. 27
Element Restaurant & Lounge
S.I.N.: Gregarious, Flight Risk, Colin Sick
Tah Rei
East End
Matador
Open Tables
Hall of Records
Hive: DJ Owen
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
Lunch Lady, Trans Fat, Ill Camino
Tube
Element Restaurant & Lounge
DJ DirtyNick
Clarence Duffy
Caleb Klauder
DJ Entropy
Slim’s
Ellen & Jonas
Tiga
Bunk Bar
Tiger Bar
Tiga
Blitz Ladd
Video Disco With VJ Dantronix
Sweet Jimmy T
DJ A Train, DJ Isaiah Summers
Local Lounge
Pamela Jordan Band
Tiga
DJ Step Sister
DJ Tibin
Open Mic Night hosted by Scott Gallegos
Old Country Night with Billy Lee
DJ Airick, DJ Kinetic, DJ Yer Momm, DJ Trans Fat, DJ Ill Camino, Jodi Bon Jodi
Star Bar
Thursdays Are Gay
Beauty Bar
Hawkeye, 1776
Shadowplay
Fez Ballroom
Phonographix Video DJs Christmas Eve
Frightening Waves of Blue
Buffalo Gap Saloon
Fez Ballroom
The World Famous Kenton Club
Hall of Records Star Bar
Amateur DJ Night
Yorgo’s Greeley Avenue Bar & Grill Eye Candy VJs
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
35
MUSIC THU dec 23
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History Of..., and the record is a revelation for anyone who still cares about solid pop songwriting in the fashion of Elvis Costello. Though Giegerich and company are hardly the new hip thing, their reliable songwriting and energizing live shows can’t be missed—especially during a slow holiday week when your other show-going options are so slim. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Plan B. 8 pm. Free. All ages.
Radiation City, Weak Steal and Lynnae Gryffin. From shadowy pop to chillwave and folk, there’s a little something for everyone here. Available digitally or on cassette (tapes, remember?) for five bucks, the compilation showcases 11 acts (three of which are making their debut for the label). KEVIN DAVIS. Rontoms. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
The Tony Starlight Christmas Extravaganza
[GOOD PUN] The casual Someday Lounge isn’t so different from the convivial 18th-century Leipzig coffeehouse where J.S. Bach’s own band used to gig. For the fourth anniversary of its annual Bachxing Day (the puns only get worse) bash, the intrepid instrumental insurrectionists perform Sebastian B’s popular Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, plus a flute sonata and a melange of movements from the solo cello suites, arranged for cello, viola, mandolin and— cheerfully anachronistic—clarinet quartet. The high- or lowlight: the pun-and-groan call-and-response of the annual Bach puns and jokes competition, which goes down much easier accompanied by the libations available at the bar. BRETT CAMPBELL. Someday Lounge. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
[WESTWARD LEADING, STILL PROCEEDING] With seasonal sweaters two sizes too small, and visions of SantaCon dancing in heads, it’s clear that the who’s who of Portland likes irony a lot, with holidays inseparable from faux festivity, and should Tony Starlight’s Supper Club sell out a third consecutive December from folks laughing with Durante as Frostymeets-Jack Webb skits…let’s just declare it a kitsch-mas miracle. Somehow re-gifted the longsince-retired director of Radio City Music Hall’s yuletide spectacular (Bo Ayars, baton wielder for Streisand, Hope and more than a decade of Liberace) annnnnd his wife (Barbara, who plays Bowie to our host’s Crosby), Tony Starlight seems against all odds to have imprinted his name within our Hollywood, without our hipsters, mostly. Kitsch-mas, perhaps, means a little bit more. JAY HORTON. Tony Starlight’s. 7:30 pm. $15. 21+.
FRIDAY, DEC. 24 Being Boiled: A Minimal/ Synth/House DJ Night
[ELECTRONICALLY YOURS] The name of this DJ night comes from the 1978 single by the Human League, and in that song you’ll find all you need to know about what kind of music will be spun at the Ella Street on Christmas Eve. The song is a masterpiece of dark minimalist pop, led by a low synth melody and the electronic slap of an ancient drum machine over which a fey vocalist opines about the state of silk farmers in Asia (I guess). This night promises to be filled with more songs like that, with a timeline that stops at 1989, just before hip-hop and drum-andbass took over the dance music world. ROBERT HAM. Ella Street Social Club. 10 pm. Free. 21+.
SUNDAY, DEC. 26 Guantanamo Baywatch, Boom!, Burning Yellows
[DIRTY, DIRTY SURF BEATS] If the Cramps were still a going concern these days, I daresay the band might pass its curiously stained torch off to local trio Guantanamo Baywatch. Like Lux Interior and the gang, Guantanamo Baywatch plays a dirty version of rockabilly and surf that leaves no hotel bedsheet unrustled. And the local trio cap it off with deliriously filthy song titles and lyrics (let’s just mention the song “Cum Fart Food” and leave it at that). I can think of no better way to shake off the holiday blues, and the presents you didn’t get, by shimmying your Sunday night away with these crazy kids. ROBERT HAM. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $5 advance, $6 day of show. 21+.
Apes Tapes Label Showcase
[MONKEY BUSINESS] Back in August, after a surreptitious viral ad campaign, the Apes Tapes label finally unveiled itself at Holocene with its first showcase and the release of a debut “Mixed Ape”—featuring a handful of upand-coming Portland bands, from Soap Collectors to Onuinu. Four months, several bands and a few split releases later, the local cassette collective is back again to premiere its second Mixed Ape with the diverse help of bands like
36
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
Bachxing Day, Classical Revolution
TUESDAY, DEC. 28 Hawkeye, 1776
[TUESDAY IS THE NEW FRIDAY] Watch your back, Rontoms. Though hosted on a different night of the week, Bunk Bar’s series of free Tuesday night shows is starting to rope in some of the best talent in Portland. From solid local acts like the Soft Tags to national buzz bands like Wavves (and a Michael Cera sighting last week), Bunk Bar is establishing itself as one of the best places in town to see free music. This post-Xmas show features two young rock-’n’roll stalwarts: Hawkeye traffics in the sort of reverb-dipped Brit-pop melodies that will never go out of fashion, and 1776 plays a dirty brand of psychedelic rock that Courtney Taylor-Taylor was quick to get behind. Neither band will blow you away, but there’s always those sandwiches. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Bunk Bar. 10 pm. Free. 21+.
The Physical Hearts, Rocky and the Proms, Ezra Carey
[CARDIAC ROCK] Portland’s the Physical Hearts push forth with a loaded brand of dreamy, lucid rock that transitions seamlessly between longing melodies and crashing climaxes. Employing progressive influences with a slight hint of Americana, the group aims for the epic with a robust sound that flirts with spilling over and becoming overcomplicated, yet always pulls back at just the right moment, leaving ears tingling. It’s powerful, heartfelt stuff from a band that’s sure to grow more prolific with time. AP KRYZA. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $6 advance, $7 day of show. 21+.
Death Songs, Hookers, Will Stenberg, TLC Country DJs
[MODERN COUNTRY] Not too many songwriters can claim to have been sent down their musical path by a Hindu from Stockton, Calif., but that’s apparently how Will Stenberg first heard the man who would introduce him to rootsdriven songwriting, Hank Williams. After that, his interests switched from fast and furious punk rock to the whisky-soaked confessionals of Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson. Today, he writes simple, folky ballads in much the same vein. He hasn’t quite developed his own voice yet, but the heart is there. MATTHEW SINGER. Valentine’s. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
37
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
EASTBOUND AND DOWN: When the “China” part of Chinatown was shanghaied to 82nd Avenue, Portland’s downtown risked losing the marvelously seedy, dimly lit Chinese bars that were hubs for sailors, scoundrels and Chinese-banquet-goers alike. But lo, Chinese Village (520 SE 82nd Ave., 253-7545, chinesevillage.us) has them all, and they’ve brought along middleaged cougars, video-poker sharks, crankheads, prostitutes and regular folks looking for strong drinks ($3 for an incendiary whiskey-Coke) or ridiculously greasy Chinese grub (including egg rolls dipped in batter—the culinary equivalent of playing Russian roulette with your left ventricle). The Village’s friendly staff refers to the 10-11 am happy hour as “a nursing home full of geriatric lushes,” and the specials don’t stop there: Monday is ladies’ night, while Tuesdays are for dudes. Chinese Village features some of the oddest people-watching in town (if you have good night vision), and it’s thick with the spirit of those seedy bars of yesteryear, where a plate of fried rice could be followed by a drugging and abduction. AP KRYZA.
ALBERTA STREET PUBLIC HOUSE 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665 ANDINA 1314 NW Glisan St., 228-9535 ARTICHOKE COMMUNITY MUSIC 3130A SE Hawthorne Blvd., 232-8845 ASH STREET SALOON 225 SW Ash St., 226-0430 BACKSPACE 115 NW 5th Ave., 248-2900 BEATERVILLE CAFE 2201 N Killingsworth St., 735-4652 BEAUTY BAR 111 SW Ash Street., 224-0773 BIDDY MCGRAW’S 6000 NE Glisan St., 233-1178 BLUE MONK 3341 SE Belmont St., 595-0575 BUNK BAR 1028 SE Water Ave., CAMELLIA LOUNGE 510 NW 11th Ave., 221-2130 CHAPEL PUB 430 N Killingsworth St., 286-0372 CLYDE’S PRIME RIB 5474 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-9200 CROWN ROOM 205 NW 4th Ave., 222-6655 DANTE’S 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630 DOUG FIR LOUNGE 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663 DUFF’S GARAGE 1635 SE 7th Ave., 234-2337 DUNES 1905 NE Martin Luther
King Jr. Blvd., 493-8637 EAST END 203 SE Grand Ave., 232-0056 ELLA STREET SOCIAL CLUB 714 SW 20th Place., 227-0116 FEZ BALLROOM 316 SW 11th Ave., 221-7262 GOODFOOT 2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292 GROUND KONTROL 511 NW Couch St., 796-9364 HALL OF RECORDS 3342 SE Belmont St., HAWTHORNE HOPHOUSE 4111 SE Hawthorne., 477-9619 HAWTHORNE THEATER LOUNGE 1503 SE 39th Ave., 233-7100 HAWTHORNE THEATRE 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 233-7100 JIMMY MAK’S 221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542 KELLS 112 SW 2nd Ave., 227-4057 LAURELTHIRST PUBLIC HOUSE 2958 NE Glisan St., 232-1504 MISSISSIPPI PIZZA 3552 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3231 MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895 MOCK CREST TAVERN 3435 N Lombard St., 283-5014 MOUNT TABOR THEATER 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd., MUDAI
801 NE Broadway., 287-5433 PLAN B 1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020 PRESS CLUB 2621 SE Clinton St., 233-5656 RED ROOM 2530 NE 82nd Ave., 256-3399 RONTOMS 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536 ROTTURE 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683 SAUCEBOX 214 SW Broadway., 241-3393 SLABTOWN 1033 NW 16th Ave., 223-0099 SOMEDAY LOUNGE 125 NW 5th Ave., 248-1030 SPARE ROOM 4830 NE 42nd Ave., 287-5800 STAR BAR 639 SE Morrison St., THE KNIFE SHOP 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669 THE WOODS 6637 SE Milwaukie Ave., 890-0408 THE WORLD FAMOUS KENTON CLUB 2025 N Kilpatrick St., 285-3718 TIGA 1465 NE Prescott St., 288-5534 TONY STARLIGHT’S 3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 517-8584 TUBE 18 NW 3rd Ave., 241-8823 TWILIGHT CAFE & BAR 1420 SE Powell Blvd., 232-3576 VALENTINE’S 232 SW Ankeny St., 248-1600 WHITE EAGLE 836 N Russell St., 282-6810
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
39
PERFORMANCE
DEC. 22-28
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: BEN WATERHOUSE. Stage: BEN WATERHOUSE (bwaterhouse@wweek. com). Classical: BRETT CAMPBELL (bcampbell@wweek.com). Dance: HEATHER WISNER (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: bwaterhouse@wweek.com.
STAGE Annie
The one and only, performed for your enjoyment by Northwest Children’s Theater. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. 2 and 7 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Dec. 22-23 and Tuesday-Friday Dec. 28-30. 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 26 and Friday, Dec. 31. 2 and 7 pm Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 1-2. No show Dec. 24-25. $13-$22.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Lakewood reprises its annual holiday treat, adapted from Barbara Robinson’s short story. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. $12-$14.
A Christmas Story
ComedySportz
[IMPROV] Fast-paced, competitive, family-friendly improv. ComedySportz, 1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays. $12.
Ebenezer Ever After
[NEW REVIEW] If you’re hankering for an evening of stunning Christmas carols and talented musical numbers, or if you’ve ever wondered what became of born-again Ebenezer Scrooge and turkey-loving Tiny Tim, this musical sequel to A Christmas Carol will satisfy those queries. Otherwise, there are a few things missing from this original production. Playwrights Don Flowers and Fred Walton pick up 20 years from where A Christmas Carol left off (you’ll want to reread Dickens’ original before attending). Having long since abandoned his miserly ways, Scrooge wants to put things right with his former business partner, Jacob Marley, last seen damned to an eternity in chains. Scrooge employs not-so-tiny Tim, no longer crippled but now a romantically frustrated finance mogul, to call upon three spiritual mediums in an attempt to reach Marley. The musical marches on, but there are looming questions that distract. How did Tiny Tim become such a capitalist dud? How did Scrooge’s 180 from villain to beloved philanthropist transpire? What does the lovely Rose find so attractive about egocentric Tim? Despite the patchy storyline, this is a truly talented cast of singer-actors, and the harmonies with the cello and violin are lovely. STACY BROWNHILLTheater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 381-8686. 7 pm Thursday, 2 pm Friday, Dec. 23-24. $30.
Aaron Ross terrorizes Dante’s every Tuesday night as Ed Forman, a frenetic, oversexed, foul-mouthed 1970s talk-show host who abuses local notables, roams the audience stealing drinks and flinging insults, and generally makes mayhem. Imagine Stephen Colbert as a libidinous sociopath. Ross’ lacerating wit and bottomless energy make for a hilarious evening of great gags and public humiliation. With two guests and a new house band every week, it’s the best entertainment $3 can buy. BEN WATERHOUSE. Dante’s, 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630. 9 pm Tuesdays. $3. 21+.
Hair
The Public Theatre’s Tony-winning revival of the 1967 free-love musical comes to town via Broadway Across America. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that director Diane Paulus “does what Bartlett Sher did for South Pacific last year, finding depths of character and feeling in what most people dismissed as dried corn. It’s not so much what Ms. Paulus brings to Hair; it’s what she brings out of it, vital elements that were always waiting to be rediscovered.” Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, 1 and 6:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 28-Jan. 2. $23.50-$85.55.
Mars on Life—Live!
Susannah Mars, everyone’s favorite soccer-mom chanteuse, revives her delightful holiday revue at Artists Rep. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Dec. 22-23. $25$47, $20 students.
Portland’s Got Talent
A local, live take on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. Fez Ballroom, 316 SW 11th Ave., 221-7262. 8 pm Wednesdays through Jan. 26. $3.
The Santaland Diaries
Wade McCollum reprises his performance of this stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ memoir of a miserable season spent at Macy’s Santaland. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays, 10 pm
Thursdays, 5 pm Dec. 31. No shows Dec. 25 or Jan. 1. Closes Jan. 2. $30$50, $23 youth.
Soph: An Evening With the Last of the Red-Hot Mamas
Wendy Westerwelle reprises her hit 1984 performance as Sophie Tucker, a ribald turn-of-the-century vaudeville star, for Triangle Productions. Westerwelle, a veteran of Portland theater, was not yet 40 when she premiered the show, and I imagine the performance I saw was not as energetic as the one that, according to Oregonian critic Bob Hicks, had the audience at Storefront Actors Theater “on its feet, yelling and stomping for more.” But we all get older— Tucker went on performing right up until she died, at 80—and while Westerwelle may tire more quickly than she used to, she’s still got a great brassy voice and can tell the hell out of a dirty joke. Her delivery of big comedy numbers like “Mr. Siegel” and “I’m Living Alone and I Like It” is delightful. Don Horn’s production disappoints not in the performance but the surroundings, with a dull set and bizarre lighting design that leaves Westerwelle bathed in green through much of the show. BEN WATERHOUSE. The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 239-5919. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 pm Sunday. No show Dec. 25. Closes Dec. 26. $15-$35.
The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge
A world premiere Christmas tale from Bag & Baggage Productions, in which the Dickensian grouch sues Marley and the ghosts for breaking and entering. The Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 345-9590. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Dec. 22-23. $16-$23.
A Tuna Christmas
Frito pie, Baptists and delicious smalltown gossip embellish this hilarious, feel-good gem of a holiday show. Master comedians Jeffrey Gilpin and Alan King play all 24 townsfolk of Tuna, Texas, ranging from Aunt Pearl Burras to Sheriff Buford Givens, with the help of speedy and seamless costume changes. Major kudos goes to the behind-the-scene tech crew for convincingly transforming two talented men into old grandmas, teenage boys, flirty waitresses
JOAN MARCUS
Portland Center Stage has set itself a big challenge in unwrapping this charming Christmas present for the live stage. Unfortunately, Philip Grecian’s stolid adaptation of the 1983 film manages to suck much of the nostalgic holiday cheer out of this story of BB gun mania. The biggest problem? There are two Ralphie Parkers. While the film overlays its wry adult narration on kid Ralphie’s cherubic face, PCS’s version forces kid actor Michael Cline to share the stage with his grown-up alter ego, Darius Pierce, the latter often blandly pontificating over the minutiae of kid life while the former ineffectually mimes the action. That makes for a crowded stage, which is dressed in a spot-on re-creation of the film’s shabby Midwestern living room, kitchen, and smoke-choked stairway down to the blasted furnace. To make it worse, this version crams in at least another 20 minutes of superfluous dialogue, leading to a 2 1/2-hour slog that feels like an extended DVD edition of the film—complete with a pointless love interest for Ralphie. KELLY CLARKE.
Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm WednesdayThursday, 2 and 7:30 pm Sunday. No show Dec. 25. Closes Dec. 26. $33$63, $18 youth.
The Ed Forman Show, with ME! ED FORMAN!
and more, complete with decent Texas drawls. The show’s plot is ordinary— the day before Christmas, the town pulls together to cope with the usual holiday mini-disasters, as well as find the mysterious Christmas phantom— but the richness of the characters makes Tuna extraordinary. The eccentric citizens of this podunk west Texas town are as real as your weirdest relatives; and since you don’t have to spend the holidays with them, it’s all right if you can’t stop laughing. STACY BROWNHILL. Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Dec. 22-23. $15-$53.85.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Northwest Classical Theatre presents Shakespeare’s weakest comedy, in which the most interesting scenes go not to the two wild and crazy guys of the title but to a dog. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-2443740. 7 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays. No shows Dec. 24-25. Closes Jan. 9. $15-$18.
ZooZoo
Imago pulls together favorite scenes from the company’s two puppet/ pantomime/mask shows, Frogz and Biglittlethings, for a tour-friendly bundle of surprising visual delights that runs a little over an hour. Glowing eyes wobble in the darkness, polar bears molest the audience, rabbits attempt to hitchhike, a giant paper bag takes on a life of its own, penguins play musical chairs, and ninjas in red velvet pajamas have a paper fight. Jerry Mouawad and Carol Triffle have been doing this stuff for decades, but the shtick hasn’t gotten old yet. Go for a matinee, and the kids in attendance will teach you how to really enjoy a day at the theater. BEN WATERHOUSE. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 2313959. 2 pm Sundays-Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7 pm Wednesdays Dec. 22-Jan. 2. No show Christmas and New Year’s Eve. $29, $25 students, $16 under age 16.
CLASSICAL Michael Allen Harrison
The pianist presents his 20th annual holiday concert series, featuring guests Tom Grant (Dec. 24) and others. Sellouts likely. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 255-0747. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 5 and 8 pm Friday and Sunday, Dec. 22-26. No show Christmas day. $29.50-$46.50.
Oregon Renaissance Band
Sated by conventional holiday tunes played on conventional instruments? There’ll be quite a rackett, not to mention sackbuts, viola da gamba mandolino, lute, bagpipes, tartold, corna musen, recorders and early versions of guitars, violins and percussion when the cream of Oregon’s earlymusic community performs Christmas music from Finland, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, composed by Byrd, Praetorius and Charpentier—all on historical instruments (or replicas of) from the period the music was created. Community Music Center, 3350 SE Francis St., 8233177. 3 and 7:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 26. $10-$12.
Oregon Symphony, Pacific Youth Choir
This family-friendly event aims to please both serious classical fans and listeners who still haven’t had their fill of holiday tunes, with music of the season from classical composers like J.S. Bach, Debussy and Haydn—and also a Christmas singalong with the usual carols and other familiar faves. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 23. $18-$53.
Portland Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Chorale
HAIR 40
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
The Messiah smackdown continues. (OK, now I’m trying to purge from my mind this image of a bunch of thorn-crowned, bearded guys with bloody hands and feet and sides all rising from their tombs to unleash their MMA moves on each other.
DEC. 22-28 Sorry.) If you missed the other excellent opportunities to hear Handel’s great oratorio, you can certainly enjoy this intimately scaled version, performed by the orchestra with 50-voice choir plus children’s voices from Portland Boychoir, mezzo-soprano Angela Niederloh and the great baritone Richard Zeller. Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1624 NE Hancock St., 901-4505. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. $5-$25.
Portland Youth Philharmonic
The venerable orchestra deploys all four of its ensembles of student musicians, plus some distinguished alumni, in works by Lalo, Chabrier and Wagner that you wouldn’t expect under-25 musicians to be able to handle. And yet they do, often brilliantly. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 223-5939. 7:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 26. $11-$37.
DANCE Do Jump! Greatest Hits for the Holidays
If The Nutcracker is not your thing (or even if it is), you may enjoy Divided We Fall, a parody of same. That piece is part of the Do Jump! Greatest Hits for the Holidays program, along with other favorite works from the company’s repertoire. The show, which doubles as a 33 1/3-year anniversary party for the company, will also include pieces from Tiger Lilly and Sunny Lu, NOW, At Such a Dizzy Height and other shows, all of which combine acrobatic athleticism, aerial maneuvers and inventive, often comic, movement. Accompanied live by the klezmer band Klezmocracy, shows tend to offer a little something beyond the main event, so be prepared to be pleasantly surprised. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 23; noon Sunday, Dec. 26; 3 pm Tuesday, Dec. 28, 3 pm Thursday, Dec. 30, 7:30 pm Monday-Thursday Dec. 27-30, 7:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 1, noon and 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 2. $20-$32.
PERFORMANCE
Eclipse
It just might be the best wedding reception you’ve ever crashed: Artists Fredrick H. Zal and Juniper Lunasri planned their wedding on Mount Hood to coincide with the winter solstice and lunar eclipse. As if that weren’t enough, they’re celebrating afterward with a party, dubbed Eclipse, that features a huge lineup of local dance, music and circus performers, including A-WOL Dance Collective, Vagabond Opera, the MarchFourth Marching Band and many, many more. And save your fork, because there will be pie, from Random Order Pies. You actually need a ticket to attend, but if you show up in steampunk, tribal or fetish attire, you’ll get a reduced rate. Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside St., 206-7630. 8 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. $20-$30.
Oregon Ballet Theatre’s The Nutcracker
The version George Balanchine choreographed for New York City Ballet more than 50 years ago. Like any good epic, it promises love, adventure, danger and wonder—it also has a visually sumptuous setting and a well-loved Tchaikovsky score, which will be played live at seven of the 14 performances. 2 and 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Dec. 22-23, noon Friday, Dec. 24. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 800-7453000. $21.70-$141.05.
Portland Festival Ballet
Former Joffrey Ballet instructor John Magnus brings new choreography, sets and costumes to Portland Festival Ballet’s 2010 production of The Nutcracker. Performers, drawn from the PFB academy, dance a halfweek run, during which affordable weekday matinee tickets will be available to community groups. Arts & Communication Magnet Academy Performing Arts Center, 11375 SW Center St., Beaverton, 2 and 7 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. $10-$24.
DO JUMP!
Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular
The famously precise Rockettes are bringing their nationally touring show to Portland. If you’ve never seen them, it’s worth going at least once, just for the sheer spectacle. The Christmas show features big sets, lots of costume changes and cheerfully cornball
ensemble numbers with high-kicking Santas, leggy reindeer and a lineup of tin soldiers who collapse like dominoes. Rose Garden, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., radiocitychristmas.com. 7 pm Thursday; 1 pm Friday; 5 pm Saturday; and 11, 2 and 5 pm Sunday, Dec. 23-26. $25-$99.
Sinferno Cabaret
magicians and, yes, fire dancers, doused with a bit of classic rock-’n’-roll sleaze. Because, c’mon, it’s Dante’s. Dante’s, 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630. 8:30 pm Sundays. $7. 21+.
For more Performance listings, visit
A fiery combo of striptease, jugglers,
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
41
VISUAL ARTS
DEC. 22-28
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RICHARD SPEER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rspeer@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115. Emailed press releases must be backed up by a faxed or printed copy.
NOW SHOWING
79 you should support
tay l o r s c h e f s t ro m
Stu Levy, Sara Siestreem
With intuition and invention, photographer Stu Levy subdivides his images into multiple frames to create collagelike wholes. Whether in wall-spanning monumental pieces or intimate psychological portraits such as Walter Chappell, he invigorates the eye while engaging the emotions. In the back-gallery group show, Sara Siestreem leaves her symbolist style behind in favor of self-assured abstraction. The bold, blue-and-red gestures of By Levitation or Ladder suggest that the artist is equally confident across a wide range of formal approaches. Augen DeSoto, 716 NW Davis St., 546-5056. Closes Dec. 30.
Resonance
Among the highlights in the group show Resonance are Carole Meyer’s mazelike gold squiggles on gold background. In abstract paintings such as City of Light, the artist is onto a fertile conceit, although the irregularity of her compositions need more rhythm and rigor to rise above what now appears merely as messiness. In Alexis Mollomo’s haunting Ted and His Brother, the narrative painter depicts convicted “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski as a child, standing alongside his brother, David, who in 1996 turned Kaczynski in to the FBI. In the painting, a ghostly female figure runs, terrified, from the children, her mouth open in a scream out of Munch. Nearby, the staircase of a bomb shelter descends into the ground, aglow with flames, as if leading into the pit of hell. To see two brothers in all their frecklefaced, gap-toothed insouciance juxtaposed with visions of how time and circumstance would affect their relationship is an affecting demonstration of Mollomo’s gift for unnerving psychological insight. Finally, painter Tamara English moves beyond her messy vegetal weed gardens toward a more compositionally focused style. In Breath V, she juxtaposes
floral patterns with decorative flourishes drawn from her travels to Turkey. It is refreshing to see her luxuriantly goopy surfaces tempered by compositional rigor. ANKA, 325 NW 6th Ave., 224-5721. Closes Dec. 26.
Mario Caoile, Kanetaka Ikeda
Applying paint straight out of the tube, Mario Caoile has an eye for graffiti-influenced composition but an unfortunate sloppiness of execution. The incongruous sculptural protrusions affixed to his canvases and panels impart a junky, arbitrary appearance. Meanwhile, in the complementary exhibition, Tree of Life, Kanetaka Ikeda lines the wall with bizarre sculptural wooden heads, which unintentionally evoke the shrunken heads of the historic South Seas and Amazon Basin. An installation of the heads is piled with wood branches in the middle of the gallery, as if inviting a bonfire. Blackfish, 420 NW 9th Ave., 224-2634. Closes Dec. 31.
Torben Eskerod
For his series Campo Verano, Danish photographer Torben Eskerod traveled to Rome and hung out for weeks in the Eternal City’s oldest cemetery. He was intrigued by the antique, glass-encased portraits on many of the gravestones, showing likenesses of those below, when they were in the primes of their lives. Eskerod photographed these photographs, which are in varied states of preservation. Many are molded, wrinkled, cracked, sun-blanched and otherwise eaten away by the effects of time and exposure. Intended as permanent remembrances of the deceased, the portraits have become poignant, borderline gruesome mirrors of the decay in progress in the coffins underground. This is a beautifully melancholy show not to be missed. Blue Sky, 122 NW 8th Ave., 225-0210. Closes Jan. 2.
Passage
Wunderkind painter Blakely Dadson’s image of a fantastical schooner, Ivory Blackness, is something special. Seen
in person the painting’s richest component is the blackness surrounding the ship, with its intricate brushwork and dark curlicues, highlighted by a gorgeous matte finish. It is only one or two notches below breathtaking. Chambers @ 916, 916 NW Flanders St., 227-9398. Closes Dec. 31.
Corey Arnold
Corey Arnold owns a fishing boat and takes photos of his crew members catching and gutting fish, crabs and all manner of other marine life on the high seas. He’s at his strongest not as a documentarian but when he allows the human and ichthyological players to stand (or swim) in for the fearsome symbolisms of our common struggle against nature and death. In his latest body of work, Fish-Work Europe, he leaves the cold waters off Alaska, where he normally works, to explore the fishing industry in eight European countries. Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, 134 NW 8th Ave., 287-3886. Closes Jan. 15.
Baku Maeda
Japanese mixed-media artist Baku Maeda borrows from sculptural and origami traditions in his folded-ribbon works, presented in elegant shadowboxes. With wit, pluck and invention, the artist painstakingly cuts and folds multicolored rayon ribbons into the shapes of animals: a bear, a fox, a dog, a lion, reindeer and birds. Like the best of contemporary Japanese art, so influenced by the anime movement, this body of work is cute but not cutesy, clever but not precious. It is a fine line, which Maeda finesses with charm and humor. Compound, 107 NW 5th Ave., 796-2733. Closes Dec. 31.
Gwashi!, Gabriel Manca, Kris Hargis
The manga show Gwashi! is dually overshadowed by artwork by two other artists. Gabriel Manca’s hokey shadowboxes would have done well in the folk-heavy Art in the Pearl festival but are cringe-worthy in this setting. Kris Hargis’ suite of works on paper, however, redeems the exhibition. In these mixed-media drawings, he departs from the morose self-portraits he normally favors. The convoluted but ravishing imagery in Apple, Amaryllis, and Potato and the haunting female nude in Legs Crossed show an accomplished drawer excelling in economical but emotionally potent visual sonnets. Froelick, 714 NW Davis St., 222-1142. Closes Jan. 15.
Wire Line
Drawers and painters across the continuum from representation to abstraction love to talk about line. The nature of line. The meaning of line. The freedom of line. It’s one of those inexhaustible tropes without which MFA thesis papers would actually have to say something new. In the elegant installation Wire Line, Paul Sutinen does just what the exhibition’s title promises: lines the wall with wire. In a single unbroken gesture, the wire meanders across each of the intimate gallery’s four walls, bisecting them with a simplicity that borders on sublimity. If you ever doubted Mies van der Rohe’s dictum, “Less is more,” this show will set you straight. Nine, 122 NW 8th Ave., 225-0210. Closes Jan. 2.
G. Lewis Clevenger
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Trading his signature grids for curvilinearity, G. Lewis Clevenger brazenly and successfully evolves his abstract paintings. The large forms in Sullivan’s Gulch and the droll loops in Louie’s Swag feature the excavated underpainting the artist does so well. However, there are passages in the lower left- and right-hand corners of his work The Recipe that are unnuanced, flat and amateur-looking. This tactic is worthy of caution. In his quest for artistic evolution, Clevenger should make sure not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Pulliam, 929 NW Flanders St., 228-6665. Closes Dec. 30.
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42
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
KRIS HARGIS AT FROELICK
WORDS
DEC. 22-28
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By LEIGHTON COSSEBOOM. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com.
EVENTS Ghost Hunters
The time between Christmas and New Year’s can sometimes feel like you’re caught in holiday purgatory. But if you would like to take it one step further, check out Project Grow’s next Learn My Art workshop. Joined by the Northwest Paranormal Investigative Team, the group will explore “the nature of paranormal investigations” and “the high-tech electronic equipment used” to hunt ghosts. The
Gresham-based investigators will provide evidence of their findings from previous paranormal inspections, along with a search into NoPo’s McMenamins White Eagle Saloon. Attendees will enjoy stories, snacks, and spirits that have unfinished business. Info at growinginalldirections.org. LEIGHTON COSSEBOOM. Project Grow, 2124 N Williams Ave. 7 pm Tuesday, Dec. 28. $3 suggested donation. All ages.
For more Words listings, visit
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REVIEW
DAVID THOMSON THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM Like a perennial political candidate—the Ralph Nader of movie reviewing—David Thomson becomes the most resented man He’s still big. It’s the in film criticism every four years, pictures that got small. or however often he publishes an update of his unwieldy Biographical Dictionary of Film. (The newest edition, the fifth since 1975, weighs 3 pounds, 9 ounces.) Just a glance at this reference work, organized into idiosyncratic, lofty judgments on the careers of celluloid personages from Bud Abbott to Terry Zwigoff, can drive the on-deadline weekly reviewer to dark thoughts about his own futile typing. Those who struggled to fill column inches with opinions about the Benicio Del Toro vehicle The Wolfman will feel a spasm of envy when they happen upon Thomson’s entry for supporting actress Emily Blunt and see the entire movie dispatched with a oneword verdict: “dumb.” It doesn’t help that it is the right word. But it’s no use begrudging Thomson, not when you can read him instead. Every responsible critic—and any dedicated moviegoer—needs a set of thinkers to clarify and challenge their gut reactions from the dark, and for years Thomson has been my indispensable goad. (For some reason, he’s especially useful on comedy: His indictment of Woody Allen is so damning it immediately calls for a retort in defense, and his observations on Judd Apatow’s Funny People make me want to revisit that movie, cloying as the ending is.) His biographical capsules often blossom into poignant essays—his paens to Cary Grant or Pauline Kael can make you cry with their sensitivity, partly because they don’t avoid harsh words—and are studded with priceless anecdotes: I am so happy to know that when Greta Garbo jilted “The Great Lover” John Gilbert at the altar, “Louis B. Mayer nudged the actor and said, why worry, you can always fuck her.” As a bonus, Thomson’s estimations regularly pinpoint exactly what makes an artist interesting. Consider this sentence from his entry on Gus Van Sant. “But he decided to make Portland his base, and his Paris: there is something sublimely casual and confident in the way My Own Private Idaho moves from Portland to an empty road in Idaho to ‘Rome.’” If you own a previous edition of the Dictionary (especially the 2004 tome), this new iteration is probably unnecessary: A proper British curmudgeon, Thomson is convinced the best days of cinema have long passed, and each revision is painting another coat of polish on the still-growing fingernails of a corpse. (Yet he dotes upon the recent work of Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coens, and finds Avatar a non-entity, so his instincts are still keen.) If you don’t possess one yet, you’re in for a happy Christmas with a delightful companion—you’ll need a bigger stocking, though. AARON MESH. READ: The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is available for $40 at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 226-4651.
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Athanasios “Saki” Katsavopoulos June 28, 1947 – Dec. 19, 2010
A native of Patras, Greece, Saki came to Portland in 1974 as a merchant seaman and fell in love with Sotiria “Sandra” Katchis; they married that year and had two sons, Leftheri and Ianni. As a youth in Greece he served as an elite Evzone guard in the army and won bouts as a prizefighter. In Portland he first worked at Portland Bottling Co. and later for his late mother-in-law, Georgia Katchis, in the family business, Three Sisters Tavern. Eventually he and Sandra took ownership of it, which they developed in its last decades into an establishment friendly to Portland’s downtown gay community, with entertainment famous along the entire West Coast. Saki was known for a boisterous, embracing warmth and an engaging, tough but sweet manner. He held listeners spellbound with his fierce, heavily accented storytelling of world exploits. His most cherished blessings in retirement were his grandchildren, Isabella, Georgia & Athanasios. Along with them, his wife and sons, he is also survived by his mother Kalliope and siblings Maria, Theodoros and Christos of Patras, Greece; daughter-in-law Nikki; sisters-in-law Maria Boyer and Pauline Gustason and husband Michael; five nephews, one niece, one grandnephew and one grandniece; and the extended Bakouros, Chalkiopoulos, Tsirimiagos and Boyer families of Portland. Services: Trisagion 7 pm, Wed., Dec. 22; Funeral 11 am, Thurs., Dec. 23 at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Portland. Memorial gifts suggested to the Wounded Warrior Project. Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
43
DEC. 22-28 REVIEW
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
WILSON WEBB
SCREEN
Editor: AARON MESH. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: amesh@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
127 Hours
73 Danny Boyle’s new movie, 127 Hours, is in keeping with the happybummer contradictions he established in Slumdog Millionaire: It is based on the true story of Aron Ralston, a rock climber who in 2003 got his right arm pinned beneath a boulder, was stuck in a Utah canyon for five days, and ultimately survived by amputating his own limb with a dull utility tool. However appealing or appalling that premise sounds to you, the one thing that must be said for the movie is that it is never dull. The one thing that must be said against the movie is that it is never dull. Actually, a second thing should be said for 127 Hours: It’s a reminder that no matter how many other hobbies he undertakes, James Franco is primarily one hell of an actor. He’s very good at communicating not merely pain but annoyance—the crisis has all the frustrations of locking your keys in the car, except instead of his keys it’s his arm. The amputation is about as harrowing as you’d expect, but it’s over reasonably quickly—though not before Boyle deploys his inside-the-arm cam, which somehow isn’t quite so upsetting as the outside-the-arm cam, or the insidethe-Nalgene-bottle-of-urine cam. There are a lot of cams: Boyle still loves the cacophonous montage, and often 127 Hours resembles a Nike commercial more than a drama. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. NEW
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
65 [THREE NIGHTS ONLY] As titles go, that’s hard to beat. As for the movie, a documentary about insect collection in Japan, your enjoyment will depend on your feelings about grubs. Fat, translucent, squirming grubs. The Japanese feel very strongly about grubs, in a positive way. I feel rather strongly about grubs, in a revolted way. So we are not a natural match, me and this documentary. If we were on an OKCupid date, me and this documentary, we would have one drink (probably of waspinfused sake) and I would go home and she would go back to looking at bugs. Anyway, filmmaker Jessica Oreck has decided to explore the mystery of why the Japanese like bugs so much, though it strikes me as obvious and geographical: It’s a small island with a highly developed culture, so clearly it’s going to groove on the petite stuff. Oreck credits the idea that the Japanese have a unique understanding of the fragility and transience of nature, which sounds a lot like saying Americans have a unique understanding of freedom, and anyway, tell that to a dolphin. But the movie is lithe and wiggy, crawling inside its subject in a way that recalls Chris Marker’s work, and I think some people will like it a lot, if they can keep an open mind about the grubs. AARON MESH. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 4:30 and 7 pm Sunday, Dec. 22-23 & 26. Whitsell Auditorium.
The Big Lebowski
NEW
[ONE WEEK ONLY, REVIVAL] For those foolish holdouts who remain unconvinced that The Big Lebowski is the funniest movie ever made, here are the perennial 12 reasons: a check made out for 69 cents, Marty the Landlord’s dance cycle, lingonberry pancakes, Jesus and the Gipsy Kings, Sobchak Security, “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen Karl Hungus?”, whale songs, the proximity of the In-N-Out Burger, Logjammin’, Branded or at least the bulk of the series, the Malibu Police Department coffee mug, “Dude’s car got a little dinged up.” Really, we could go on like this for years. R. AARON MESH. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9:15 pm Friday-Thursday, Dec. 24-30. 98
Black Swan
53 Darren Aronofsky opens the Christmas movie season with a
44
clammy, upscale horror flick starring Natalie Portman as the dancer whose metamorphosis from “frigid little girl” to ballet queen—complete with the subsuming of a dark twin—is accompanied by madness and molting. So it’s a literalization of Swan Lake, yeah. But previous stagings didn’t include the Black Swan performing hallucinatory cunnilingus on the White Swan. Every one of Aronofsky’s previous works torments a hero who sacrifices him- or herself on the altar of an obsession—usually a lust for the spotlight. Portman’s travails in Black Swan—which include, but are not limited to, bulimia, erotic repression by an overweening stage mother (Barbara Hershey) and the sudden onset of webbed feet—most obviously recall Ellen Burstyn abusing diet pills in delirious preparation for a gameshow appearance in Requiem for a Dream. Aronofsky is a dom of a director, getting his jollies by brutalizing his characters. So it is a natural progression that in Black Swan he explicitly denies Portman sexual release. It’s a movie about a girl who will go crazy if she doesn’t come. Cruelty in pop directors is nothing new—Hitchcock abused his actresses, and a nasty streak fuels David Fincher—but Aronofsky delivers pummelings while exhorting us to think on higher things. He’s the AbsentMinded Sadist, and Black Swan—with its flayed skin and ominous doppelgängers—is Fight Club with feathers. Unfortunately for Portman, she met Darren Aronofsky at a very typical time in his life. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.
Burlesque
38 If you’re going to make a movie about an entertainment form based on skin, sex and bawdy belly laughs, your film ought to include any of the three. But the new Christina Aguilera comeback vehicle, Burlesque, hides its best assets beneath a leaden plot and enough soft focus to make even Cher look dewy. With fun style cues and choreography cribbed from every movie that ever featured a push-up bra, from Sweet Charity to Showgirls, Burlesque still manages to be a dull, PG-13 tease: Kristen Bell, who usually exudes twinkle-eyed bitchiness, trades her personality for a lace bodystocking to play a drunken, lip-syncing diva. The silver lining of the entire snoozy mess is the fact that Christina Aguilera does indeed have a freakishly great set of pipes. A ‘20s-era honky-tonk piece featuring the blonde bombshell writhing on a piano, clad in an amazing bikini made of pearls, is the best moment— and, oddly enough, the only actual striptease—in the film. Credit for all the soulless flash and glitter goes to writer/ director Steven Antin—one of the creators of the 2007 CW reality series Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll—who, doing what he does best, essentially cobbled together one long, slick Pussycat video. If only he hadn’t tried to turn it into a movie. PG-13. KELLY CLARKE. Eastport, Fox Tower.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
20 The third Walden Media attempt at a C.S. Lewis epic (get ready for Shadowlands: 3-D!) is not quite so soul-smothering as the second, but it feels less like a movie than a velvet painting, or one of those Magic Eye posters you find in malls. There are water sprites and dragons, and if you stare at the thing long enough, out pops a giant moray with terrible inflammation of the bowels. Aahh! It’s enough to make you never want to go to the mall again. The rest of the picture (nominally directed by Michael Apted, though I suspect he wandered off set to paint tin soldiers or something) consists of various episodic temptations on a boat—everybody look at these British kids, ‘cause
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
NOT PRIVY TO ALL THE NEW SHIT: Jeff Bridges.
CUSSED ASSURANCE TRUE GRIT IS THE COEN BROTHERS’ HYMN TO FRONTIER LOSS. BY AA R ON MESH
amesh@wweek.com
True Grit reminded me of Lolita, though not in that way. The Coen Brothers’ new rendering of Charles Portis’ novel of Arkansas frontier retribution is remarkable for its lack of perversity—one character voices a slightly unseemly interest in the 14-year-old heroine, and another is graphically relieved of some fingers but, by Coen standards, everybody behaves with relative civility. No, I’m thinking of the way Vladimir Nabokov’s novel opens with a foreword noting that the title character is already dead; as Martin Amis wrote, “the sweat of death trickles through Lolita.” True Grit’s tone is not so rancid, but the film is narrated from a half century after its events, which begin with a man lying dead in the street and end with a woman keeping watch over a graveyard. “You must pay for everything in the world, one way or another,” says that woman, whose name is Mattie Ross. “Nothing is free except the grace of God.” The movie, as it travels from one casket to another, tells the story of how Mattie arrives at such a polarized view. Calvinists are not born, they are made—and Mattie is a girl who experiences grace and companionship only briefly, in the pursuit of violence. The knee-jerk reaction to True Grit’s somber mood is to wonder whether it’s the first “straightforward” movie the Coens have made. No matter that this question plays into the hands of those sinister people who think art either pays sincere tribute to heartland values or is the work of sarcastic Jews. Anyone who has read Ethan Coen’s collection of short stories, Gates of Eden—or has watched any of the brothers’ films since they settled into a groove with No Country for Old Men—will recognize a world where ornate language is used to justify base motives, where fat men cling to power behind big desks, and where humor isn’t a series of jokes but a tracker’s sensitivity to the scent of the absurd. It isn’t funny that Mattie’s father is shot dead in the night, or that the only place she has to bed down is in the mortuary by his corpse, but it is sort of funny that the undertaker lets her
sleep in a casket with such solemn permission. Then, of course, there is Jeff Bridges. If his performance as Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, the U.S. marshal whom Mattie hires to find her father’s killer, has notes of Jeff Lebowski—as does his Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, and his Kevin Flynn in Tron: Legacy—it may not be that he’s a lazy man, so much as that the Coens discovered something wondrously relaxed inside this previously underappreciated actor, and he keeps returning to it, because…well, he’s the man for his time and place. Bridges’ drunken lawman is essentially a comic turn, a sharpshooting grandpa who just wants to tell campfire stories, and it leaves the movie’s emotions to Hailee Steinfeld—she plays
A SHARPSHOOTING GRANDPA WHO JUST WANTS TO TELL CAMPFIRE STORIES. Mattie as Laura Ingalls Wilder with a law degree— and Matt Damon, whose Texas Ranger is painfully aware of his own ridiculousness, and is all the more hurt that everyone else notices it too. The last time True Grit was made into a film was in 1969, as an Oscar vehicle for John Wayne—an inexplicably chipper affair, almost a children’s movie. Glen Campbell played the Ranger role, and sang a gooey title ballad with the lyric, “One day, little girl, the sadness will leave your face.” The Coens’ picture flatly contradicts that prediction, and its music is Carter Burwell’s elegiac piano settings of the hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” In the movie’s culmination, Mattie is herself cradled in great arms, and the shot recalls John Wayne at the end of another movie—The Searchers, where his mercy only compensates so much. To appreciate the bleak but not hopeless world the Coens are mapping, you have to recognize both how Mattie is saved, and how much she has lost. 90 SEE IT: True Grit is rated PG-13. It opens Wednesday at Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Tigard and Wilsonville.
DEC. 22-28
SCREEN
MYRIAPOD PRODUCTIONS
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How Do You Know
2 COL. X 1" = 2" (SAU)
BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO they’re sailing on a boat. Dawn Treader navigates to a land beyond parody: It very much resembles lost footage from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with whiskered old men bellowing warnings and a buccaneer mouse waving a cutlass. Aslan the lion (Liam Neeson) sometimes dodders by to give advice, and his gentle proselytizing is the least offensive thing in the film; you may disagree with it, but at least it has some intent. The rest of the picture is special-effects wizards making mud pies in a slum. PG. AARON MESH. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville. 2-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Lake Twin, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Wilsonville.
The Fighter
The true story of Lowell, Mass., boxing half-brothers Micky and Dicky, played by Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale—no, no, c’mon, pick the paper back up! The Fighter deserves its shot: Director David O. Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees) announces his intention from the opening bell to out-Scorsese Scorsese with sprinting cameras, Stones songs and charismatic fuckups. Fleeing formula like Bale’s Dicky runs from cops, the movie is messy and darting and alive. Wahlberg plays Micky as intriguingly passive and speechless—though it’s hard to imagine any man getting a word in around his bevy of chain-smoking sisters and an exploitative managermother played by Melissa Leo. But the movie belongs to Bale: I had come to suspect he could no longer attempt any role without the Batman scowl as a crutch, but as The Fighter’s drug-addict older sibling, he hops like a wallaby, breaks into off-key crooning, and generally suggests Anthony Perkins on crack. In the movie’s singular scene, he serenades his disappointed mother with the Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke,” and, as she begins to sing along, the duet is a reminder that family so often endures on the reassuring lies we tell each other. The Fighter doesn’t steal the championship belt from Raging Bull: It’s a hair too neat, and doesn’t fully explore its darkest implications. But at least it belongs in the same ring. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, CineMagic, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonvill.e. 89
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Lisbeth Salander, buried alive with a bullet in her brain at the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire, can barely walk when The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest begins. The Girl Who Opened a Can of Worms would have been a more accurate (although considerably less sexy) title: Salander’s injuries have her confined to a hospital bed for the 35
film’s first half, and she is capable of little more than pecking out her autobiography on a cell phone. Maybe they don’t have cans of worms in Sweden. I don’t know. But I must warn you there is very little kicking until the final 15 minutes of this third and final installment of Stieg Larsson’s horrendously popular trilogy, and not one goddamn hornet’s nest in the entire picture. While Lisbeth convalesces and awaits trial (she tried to kill The Dude With a Burned Face Who Is Also Her Dad in the previous installment), her friend Mikael Blomkvist, The Writer Who Somehow Makes Journalism Look Even More Boring Than It Is in Real Life, preps a special issue of his magazine devoted to clearing his taciturn hacker buddy’s name. It’s artless trash, but the expositionheavy proceedings are conducted in a funny foreign language, and we all know “international cinema” is synonymous with quality, so yeah, go pay for this instead of watching a Law & Order rerun for free. Call me The Boy With the Thorn in His Side if you must, but I just don’t get it. R. CHRIS STAMM. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters. NEW
Gulliver’s Travels
Jack Black is bigger than other people. Not screened for critics. PG. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall. 2-D: Cinema 99, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
77 Everybody has tough teenage years, but damn does Harry Potter have issues. Sure, we’ve all dealt with shifty relatives and hormonally imbalanced friends with mean streaks. But we didn’t have the lord of all that is evil breathing down our necks, gigantic snakes trying to eat us, or a crazed government hunting us down in the midst of a genocide attempt on wizard-human lovechildren. Now, we near the end of the road with Deathly Hallows, Part 1, the first half of the final chapter, wherein Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) must get all Frodo on Lord Voldemort (the terrifically menacing Ralph Fiennes) by destroying a series of gems possessing fragments of his soul. To do so, he and BFFs Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) go on the road, abandoning Hogwarts and all the fine British thespians who reside there. The series’ child actors have spent the past decade in these roles, and it’s refreshing to see them mature. Each young actor shows chops, from Radcliffe’s tortured chosen one to Watson’s peppy Nancy Drew type. But it’s Grint who shines here, breaking away from comic relief to show serious skill as Ron is seduced with darkness and jealousy. Of all the actors in the series, the goofylooking Grint emerges in Deathly Hallows as the standout. PG-13. AP KRYZA. 99 Indoor Twin, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Forest, Lloyd
34 Cut from USA Softball, Reese Witherspoon goes to a shrink (Tony Shalhoub), who advises: “Figure out what you want, and learn how to ask for it.” James L. Brooks wants to remake his Broadcast News without the pesky workplace, and after you win enough Oscars, you always get what you ask for. It really is the same love triangle, but disastrous: Witherspoon has been instructed to impersonate Holly Hunter, Owen Wilson is humiliated in the dimwit beefcake role given poignancy by William Hurt, and Paul Rudd gets drunk on cocktails and sings to his furniture. Rudd really could be the handsome son of Albert Brooks— that would have been fun casting; instead, the devious pop role goes to a miserable Jack Nicholson. At any rate, Rudd is the most ill-used: He’s a moony milquetoast, because James L. Brooks can’t imagine nice guys with the potential for dignity. How Do You Know is jammed with big, unformed ideas—it concludes with a speech about putty, which is inadvertently telling—and there are bits of good movie sticking out of a lot of very bad movie. But it goes on forever, like some form of romantic purgatory: There’s actually a scene where a man gives a mildly touching marriage proposal, and then somebody realizes they should have videotaped it, so everyone in the room recites the speech a second time. Not since Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown has a respected director floundered so publicly, and at such length. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lake Twin, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.
FILLER AD
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I Love You Phillip Morris
Jim Carrey is at his most interesting when he explores a worrisome cavity inside his mania—think of his everyman in The Truman Show suspecting his entire life was as empty as his good-morning waves—so he’s very good as the compulsively recidivist Texas con man Steven Russell, who romances (and tries to spring) a fellow prison inmate. I Love You Phillip Morris (no relation to the coffin-nail manufacturer; the beloved’s name is actually Phillip Morris, true story) could be a sequel to Catch Me If You Can called Please, Somebody Catch Me Already—it’s the tale of a man who comes out of the closet, only to discover he’s only functional in confined spaces he can escape from. He is born to jailbreak. With scenes like Carrey emerging from a car wreck with the bloodied cry, “I’m going to be a fag!” it’s hard to say who the picture can play to: The square community will be appalled, and the movie goes out of its way to piss on gay sensitivities. (Russell’s climactic getaway tactic is spectacularly offensive.) The satire, written and directed by the Bad Santa team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is brittle and toxic, like poisoned candy. But a lot of it tastes sweet—check out a montage of Carrey committing insurance fraud by flinging himself down escalators—and as Morris, Ewan McGregor provides a sensitive center. His performance radiates heartbroken sincerity, but it’s impossible to say if Carrey (or the rest of the movie) ever really feels the pledge of the title, or anything at all. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. 69
Megamind
66 Poor Megamind. Its writers must’ve thought they had a really clever idea—”What if we make an animated superhero movie with the villain as the protagonist?”— until Despicable Me came out this summer and became a sleeper hit built on that very conceit. Outside that basic premise, they’re not the
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COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS A GRACIE FILMS PRODUCTICO- ON A FILM BY JAMES L. BROOKS “HOW DO YOU KNOW” KATHRYN HAHN PRODUCER ALDRIC LA’AULI PORTER MUSIC MUSIC EXECUTIVE SUPERVISION BY NICK ANGEL BY HANS ZIMMER PRODUCERS JOHN D. SCHOFIELD RICHARD SAKAI PRODUCED WRITTEN AND BY JAMES L. BROOKS PAULA WEINSTEIN LAURENCE MARK JULIE ANSELL DIRECTED BY JAMES L. BROOKS CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES
CONT. on page 46 Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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DEC. 22-28
same film, but the two will now be inextricably linked until the end of time—or at least until Megamind is completely forgotten, which should happen before this review even appears in print. Ironically, it’s actually the superior picture— it has better characters, explores the subjectivity of good and evil with greater insight, and doesn’t resort to fart jokes or forced cutesiness—but Despicable Me will endure longer because it reveled in oldschool cartoon anarchy in a way most kiddie flicks don’t anymore. Megamind, by contrast, does little to ensure it’ll survive in anyone’s memory beyond its 96-minute runtime. Sure, it’s got some decent voice work from Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and David Cross (despite his top billing, Brad Pitt’s appearance is basically a cameo), nice visuals (though the 3-D is unimpressive) and a couple of good gags, the best being Ferrell’s titular giant-headed criminal mastermind illustrated Shepard Fairey-style on a poster emblazoned with the phrase “No You Can’t.” But it all feels stultifyingly typical. PG. MATTHEW SINGER. 3-D: Eastport. 2-D: Clackamas, Movies on TV.
Morning Glory
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Morning news shows are 51 made tolerable only by the grogginess of a pre-work stupor, and they grow more irritating with each sip of coffee. As such, they’re ripe for skewering, and at times Morning Glory nails the parody while getting at the heart of why people watch this tripe every day. Rachel McAdams is a plucky producer steering a fourthplace Today Show knockoff back into relevance. To do so, she hires a disgraced journalist (Harrison Ford, playing a grumpy Harrison Ford-y cross between Mike Wallace and Dan Rather) as lead anchor. Sparks immediately fly between Ford and co-anchor Diane Keaton, a Katie Couric type whose crowning achievement is a story in which she has her pap smear filmed. This should sound familiar to anyone who has ever watched Regis Philbin come close to slapping Kelly Ripa, and there’s some biting satire in the mix (like Broadcast News for teenage girls). But director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) dumps all sorts of NutraSweet into the mix, forcing in a dull romance and loads of McAdams acting quirkily. Morning Glory eventually becomes the equivalent of watching a two-hour morning show— one that gets more obnoxious with each sip of cheap pandering and sentimental sludge. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Living Room Theaters.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
There’s something very diabolical about an ancient man who watches children at all times, passing judgment on their behavior before breaking into their homes in the middle of the night. Finnish director Jalmari Helander knows there’s an inherent malice in the Santa Claus myth. He mines it to full effect with Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a fantastical horror comedy in which the Fat Man is a sadistic enforcer of morals. Santa— ”not the Coca-Cola Santa,” as one character puts it—is actually a demonic marauder (Per Christian Elletsen) who snatches naughty kids from their beds, replacing them with wicker dolls before chucking them into burlap sacks and carting them off. There is no shortage of irreverent holiday films, but not since Gremlins has a Christmas flick so aptly combined dark overtones with such imagination and abandon. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, Rare Exports is packed with a sense of childlike discovery, nailing the laughs and dread with an overriding sense of innocent curiosity. The result is poised to be an instant cult classic for those who have grown tired of George Bailey and his feelgood brethren. Naughtiness can be its own reward. R. AP KRYZA. Fox Tower. 86
Publishes January 26, 2011 space Reservation & Materials Deadline Tuesday, January 18 at 4pm 46
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
Photo caption WILLIAM tk S. BURROUGHS: A MAN WITHIN NEW
Silent Night, Deadly Night
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] There are some cinematic memories that warm our hearts every Christmas, bringing cheer with each viewing. Little Virginia finding out that, yes, indeed, there is a Santa Claus. George Bailey realizing how truly wonderful life can be. A deranged, sexually repressed psychopath in a Santa suit making kebabs out of gratuitously naked ladies. Silent Night, Deadly Night, presented by the Grindhouse Film Festival, is by no means a good movie, which should be evident by the fact that it’s a slasher flick made in 1984, a time when the Friday the 13th ripoffs piled up quicker than dead sorority girls. Still, there’s a great deal of guilty pleasure to be had watching a Santa-clad mental case, with a vested childhood fear of Papa Noël, hack his way through a horde of naughty and naked holiday cheesecakes for 80 gruesome minutes. R. AP KRYZA. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. 76
Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story
81 [TWO DAYS ONLY] Contrary to popular opinion, the blissedout, flower-flucking orgy of future accountants known as “the Sixties” (I put it in quotes so I don’t have to touch the filthy thing) did not die at Mick Jagger’s coked-out feet at Altamont, nor did that menacing idiot midget Manson murder it in the Hollywood Hills. No, the dream died in 1968, when a faction of musically inclined and almost wholly talent-free Crest-clean virgins split from wacko anti-pinko Christian cult MRA (Moral Re-Armament) to form Up With People, a globetrotting horror show of insipid uplift starring dozens of young adults who can be forgiven for not knowing any better, and overseen by a power-obsessed glad-hander named J. Blanton Belk, who seems to have been more interested in forging bonds with his corporate sponsors (GM, Toyota and Halliburton, among others) than actually improving the world in any meaningful way. This is, at least, what I learned from the documentary Smile ‘Til it Hurts, and I am inclined to trust my source, because anything that justifies my resentment of “the Sixties” and every slick, slack-jawed hagiographer fishing its scummy waters is golden in my book. I’m smiling. CHRIS STAMM. Hollywood Theatre. 2:20 pm Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 25-26.
The Social Network
The early critical dispute over The Social Network, the Facebook origin movie (directed by David Fincher! Script by Aaron Sorkin!), is whether it is a cyberpunk Citizen Kane or a geek Gatsby. These comparisons do the movie no favors, but they fairly precisely identify the film’s themes of prodigy, ambition and loneliness—the bone-aching lonesome that comes from outrunning everyone you know, then castigating them for not keeping up. Then there’s this: The Social Network actually is superior entertainment. It is the most intellectually electrifying cinema of the year. 94
It’s fundamentally an Angry Young Man movie—like Room at the Top, except that when Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) sees a room he’s not allowed in, he has the ability to move the room. Say what you will about Sorkin, who seemingly hits the “like” button on himself daily, but his script recognizes that rage is our culture’s prevailing mood. Even the haves feel themselves to be have-nots. The fury is balanced by Eisenberg’s delicate performance, the film’s flashforward structure and Trent Reznor’s mournful score, which combine to create a piquancy of regret for things the characters don’t know they’re destroying. This is history written in text messaging. PG-13. AARON MESH. Clackamas, Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters.
Tamara Drewe
Writing—or at least typing— always looks a little silly onscreen, but Stephen Frears (The Grifters, The Queen) makes the craft look especially preposterous in the opening minutes of Tamara Drewe, which find the denizens of a British writer’s retreat clacking out inanities on laptops. They are no more dignified in their lives. “Can I tempt you?” the colony’s proprietress (Tamsin Greig) asks as she passes around a tray of biscuits, and of course nobody can say no to any carnal appetite— especially not after the homecoming of Tamara (Gemma Arterton), a local girl who returns with her nose smaller and other places grown significantly. The movie, based on a comic by Posy Simmonds, is the sort of barbed romantic farce Kingsley Amis used to specialize in, and the best schemer in the roundelay is a rather Amisian rotter, a philandering mystery novelist played by Roger Allam (if anybody’s out there casting for a Christopher Hitchens biopic, you’ve found your man). Everyone in the picture—even the tabloidperusing schoolgirls—wants something they haven’t got, and everyone is just horrible enough that you’re dying to know what their comeuppance will be. (It involves cows. Lots of cows.) As the season of bloated, tony films starts its boring trudge, Frears has snuck in a deliciously toxic little bonbon. R. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. 84
Tangled
60 Few marketing opportunities are missed in Disney’s update of the Rapunzel fairy tale: The opening ballad sounds like Hannah Montana tween twang; a tiny chameleon sidekick is Happy Meal-ready. The heroine, voiced by Mandy Moore, looks like a Mandy Moore baby doll— I’m actually a little surprised no one thought to stuff a stocking with her until now. But once you accept that the film appears built from a box of Playmobil toys, Tangled is moderately enchanting. Alan Menken has been brought back to pen the songs, and while none of his compositions is as catchy as his collaborations with Alan Sherman on The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast, he has apparently instructed the directors, Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, what hits to beat. There’s the giddy supporting-character
DEC. 22-28 comedy number (“I’ve Got a Dream,” a genuinely delightful vaudeville bit starring ugly brigands with innocent ambitions), not one but two climactic sacrifices for love, and a romantic serenade on a gondola. This last entry provides Tangled’s singular moment of visual awe: A bouquet of airborne candles turns the screen into a delicate magic lantern show. The scene is not only beautiful, but sincere about its beauty. Possibly Disney should take a lesson from every children’s movie it ever made, and remember to believe in itself. PG. AARON MESH. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, Evergreen, Lloyd Center. 2-D: 99 Indoor Twin, Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.
Video games have come a long way since Tron hit screens in 1982, and Tron: Legacy has evolved with them. It’s eye-poppingly gorgeous, ludicrous and swollen with enough pure adrenaline to make Raoul Duke trip balls for decades. Legacy finds computer wunderkind Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) sucked into a digitized world of violent Ultimate Frisbee and glow sticks to retrieve his long-lost father, Kevin (Jeff Bridges). The fallen Apollo of the neon realm, Kevin’s now hiding from the maniacally dictatorial Clu (Bridges again, age digitally reduced 30 years to resemble Patrick Swayze by way of The Polar Express). Aesthetically, Tron is a wonder, maybe the best use of 3-D to date. Set to a pulsing Daft Punk score, action scenes sear the retina, from gladiatorial battles
The Tempest
REVIEW
It’s official: Johnny Depp has lost his grasp on reality—or, at least, his grasp on real people. After years of inhabiting fantastical characters with personalities that place no limit on how bizarrely he can play them, in The Tourist he portrays a simple American rube—a Wisconsin community college math professor named Frank—and decides to devoid him of any personality at all. His flat performance tanks a film banking its success completely on the natural fireworks that should exist between Depp and co-star Angelina Jolie. Critics have justifiably bemoaned the shocking lack of chemistry between them, blaming a tepid script that aspires to be a witty romantic thriller in the mold of To Catch a Thief and falls well short. But there is enough there for the actors to salvage if they really wanted to. As the glamorously mysterious Elise, Jolie does what’s expected of her: sashay against the prettily filmed backdrop of Venice while looking like, well, Angelina Jolie on vacation in Italy. Frank is the one the audience is supposed to identify with, but even as he finds himself being chased by gangsters for reasons we don’t think he understands, Depp doesn’t seem upset, confused or even inconvenienced. He just looks bored. And, thus, so do the rest of us. PG-13. MATTHEW SINGER. Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville. 45
‘‘THANKS TO A SUPERB CAST ‘ ’
‘‘THIS IMMERSIVE MARVEL OF A MOVIE
SNEAKS UP AND
THE FIGHTER
TRIUMPHS .’’
FLOORS YOU .
’’
PETER TRAVERS
CONT. on page 48
NOW PLAYING AT THEATRES EVERYWHERE CHECK DIRECTORIES FOR THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES
THIS ISN’T GOING WELL AT ALL, I FEAR: Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter.
THE KING’S SPEECH The s-s-s-sadness of King George.
If it is the task of the movie psychologist to tell his patient, à la Robin Williams, that distress is “not your fault”—and to convince us that, yes, that fellow’s problems are not his fault and, by golly, our problems are not our fault—then speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), despite lacking medical qualifications, does a bang-up job of telling stuttering George VI (Colin Firth) that it’s not his fault he is the King of England. The King’s Speech is the sort of awards-season tinsel that opens with a speaking engagement going mortifyingly awry—the youngest son of the House of Windsor, known to his few intimates as Bertie, cannot make it through a sentence without breaking down in heaving gulps—and ends with a heart-swelling proclamation of war. It is presented by the Weinstein Company, which means the movie and its royal dramatic society will be shoved down our throats for the rest of the winter. Yet that is not really the picture’s fault, is it? As Bertie’s tongue loosened, I felt much of my hostility melting away. The film is directed by Tom Hooper, who is just about peerless at period pieces: The Damned United was spellbinding even if you didn’t care about soccer, and The King’s Speech is compelling even if you don’t give a toss about monarchs. Hooper likes difficult heroes, and it helps that Firth has always had a Little Lord Fauntleroy air of sadness in schoolboy shorts. He works a lot of notes—arrogance, shame and anger, as well as a freeing flood of expletives—into his performance, and Rush, who can be a hopeless ham, relishes the role of a doctor who can be a hopeless ham, and who is very consoling company anyway. “What are friends for?” he asks Bertie. “I wouldn’t know,” says the lonesome heir. C’mon, how are you going to resist that sort of thing? Well, there are some objections that cannot be overcome, even as the movie shovels out the finest thespians of the Empire (and Australia): Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen Mum! Guy Pearce as abdicating Edward! Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill! The most glaring problem, first pointed out by David Edelstein, is that the king’s speech itself is the prologue to World War II, and in the broader scheme of things it’s not a triumph at all, except of rhetoric. Sure, the canard goes that people are more frightened of public speaking than death, but that doesn’t mean a good radio announcement quite balances out all that dying. R. AARON MESH. 70 SEE IT: The King’s Speech opens Saturday at Clackamas, Cedar Hills, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower and Lloyd Center.
12
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The Tourist
to a kung-fu melee in a Eurotrash bar and the requisite Light Cycle throwdown. Neon dominates the film, with glowing lights augmenting women’s curves and men’s muscles with ample ooh-la-la and phosphorescence permeating each shot. With so much style, who gives a shit about substance? Director Joseph Kosinski, for one. The film is packed with enough broody exposition and religious allegory to give both Wachowskis migraines. PG. AP KRYZA. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Roseway, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville. 2-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport,
L AU R I E S PA R H A M
Stage and opera staple Julie Taymor, creator of Broadway’s The Lion King and the new Spider-Man musical, has always been an insanely talented costume designer and art director with delusions of directing grandeur. In her Tempest, which sets Shakespeare’s tale of shipwrecks and double-crossing nobles on a volcanic isle lorded over by a gender-bending, magic-staffwielding Prospero (Helen Mirren as “Prospera”), Taymor ups the interest with a panoply of amazing creatures, from fiery-eyed lava dogs and a naked, androgynous butoh sprite to a goo-mouthed harpy that bedevils Prospera’s evil brother and his compatriots, looking like the world’s most terrifying seagull after an oil spill disaster. But while the visuals sing, and the zipper-andleather outfits dazzle, the emotional content lags. For a lover, Prospera’s daughter Miranda (Felicity Jones) must make do with a simpering American Apparel ad that croons folk tunes, and you’d be forgiven for focusing on the rugged scenery, all razor-sharp rocks and gnarled trees, while drunken shipmates Alfred Molina and Russell Brand trade barbs. Like most Taymor productions, The Tempest is truly amazing eye candy. But despite a powerful performance from Mirren, these stormy waters don’t run nearly deep enough. PG-13. KELLY CLARKE. Cinema 21. 65
Tron: Legacy
73
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JF
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BlackSwan2010.com
wweekdotcom Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
FOX SEARCHLIGHT WILAMETTE WEEK
2 COL. (3.772") X 6"
47
DEC. 22-28
Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub. NEW
Undertow
A Peruvian man comes out of the closet. Living Room Theaters. Living Room Theaters.
Waste Land
Due perhaps to a lingering adolescent presumption that happy endings make for bad art, words like “inspiring,” “uplifting” and “triumphant,” when used to extol anything save the virtues of my own amorous abilities, are anathema to me. They are the kinds of words Gene Shalit uses to describe those bright and colorful things that manage to penetrate his thick skull and poke at the nubby nerve endings in his brain. I see these words decorating a DVD cover and I run to the nearest snuff film. You might feel the same way. If so, look away dear reader: Waste Land is an inspiring, uplifting and triumphant record of Brazilian-born, New York-based artist Vik Muniz’s two-year collaboration wtih a band of trash pickers from Rio’s slums. Wisely avoiding pouring “salt of the earth” bromides into her subjects’ wounds, while sidestepping the paternalistic despair that sometimes sinks Werner Herzog’s documents of similarly stricken communities, director Lucy Walker turns what could have been a mash note to Muniz (who might actually deserve one) into a steady, mostly unsentimental look at a way of life at a place in time on a damaged planet that still admits of joy. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters. 81
White Material
95 It takes time to get your bearings in a Claire Denis film. White Material, the remarkable new movie by this French master responsible for three nearly perfect films already (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day, The Intruder), begins with a succession of unsettling fragments: a soldier lying dead in a dark room; a man trapped in a burning building; and a woman, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert), running to or from some as yet vague emergency. Broad context emerges soon enough—we are in an unnamed African country verging on postcolonial Hobbesian hell—and so we have some idea of how that soldier came to be there, why that building is on fire, and what Maria is fleeing or chasing, but Denis embellishes these initial adumbrations slowly and carefully, even gently, as if White Material’s escalating chaos could tip over into incurable madness at any moment. It is almost as if Maria has been cast as the political actor who shall not act, so that this violence, seemingly so arbitrarily dispersed, might have a place to eventually converge. White Material ends where it begins—a figure in limbo, running—and there are still people left alive to follow their loved ones into death, yet I did not want this horrible story to end, not as long as Denis was acting as guide. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters.
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dish: reviews, events, & gut reactions Page 20 48
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2010 wweek.com
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52 Some advice for the ladies: Do not wed a transgressive novelist with a thing for weapons. To the obvious example of Norman Mailer (wife stabbed, lived), let’s add William S. Burroughs (wife shot in forehead during game of William Tell, died). Yony Leyser’s documentary, about the hustler-hunting junkie who served as America’s cadaverous undertaker for four decades, is somehow less than compelling, even though it contains interviews with Gus Van Sant, Patti Smith and Burroughs’ snake dealer. Maybe that’s because everybody loves him. He loved his cats. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre.
Yogi Bear
Torture is a relative term. I’ve not been waterboarded or stripped naked and thrown in a pyramid of other naked men. Still, watching Yogi Bear was a humiliating experience, 32
from sliding a pair of 3-D glasses awkwardly on top of my existing glasses to seeing Yogi—one of my closest childhood friends—stripped of his stylized ’50s dignity and forced to repeat a single catchphrase ad nauseam: “I’m smarter than the average bear!” I should not be surprised at this kind of strip-mining. The corpses of Yogi and Boo Boo have been reanimated many times. This time out, the talking bears—the film’s human characters seem underwhelmed by the prospect of bears who speak English; they are, however, impressed by bears who can water-ski—are voiced ably enough by Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake and forced to amble through adventure after joylessly clichéd adventure with nary a nod to the cartoon’s heri-
tage. If there’s any style to be salvaged from this wreck—and its lack of style is what hurts this movie most—it’s in the inspired design of Yogi’s various pic-a-nic basket-snatching devices (the airborne “Baskit Snatcher 2000” is downright da Vinci-esque) and the animated closing credits, both of which look pretty sweet in 3-D. Please don’t mistake that for a recommendation. PG. CASEY JARMAN. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Sandy, Sherwood. 2-D: Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Tigard, Wilsonville.
REVIEW UNIVERSAL PICTURES
SCREEN
AND THAT WAS THE TIME I SHOT HARVEY KEITEL: Robert De Niro and some child.
LITTLE FOCKERS Not happy to see you, Robert De Niro.
As if the sight of Robert De Niro with a raging hard-on poking through his pajamas isn’t sad enough, the creators of Little Fockers have to go and make it worse. It’s not just that they follow it with a scene of Ben Stiller stabbing him in the penis with a shot of adrenaline to help bring down his medically assisted boner—it’s that they reminded us earlier that this old man participating in a lame erectile-dysfunction joke once played a young Vito Corleone. Like every other gag in this third installment of the Meet the Parents series, the Godfather references are uncomfortably shoehorned in—as retired CIA agent Jack Byrnes, De Niro asks son-in-law Greg Focker (Stiller) if he’s prepared to take over as family patriarch and become “the God-Focker”—but they’re enough to highlight just how abysmal De Niro’s late-career work has been. He doesn’t need to deliver another canonical performance at this point, but c’mon: dick jokes? Really? It’s not just De Niro. Appropriately for a movie with a dumbass near-pun for a title (which doesn’t even make sense—the little fuckers in question are tangential to the plot), nobody in Little Fockers escapes with their dignity intact. It’s a parade of shame from actors willing to debase themselves for a franchise that’s proven inexplicably popular. All this installment has going for it is a few brief minutes of Jessica Alba in her underwear. Otherwise, it’s a lazily written cash grab that offers at least one embarrassing moment for everyone involved: Alba gets drunk, strips down and swan-dives into a mud pit; Laura Dern pulls a kid’s finger and he farts; Owen Wilson pole-dances. Stiller spends the entire film looking like he can’t wait for it to end—and that’s before his son projectile-vomits in his face. If you’ve seen either of the other two movies, it’s not a spoiler to say that the story here involves a series of misunderstandings that lead Jack to distrust Greg before finally accepting him again. This time, the comedy of errors climaxes in a fistfight between De Niro and Stiller. Unfortunately, they don’t kill each other, leaving the door open for a fourth film that’ll probably be called something like Mother Fockers, Focker in the Rear or, if the producers want to be honest, Thanks for the Money, You Dumb Shits. PG-13. MATTHEW SINGER. 13 SEE IT: Little Fockers opens Wednesday at Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Moreland, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard and Wilsonville.
NORTHWEST
3
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BE ST ACTOR - JOHNNY DEPP BE ST ACTRESS - ANGELINA JOLIE
BEST PICTURE
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ROBERT ZUCKERMAN
503-282-2898 TRON: LEGACY 3D 1:30, 4:45, 8
GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS (COMEDY)
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MOVIES
Cinema 21
616 NW. 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 Call for showtimes.
Mission Theater & Pub
1624 NW Glisan St., 503-249-7474 FOUR LIONS Sun, Wed-Thu 10:05am MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Mon 5:30 RED Sun, Wed-Thu 8:05 Sun 2:30 Tue 9:15 SECRETARIAT Sun, Wed-Thu 5:30
SOUTHEAST Academy Theater
FREIGHT TRAIN BLUES: I am trying to resign myself to the idea that, when I issue my top 10 list next week, there may not be enough room for Unstoppable. Maybe it would help me make peace with this fact if I issued some apologies. I’m sorry, boxcar-leaping Denzel Washington. I’m sorry, wheat-covered Chris Pine. I’m sorry, expert whom nobody will listen to. I’m sorry, brave dude who drops from a helicopter. I’m sorry, imperiled Hooters girls. I’m sorry, Tony Scott. I had such a good time with all of you. There’s a place for you in my heart. Eleventh place, probably. AARON MESH. Academy, Laurelhurst, Valley. Best paired with: Sierra Nevada Celebration. Also showing: Four Lions (Academy, Bagdad, Laurelhurst, Mission). THREE DAYS 9:55
Lloyd Center Stadium 10 Cinema DOWNTOWN Broadway Metro 4 1000 SW Broadway, 800-326-3264 LITTLE FOCKERS 2, 4:30, 7 Sat-Thu 9:30 TANGLED 2:15, 4:45, 7:15 Sat-Thu 10 THE TOURIST 2:30, 5:15, 7:45 Sat-Thu 10:15 YOGI BEAR 2:45, 5, 7:30 SatThu 9:45
Fifth Ave. Cinemas 510 SW Hall St., 503-725-3551 Call for showtimes.
4:30, 7:30, 10:20 LITTLE FOCKERS 1:15, 4:10, 7:20, 10 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 3D 12:30, 4:05, 7:05, 10:05 TRON: LEGACY 3D 12:45, 4:15, 7:15, 10:25 TRUE GRIT 1, 4, 7, 10:15
Whitsell Auditorium
1219 SW Park Ave., 503-221-1156 BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO Sun 4:30, 7
1 COL. X 1"NORTH = 1" (SAU) Portlander FILLER AD Cinema 846 SW Park Ave., 10350 N Vancouver Way, Fox Tower Stadium 10 800-326-3264 127 HOURS Fri-Tue 12:05, 4:30, 7:10 Sat-Tue 2:20, 9:45 Fri 2:25 BLACK SWAN Fri-Tue 11:55am, 12:30, 1, 3:05, 4:25, 5, 7:30, 8 SatTue 2:25, 5:30, 7, 9:30, 9:55, 10:20 Fri 2:20, 5:35, 7:05 BURLESQUE Fri 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40 FAIR GAME Fri 12:20, 2:45, 5:15, 7:35 I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS Fri-Tue 12:15, 2:35, 5:25, 7:45 Sat-Tue 10:05 RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE Fri-Tue 12:50, 3, 5:05, 7:15 Sat-Tue 9:40 THE FIGHTER Fri-Tue 12:45, 2:30, 4:15, 5:20, 7:50 SatTue 12, 7:05, 9:35, 10:15 Fri 11:45am, 7 THE KING’S SPEECH Sat-Tue 12:20, 1:05, 3:30, 4:35, 6:45, 7:25, 9:25, 10
Living Room Theaters 341 SW 10th Ave., 971-222-2010 HEMINGWAY’S GARDEN OF EDEN Fri 11:40am, 3, 5:20 MORNING GLORY Fri 4:20 THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST Fri 12:05, 2, 5:10 THE SOCIAL NETWORK Fri 1:50 UNDERTOW Fri 12:10, 2:30, 5 WASTE LAND Fri 12:20, 2:40, 4:50 WHITE MATERIAL Fri 11:50am, 2:10, 4:30
Pioneer Place Stadium 6
503-240-5850 Call for showtimes.
St. Johns Pub and Theater
8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474 HEREAFTER Fri-Sun , TueThu 6 Wed 1 MEGAMIND Fri-Tue 1 MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Mon 5:30 THE NEXT THREE DAYS 8:45 Wed 1
St. Johns Twin Cinemas and Pub
8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 TRON: LEGACY Fri-Tue 5:20, 7:55 Sat-Tue 10:20 Sat 2:30 Sun 2:30 TRUE GRIT Fri-Tue 5, 7:20 SatTue 9:40 Sat 2:40 Sun 2:40
NORTHEAST Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 SMILE ’TIL IT HURTS: THE UP WITH PEOPLE STORY Sat-Sun 2:20 TAMARA DREWE Sat-Thu 8:45 THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST Sat-Thu 6:50, 9:40 Sat-Sun 4 THE SOCIAL NETWORK Sat-Thu 7, 9:20 Sat-Sun 2:10, 4:40 WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: A MAN WITHIN Sat-Thu 7:15
2 COL. X 1" = 2" (SAU)
340 SW Morrison St., 800-326-3264 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 12:40, 3:45, 7:10, 10:10 HOW DO YOU KNOW 1:10,
Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474 MEGAMIND 5:30 RED 7:35 Tue-Thu 2:30 SECRETARIAT Fri-Mon 2:30 THE NEXT
1510 NE Multnomah Blvd., 800-326-3264 BLACK SWAN 11:50am, 2:30, 5:10, 7:50 Sat-Thu 10:30 HOW DO YOU KNOW 12:50, 4:30, 7:25 Sat-Thu 10:15 LITTLE FOCKERS 11:35am, 2:15, 5, 7:40 SatThu 10:20 TANGLED 3D 11:30am, 2:05, 4:35 Fri 7:05 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 3D 12:30, 3:35, 6:50 SatThu 9:50 THE FIGHTER 1, 4:20, 7:10 Sat-Thu 10 THE KING’S SPEECH Sat-Thu 12:10, 3:15, 7:05, 10:05 THE TOURIST 11:45am, 2:20, 4:55, 7:35 Sat-Thu 10:10 TRON: LEGACY 3D 12:10, 3:15, 6:40, 7:20 Sat-Thu 9:55, 10:25 Fri 12:40, 3:45 TRUE GRIT 12:20, 3:55, 6:55 Sat-Thu 9:45
Laurelhurst Theater
2735 E Burnside St., 232-5511 EASY A Sun 4:30, 9 MonThurs 9 GET LOW Sun 1:40, 6:45 Mon-Thurs 6:45 THE TOWN Sun 4, 9:15 Mon-Thurs 9:15 RED Sun 1:15, 7 Mon-Thurs 7 UNSTOPPABLE Sun 4:10, 9:30 Mon-Thurs 9:30 INCEPTION Sun 1, 6:30 Mon-Thurs 6:30 4 LIONS Sun 4:40, 7:15 Mon-Thurs 7:15 IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY Sun 1:30, 9:40 MonThurs 9:40
Lloyd Mall 8 Cinema
2320 Lloyd Center Mall, 800-326-3264 GULLIVER’S TRAVELS 3D Sat-Thu 11:55am, 3, 6, 9 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 12:10, 3:15, 6:15 Sat-Thu 9:20 LITTLE FOCKERS 12:35, 3:35, 6:25 Sat-Thu 8:55 TANGLED 6:20 SatThu 9:25 Fri 12:15, 3:25 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER Sat-Thu 12:25, 3:25, 6:25, 9:30 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 3D Fri 11:55am, 3, 6 TRON: LEGACY 12:05, 3:10, 6:05 Sat-Thu 9:10 TRUE GRIT 11:50am, 3:20, 6:30 SatThu 9:05 YOGI BEAR 3:30 Sat-Thu 12:30 Fri 12:25, 6:35 YOGI BEAR 3D 12, 3:05, 6:10 Sat-Thu 9:15
7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 Call for showtimes.
Avalon Theatre
3451 SE Belmont St., 503-238-1617 DESPICABLE ME 11:30am, 1:15, 5 LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE 11:45am, 1:30, 5:25 RED 3:20, 7:15 THE TOWN 9:20 UNSTOPPABLE 3, 7, 8:50
“ THRILLING ENTERTAINMENT!!”
Bagdad Theater & Pub 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 FOUR LIONS Sun-Thu 8:45 MEGAMIND Sun, Tue-Thu 3:30 THE NEXT THREE DAYS Sun-Thu 6
M . osé Persico, CTV, MONTREAL
Century at Clackamas Town Center
12000 SE 82nd Ave., 800-326-3264 BLACK SWAN 11:25am, 2:10, 4:55, 7:40 Sat-Thu 10:25am DUE DATE Sat-Thu 10:20am, 4:20, 10:25am Fri 10:40am, 1, 3:25, 5:50, 8:15 GULLIVER’S TRAVELS SatThu 11:55am, 2:15, 4:40, 7, 9:30 GULLIVER’S TRAVELS 3D Sat-Thu 10:45am, 1:05, 3:25, 5:50, 8:10, 10:35am HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 Sat-Thu 12:55, 7:10 Fri 12, 3:30, 7 HOW DO YOU KNOW 10:25am, 4:30, 7:30 Sat-Thu 1:25, 10:30am Fri 1:20 LITTLE FOCKERS 11:10am, 12:30, 1:45, 3, 4:15, 5:30, 6:50, 8 Sat-Thu 9:25, 10:35 MEGAMIND 10:30am TANGLED SatTue 11:15am, 1:50, 4:25, 7, 9:40 Fri 10:20am, 12:50, 3:20, 5:50, 8:30 TANGLED 3D Fri 11:15am, 1:50, 4:25, 7 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 3:05 Sat-Thu 12:10, 6:05, 8:55 Fri 12:15, 6, 8:40 THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 3D 10:50am, 4:30, 7:20 SatThu 1:35, 10:05am Fri 1:40 THE FIGHTER 10:55am, 1:45, 4:35, 7:25 Sat-Thu 10:20am THE KING’S SPEECH Sat-Thu 10:40am, 1:30, 4:20, 7:15, 10:10am THE SOCIAL NETWORK Sat-Thu 7:55, 10:45 Fri 10:30am, 1:25, 4:20, 7:15 THE TOURIST 11:35am, 2:20, 5, 7:35 Sat-Thu 10:15am TRON: LEGACY 11:45am, 2:45, 5:45 Sat-Thu 8:45 Fri 8:35 TRON: LEGACY 3D 10:35am, 1:40, 7:45 SatThu 4:45, 10:45am Fri 4:40 TRUE GRIT 2:30, 5:10, 7:50 Sat-Thu 11:40am, 10:40am Fri 11:50am YOGI BEAR Sat-Thu 11:05am, 1:15, 3:30, 5:40 Fri 11:20am, 1:30, 3:40, 5:55, 8:10 YOGI BEAR 3D 10:15am, 12:25, 2:40, 4:50, 7:05 Sat-Thu 9:15
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