Eugene Weekly

Local soccer fans will be spoiled this summer with several Lane United FC matches at the Willamalane Center as well as the July 24 International Champions Cup match between Paris Saint-Germain and F.C. Internazionale Milano, to be played in Autzen Stadium. And yet, if Eugene soccer fans are as passionate about the beautiful game as I am, they might be most excited about the Copa América, to be hosted in the U.S. for the first time in its long and influential history, with the closest matches being played in Seattle and Santa Clara, California. Continue reading →

From the exact moment I spied Susan Sarandon rubbing lemons on her naked torso through the apartment window in Atlantic City, I was in love. Yep, me and Burt Lancaster, forever united in our voyeurism, but it isn’t quite what you think: Sure, the scene was rawly, almost excruciatingly erotic as Sarandon, utterly unaware of being observed (they don’t call them apartments for nothing), went about slowly disrobing and squeezing citrus on her flesh to slice out the proletariat stink of the oyster bar where she works. Continue reading →

In order to understand my response to Sing Street, director John Carney’s love letter to Irish teens starting a garage band in mid-’80s Dublin, I’m going to have to tell you a bit about myself. I came of age in a small Northwest town at the ass end of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear annihilation was about to be replaced by the plague of AIDS as the greatest goad to adolescent nihilism. Things weren’t good at home, and as it went at home, so it seemed to go with the world. Continue reading →

Although critically lauded as a talented and versatile actor, Don Cheadle has been flitting on the periphery of mainstream movies for the past two decades. Most casual moviegoers don’t recognize his name, though they may recognize Cheadle’s face from Iron Man 2, Showtime’s House of Lies or Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, one of several films (including the 1998 political satire Bulworth) for which he deserved but never received an Oscar nod (he was nominated for his role in Hotel Rwanda). Continue reading →

It is a peculiarity of art that its failures are often more moving, more profoundly beautiful, than its successes, especially when the artist failing is a great one. Perfection has a monolithic aspect, airtight and intimidating; it can leave us cold. Better, sometimes, the flaw, the frayed end, which reveals the Icarus burn of lofty ambitions. Humanity, you might say, is never more humane than when it strives and crashes. Continue reading →

Jonathan Gold is the first and only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. Let that marinate for a moment.  Then disabuse yourself of any notions of what a food critic of that caliber might be like — perhaps an uptight gourmand enamored with his own palette or some self-important foodie.  Gold is none of that, so it’s no wonder filmmaker Laura Gabbert chose to wrap a film around the writer and the myriad flavors of his beloved hometown Los Angeles. He has a penchant for suspenders, wrinkled shirts and his green pickup. Continue reading →

It is a truth universally acknowledged that superhero movies must feature massive amounts of property damage. Rather hilariously, we are all spending a lot of time talking about this, not about cool fight scenes (harder and harder to come by) or daring ways our heroes have saved the day. Continue reading →