Arts: Page 403
Fashioning An Industry
Local designers want to bring garment production back home
EUGENE, Ore., April 2015: The fifth annual Eugene Fashion Week is only days away and the Eugene Garment House is a beehive of activity. Frenzied designers dart around the open space on the third floor of the Woolworth Building overlooking Willamette Street, colorful swatches of fabric tucked under their arms and pincushions wrapped around their wrists. Apprentices hurriedly reorganize racks of fluttering paper patterns and sample garments while production sewers put the finishing touches on a pair of couture overalls and a hemp wedding gown. Continue reading
All the World’s a Stage
The first half hour of Atonement director Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina is such a joy to watch, I began to doubt my expectations of the story. This has a tragic ending, doesn’t it? Terrible things are going to happen? For that matter, unfortunate things are happening in the first act, but the clever way they’ve been pieced together is a magical distraction, and appropriately so. Continue reading
Marv Ellis Gets Shook
Garrick Bushek, aka Marv Ellis, is perhaps Eugene’s most famous emcee. And despite a move to Portland, Ellis is once again living in Eugene and remains a popular attraction on local stages, with locals remembering his days with hometown hip-hop group Genus Pro. Eugene has stayed loyal to Ellis as he’s grown and expanded his definition of hip hop, integrating a broad range of styles into his sound, and Ellis returns the loyalty to Eugene, continuing to bring a little something special to shows in his hometown. Continue reading
Brubeck Passes, Fleetwood Mac reunites (again) and other music news
Legendary jazz pianist Dave Brubeck has passed, just shy of his 92nd birthday. Bruebeck wrote such jazz standards like “Take Five” and “The Duke.” The Dave Brubeck Quartet played at the UO in 1957 for the Erb Memorial Union’s “Jazz a la Carte” series and Brubeck performed at the Hult Center in 2008 (pictured above). Continue reading
Spielberg’s 13th Amendment
Lincoln, contrary to what its name implies, is not a defining portrait of a man, though Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as Abraham Lincoln is one of his defining roles. Stooped, quiet, introverted, exhausted, brilliant and prone to making his point via stories, Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is the calm center to a complex and flawed film about the 16th president — and about the role of politics in America’s terrible relationship with race. Continue reading
Sex and the Surrogate
The Sessions, a candid, gentle film about a paralyzed man’s quest to have sex, walks a tricky, balanced, grave and funny path that’s all its own. Struck by polio at a young age, Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) lives mostly in an iron lung; he can get out for a few hours at a time, his assistant pushing him on a gurney. Three assistants are key in the film: Amanda (Annika Marks), a pretty young woman with whom Mark falls in love; Rod (Hawkes’ fellow Deadwood alum W. Continue reading
One Man’s Delusions
If you look at Richard Gere’s body of work, it appears he should be on movie screens constantly. A film or two every year, an I’m Not There slipped in between every couple of Unfaithfuls. But Gere still gives the impression, somehow, of popping up every so often, not remaining constantly visible, not sustaining a movie star presence. And when was the last time Gere actually impressed you? Continue reading
Save The Music
The Wayne Drury Project brings modern-day folk song revival to Eugene
Saturday, Nov. 3, at the Axe and Fiddle was an event 40 years in the making. Hundreds of people filled the pub, occupying every table, lining the staircase overlooking the stage and some even finding spots on the wood floor. Hundreds of faces basked in the glow of flickering tea lights gaze upon the stage as a soft voice filled the cavernous space. Wayne Drury, squeezing his blue eyes shut, leans forward in his wheelchair to the mic as he sings “Cimarron Rose” over the strumming of his former band mates, Rob Anderson on guitar and Randy Crawford on banjo. Continue reading