blog Archive

Cinema Pacific Preview: The Best of the 36th Northwest Film and Video Festival

BlogFilm

This well-ordered and wisely chosen selection of shorts from Portland’s Northwest Film and Video Festival is a promising overview of Northwest short film. Most of the selections are smart, spry and inventive — and a surprising number are animated, all in different styles and with wildly varying subject matter. “The Mouse That Soared,” which opens the program, is a playful, vividly colored short that aspires to be one of the brief, wordless pieces that preface Pixar films. The animation is a little high-gloss, but the characters are charming. Continue reading →

Kinkel and Cabela’s

BlogNews

After Kip Kinkel shot up Thurston High School a dozen years ago, Springfield never got ongoing funding for more school counselors or better gun laws. But this week, the city got a big new gun store. Here’s a sampling of what you can buy at Cabela’s: Continue reading →

UO’s National Reputation: Amok

BlogNews

One of the biggest arguments the UO has used for its lavish athletic funding is all the positive national publicity big time sports bring to the university. Yeah right. In a major story last week headlined “Off-Field Turmoil Causes Soul Searching at Oregon,” the New York Times reported on an athletic “program run amok.” The story rehashes a litany of UO amokness for a national audience. Here’s some lowlights: • “six players who were arrested during a span of several weeks” Continue reading →

Pickathon 2010: Full lineup announced!

BlogMusic

Pickathon is not your average summer festival. I’d heard that, before I went last year, but you have to experience it for the difference to really be clear. It’s not small — it sprawls over 80 acres of Pendarvis Farm, outside Portland — but it feels small, intimate and unexpectedly comfortable. It’s not crowded. It’s laid-back, but not super-hippie. You don’t go to get all jacked up on cheap beer and fast food; you go to nibble ice cream and maybe find a shady corner of the beer garden to enjoy a microbrew. Continue reading →