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(Brew Views) Top 5 Movies To Watch In Theater Pubs This Week:

2009-11-18

[Screen]

1. Julie & Julia: And now it’s time to prepare some delicious Cornish roasting birds! Academy, Bagdad, Grand Lodge, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Milwaukie, Valley.

2. Inglourious Basterds: It’s oh so simple! Academy, Bagdad, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Milwaukie, Mission.

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The Blind Side

2009-11-18

[Screen] Sandra Bullock makes an offensive tackle.

Surely the most odious phrase in movie marketing is “Based on a True Story.” These are the magic words with which Michael Oher, a rags-to-riches NFL draftee, becomes an excuse for Sandra Bullock to play his adoptive mother as Memphis’ most generous, least racist housewife.

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Big Trouble

2009-11-18

[Screen] Precious is a raw story of survival. But it forgets the survivor.

Late in the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, the heroine’s saintly alternative-school teacher moderates a discussion of a book.

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(Murmurs) Going Rogue Each Week

2009-11-18

[News]

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. When Dan Staton was sworn in as interim Multnomah County Sheriff on Nov. 5, we hoped he would reverse former Sheriff Bob Skipper’s refusal to hand over the names of people who hold concealed handgun licenses. Those records have long been open under the state’s public records law.

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Dr. Know

2009-11-18

[News]

Mystery: What has become of Kvinneakt, the naked female statue made famous along with Bud Clark? It used to be in front of a bank on the downtown bus mall.

—Michael Kuhn, Portland

First, let’s bring our less-ancient readers (no offense, Mike) up to speed on what you’re asking:

Back in the 1980s, before He

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(Letters to the Editor) Inbox

2009-11-18

[News]

Randyland Is Our Making

One of the most interesting examples of Randy Leonard’s leadership style was his public dispute with Ted Wheeler last year regarding urban renewal.

It wasn’t enough to merely disagree.

For Randy, it was a personal insult that anybody would question his decision-making.

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Randyland, Part II

2009-11-18

[News] (COVER STORY) WW examines whether Randy Leonard is using his power to benefit downtown’s largest private property owner.

Editor’s note: Last week, in the first part of “Randyland,” WW reported that third-term City Commissioner Randy Leonard faces multiple personal challenges: He’s going through a divorce, his daughter is in jail, and he recently faced an investigation from the Multnomah County District Attorney&rsquo

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(Rogue of the Week) Bureau Of Transportation

2009-11-18

[News] One more mouth to feed.

Every autumn in Portland, the City Council considers what’s called the “fall bump.”

Also known as the fall budget monitoring process, the bump offers elected leaders and the city’s financial experts the opportunity to recalibrate spending so what’s going out (to bureaus to pay for programs and people) matches what’s coming in (from business license fees an

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The Back Of The Bus

2009-11-18

[News] Why TriMet is carrying Anti-Fred Meyer ads.

A Spokane union angry at Fred Meyer can thank endangered Klamath River salmon for the opportunity to take its case to Portland commuters.

That may be a lot of geography for what is a story about Oregon’s expansive free speech protections and what can be advertised on TriMet buses.

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Chronic Debate

2009-11-18

[News] Where there’s smoke, there’s a dispute.

Oregon’s new cannabis cafe resembles most any other coffee shop in Portland.

A glimpse at the cafe when it opened Nov. 13 at 700 NE Dekum St. inside Rumpspankers (which voluntarily surrendered its liquor license to avoid conflict with the OLCC) reveals hanging white paper lanterns and scattered secondhand furniture amid red walls.

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Making It Rain

2009-11-18

[News] Oregon’s most litigious stripper is out to reform the industry.

Zipporah Foster isn’t finished yet.

The 28-year-old exotic dancer from Gresham is filing lawsuits against Portland-area strip joints faster than a drunk can throw singles. Foster is already suing three clubs where she’s worked (see “Strip Fees,” WW, July 1, 2009).

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Fire Drilled

2009-11-18

[News] After the blaze at Marysville School, a retired inspector sounds the alarm.

A Portland Public Schools employee who worked with the district’s fire detection systems for almost two decades says he recently retired in frustration because the district was sending children to schools he couldn’t certify were safe.

The ex-employee, Patrick Silver, calls the fire that ripped through Marysville K-8 School last week a “we told you so” moment—an

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By The Numbers

2009-11-18

[News] Fare Trade

When TriMet decided to cut its budget this year, the scalpel slashed both bus frequency and free bus rides in Fareless Square.

Here, by the numbers, is what that will mean for TriMet’s roughly 40,000 daily bus riders, starting Nov.

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(SCOOP) Gossip Should Have No Friends

2009-11-18

[Culture]

TOOTH SCARY: Klan Kilgore needs your vote for new choppers. A national “My Smile Bites” contest for a $30,000 dental makeover sponsored by 1-800-Dentist comes as a cavity-free beacon of hope for the 41-year-old Portlander, whose teeth have been degenerating since his late 20s.

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(Hot Seat) Lester Brown

2009-11-18

[Culture] Why this prominent environmentalist thinks the Copenhagen Conference is “probably obsolete.”

Next month’s global climate conference in Copenhagen does not lack for dire warnings from environmentalists about what failure would mean for the world.

For example, Bill McKibben (“Q&A,” WW, Oct.

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Alu, Take Two

2009-11-18

[Food & Drink] Same name, better game.

Alu is dead, long live Alu. The original Alu, a short-lived German-centric kitchen on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard shuttered in February.

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Thanksgiving For Lazy People

2009-11-18

[Food & Drink] They roast, baste, bake and clean up this holiday so you don’t have to.

IMAGE: Kim Scafuro

Thanksgiving—it’s the time of year when we all come together at a table creaking with the weight of pure American gluttony. Spending hours shoving forkful after forkful of turkey and pie into your mouth is fantastic—unless the days and days of cooking have already made you sick of stuffing.

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(Clublist Spotlight) A Better ’Stache

2009-11-18

[Music]

Of the scant all-ages venues in Portland, there’s only one (I think) that sells mustache wax.

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(Cheapskate) The Best Cheap And Free Deals In Town

2009-11-18

[Culture]

Got a great deal? Email it to us at deals@wweek.com.

ART FOR THE MASSES: Homeschool Affordable Art, an online art shop run by locals Jess Hirsch and Jacqueline Mention, hosts a public, real-world show and sale this Thursday. On offer: original works by a dozen artists priced from $5-$150.

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(Headout Picks) Free Radical

2009-11-18

[Headout] Dutch musician and computer takeover theorist Goodiepal could be a genius. Or just making everything up.

IMAGE: Casey Jarman

If you believe everything you read about Scandinavian electronic musician and scholar Goodiepal, or Gæoudjiparl van de Dobbelsteen the Århus Warrior (real name Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester, we think), then he’s one of the most fascinating figures working with computer-generated sounds.

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Paul Mccartney: A Life Peter Ames Carlin

2009-11-18

[Books] (REVIEW) A McCartney bio takes superfans a step beyond the Beatles.

Does the world really need another book about Paul McCartney? By now the story of the Beatles has been picked apart from every conceivable angle, from Peter Brown’s insider’s tale The Love You Make to Bob Spitz’s tome The Beatles: The Biography, which, at an intimidating 992 pages, answers just about every question you could ever have about the Fab Four.

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China Design Now Portland Art Museum

2009-11-18

[Visual Arts] PAM’s new show unwittingly plays into the worst stereotypes of Communist China.

There is extraordinary design work being done in China, but it gets lost in the claustrophobic mess that is Portland Art Museum’s China Design Now. This show—which originated at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, traveled to Cincinnati, and is ending its run in Portland—aims to showcase Chinese design in three key cities: Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.

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CD Reviews: MarchFourth Marching Band, Curious Hands

2009-11-18

[Music]

MarchFourth Marching Band Rise Up

(Self- Released)

[BRASS ’N’ BALLS] Some great live bands just can’t seem to capture their in-person energy on disc. “You have to see ’em live,” we tell friends, apologetically, when the CD doesn’t bring it.

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Meth Teeth Sunday, Nov. 22

2009-11-18

[Music] Making the best of this bummer called life.

[RAINY DAY] If the tone of Portland noise-folk trio Meth Teeth’s debut full-length, Everything Went Wrong, seems a tad pessimistic, there are good reasons for that. For starters, the album’s recording process nearly destroyed the band.

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Primer: Girls

2009-11-18

[Music]

Formed: 2007 in San Francisco

Members: Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White.

Latest release: Girls’ debut, Album, came out this fall on True Panther records.

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