december 5.2003
eatingout
eatingout
castagna
eatingout
eatingout
GDu¡m ’§
CAFE & ESPRESSO BAR
The original best
breakfast in
What's popped
and what's (lopped,
in a theater near you.
Downtown
Vancouver
ami lunch too!
c.istagna Wednesday...Saturday
i jfii castagna 7 niylits a week
S p ic i vi O melettes • F sprisso
G oiirmft S vi vds • H omfmvdf S oups & M ori
•
503.231.7373
1752 >c hawlhornc. porllaml
C ornea of M ain it M c L ouchun • V ancouver
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<CJ§> <*£> only it you’re really hungry
<^2 <£^> <^> good effort, pass the salt
mmmm, tasty!
get the big tub o’ com
T he H aunted
mansion
1337 NE Broadway
www.pdxyuki.com
<£> B a d S a n t a
If Elf is the perfect family holiday film, Bad
Santa is the perfect adult holiday film. Billy Boh
Thornton plays a drunken Santa Claus who
also happens to he, along with his dwarf side-
kick, a safecracker and thief. Rarely has a
movie this vulgar been so side-splittingly funny;
it’s Christmastime as it John
Waters had directed a script
by The Simpsons writers on
crack.
— Andy Mangels
„
Regular Hours
M-Th n:3oam-iopm
Fri-Sat ii:3oam-io:3opm
Sun i2-9:3opm
503.281.6804
<§>
t
“
Has provided over $421 million
tO more than 120,000 families since 1997
S
S
FHA/VA OK
In the third Disneyland
ride-inspired film of the year,
Eddie Murphy proves he’s no
Johnny Depp, nor even as
interesting as an audio-
animatronic Country Bear.
He plays a greasily slick real
estate agent who gets trapped in a haunted
mansion with his wife and kids. Terence Stamp
as a deadpan butler is the only live thing worth
watching, while the sets and a barbershop quar
tet of marble busts keep the flick from being a
complete fright.
— AM
T he L ast S amurai
It’s 1876, and traditional Samurai waniors
must tight the emperor’s army against the
West’s assimilation of Japan. Sounds like a
tough battle, hut they’ve found a secret
weapon— Tom Cruise! In this Asian version of
Dances with Wolves, he defects from the U.S.-
Japanese alliance to fight for a nobler cause and
fall in love with one of its women. Ken
Watanabe as Samurai Katsumoto leads a num
ber of solid performances in what is otherwise
recycled material.
— Lisa Bradshaw
&><&> L ove A ctually
I have helped
hundreds of families
achieve the dream
of homeownership.
If you are expecting the same dry wit and
clever charm from the writer/prixlucer of Four
Weddmgs and a Funeral, you’re in for a sad reck
oning. Despite some strong performances, par
ticularly from Hugh Grant as the British pnme
mmuster and Billy Boh Thornton as a skeevy
president of the United States, this overdevel
oped, maudlin mess of interrelated stories will
leave you feeling manipulated and cheated.
— LB
Tom D u rrett
M aster and
C ommander : T he F ar
S ide of the : W orld
800 - 259-8057
Although its title s^Hinds like a gixxl pom
movie, thus bravura historical pnxluction is
actually about a ship of all-male sailors in the
Napoleonic era (which sounds like the plot
Government toon specialist
$50 m *on funded since 1995
www.TomDurrett.com
Precision
of a gtxxl pom movie). Russell Crowe and Paul
Bettany are excellent leads in this adventurous
spectacle that mixes in personality, humor and a
sense of discovery among ferocious sea battles.
— AM
T he M issing
Everyone in this cast looks grizzled and ugly,
including lead Cate Blanchett as a frontier moth
er who must team up with her absentee “fake
Indian” father (Tommy Lee Jones) to rescue her
daughter from Native Americans who intend to
sell her to Mexicans. Bkxxly and brutal, this west
ern does not rely on clichés, hut stakes its claim in
strong story, good acting and a plot more about
redemption than gunfights.
— AM
T imeline
This latest Michael Crichton book-to-film is a
hit generic. A group of mercenaries and archeolo
gists are whisked to 14th century France to rescue
an associate sent hack in time to...well, it’s not
clear; the motives for many characters remain a
hit murky. But the battle scenes between French
and English knights are stunning, the armor is
cool, and hear fans will love all the bearded and
txxasionally shirtless men.
— AM
21 G rams
Director Alejandro González Iñámtu (A mores
Perros) has set up this wrenching drama of loss,
serendipity and cruel fate in a shaky, hai
grainy, hyper-realist style, so the whole t;
hangs on the ragged emotion expressed
actors’ faces. Thankfully, those belong tc
Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and
Naomi Watts, and the result is 1
of the best movies of the year.
—Christopher McQuam