out
out
CAFFE
MINGO
out_____
out
_____ out
film
The Bucket List
Open Sei/en 0\up a ^UeeL
Odapptj Odour Won.-Jri. from 5-6 pm
serving dinner nightly @ 5pm
ßinao * Suri.- Service ~írnju¿lry
in nonh west Portland, we don’t do reservations
J¡. uri. - Oriuia
fdics (fjreal d~<*.aï~ Artists on Obispfcujl
Rob Reiner directed this story about two men
(Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, truly
amazing together) who meet in a hospital, find
out they have terminal cancer and decide to
write a “kick the bucket” list of 10 things to do
before dying. Following these great actors for the
next two hours is just uplifting and extremely
entertaining. A-
—Yvonne P. Behrens
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
301 S.£. Wlorñíon 503.234.1324
monta^eportfand. com.
simple Italian cooking
simple Italian food
EUe editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu
Amalric) suffers a stroke and blinks out an entire
book using his only mode of communication: his
left eye. Writer/director/painter Julian Schnabel
(Basquiat, Before Night Falls) uses his immense artis­
tic sensibilities to enliven what could’ve been a very
dull biopic by putting the audience squarely inside
the head of this fascinating subject. Opens Jan. 11. A
—Jim Radosta
Scott Thomas and the ever-elegant Lauren Bacall,
all of whom imbue their duplicitous dowagers with
just the right amount of concealed venom.
But it is Woody Harrelson, with a fairly good
accent and a really good toupee, who shines in the
titular role as Carter Page III, a suave society
escort who becomes enmeshed in a murder
intrigue that forces a choice between personal
loyalty and honesty. The overt murder plotline
functions as a metaphor for the covert subtext:
Carter’s internal struggle as a homosexual in a world
where open homosexuals do not exist. There is
more than one sense in which he must decide
whether to tell the truth or lie for the benefit of his
“friends.”
Despite occasional nods to the political state of
post-9/11 America, The Walker feels like a movie
from the Reagan era, with conservatism regaining
its stranglehold after years of liberal/counterculture
insurrection. The setting of the film is both now
and then, which partly explains its stylistic weird­
MiNGO
serving lunch mon-fri. dinner 7 nights
happy hour in between
, A
nHMHK
Beaverton, we do reservations
full bar. big bottles ot wine
great, it vou ean find it
503 646 6464
(directions .it mingowest coin)
From left, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Woody Harrelson and Lily Tomlin star in The Walker.
Summer '04
Full dinner menu & cocktails
from 5 pm until 2 am nightly
Happy Hour until 6:30
306NW Broadway® Everett
503.222.aLTwssj
www.giltdub.com
COME DINE AL FRESCO
Nostrana
FRESH, LOCAL, WOOD-FIRED^
503.234.2427
1401 SE Morrison www.nostrana.com
Restaurant of the "Year 2006 —
^tvgonian
Miriam and Andre are a liberal North German
couple who allow their teenage son, Nils, and his
12-year-old girlfriend, Livia, to spend the holidays
together in their summer beach house. But their
sex-positive tolerance is put to the test when Livia
develops a precocious crush on their handsome,
unattached 30-something American neighbor,
Bill. Nils doesn’t seem to mind his young girlfriend
cavorting with an older man on the family yacht,
but Miriam does, and sets out to confront Bill.
What at first appears to be motherly protective­
ness starts to look more like a reverse Electra
complex when Miriam ends up falling for Bill
herself. Director Stefan Krohmer reveals the
essentially amoral nature of human sexuality in an
erotic thriller in which no one’s motives are pure.
Opens Jan. 11 at Hollywood Theatre. B +
—Tony LeTigre
The Walker
Reportedly the fourth in writer/director Paul
Schrader’s “night worker” series that began in 1976
with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, this rather
strange film is as dull as playing canasta for three
days with a table of withered politicians’ wives—
which indeed sums up much of the plot.
Fortunately, the wives are played by such seasoned
luminaries as Lily Tomlin, the ever-pained Kristin
ness and sense of being, in the words of the late
Kurt Vonnegut, “unstuck in time.” It also helps
explain the differences between Carter and Julian
Kaye, the male escort portrayed by Richard Gere in
Schrader’s 1980 film American Gigolo. Back when
the gay rights movement was young, Gere’s
character bluntly dismissed any possibility of
bisexuality with “I don’t do fags.”
Not that Carter is a liberated new millennium
homo. He thrills the grande dames at his card table
with glib repartee, but his relationship with Emek,
a Middle Eastern artist played by Moritz Bleibtreu,
is relegated to seedy bars and sex clubs (under­
ground, literally) that play as a straight man’s idea
of what gay life is like. A scene in which Carter
punctuates a lover’s quarrel by hurling the epithet
“sand nigger” at Emek seems gratuitous: Can’t we
go two hours without a racial slur being thrown at
the one character in the movie who is not an
upper-class white person?
Ultimately, neither artful style nor strong
performances make up for The Walker being a slow­
paced, boring film filled with people for whom
many of us will feel no sympathy. When Tomlin’s
character grouses, “God, I could hear my hair grow­
ing,” it’s hard not to feel she could be speaking for
the audience.
Now playing at Living Room Theaters. C +
—TL ®
I