Three sentence movie reviews: Birdman

Excellent acting combined with an intriguing plot unfortunately collide with two elements that really didn’t work for me: the sometimes overwhelming drum solo score and the simulated single take.  Overall it was more failed artsy than successful artsy.  Although Emma Stone was mesmerizing* and I remembered why Edward Norton was my movie boyfriend for so many years.

Cost: $8.00
Where watched: Hollywood Theater with Matt

*please societal forces, let women actresses be of normal weight

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/birdman.html

 

Walk up Vancouver Ave.

My Wednesday swim has been usurped by freezing cold shower water.  The swimming water is a good temperature, but the shower before and after is more “alpine lake” than I would want.  So I’m putting off swimming until warmer weather arrives.  In the meantime, I’m taking long walks before my Wednesday volunteer stint.  Here’s my walk up (a.k.a. north on) Vancouver Ave.

Before we even get to Vancouver, here is a building on Russell St.

I love it because it has bits from all different decades.

Possibly original doors, but the plywood covering are much more recent.  Then there’s the wood that trims the bottom.  Most likely not original.

Looking above the front door, we’ve got wavy sheet metal, original ceiling and a busted out light. I also really love the way peeling paint looks.

Original roof detail, asphalt shingles and more plywood.

Really great side detail with original siding peeking through asphalt shingles.

Also, this building is much larger than it looks from the street.  And it’s not abandoned.  On the other side is a garage door (which completely doesn’t fit) so I think this building is used for storage.

The Vancouver/Williams Corridor has exploded in the last few years.  When I first moved here there were many empty lots and even empty blocks thanks to really bad urban development in the mid-20th Century.  Supposedly Legacy Emmanuel Hospital was going to hugely expand, so they moved out the largely black business owners and tenants, razed the buildings and then didn’t do anything.  Things are being done now, decades later.  But it’s not the hospital that is doing things.

Vancouver Ave is the street that runs one way south (towards downtown).  Williams is the street that runs one way north.  I used to get them confused until someone told me that she always found it odd that Vancouver’s traffic pattern took cars in the direction away from the city of Vancouver.

I was happy to see this bank of houses somehow managed to escape the devastation.  Perhaps because they front the lovely Dawson Park.

Just one block north of those houses this is what it looks like.  And that is the Vancouver today.  Houses that still survive, empty lots that are being gobbled up and the building of high rises like crazy.

It wasn’t until I was walking by that I noticed this billboard is the shortest billboard I’ve ever seen.

A good set of compare/contrast houses.

I’m slightly worried for this pretty building because its on an otherwise empty lot and is surrounded by fencing.

Closeup of the mural.

On Killingsworth, I love this huge edifice.

It’s got extend-a-porch.

Someone has a little too much discretionary spending money.

From an Oregonian article about most downtown parking tickets accumulated.  The top winner is a UPS truck.  But also high on the list?  The daughter of a doctor with a little too much spending money.  Who also has a parking space in a garage.  The absurdity of this made me laugh.

Northrup Food Center

I lived downtown from 2002 to 2005.  Back then, a few of my jogging routes would take me through Northwest Portland, so between that and walking around, I had a pretty good lay of the land.  I had to be at 24th and Northrup, so I walked from Union Station through the neighborhood just to see what had changed.

In short: nearly everything.  Huge buildings where there once were none, huge multi-unit places where once there was a house, stores, stores, stores, restaurants, restaurants, restaurants and parking just as horrible as it always was.

So I was thrilled to come upon the Northrup Food Center, which has not been bought, torn down, spiffed up ironically, or anything else.  It looks exactly like it did a decade ago.

I love the incredibly grimy 70’s white rock.

I spied an R2D2 hidden away.  Old promotion maybe?

Whoever takes over this property has a lot of junk to dispose of.

Here’s a link from 2008 about a mural on the other side of the building.  I’m not sure if its still there.
Here’s a link from 2010 about the man who owns the building which also provides insight about why the store hasn’t been redone.

City of Roses Motel. Buttoning up.

All of the wooden awnings have been squared off and the south side of the work site’s framing has been covered.

I’m interested in what these big indentations are going to turn out to be.  There is more than one of them.  Recessed mini-courtyard?

The north side of the site has these big beams going in, which leads me to believe that I’m right about this part having more stories than the south side. Also the constructed nature of those big beams is prompting me to tell you that in my work building, all those big beams are solid wood. Because my work building was built when they were still cutting the old growth and it was no thing to mill huge beams like that.

I’m pretty good with spacial relations, but I can’t quite figure out the configuration of the space without walking through it.

My favorite pictures of Jilt

You can read more about the benefit fundraiser here.  But I thought I would share some of my favorite photos.

This would be the establishing shot, not a favorite photo.  You can read more about Jilt by clicking here.

“The keyboardist looks like he could have actually been on tour with Journey” my friend Kelly quipped.  She was not wrong.  Not only did he have the look, he was also incredibly talented.

Were I to have a stage style, I might emulate the look of the vest/fedora that the bassist is sporting.

Keyboardist and the “fir” that give the Doug Fir its name.

An homage to Jimi during “Let me stand next to your fire.”

A blurry shot (we’ll just pretend it was smoke) of the drummer/backing vocalist.

A solitary watcher.

Sunglasses in the sound booth.

Chilled out photographer.

Hand stretching across the frame.

Good camaraderie and nice harmonies.

Self portrait.

Band and light show.

Three sentence movie reviews: Zero Motivation

Take the spirit of Office Space, set it in the Israeli Army, make the main characters young women reluctantly working in the Personnel Department of a dusty army base and BAM! you have a hilarious comedy. It’s a comedy that has some weighty things within its run time, but that doesn’t stop it from being gut-bustingly funny.  It’s early, but so far this is my favorite movie of the year and I recommend you search it out.

Cost:$8.00
Where watched: Living Room Theater with Matt after a failed attempt at Birdman.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/intl/israel/2014/zero_motivation_ver2.html