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Jun 17th
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Reviews and Times

Film - Reviews and Times

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 30

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 30

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
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Film - Reviews and Times

French Knot

French Knot

Romance vs family in funny Franco-American '2 Days In New York'

French actress/auteur Julie Delpy is a one-woman art film industry. A cult favorite after collaborating with director Richard Linklater and co-star Ethan Hawke on the improv romances Before Sunset and Before Sunrise, she's since branched out to write and direct her own indie films. The most successful was the cross-cultural romantic comedy, 2 Days In Paris, from 2007, in which Delpy played a transplanted Frenchwoman bringing her New Yorker boyfriend home to Paris to meet her wacky family. As a filmmaker, Delpy displayed wit and style, but the film was ruined by a club-footed performance by Adam Goldberg as her obnoxious boyfriend.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 23rd

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 23rd

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews,
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Film - Reviews and Times

Unwedded Bliss

Unwedded Bliss

Breaking up is hard to believe in otherwise funny, engaging ‘Celeste and Jesse Forever’

It's a premise you could only find in the movies. A couple of hip, young thirtysomethings, Celeste and Jesse, are longtime best buds; they go everywhere together, lapse into jokey accents and game-playing, consistently crack each other up—and after six years of marriage, they're in the process of getting a divorce.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 16th

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 16th

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER,
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Film - Reviews and Times

Post-Modern Pygmalion

Post-Modern Pygmalion

Writer falls for his fictional creation in smart, funny 'Ruby Sparks'

There's always a Pygmalion factor involved in the creative process. What author doesn't fall in love with his or her characters now and then? Imagine Margaret Mitchell grinning fondly at each of Rhett Butler's caustic wisecracks, or Anne Rice sighing over Lestat's every erotic bite.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 9th

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 9th

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews RUBY SPARKS,
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Film - Reviews and Times

Relationship Roulette

Relationship Roulette

Former Santa Cruzan Valerie Faris and husband Jonathan Dayton on the evolution of ‘Ruby Sparks’

In the summer of 2006, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris found themselves basking in the buzz of Little Miss Sunshine, the inventive film they co-directed, which was met with glowing reviews. Six years later, the creative couple, who have been married 22 years now, might have another hit to celebrate with Ruby Sparks (*** out of four), a quirky yet charming romp featuring another real-life couple in the lead roles—Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine, Cowboys and Aliens, Being Flynn) and Zoe Kazan (TV’s Bored To Death).

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Film - Reviews and Times

Riches To Rags

Riches To Rags

Bubble bursts for 1 percent family in fascinating 'Queen’ 

Riches To Rags Bubble bursts for 1 percent family in fascinating 'Queen’ by Lisa Jensen It's like the trashiest "reality" TV show ever. But there's no prize for the best or the biggest in The Queen of Versailles, Lauren Greenfield's train-wreck fascinating documentary on the wages of conspicuous consumption. It's ostentation for its own sake when one of the richest men in America and his trophy wife attempt to build themselves a palace—only to find themselves on a collision course with an economic reality they helped to create. Call it a cautionary tale, or call it karma, but it makes for a compulsively watchable, if chilling, glimpse into the bizarre private fantasy lives of the 1 percent.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 2nd

Film, Times & Events: Week of Aug. 2nd

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLESRUBY SPARKS,  
Movie Times click here.
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CYNDI

On the eve of Cyndi Lauper’s Mountain Winery gig, we dissect the woman, the icon, the creative beast. Plus: Her thoughts on the music industry, equal rights and those sparkling ‘Kinky Boots’ Few performers possess the kind of fierce, she-bopping tenacity Cyndi Lauper has become famous for. Equal parts free spirit, civil rights activist and Grammy-winner, Lauper is one of the few creative artists able to successfully marry her cutting-edge verve with a heart-of-gold panache. It certainly has helped fuel the remarkable career resurgence she has been experiencing lately.

 

Field to Vase

Open house provides opportunity for residents to meet their local flower growers Valentine’s Day is a high point of the year for those in the cut flower business. So when, one year in the late ’90s, the bouquet-riddled holiday failed to deliver for Kitayama Brothers Farms, the family behind the decades-old rose-growing business knew something was wrong.  “It was the writing on the wall,” recalls Stuart Kitayama, operations manager for the Watsonville-based company. “Those of us who had been hoping things would just get better finally said ‘it’s time to change.’”

 

To Arm or Disarm?

While gun sales soar nationally, a group of musicians fundraise for a local gun buy-back In the wake of high-profile incidents of gun violence—from the Sandy Hook school shooting last December to the fatal shooting of two Santa Cruz police officers three months ago—the debate over gun ownership in America centers on one question as it rages on: Do guns make us safer or do they make our lives more dangerous?

 

The Bold Woman and the Sea

A paraplegic veteran launches solo row across the Pacific Military veteran and paraplegic Angela Madsen finds life at sea liberating. What others call her disabilities melt away when she is rowing to far-off destinations, and all that remain are her capabilities—what she can or cannot do is determined by the tasks at hand and what the ocean will allow.

 

Mark Twang

Mark Twang plays a little bit of everything—rock, roots, jazz and bluegrass for starters—but so far they haven’t played much in public as evidenced by the fact that their upcoming show at Don Quixote’s will only be their second gig. But there’s a reason why the band isn’t performing a lot right now. “We have plans [to make an album],” says drummer Jeff Wilson. “We’re trying to do some things differently though and not just come out full-steam ahead and start playing all these shows.

 

Breaking the Waves

Free Radio Santa Cruz celebrates 18 years of subversive programming Though the term “free radio” comes to us from the Summer of Love—a time when some folks splashed the word “free” on their nouns like an all-purpose verbal condiment—you can rest assured that the name Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) is no mere tip of the hat to the psychedelic era. For the past 18 years, the colorful characters at the helm of our community’s own pirate radio station have been enjoying the freedom to broadcast whatever they damn well please, be it up-to-the-minute, uncensored local and worldwide news, programs in the Spanish language, shows produced by children, teens and homeless people, or all manner of music, from death metal to free jazz.

 

Muscle-Bound

Valiant cast battles loud, ugly action for the soul of 'Man of Steel' Early in Man of Steel, fourth-grader Clark, the boy who will be Superman, is cowering in a broom closet at school, eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. He can't control his super powers: his X-ray vision shows him the skulls and skeletons under everyone's flesh; unfiltered noise—dogs, traffic, heartbeats—assault him from all sides. Rushing to school, his mom kneels outside the door and asks what's wrong.

 

The Plug Bug & Corbin Dunn

Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer. Corbin Dunn's 1969 Volkswagen Beetle is a fully electric vehicle. It has an electric motor powered by 48 stacked squares of Lithium-ion battery cells under the hood in place of the 50 horsepower gas engine that it was built with. He calls it, affectionately, “the Plug Bug.” Dunn, who was born in Hawaii, raised in Corralitos, and now lives in a large, old A-frame house near the summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is a 35-year-old programmer for Apple in Cupertino, where he helped develop the iPhone and works on the framework for the Macintosh operating system. But his aptitude for intricate technical work is not limited to computers. Dunn is a tinkerer.

 

Making the Grade

The quest to identify sources of high levels of bacteria at Cowell Beach continues With straight As on Heal the Bay’s annual “beach report card” for 10 out of 13 Santa Cruz County beaches—Main Beach, Seabright, and even Cowell Beach at the Stairs, to name a few—it would seem that Santa Cruz boasts a high coastal GPA. But in recent years, one Santa Cruz beach just can’t seem to pass: Cowell Beach west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.

 

Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron

Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
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Good Morning Maui

Goodness, righteousness, virtuousness and fairness are some of the four-score English words that attempt to describe the Hawaiian essence of pono, whose use in the state motto translates to “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

 

The Power of Conversation

Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.

 

What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?

 

Best of Santa Cruz County

The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy.  -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |

 

Dancing Creek Winery

At the Pinot Paradise event back in March, I tasted some very good Pinots from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Dancing Creek Winery’s 2009 Pinot ($27) was one of them. This plummy dark brew, made from grapes grown in Corralitos, has delicious flavors of pomegranate, prosciutto, dried cherries, and mint julep.

 

Stranger than Fiction

Memphis singer-songwriter, Amy LaVere, finds joy and humor in painful situations Producer Craig Silvey likely saved singer-songwriter Amy LaVere’s life a few years back. Before recording 2011’s Stranger Me, LaVere had endured a breakup with her longtime boyfriend and was in the midst of one of those I-need-to-find-out-who-I-am phases. She knew the content for the album was going to be incredibly dark and moody, but Silvey did something which changed the course of the recording sessions entirely.

 

A Very Fine House

Adjacent to the front door, the long, clean wooden bar is surrounded by pumpkin-colored stools. At the entrance to the dining rooms, there is a new low-slung cafe door hung in the wood-covered arch. Where there once was a stage, stocky wooden tables are neatly arranged perpendicularly on a new tile floor, each set with square white plates and burnt orange cloth napkins.

 

Exposed

David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.

 

What activities would you suggest to friends and family visiting Santa Cruz?

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