The Multnomah Villager

So, the Multnomah Outdoor Cinema kicks off another season tonight with a showing of “Men in Black”. Just like last year, it looks to be a hot night coming up, so if you can’t sleep - might as well head on into the village and catch the film.

Good film schedule this year - I’m definitely going to head up the hill for “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” next month, although there’s still no “Babe”. And attention Gabriel Park LARPers - “The Princess Bride” is coming up in August.

So I’ve been sitting on this for a week or so, since Jessie asked me not to post anything until info is finalized… And it’s a good thing that I didn’t since the movie I was MOST EXCITED ABOUT has been removed from the schedule and replaced by some random dinosaur movie. Now, I know how much drama can be associated with showing this particular replaced flick, so this is not a total surprise…..

Here’s the info!

The Multnomah Neighborhood Association is excited to announce the return of the Multnomah Outdoor Cinema! Come join us on the courts of the Multnomah Arts Center (7688 SW Capitol Hwy) for another season of FREE outdoor movies starting with First Friday in June. That’s just around the corner folks, so mark your calendars now for an fabulous season of great summer flicks!!!

2007 Multnomah Outdoor Cinema
Friday, June 1 - Shrek2 - The adventures of an Ogre and talking Donkey continue…

Friday, July 6 - Back to the Future - A flashback to the ’80s and beyond…

Friday, August 3 - Jurassic Park - Join us for this great Sci-Fi thriller from Spielberg

Friday, September 7 - O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? We’re doubling the fun and entertainment with a live bluegrass jam before the movie. Stay tuned for more info…

Gates open at 8:15; Movies start at Dusk

Snack Shack is Back!
The MOC Snack Shack will be open for business again this summer, serving up our popular Bottomless Bag of popcorn and other sweet snacks. The lowest concession prices you’ll find!

Volunteer with the Cinema!
If you’d like to share your community spirit and support the cinema for 1 night or the entire 4-night season, we’d love to have your help. Please see our website for more information about volunteer opportunities or contact Jessica (multnomahoutdoorcinema@yahoo.com). Also, if you have a talent that you’d like to contribute to the cinema, please let us know!

Help us Spread the Word!
Tell your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers by sharing this email or link to our website
www.multnomahoutdoorcinema.org

We look forward to seeing you at the movies!

Multnomah Outdoor Cinema - Free community entertainment and fun for all!
MOC is a joint community building initiative of the Multnomah Neighborhood Association and Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. with support from numerous community partners and businesses.

And thanks to the major efforts of Jessica Wade, this is now a grant-supported community activity, so we’re not a risk of losing money by holding this great community activity. I went to most of the movies last year and had a great time. Spent about $50 on snow cones… Think if I volunteer to dish them up, I’d be able to get away with eating on the job?

So we made a brief appearance at the Outdoor (indoor) Cinema’s showing of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” yesterday. Jr. V wasn’t in the mood to sit and watch a movie in the middle of the day, and he probably wasn’t the only one, since the turnout was pretty light. Well, light compared to the throngs that the movies were pulling in this summer. We ate our weight in popcorn and saw a lot of familiar faces, and ducked out quietly after Charlie found his golden ticket. OK by me, because I know I’ve seen the “factory” portion of this movie before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the first part - at least I had no memory of the numerous jokes, etc during the search for the tickets sequence. One thing I noticed at the movie was how many people from our neighborhood (and others - Hi Lillie) I now know since I’ve started this ‘blog. That’s good, since it was one of my goals from the beginning to get to know some of the neighbors. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of getting home from work, walking inside and never even noticing what’s going on or who is living right beside you.

Today’s the day for the Multnomah Outdoor Cinema’s Indoor showing of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (the original) at 2PM in the auditorium of the Multnomah Art Center. Details are on The Multnomah Outdoor Cinema’s Website. It’s free - bring a couple of cans of food for Neighborhood House.
See you there?

Well, based on the success of the Outdoor Cinema this summer, and by popular demand, there will be a mid-winter Outdoor Indoor Cinema screening on Sunday, February 11th. It will be a mid-day matinee, should be at 2PM but I’m not sure that this time is 100% confirmed as of yet. Since it’s so close to Valentine’s Day, the movie day will be candy-themed with a showing of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” - yes, that’s the original Gene Wilder version. It should be fun, and there’s talk of combining this with a canned food drive for Neighborhood House. I’ll keep you posted as details come out.

So there’s a nice little writeup about the Multnomah Outdoor Cinema in that little pull-out “inPortland” section of today’s paper. I’d link to the article, but after spending way too much time clicking through the despised Oregonlive.com, which eventually crashed my browser - you’re just giong to have to pick up the paper to read this one. When you do, you’ll have to excuse the fact that the Oregonian’s reporter thinks that Riversgate Church is called Riverside Church. They also state waht a wonderful “new idea” this outdoor cinema thing is. Now while it’s new for the Village, I would point out that outdoor cinemas are all the rage this summer with at least three other ones going on around town including the “dive-ins” up at Wilson and how long have they been doing that? But what are you gonna do? This ain’t the New York Times, people. Our loss.

No, I’m serious - there’s Pioneer Square, the roof of the rewly refurbished Hotel Mallory’s parking garage, the Wilson dive-ins, and probably more that I don’t know about. Don’t these people read the A&E section?

Still, on to more positive things! The bottom line is that there’s a movie this week (the Goonies), but it’s on Saturday night instead of Friday, to coincide with Multnomah Days. Plan for quite a crowd, and since it’s supposed to be 90 degrees on Saturday bring some extra quarters for that extra snow cone you’ve been talking about.

Our lives have revolved around the neighborhood community centers this week. Jr. V has been in two camps: One in the morning at the SW Community Center, and the Multnomah Village Basketball Camp at the Multnomah Arts Center outdoor court in the evenings. He’s been pretty tired at night, to be sure. The daytime camp is a “theater” camp, where all the kids have been working on a play all week. I ducked away at lunchtime yesterday to see his star turn as “Foxy Loxy” and then we all stayed for the cast party and ate cupcakes. The staff of this camp was quite delightful and Jr V will be going back again the week of the 18th. Then at night, we all trooped up to the Village for the last night of basketball camp, which involved a cookout (for at least 200 people) and free basketballs (thanks Nike!) and T-shirts for all the kids, as well as free ice cream (certificates) from Dairy Queen. Have I mentioned already what a great thing this camp was? Riversgate put on quite an event. We ended up talking to a nice couple that filled us in on the backstory of the church.

We hoofed it home to grab some chairs and a blanket and headed back up the hill again to watch “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on the court, as part of the First Friday festivities. It was fun to see that movie again on the big screen. Don Snedecor, publisher of the Multnomah Village Post, was manning the snow-cone table - demonstrating skills one wouldn’t think a guy would pick up in journalism school. I was amused to note that the opening slideshow still features my lame panorama picture, but this time with a photo credit :-) The popcorn was quite good, we ate several bags. Jr. V lost interest in the movie quickly “Let’s just go watch the rest of this at home…” These kids today… So Mrs. V and Jr walked home after about 45 minutes or so.

The weather was wonderful and I rather enjoyed my short walk home after 11PM, when the Village was quiet and still.

So Jr. V and I went up to the Village last week to see a piece of E.T. at the Outdoor Cinema. He had never seen it before, I think maybe I’ve seen it twice, but it’s been years. It was not as crowded this time, likely due to the opressive heat, although after it got dark, it felt pretty good out there. The A/V setup is great, the sound was good and the movie was pretty enjoyable after all this time. Although I was slightly annoyed to notice that this is the “new” version of E.T. that has been all politically corrected: The guns have been removed from the “hunters” in the openng sequence and E.T. is computer-animated in several of the scenes. I do not approve of this sort of after-the-fact tweaking of movies and the pandering nature of removing the guns annoys me. Onward….

Anyway, we amde a beeline for the concession table once we determined that they were selling snow cones! Here’s a note - when you are offering blue bubblegum as a flavor, it is not necessary to ask either me or Jr. V which flavor we want. The ultimate superiority of blue bubblegum snow cone flavoring cannot be ignored. We spent a few bucks at the concession stand, although technically we owe the MNA a dollar since they would not let Jr. V pay for his popcorn, convinced he had already bought a bag and was entitled to a free refill. He tried to pay, but in the end brought me back my dollar. Stickin’ it to the Man!

I note with amusement that my lamely stitched panorama photo was grabbed off this site and incorporated into the pre-movie slideshow. Which is fine and all, but how ’bout a photo credit next time, eh?

We’ll be up there on the 4th for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and I’ll hang around to help clean up. This is a fun event. If you go, make sure to corner one of the organizers, particularly Jessica, and thank them for all their hard work.

Well, the weather and my schedule have finally cooperated to give us a nice First Friday in the Village. Jr. V’s at a sleepover (we’ll see how long that lasts) so for the first time in recent memory, I could go to First Friday and NOT go to the toy store (sorry, Thinker Toys, it’s only a matter of time….) In fact I started out at Sip D’Vine, where I picked up what hopefully will be a nice bottle of red as a thank you gift for a co-worker who has spent all day saving my behind. Canadian, eh? well, not so long ago I had never heard of Chilean wine either, and Aussie wines were merely the stuff of Monty Python parody, so we’ll give this Canuck Merlot the benefit of the doubt.

There’s music (and found object art) all over tonight.. There’s flamenco-ish guitar is the wine store, a pedal steel outside Village Beads, the two young violinists (Ok one was probably a viola) outside Acapulco’s and Jazz coming out of O’Connors. I dropped into Annie Bloom’s to pick up a (trade paperback, yay!) copy of 1776 for my Dad’s birthday, which was ages ago… and then walked up to see how the outdoor cinema was looking.

Despite this clumsily patched-together panorama shot, it was looking pretty good! As I suspected, they had the list of upcoming movies there (see below) and if you hurry - you can catch the tail end of “Shrek”. There’s quite a turnout, and perfect weather - considering it was like 40 degrees last night. The website is multnomahoutdoorcinema.org, by the way.

The movie list is as follows:

• Friday July 7th - Shrek
• Friday, July 21st - E.T.
• Friday, August 4th - Raiders of the Lost Ark (Jr. V and I will definitely be at this one
• Saturday, August 19th - TBA (they’re taking votes)

Mrs. V will be happy that I voted for “Babe” - the Citizen Kane of talking pig movies, but it looks like Star Wars is making a strong running - this I’d be Ok with of course.

I ahve to give props to Riversgate Church who has made a generous donation of the use of their A/V setup for the outdoor cinema. Say what you will about these new-style churches, and I ahve, but this is a seriously generous thing. Rental of hard-core A/V projection equipment doesn’t come cheap. I’m a video/interactive producer in “real life” and I’m painfully familiar with these costs. Thanks!

A nice evening for all, it appears.

Multnomah Outdoor Cinema
Presented by the Multnomah Neighborhood Assocaition & Southwest Neighborhoods Inc.

Community Entertainment and Fun For All!
Summer 2006 at the Multnomah Art Center

• Friday, July 7th
• Friday, July 21st
• Friday, August 4th
• Saturday, August 19th

Admission: FREE
(Donations accepted at the gate)

All films begin approximately at 9:00 PM
Gates open at 8:15 PM
Please bring a blanket, pillow or low lying camping chair.

For more info: multnomahoutdoorcinema at yahoo dot com

Names of the particular movies that will be shown are still TBA. Stay Tuned. The films will be shown on the covered basketball courts beside the Art Center