Ming Dynasty has been huddled away in the Kmart shopping center in Goleta for a good quarter-century, serving up everything from orange chicken and dim sum to fresh Mongolian barbecue. But it’s also had a small bar hidden inside, a reminder that Chinese food and cocktails used to go hand in hand.
Take a look at the cocktail menu and you’re back in mid-century America, when tropical drinks took over the national consciousness.
CARA ROBBINS/BROOKS INSTITUTE
On his latest record, Mr. Benson wraps himself in all sorts of lush arrangements, with a wide palette of instruments at his disposal. Live, with Mr. Benson backed up by three smokin’ hot musicians, the songs get returned to their post-punk roots, less Wings and more This Year’s Model.
The festival has been coming to UCSB on tour since 1992. The festival originally started as a community event in Banff, Canada. It was a way, Fest coordinator Seana Strain says, of bridging the gap between the summer and winter recreational seasons. It gained such popularity that the festival was taken on the road. The first tour went across Canada only, but the word of mouth spread. Today, the tour hits 30 cities worldwide, and even includes a few shows in the Antarctic, making this viewable in all seven continents.
Fans of power pop have been watching Brendan Benson’s career since he arrived with a perfect gem of a debut in 1996 with “One Mississippi.” In a perfect world, fans say, Benson would have had a string of pop hits and by now taken his seat as the new Paul McCartney. After his disillusionment with his major label he continued to put out albums, but with a lower profile. It was his partnership with friend Jack White in The Raconteurs that brought Benson back to the national stage. And now he has returned with one of his strongest solo albums, “My Old, Familiar Friend,” packed with melodic invention, sing-along choruses, clever songs structures and a retro-’70s feel from producer Gil Norton that nods to Wings, ELO, and Todd Rundgren.
What is it about Portland that has made it such an incubator of great music? The scene is thriving, not just on a national stage (The Shins, Pink Martini) but on a local one, with a live scene that makes Santa Barbara’s look like an elementary school talent show and jumble sale. One reason, suggests Eric Stern, leader of the Vagabond Opera: money and time.
“Things are cheap,” he says. “Unlike California, the people have a lot of time to sit around and play music and play together. Portland is a great crossroads for that, it’s a musical laboratory.” Stern adds that the community is small — he attends school functions for his kid and runs into members of The Decemberists.
“French Roast,” above, is among the shorts nominated for an Academy Award and being screened this week at the Arlington Theatre. Below is a scene from “Logorama,” the story of a psychotic bankrobber loose in the streets of Los Angeles, in a world made entirely out of corporate logos.
Metropolitan Theatres has finally secured the rights to bring the touring program of Oscar-nominated shorts to Santa Barbara, showing at the Arlington starting today and running through the rest of the month. Two programs will be offered: A live-action selection and an animated selection, topping out at 90 minutes. Because the nominated shorts are a shorter total runtime, three additional films that did not make the Academy cut will be added (including a Pixar short).
ROBBY BARTHELMESS / NEWS-PRESS
Finola Dwyer is pictured on the red carpet.
Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllanhall, above, and Vera Farminga, below, pose for pictures during the red carpet event for the Cinema Vanguard Awards at the Lobero Theater.
As the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Friday night hit its second weekend, it brought to the Lobero Theater a group of 2009’s most exciting actors, to be honored with the Vanguard Awards.
Indeed, why choose between stars when all four can be on stage?
Fans lined the cordoned-off area in front of the Lobero to await the arrival of limousines bearing the actors: Vera Farmiga (“Up In The Air”); Peter Sarsgaard (“An Education”); and Christoph Waltz (“Inglorious Basterds”). Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones”) was also honored, but could not make the event due to scheduling. Filling the fifth chair was Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”), who picked up her Virtuoso Award from last Saturday’s award evening, having also been a victim of scheduling.
MATT WIER / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Sir George Martin, the “Fifth Beatle,” the producer of nearly all of the Beatles songs, as well as a composer and musician in his own right, made a rare visit to Santa Barbara on Friday.
Mr. Martin was at The Granada to promote the world premiere of his own “The Mission Chorales” with the Santa Barbara Choral Society and Orchestra. He conducts the orchestra on both Saturday and Sunday.
The first thing that strikes you about Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe is the voice. It’s not that one expects the star and title character of the Oscar-nominated film “Precious” to talk in the hesitant mumbled tone heard in the film, but rather that her voice is not even East Coast. Sidibe sounds like a bubbly Valley Girl.
This only emphasizes the astonishing job she does in “Precious,” a harrowing yet uplifting drama about an abused 16-year-old African-American girl. Lee Daniels’ striking directorial debut, based upon the novel Push by Sapphire, mixes grim domestic scenes — featuring a monster of a mother played by comedienne Mo’Nique — with glamorous escapist fantasies. Also appearing in the film are Mariah Carey, who disappears under a black wig to play a social worker, and Lenny Kravitz, playing a male nurse.