Category: Writing

By Ted Mills, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
January 25, 2008 8:37 AM

That particular time of year has fallen on us again. The mutable weather hovers between sun and rain. Despite the cloudy weather, unfamiliar people from southern cities wear sunglasses. When the wind rises it catches on laminated movie credentials hanging around necks, making them flutter in the breeze. People unfamiliar with State Street stumble out of dark theaters, amazed at what they’ve seen, then try to figure out where to eat for 30 minutes before diving in again.
Yes, it’s the 23rd Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which, as you read this, has already been in town for one evening. But today, running through Feb. 3, is when the real schedule-juggling, stargazing, contact-making party begins.
Here’s what the Film Festival seems to have learned from last year: don’t mess with the formula, just add to it. Celebrity appearances and award presentations serve as a linchpin for each evening, and the list is formidable: Angelina Jolie, Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Ryan Gosling, Javier Bardem, Julie Christie and more. The Virtuosos Award — new for 2008 — honors five rising stars for the price of one. What a deal!
The series of panels — on directing, producing, writing and more — return in force this year, as does the 10-10-10 Student Filmmaking competition, which often results in some of the quirkiest and freewheelin’ short films in the festival . . . and they’re homemade too.
The festival divides 215 films into several categories and sidebars — the regulars, such as Latino Cinemedia, To the Maxxx (extreme sports films), and East x West (Asian cinema), plus new sidebars, such as Eastern Bloc — again focusing on developments in sub-layers of film with their own devoted followers. And for kids (and families) there’s the absolutely free Applebox, a weekend, morning-only fest of family films.
The festival tantalizes with the idea that maybe you’ll see a brilliant, life-changing film and be the first one to know all about it. Not all films are guaranteed to have as much as a DVD shelf life, so pay attention, because those memories remain important.
Lastly, let’s not forget what makes a festival great, other than the films — the schmoozing, the celebrating and the party going. The mass gathering of the film tribes always is cause for much merriment. Can the festival top the Biltmore-set Will Smith party last year, of which people spoke in rapturous tones for days? Or Q’s Sushi a Go-Go turning into three levels of hell, purgatory and heaven? We’ll let you know in 10 days.
For a full schedule, check www.sbiff.org.

Ted’s Top-10 checklist
With 215 films, so little time, what am I curious to see?
‘The Unknown Woman’
Closing night film from the director of “Cinema Paradiso. One of his best, they are saying.
‘In the Company of Actors’
Sure, I’d love to watch Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving rehearsing “Hedda Gabler,” as this doc does.
‘Vexille’
I missed last year’s anime spectacular, “Paprika,” and it took me months to catch up. Not this time.
‘Away From Her’
Brilliant actor Sarah Polley turns out to be a brilliant director, I have been told by my sources.
‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’
Because I missed it when it passed through town. What can I say?
‘Triangle’
Three Hong Kong directors for the price of one: Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To!
‘D Tour: A Tenacious D(ocumentary)’
The D Men make me laugh, who knows what awaits in a doc?
‘Frank & Cindy’
What happened to the man behind OXO’s one-hit wonder “Whirley Girl”? This doc sounds like a dysfunctional journey I’d like to take.
‘George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead’
Yeah, I know I can wait for a regular release, but this is Romero!
‘The Mourning Forest’
Naomi Kawase’s film has sent online reviewers into comparisons with Mizoguchi and Kiarostami. I’m intrigued.

Note: My list is subject to change once the festival begins!

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

TED MILLS, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
January 25, 2008 7:50 AM

Norman Jewison’s thoughts on the film industry can be summed up in the title of his autobiography, released in 2005: “This Terrible Business Has Been Good To Me.”
That is has, with five Oscar nominations for best director and a resume of blockbuster and Oscar-winning hits including “Moonstruck,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Rollerball,” and the movie that first raised his profile in Hollywood, “In the Heat of the Night.”
Yet the studio system that once gave Mr. Jewison his daring breaks has been replaced by corporate entities that, he says, are really only concerned with comic book sequels.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival honors Mr. Jewison by naming him Guest Director for 2008 and plans to screen three of his best-known films.
Born in Ontario, Canada, Mr. Jewison continues to cultivate young filmmakers through the Canadian Centre for Advanced Film Studies in Toronto, which he founded. In an interview, he is lively, down to earth, and ready to let rip on the state of the business, although never with the taste of sour grapes.

News-Press: The prep for this interview included watching “The Thomas Crown Affair”. . .
Norman Jewison: Ah! Thank you. It has that wonderful score by Michel Legrand, one of the best scores of any of my films. I love the chess scene (between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway). It’s a great piece of photography by Haskell Wexler, and a great piece of editing by Hal Ashby.
NP: It’s striking that, in a film billed as a romance-thriller, Faye Dunaway’s character only meets Thomas Crown once we’re halfway through the movie.
NJ: In those days you could take your time with films. “The Thomas Crown Affair” moves gracefully. It’s not choppy. So many films these days have that MTV editing. It’s sad. I think you need time to tell a story. But now, Hollywood and the studios have been taken over by multinational corporations, and marketing forces are in control. Once that happened, American films lost their originality. Everything interesting has moved to independent films. These are films we talk about at the end of the year.
NP: You’ve said that betrayal is one of your favorite themes. Why is that?
NJ: When I was very young, about 4 or 5 years old, everybody called me “Jew-boy” or “Jew-y” because of my name. “Jewison”: why, that means “son of a Jew.” But at 6 or 7 years old, my mom took me aside and told me ‘You’re not Jewish! You’re a Methodist!’ And for some reason, I felt betrayed by it. . .I think that’s why that may be a major theme. We’ve all been betrayed in our lives, by a girlfriend, by our family, by our jobs, or by our country. It pervades all my films.
NP: Your films have often had socially aware themes. Where does that come from?
NJ: When I started I was a Canadian, coming to New York at end of the ’50s to work. My first opportunity to deal with issues like racism and immigration was on the CBS television special with Harry Belafonte. I became very involved in the battle for equality in ’60s. A lot of us were. After the success of “In the Heat of the Night,” I knew that racism was a subject I wanted to revisit. And I did with “A Soldier’s Story” (1983) and “The Hurricane” (1999). But if you said 20 years ago that a black senator was going to be a viable candidate for president, I would have said you’re crazy. We’ve watched America change, and three of (those films) have something to say about this transition. It’s a remarkable time right now.
NP: Still, “The Hurricane” managed to anger a lot of people. (The film, which starred Denzel Washington as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, drew complaints and lawsuits that Jewison and his writer had ignored certain facts and taken liberties with others).
NJ: Yes! It’s like they wanted to try him all over again. I couldn’t believe the hate mail that the film generated, and so much of it from Newark, NJ. But “Hurricane” is a cold case of justice denied. That lingering racism is why it’s remarkable that we can even make films like that. Denzel’s performance is one of the best in any of my films.
NP: Do you cultivate up-and-coming directors?
NJ: Yes. I do spend a lot of time with new directors, producers and writers. I’m very proud of Sarah Polley, who directed “Away From Her.” She spent time at our Canadian Film Center, which is like Canada’s (American Film Institute). There’s a point in a career when you can pass on all the information you know. I like that. When I met with Roger Durling, that’s what he explained I would be doing at the fest.
NP: Who were your mentors?
NJ: It was a combination of people. William Wyler let me come to his sets before I even made a picture. Freddy Zinnemann was also very supportive. I showed him the first cut of “Fiddler on the Roof” to ask him what I should take out. There were many others. They would give you the whisper in the ear you needed, they would take you out to lunch. It’s important, because filmmaking is such a difficult thing to teach.

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

Actress Abigail Breslin, co-star of the movie “Definitely, Maybe,” talks to the media during the walk on the red carpet at the Arlington Theatre on Thursday night.
MICHAEL MORIATIS / NEWS-PRESS
TED MILLS, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
January 25, 2008 7:45 AM

Torrential rain may have flooded the streets of Santa Barbara, but they did not deter the 23rd annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival from celebrating its opening night with a star-studded ceremony.
With an entire block of State Street closed down in front of the historic Arlington Theatre, fans and press waited, not for limos, but for a VIP tent to produce stars onto the red carpet.
The festival, which runs through Feb. 3, hosts 215 features, including 21 world premieres, numerous shorts, nightly awards and tributes honoring some of Hollywood’s most exciting actors and actresses, themed mini-festivals of genres like sports and nature documentaries, and panels of directors, producers and writers.
“This I what I envisioned five years ago (when I started), that we’d be an ‘Oscar’ festival,’ ” director Roger Durling said. “I’m having an out-of-body experience right now.”
The opening-night film, “Definitely, Maybe,” starring Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin, is a romantic comedy about a father explaining his relationship history to his daughter on the eve on his impending divorce. Both Mr. Reynolds and Abigail (“Little Miss Sunshine”) walked the red carpet, talking to fans, posing for photos, and answering questions, along with co-stars Derek Luke and Liane Balaban.
“Most of the scenes with Reynolds and Breslin take place in her character’s bedroom,” said director Adam Brooks, who also appeared and introduced his film. “So we set up a very cozy, nice place for her to work. Abigail is a very focused actress. She has enormous powers of concentration.”
Also spotted on the red carpet Thursday evening: actress Shohreh Agdashloo and actor Dennis Franz. The former, who starred in “House of Sand and Fog,” also sits on the festival’s panel of judges.
The death on Tuesday of actor Heath Ledger hung over the festival, as only two years ago the actor, fresh off his Oscar-nominated role as Ennis Del Mar in “Brokeback Mountain,” received the Breakthrough Performance of the Year Award. In his introduction to the event, Mr. Durling spoke to the audience about the 28-year-old’s sudden passing.
“We have lost a member of our family,” Mr. Durling said. “Please let’s honor him for what he gave us . . . he gave us art.” With that, Mr. Durling announced that this year’s festival would be dedicated to Heath Ledger’s memory.
As they did last year, the celebrity invitations announced at the beginning of the year mirrored the Oscar nominations that were announced this month. Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Ellen Page and Julie Christie have all earned Best Actor and Actress nominations; Casey Affleck, Javier Bardem, and Amy Ryan received Best Supporting Actor and Actress nominations (as did Mr. Jones and Ms. Blanchett, for different films). All seven will be in town during the festival to receive awards.
“We must have a little magic crystal ball,” said Mr. Durling, noting that invites to the Santa Barbara festival typically go out in May — long before Oscar nominations are announced. “The gods are looking after us.”
Two films nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, “Mongol” and “The Counterfeiters,” will also screen at the festival. Last year, a popular festival favorite, “The Lives of Others,” went on to win that Oscar .
After the film, the opening night festivities spilled out into the still-tented street and Arlington foyer for a party. While the streets in the immediate vicinity were in blackout mode — thanks to a storm — the festival still had enough backup juice to keep the party going.

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

NIK BLASKOVICH PHOTO
Ted Mills
January 18, 2008 11:57 AM

You don’t have to wait for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for Hollywood to come to Santa Barbara. In fact, Hollywood already works the bar at Trattoria Vittoria, the hot Italian restaurant in town. Charlie Manzo, or “Hollywood” to his fans, has been tipping and flipping tipple for the restaurant since its Valentine’s Day grand opening. When he’s not managing the bar here, he’ll likely be found at Stateside where he DJs.
When our gang rolled up on Thursday night, we were lucky to grab the last seats at the end of the bar — the rest of the restaurant was packed. Up first on the menu was the Mixed Berry, a mix of three flavored Stoli vodkas (blueberry, raspberry and black cherry), fresh muddled berries and a splash of Chambord. The drink comes served in a midnight blue martini glass with a sprig of mint, so none of us really knew what the cocktail looked like. Sweet up front, but with a tart, sour aftertaste — whether this was a vagary of the sometimes-sour berries, we couldn’t say.
Hollywood returned with a shooter/chaser called the Sweet Tart, a pleasing mix of Southern Comfort, Red Bull, fresh lime juice and orange juice, straight from his own recipe book. Southern Comfort and Red Bull make fine bedfellows, strangely enough, as they seem quite close on the taste spectrum.
A few more friends joined us, and soon the orders were coming two-fold. More drinks to sample? We were set. The peach bellini balances the tartness of the champagne with the sweetness of the peach puree. Hollywood disappeared down the far end of the bar near the classical “order-up” archway that looks into the kitchen, and returned with a blazingly red cocktail in a martini glass. At first the color threw us off as to what we were tasting, but soon we figured it out (or rather, Hollywood told us): a mix of Malibu rum, sour apple mix, cranberry juice and a dash of Sprite.
Stuck for a name for this just-realized concoction, we polled our companions and chose the obvious: Hollywood. And because we were surrounded by delicious food — especially desserts — our cocktail of the week choice has to go to the Liquid Tiramisu, which is, as they say about some power drinks, a meal in itself. Creamy, sweet and a little bitter, this is a beautiful cake-in-a-blender type of drink.

LIQUID TIRAMISU
2 oz. Espresso
2 oz. Faretti Biscotti
1 oz. Dulseda
1/2 oz. Vanilla Stoli Vodka
Combine in shaker and add ice. Shake and strain into martini glass.

Trattoria Vittoria
30 E. Victoria St.
962-5014, www.trattoriavittoria.com
Hours: Dinner: 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Sunday.
Lunch:11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

NIK BLASKOVICH PHOTO
Ted Mills
January 11, 2008 11:04 AM

These have been hard times for the mixology crew — the cold/flu illness won’t go away, one of our drinking partners is on holiday, the rain and the freezing weather . . .
So it’s nice to know, in these hard times, that two things stay constant: The delicious taste of a sweet, sweet cocktail and the cozy warmth of Dargan’s Irish Pub & Restaurant.
Bartender Yvonne Owens puts in the kind of energy and speed to serve customers that would shame another person twice her size. Being Irish, she’s in her element pulling Guinness here in the back room bar (Dargan’s has two bars), which she’s been doing most nights for over two years.
Dargan’s indeed has a drinks menu and offers some strong martinis. But we’re in Owens’ hands now and her gears are turning. She first sets us up with an Irish Soda, a mad mix of Guinness, Coca-Cola, Kahlua and vanilla vodka. The key to the cocktail comes in getting enough Guinness to float and form its trademark creamy head, while underneath, the sweet liquors mix into something strong and refreshing.
“Is that enough Guinness?” Owens asks us, clearly concerned about making the drink just right, even as she juggles a bar becoming busier by degrees.
The most famous Irish shot is undoubtedly found at the bottom of a pint glass — the remnants of an Irish Car Bomb (a shooter of Bailey’s dropped into a half-pint of Guinness) — but Owens wanted to show us more. So we wound up with something called The Reacharound, a drink surely designed to embarrass us.
In a shot glass, Owen mixed Stoli Blueberry, Stoli Vanilla, Chambord, soda water and fresh cream, then topped it with whipped cream. The “Reacharound” entails the friendly interlocking of arms and the simultaneous downing of the drink.
Seeing we could take the drink, Owens sent us out into the night with a cocktail created on the spot. We even got to name it, a first for this column. Next time you’re at Dargan’s, ask for a Dargan Dangler. Its creamy texture finishes off an evening meal and tastes like a chocolate covered orange. It has our blessing.

DARGAN DANGLER
2 parts Chambord
2 parts Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 part Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
1 part Stoli Orange
1 part fresh whipped cream

Combine all in a shaker with ice, shake and strain into martini glass.

Dargan’s Irish Pub & Restaurant
18 East Ortega St.
568-0702, www.dargans.com
Hours: 4:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekdays, 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. weekends

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

Frogs huddle together in the frame of Ines Roberts’ award-winning shot “Frog Assembly,” above. Roberts, a longtime Santa Barbara resident, beat out 32,000 other contestants to land in the winner’s circle for the 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Roberts also was a finalist in 2003 with her piece “Waterfall Milford Sound Co.,” below.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF INES ROBERTS
By Ted Mills, News-Press Correspondent
January 11, 2008 10:49 AM

Ines Labunski Roberts’ first camera was a Zeiss Ikon, a small 35 mm camera that began this Polish-born woman’s trip into photography, a life-long obsession that recently landed her in the winner’s circle for the 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
“I started in painting,” Roberts says, “but it seemed to me that photography was all about seeing — it was about constantly discovering. Wherever I go, I am an explorer.”
Those years of exploring included a trip to the Sierra mountains, where walking back down to their car, Roberts and her husband passed a hot springs pool steaming in the middle of the snowy landscape. The water was boiling hot, too much for anybody to sit in, and the snow was freezing cold, but in a drainage pipe the water was just right. Not for humans, of course, but for a knot of small frogs.
Camera at the ready, Roberts tried not to disturb the frog party as she closed in on them. The final photograph, which seems to picture the amphibians in a watery, floating space away from nature, made the final list, where Roberts went up against 32,000 photographers who didn’t have her eye or luck.
“It’s very tough for a woman of my age to go up against professionals whose job it is to travel around the world,” Roberts said.
Roberts, who is in her seventies, prefers to discuss the status of women photographers in general.
“It’s only in this year’s competition that there are more photos by women,” she says, referring to the 2.2 percent increase in female entrants from last year to this year.
Sure, a handful of women have broken through to the mainstream (Diane Arbus and Annie Liebovitz for a start), but women remain unrepresented in the photography field, Roberts notes.

Maybe it has to do with her history. After picking up the camera, her travels (and marriage) led her to Scotland, where she was the only female member of a photo enthusiasts’ club.
“At first I didn’t want to learn all the technical things,” she says. “All the men in the club wanted to talk about optics. I was more about aesthetics. But then somebody told me, if you don’t know your tools, you will never get better.”
Ever since then, her husband Gilbert Roberts has encouraged her. An engineer by profession — he helped design mechanisms for the Hubble telescope — he was an amateur photographer when he first met Ines.
“When he met me, he sold his camera,” she says. “He told me there would be no use for it.” She adds that recently he’s once again picked up a Minolta.
Her life in Santa Barbara since settling here has been full of photographic successes. Roberts has been the subject of one-woman shows, several other awards, and taught workshops at UCSB from 1978 to 1990.
Like many photographers who have straddled the changes of the last 50 years, Roberts has slowly joined the digital revolution.
“It took me a long time to accept color film too,” she says. “But digital gives you the most wonderful freedom.”

©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

TED MILLS, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
January 9, 2008 12:53 PM
“The intention was to fight the moneylenders, not become one.”
Muhammad Yunus, the man behind the Grameen bank and the 2006 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has helped fight poverty in his native Bangladesh, not through overturning an economic system, but by changing it from the inside. His idea was radical: a small loan of $20 to $100 to the poorest woman would not just be paid back on time, but would bring a desperate person out of a cycle of poverty by helping her become productive. While the major banks ignored and sometimes ridiculed him, over the course of 30 years, this faith in humanity and in doing a good turn beyond just that of charity has transformed his country. His ideas about microcredit, as it is called, have been adopted by many other developing countries as well as the first world. Mr. Yunus is scheduled to speak at UCSB on Jan. 16 to promote his new book, “Creating a World Without Poverty — Social Business and the Future of Capitalism.”
Mr. Yunus was interviewed by phone while he was in Shanghai. The conversation turned to the success of microcredit and his recent acceptance into the Global Elders, a group of public figures set up by Richard Branson that includes Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and others, to serve as a moral think tank for world problems.
NEWS-PRESS: What are the concepts of microcredit that work in all countries? Are there any features that are different depending on the culture?
MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No, I would say the basic features remain the same. Conventional banks are based on collateral. We threw (that idea) out. Microcredit is based on trust with no collateral, no guarantee, and no lawyers. All microcredit has focused on the poorest people, particularly on women. The loans are all about helping you to generate your own income. The other constant is making a small installment payment mostly weekly, sometimes fortnightly. Right from the beginning the idea was that people should not go to the bank, banks should go to the people. Our bank staff go to the borrowers at their doorstep.
NP: You say a lot of the success of microcredit depends on trust and peer pressure.
MR. YUNUS: It’s not peer pressure as such — it’s more peer support. You help each other to succeed. Pressure is a negative, whereas we discuss with borrowers before (the loan) what they will you do when somebody cannot pay back. Some say, well, we’ll force her to pay it back. But that’s not what friends are for, friends help each other. Maybe her husband took the money and ran away, so what’s the use of getting angry with her. You should be focusing on a solution, rather then aggravating the problem.
NP: Have you seen the roles of women change in Bangladesh since this started?
MR. YUNUS: Yes, women are now in a better situation within family than they used to be. Now that they have the economic power and are contributing to the family income, her decision-making contribution to the family also goes up. Now her voice matters in the family, unlike when the husband was the only income earner.
NP: How else has that affected the society?
MR. YUNUS: In the 25-30 years since the empowerment of women, the population growth has declined very sharply. The average mother used to have 6.3 children–today it’s less than three. Despite Bangladesh being a Muslim country, its population growth is one of the lowest in the whole of Southeast Asia. In terms of children’s education, it has been very helpful. All children attend primary school, and that was quite an achievement for Bangladesh. Also in secondary school, our fear was that boys would stay in secondary school, and girls would drop out, but the reality is the other way around.
NP: Tell me a little about the Global Elders.
MR. YUNUS: The concept of elders is basically that of the African village. When there’s a crisis, they go and seek their advice and intervention, so they can protect themselves from the difficulties that they face. So now the world is a global village, maybe the world could do better by using world elders. They are a moral authority. They will be helpful in mobilizing public opinion, because people will look up to the elders and see that they have no axe to grind. So what they are saying probably is the right position. It is about bringing the trust back into the picture so people can take it seriously and move ahead.
NP: Is the problem of poverty more complex or simpler than we think?
MR. YUNUS: It’s simpler, because poverty is not created by people; it’s a creation of the system. So if we can fix the system, poverty will disappear. The banking system decided it cannot do business with more that one-half to two-thirds of world’s population, and so that became a cause of making people suffer. But if we can open up and create an inclusive financial system, maybe we can increase the chance of everybody getting out of poverty. Why do we assume all humans are moneymaking machines, while in reality we know very well they aren’t? So there should be two kinds of business: one to make money, and one to do good, without any personal benefit out of it. Those social businesses could then affect the profit-margin businesses and compete with them. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with human beings — they are as capable, creative and powerful as anybody else. Society never gave them the scope to unleash the potential inside of them.
NP: Do these solutions require a government that believes in the common good?
MR. YUNUS: No, all government has to do is create an enabling environment by making the appropriate legislation. It’s not a question of common good. All I’m doing is lending money to people I’d like to do business with. If in doing so the law stands up and says I can’t do that, the government response is to remove that law. Government shouldn’t lend money to poor — that is a bad policy. If poor people know it’s coming from government, and it’s your own money, so why should you pay it back?
NP: Do certain economic systems like capitalism or socialism result in more or less poverty?
MR. YUNUS: In the United States, you have 42 million people who don’t have medical insurance, who live in mortal terror when something happens. So in the very citadel of capitalism you cannot solve the problem of poverty. Today I’m talking to you from China, which is socialist. Their economic advance is the fastest in world, but it’s not happening to the people at the bottom. Once you agree that it’s the system, then we can go in and change that. The Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations say we can reduce poverty by half by 2015. We have to make sure we achieve that goal, for this will then give us the confidence to take the next step and reduce it to zero.
IF YOU GO
Muhammad Yunus speaks Jan. 16, 8 p.m. at the Arlington Theatre, 1317 State Street.
The event is free.
©2008 Santa Barbara News-Press

Photo by Nik Blaskovich
By Ted Mills, News-Press Correspondent
November 30, 2007 10:45 AM
When my cocktail partners and I have felt the need to get funky, we’ve often stepped into EOS, the nightclub on the corner of Haley and Anacapa streets that packs in the crowds every weekend and covers them with a fresh blanket of house beats. We’ve stepped out later, sweaty, danced out, but completely oblivious to the fact that EOS serves up some très gourmet cocktail concoctions. No longer will we make that mistake.
Put this down to bar manager, Ashley O’Brien, who took over the position three months ago, and who has already put her stamp on the establishment. EOS is now one of the few bars in town where the slightly higher drink prices feel deserved — we tasted mixes on our early evening sojourn that we’ve never had anywhere else and we want to try again.

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