ENTERTAINMENT

The latest entertainment news from throughout Oregon

• Beat winter gloom at last First Thursday before holidays
The recession might be putting art collectors and buyers in saving mode, forcing them to be more conservative with their purchases.

• Even toss-away video clips turn arty
It's official: You can recycle anything. No other response is possible for a viewer of the Found Footage Festival, the touring show that turns castoff home movies, esoteric cable-access oddities and employee-only training videos into an amusing evening's entertainment.

• History, nostalgia and crazy action on tap
Preposterous action, unlikely historical meet-ups, and reminders that you can't go home again -- pop-culturally speaking -- highlight this week's crowded schedule of new DVD releases.

• Callboard
"The Manifesto": Variety Showcase Productions seeking performers for new musical. Auditions Dec 5-7. Call 503-332-3923 for details.

• Oregon hopes for spillover tourism
"But they've already seen quite a few bookings for the 2009 trips. I think when people start learning it was filmed here, it'll be pretty big." Greg Eckhart, tourism sales manager with Travel Portland

• Tiny Forks basks in 'Twilight'
FORKS, Wash. -- Not even the most avid civic booster would mistake "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer's description of Forks as the stuff of tourism dreams.

• Nostalgia colors the laughs in reissued classic
B etty MacDonald's first book had perfect timing.

• A depth in the family
It has the most banal title you can imagine and yet it leaves you agog with its surfaces, its depths, its energy, passion and daring. "A Christmas Tale" -- "Un Conte de Noel" -- is one of the most miraculous films about a big, messy family that I've ever seen.

• Art Openings, Events and Museums
Admission is free unless otherwise noted.

• Five Live: Music
MIKE DONK Dir en Grey Japanese metal band

• Kazm! bounces back with new faces
Kazm!, a troupe of three men and two women who use elements of acrobatics, acrobalance, dance, gymnastics and cheerleading, is a fixture at the Oregon Country Fair as well as those avant-garde circuses that seem to be everywhere these days.

• T-Day films to slip in to flee Uncle Fred
Thanksgiving and DVDs go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. After you've stuffed yourself with the seasonal carbo avalanche, you could do something healthful, like go for a brisk walk. But chances are you'll be so groggy the couch will look more appealing. And, if you'd rather eat another helping of Aunt Fran's cranberry-asparagus surprise than converse with Uncle Fred, there's nothing like cranking up the DVD player to avoid personal interaction.

• They'd be great holidays with just Reese and Vince
There's one inviolable rule in mainstream holiday comedies about wacky family reunions: The house always wins. You can bend the family unit -- mock it, kick it, make it look stupid -- but you never get to break it.

• Acting redeems dry 'Milk'; actioner is joke
In his four most recent films, Gus Van Sant has tilled a field on the furthest edges of feature moviemaking, way over yonder where the untamed avant-garde is closer than the commercial mainstream.

• Callboard

• Partner's role took restrained approach
James Franco can understand why actresses get tired of playing the "supportive housewife" role in movies, taking a back seat to a dynamic male lead.

• Bringing
Marc Acito's second novel didn't stand a ghost of a chance.

• Piecing together
There's a lot going on in Bill LePore's new paintings at Butters Gallery. The artist, who also heads the art department at Portland State University, has fused religious images from Renaissance art history, Colonial American textiles and other sources, including maps and camouflage designs from military uniforms. And like these numerous and varied sources, LePore's paintings are about many things -- a meditation on war, cartography, art history and image-making. Ultimately, he writes, the juxtaposition of so many different kinds of images leaves the "authorship to the viewer."

• Art Openings, Events and Museums
Admission is free unless otherwise noted.

• Five Live: Music
1. Willie Nelson tribute There is, admittedly, something inherently cheesy about the tribute concept. Still, Nelson has influenced generations of artists, and some fine Portland musicians -- including Fernando, Casey Neill and Caleb Klauder -- will take the stage in his honor. 9 p.m. Friday, Wonder Ballroom, 128 N.E. Russell St.; $9.87, Ticketmaster, 503-224-4400.

• The life
The original sign, "7 courses for $7," is now framed and hanging in the back, although one of this month's customers remembered once seeing it Scotch-taped onto the front door.