Entertain Me

By

EAT AT ... THE PIED COW

If you could sum up Portland in one cafe, it would be The Pied Cow.

The coffee shop, staffed by what appears to be a crew of über stylish elves of the Tolkein variety, is located in a dark and musty Victorian house on the impossibly cool Southeast Belmont Street near 32nd Avenue.

The cafe's interior is adorned with old paintings, satin drapery and vintage furniture. Smokers and more outdoorsy types can sit in the partially heated garden patio, as long as they don't disturb the neighbors. It's open until 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays and until midnight Sunday through Thursday, so it's perfect for a late-night treat.

The Pied Cow serves your typical delicious coffee-related beverages as well as a wide variety of black, floral and rice teas. Also on the menu are milk steamers, a delectable alternative to hot chocolate and other typical dessert drinks. (Try the lavender and honey steamer. You will feel like a Greek god.)

Most customers don't go to The Pied Cow with the intent of eating a full meal, so there aren't too many entrees. However, there are a ton of tasty tapas to share, namely the cheese fondue.

Got a sweet tooth? The Pied Cow is the right place for you; it's certainly not lacking dense, creamy, flaky, chocolatey desserts. Bring a group of friends and try the $50 sundae, complete with cake, brownies and cookies. Also, invite me along with you.

You can smoke hookah at The Pied Cow only if you're 21 or older – a rule created to avoid overcrowding of obnoxious groups of teenagers. No matter your age, however, the waiters are always super friendly. One of them told me that, according to urban legend, a deceased woman who once lived in the house has haunted it for decades.

With such easy access to the cafe's free lavender steamers and cheese fondue, I don't blame her.

– Corey Fawcett

GO SEE...THE ROOM

Have you ever watched a movie that's so bad it's good?

"The Room," starring and directed, written and produced by Tommy Wiseau, is the Avatar of bad movies.

The script is terrible, the lines corny, the acting awkward and the general concept for the film leaves the audience thinking, "What was Tommy smoking when he came up with this movie?" But that's what makes this movie great.

By poking holes in the plot and making fun of the dialogue among the characters, the audience makes its own humor.

The Room has no "plot" per se, but it does have characters and things do happen to them. Jonny (Tommy Wiseau) is engaged to a younger woman, Lisa (Juliet Danille), who wants more out of life than what Jonny can give her so she tempts Jonny's best friend Mark (Greg Sestero) and risks everything on her path of self destruction.

Cinema 21 in Northwest Portland shows "The Room" on the first Friday of every month. "Room" fanatics (myself, a 17-time "Room" viewer, included) and newcomers to the cult following engage in what can only be described as the most interactive movie viewing experience possible. Various collaborative jokes throughout the movie, most notably throwing plastic spoons at the screen and yelling "SPOONS!" whenever an oddly placed spoon photo is shown on screen, make the moviegoing experience one of a kind.

If you'd like to diversify your inside joke repertoire, make friends with some of the weirdest people in Portland and see the Butt Clench of Death, come to Cinema 21 on Friday, April 1 to watch "The Room." Or shoot me an e-mail…I own it on DVD!

– Will Lyons

WAIT TO SEE... I AM NUMBER FOUR

If Zack Snyder directed a "Star Trek" screenplay written by Meg Cabot after a Halo binge, casted it entirely with H&M models and marketed it to tweens (with conservative mothers) looking for an adrenaline high, the end product would be "I am Number Four."

Produced by Disney and directed by a D.J. Caruso, "I am Number Four" starts off with an entirely unexplained chase scene. A teenager living in a cabin wakes up when his companion is dragged out of the room by an unknown entity. He proceeds to immediately escape parkour-style through the forest only to be struck down by the dirtiest giant naked mole rat imaginable.

The scene then cuts to a teenage beach party, where we meet the protagonist, John Smith, in all his shirtless glory (played in various degrees of disrobe by Alex Pettyfer). Suddenly, while making out in the surf, John's leg starts to burn really brightly.

Because the plot of this movie excels at logical sequences, Henri, John's mentor (played excellently by Timothy Oliphant), then explains to John they must to move to Ohio. Their comedic fraternal/paternal relationship exactly mirrors Qui Gon Jin and Obi Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," which is quite enjoyable, so I wouldn't accuse the screenwriters of possible plagiarism.

Upon arrival, John insists on enrolling at the local high school, and, you guessed it, meets the movie's love interest, the delightful Sarah, who is played by the depressingly gorgeous Dianna Agron. It takes about two-thirds of the movie to understand the plot (spoiler alert), but the point is that they're being chased by evil aliens because John is the descendent of other good aliens, which is why he has telekinetic abilities. Wait, what?

All in all, it's the kind of movie you'd Netflix at 3 a.m. over winter break and never really admit to liking. Despite being entirely predictable, it's still worth a watch, though I wouldn't skip my homework for it.

– Philippe Boutros