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Watch: Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
What if gal pals Romy and Michele partied at a pastel-painted hotel in Vista Del Mar, Fla., instead of their high school reunion? What if Austin Powers was written by and starred Bridesmaids screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo? And what if these two distinctly separate ideas combined into one whimsically absurd feel-good comedy? Barb and Star is a whirlwind of friendship, romance, espionage and random musical numbers. It's about time we got more risk-taking studio comedies like this one. Streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play and Vudu.
Watch: Blazers vs. Lakers
It's officially Snub Season for your Portland Trail Blazers—that time each year when Damian Lillard gets overlooked for some kind of honor, and goes on a tear as a result. In this case, it's getting passed up for a starting spot on the All-Star Team thanks to a few thousand Slovenians blindly voting for fellow countryman Luka Doncic. Blazer fans will act very upset at the disrespect, but deep down everyone knows the annual Dame Revenge Tour is a lot more satisfying to watch than some meaningless exhibition game. It's hitting at an ideal time, too: While Lillard's next-level play has miraculously kept the team in the top-half of the Western Conference despite being down their next two best players, the schedule has them going through a gauntlet of upper-echelon opponents this week, ending with the defending champion L.A. Lakers. No player needs extra incentive to step up against LeBron James, but in the minds of many fans, he's the only guy standing between Dame and the MVP award. He might go for 82 here. 7 pm Friday, Feb. 26 on ESPN.
Stream: Ash Land
Like so many live events, Oregon Shakespeare Festival pivoted online in 2020, launching myriad digital programming under the banner of O! One of its most recent additions to that content is Ash Land, a short created by OSF's 2020 artist in residence Shariffa Ali that was inspired by her immediate surroundings in the eponymous city last year: nature, pandemic loneliness and the bittersweet reality of being a Black visitor in a state she was coming to love while simultaneously confronting its white supremacist history and contemporary racial disparities. The resulting 20-minute film finds a woman called only "She" languishing alone in a trailer. Meanwhile, an ambiguous figure from her past, "Her," pursues the despondent older woman across the Southern Oregon wilderness. "We have been rewired by the time we spent in Oregon," Ali says. "Our atoms had been rejiggered anew, but we look the same." Streaming at osfashland.org/productions/ 2020-digital/ash-land.aspx. Free.
Watch: Illusions
As we close out Black History Month, track down this critically acclaimed 1982 short. Written and directed by Julie Dash, this 34-minute revisionist drama explores how "the influence of that screen cannot be overestimated." Set in a fictional 1940s film studio, a biracial producer (Lonette McKee), who is presumed to be white by her coworkers, oversees a Black woman dub the singing voice for a white woman, and reflects on her community's inexcusable invisibility in the industry. Stream on Criterion Channel and Kanopy.
Hear: Angel Tears in Sunlight by Pauline Anna Strom
Sadly, San Francisco synth sorceress Pauline Anna Strom passed away before she could see the release of her swansong, Angel Tears in Sunlight. It's her first album of material in 30 years, and it feels strikingly modern, in part because Strom is a master of her form, and also because echoes of her playful, burbling sound can be heard in scores of latter-day bands and producers. Stream on Spotify.
Catch Up On: New Girl
Everybody needs a 30-minute comedy in their television diet. It's a wonderful palate cleanser, especially if you've been binging on true crime and cult dramas. New Girl is a delightful option to revisit or watch for the first time. Look past the obnoxious "adorkable" tagline pinned to Zooey Deschanel's character: The show's screwball humor is much more clever than that and, in the same vein as Parks and Recreation, it leaves you feeling lighter with optimism at the end of each episode. There's even a "local" connection: Deschanel's Jess is from Portland, and her love interest, Nick, played by Jake Johnson, starred in Portland-set Stumptown. Need further motivation to tune in? Prince was such a big fan, he asked for—and received—a cameo. Streaming on Netflix, Hulu and other services.
Hear: Winterreise
Schubert's Winterreise is a mix of truly beautiful and truly depressing. The 1820s song cycle follows a forlorn man wandering through a cold, wintery landscape—very relatable in February 2021. The voice-and-piano piece is usually sung by a male tenor, but Chamber Music Northwest's livestreamed performance will be sung by British-Singaporean mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron. And if you're looking for an access point to the almost two-centuries-old work—or just to decompress after experiencing a pretty haunting piece of music—CMNW published a conversation with music lecturer Michael Parloff about Winterreise earlier this week. Available for streaming Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 27-28, at cmnw.org. $20.
Explore: Paris Ballroom TV
While nothing can truly capture the energy of actually being at a ball, Paris Ballroom TV comes pretty close. The YouTube channel is essentially an archive of competitions thrown by French voguing legends Lasseindra Ninja and Nikki Mizrahi. There are hours of basically unedited footage from years of balls. Some of the best dancers in Paris's thriving ballroom scene walk in every video, whether it's at the glitzy Cleopatra Ball, held at a historic Parisian covered market, or the all-black outfits at the Black Lives Matter Ball. Sure, it doesn't totally make up for not being able to be there in person, but you'll still find yourself cheering along with the audience every time a dancer hits a dip. Watch at youtube.com/c/ParisBallroom.
Stream: Literary Arts presents Heather McGhee
If Americans refuse to confront the corrosive nature of systemic racism from a standpoint of basic human decency, then maybe it's best to hit them where it hurts most: their wallet. In The Sum of Us, author and economic policy expert Heather McGhee looks at the literal cost of prejudice in this country, and makes a compelling argument that it's not just people of color being impacted. McGhee discusses the book tonight in a livestream event co-presented by Literary Arts, the Loft in Minneapolis, the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas and the Wisconsin Book Festival. 5 pm Tuesday, March 2. Free. Register crowdcast.io/e/wbf-sum-of-us/ register.