Weekend Get Out Guide

By Eric Collins, KATU.com Producer/Reporter Published: Dec 4, 2008 at 6:00 PM PST Last Updated: Dec 5, 2008 at 5:45 PM PST

The Weekend Get Out Guide highlights five things to do each weekend -- whether in the Portland area or beyond.

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	HOLIDAY ALE FESTIVAL By the time you read this, this festival in Pioneer Courthouse Square will already be in the middle of its five-day run. Though it's cold outside, organizers put up a huge covering over the square and bring in heaters. There are more than 40 winter ales to sample.
	FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher began collecting found videotapes in 1991. Since then they have compiled an impressive collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos. You can catch their show at Portland's Laurelhurst Theater Friday and Saturday.
	TAMALE FESTIVAL You'll have your choice of more than 40 varieties of tamales at the third annual festival, taking place over at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds from Friday through Sunday. That includes vegan and vegetarian tamales as well as ones made for dessert.
	TONYA AS ART AT MARTINI GALA Northwest artist Mary Millar has produced low brow, pop surrealism for years, and her new series tackles the infamous Tonya Harding. On Friday, you can catch her lifetime of work at Gallery Zero in the Belmont district. Martinis will be served.
	HELP THE GREYHOUNDS AND GET A TREE The Greyhound Pets of America NW chapter is selling Noble firs Saturday at the Forest Heights Village Center to benefit its adoption program. You may remember the group was the victim of embezzlement this year and needs all the help it can get.

MOVIE REVIEWS

	AUSTRALIA With a 3-hour duration, Baz Luhrmann has insufficiently blended four different genres: romance, western, a war flick and a race history lesson. Oh crikey! This is what plagues the movie: It is trying too hard to be a sweeping epic.
	CADILLAC RECORDS It's all here, over and over, just as you've seen it countless times before: the early struggle, the rise to the top and the waste of fame and talent with various controlled substances. Certainly there must be a better, fresher way to tell this familiar tale.
	FOUR CHRISTMASES There's a stable full of heavyweight Hollywood talent in this film, (such as Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and - um - the MTV Movie Award-winning Mr. Vaughn) but the movie is not particularly entertaining.

- Have a good weekend