The Columbian

Market Gets Breath of Fresh Air

Last year, Easter's arrival in March nudged the Vancouver Farmers Market into opening a week early. This year, the outdoor market will open earlier yet the third weekend in March, rather than the traditional first weekend in April. And it has nothing to do with the spring holiday. Basically, "the customers that have come down (for the indoors market) have been chomping at the bit for outdoors," said market master Robert Ray.

'V' Doesn't Get an A

The totalitarian saga "V for Vendetta" scores well enough in its first hour as it works its way through the alphabet, earning a D for daring and an E for erudite compared to most action-oriented spectacles. But the movie loses focus midway through, the tone shifting from silly but smart to just silly, with the movie meriting a P for pretension as it tries to comment on current world affairs and a T for tediousness as it drags on far longer than the story deserves.

'Ask the Dust' Loses Its Gritty Feel

Robert Towne would seem to be the ideal person to bring "Ask the Dust," John Fante's novel about an aspiring writer's dreams and doomed love affairs in 1930s Los Angeles, to the screen. After all, this is the movie veteran who wrote the Academy Award- winning script of "Chinatown" and the Oscar-nominated script of "Shampoo." He's a native who knows the city intimately, its shimmering romanticism and seamy underbelly. He understands its rhythms and disparate inhabitants.

Video's: 'Good Night' Eye-Opening Film

Selected home-video releases: "Good Night, and Good Luck" George Clooney wore his politics on his sleeve last year, coming away with a supporting-actor Academy Award for the oil-industry thriller "Syriana" and six Oscar nominations for this terrific drama that's daring in form and content. Director, co-writer and co-star Clooney spins the story of newsman Edward R. Murrow (best-actor nominee David Strathairn) in his TV battle with Sen. Joseph McCarthy over the 1950s communist witch hunt, the...

Dining Out: Carlyle - Fine Food, Dab of Drama

Carlyle reminds me of a clubby little spot on New York City's tony Upper East Side. Its beautiful dark wood, white tablecloths and dazzling mirrored bar reflecting the rainbow of liquors would take in Type-As who had spent a taxing day telling the nanny or junior partners what to do. We're not in New York, but Carlyle has the makings of a taut, chic sanctuary, though the noisy Fremont Bridge is only a few blocks above and beyond, and Carlyle operates in a semi-industrial neighborhood. Small a...