Author: Mad About Movies (Page 1 of 6)

Christopher Walken talks about his new movie and some old ones he’s never seen

The veteran actor is proud of his work in "A Late Quartet" but swears he's never seen some of the movies he's acted in.

By MARC MOHAN


walken.JPG Christopher Walken in "A Late Quartet." 

Christopher Walken stars in "A Late Quartet," a quieter, more reflective role than the tough guys he usually plays. Walken was scheduled for this interview two weeks ago, but superstorm Sandy rendered him unavailable for a few days.

Are you dry?

Yes, yes, last week with the hurricane. We had no power. I was lucky, I was pretty self-contained. But a lot of people in the New York area really suffered.

I don't mean to make light, but I'm surprised you weren't able to repel the storm with a menacing smirk and a terrifying anecdote.

I don't think so. I've lived in New York my entire life and I don't ever remember a hurricane in November. I never knew there was such a thing, actually.

This new film, "A Late Quartet," is a somewhat unusual role for you, in that it's a quieter, more straightforwardly dramatic thing. Did that play a part in your decision to take the role.

When I got the script I saw immediately that it was something different from what I usually do, and that was a big attraction. And to work with Yaron Zilberman, and then the other actors came on board, and I'd worked with Philip Hoffman before, so I certainly looked forward to doing it again. It was a terrific opportunity for a lot of reasons. I play kind of "dad" in this—it's the story of a family, and something momentous that happens and breaks up the family.

That something is your character's diagnosis with Parkinson's disease. Did you do any research into the disease in preparation for playing someone in its early stages?

There's a scene in the movie with a lady who talks to a group of people who have Parkinson's, and that lady was more or less my coach. She was a dancer who had been afflicted with it for about a dozen years, and dealt with it very well. When I met her I didn't know there was anything wrong. She had learned to deal with it, maybe from her dancing training, but there were certain things she told me about things to do with my body, walking up and down stairs.

The movie has an incredible cast, especially for a director making his first feature. Who is Yaron Zilberman and how did he get so many great actors in his movie?

Well, he's a talented man, you understand that when you talk to him. You know, they didn't have much money, so it isn't as if anyone was getting paid. But we were in New York, we were close to home, it was a great company — me and the other actors, we all got along great. It was shot rather quickly because it was a low-budget movie. I think it worked out really well, I mean you never know with a movie, it's always a bit of a gamble. It's just as difficult to make a movie that doesn't work as it is to make one that does. When you make a movie, it's a lot of work, and sometimes you're lucky.

Well, it's very impressive that you've been able to maintain this very stable image throughout your acting career, and a very consistent pattern of work, despite, if I may say, showing up in some stuff that never made it to the Oscar short list. Do you look back on the "Kangaroo Jack"'s and "Gigli"'s of your filmography with regret, or as opportunities which were fulfilling in their own way?

Well, you can't be regretful. Most actors, even very good ones, don't work most of the time. There are statistics from SAG and Actors' Equity, I think 98 percent of actors are usually unemployed. So if you're working, you're lucky. And there's no way to anticipate that. Every time I go to work, I hope it's gonna be a knockout movie, and sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. There are actors who are very careful about choosing roles and directors and scripts and so on, but I've never been much good at that. I don't have hobbies, I don't have kids, I don't like to travel, I like to go to work. You take what comes next, the next best thing. But you're right, there are movies I've made, when I come across them on the cable, the movie channels, you surf and you come across one, there are some movies I stay and I watch because I thought I was good in them, and there's others I pass over very quickly because I thought I was awful. It's true, I've been in a bunch of movies that I have to shut my eyes when I see them.

There's a clip on YouTube from a film called "All-American Murder"—

Oh my G—you know, yeah, I've never seen that movie. I've made a whole bunch of movies that I've never seen.

Well, I've seen about 90 seconds of it, which is probably enough.

"All-American Murder." My goodness. I've never seen that even TV a four in the morning.

Well, your first scene in the film is something else. Check it out if you get a chance. I think you'd get a kick out of it.

I'll keep it in mind.


Gone Fishin’…..

Film critic Shawn Levy is taking time off to write a book. Until he returns, movie reviews will be handled by able film writers Marc Mohan, Stan Hall and Mike Russell.

Moby Dick poster.jpgView full size
Friends, I am off on a voyage of discovery, researching and writing a book, chasing into the unknown with only my gumption to guide me.

Until then, I leave the film department of The Oregonian in the hands of my fellow film writers Marc Mohan, Stan Hall, and Mike Russell and a cadre of fabulous editors.

You are in good hands.

Until we meet again, then....

‘The Master’ review: a gorgeous, vexing and one-of-a-kind tale of psychology and power

Paul Thomas Anderson's tale of a man drawn into a quasi-religious cult is puzzling and provoking, with remarkable performances at its heart.

The Master.jpegJoaquin Phoenix in "The Master"
“The Master” is cool and puzzling and almost feels more like a novel than a movie.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson came onto the scene as a brilliantly gifted scamp of a storyteller, with the portraits of underground culture “Hard Eight” and “Boogie Nights” and the web-of-life epic “Magnolia.”  But since then he has moved away from familiar narrative forms, first in “Punch Drunk Love,” then in “There Will Be Blood,” the last of which, in light of this new film, seems the dawn of a new phase in its maker’s art.

Like “Blood,” “The Master” concerns a strong, charismatic man determined to reshape the world no matter the personal costs.  Like “Blood,” it is a film in which big ideas are chewed over but not necessarily digested, in which the world is slightly distorted to accommodate large and even grotesque characters, in which the accumulation of episodes weighs more heavily than the ‘through line’ of a ‘plot.’  It vexes and dares, it frustrates and goads, but it is powerful and singular and doesn’t leave your mind easily.  It’s not as appealing, at least on the surface, as Anderson’s early films, nor does it wallop you like “Blood.”  But it is something, you must admit that.

Joaquin Phoenix, back from his bizarre decision to shut down his career, plays Freddie Quell, an alcoholic, emotionally troubled seaman who finishes his service in World War II and finds himself unable to reintegrate himself into society.  Adrift, he winds up aboard a yacht commanded by Lancaster Dodd (Anderson staple Philip Seymour Hoffman), a man of mysterious authority who is engaged in rethinking ideas of human psychology, history, and self-empowerment.  Quell, who, in fact, needs quelling badly, is drawn into Dodd’s world, seeking to silence the demons in his head and striving to gain status among the writer’s traveling cohort of family members and apostles.  But Freddie’s troubles may be too profound for any cure to avail, and Dodd’s work might not be able to offer him, or anyone else, credible answers.

Dodd is, plainly, a version of L. Ron Hubbard, author of “Dianetics” and founder of the Church of Scientology.  But “The Master” isn’t a critique or expose.  Yes, there are passages in which it seems that Dodd’s work is a sham, but there are also moments in which true believers profess their faith, and nothing that we see distorts the actual legal and doctrinal struggles faced by Hubbard and his followers during the period the film depicts.  There will (probably) not be lawsuits.

Besides, the focus isn’t on the spiritual movement so much as the relationship between off-kilter Freddie and grandiloquent Dodd, the itchy, gaunt acolyte and his robust and Olympian master.  Phoenix is almost perversely out of sync -- gangly and twitchy, speaking out of one side of his mouth, hands on hips inside-out, arms akimbo like a scarecrow.  The forces inside him have gnarled and twisted his form.  Just seeing him on screen makes you shift back in your seat.

Hoffman, on the other hand, brings a grand Falstaffian quality to Dodd, a fondness for food and flesh and thrills and ideas, an outsized confidence camouflaging a sometimes thunderous temper, a blend of certainty and doubt, a need to control all of those around him while giving them the impression that they command themselves.  Orson Welles would’ve loved the guy.

These two herculean performances more or less wipe everyone else off the screen, and Anderson knows it.  He’s got Amy Adams as Dodd’s missus, and Laura Dern as a significant devotee, both small roles, really, and there are very few other faces you might recognize.  That lack of familiar faces makes it easy for him to immerse us in the post-war era of skirts and suits and big cars and no-tech living.  Like the blasted-out landscape of “Blood,” the sparsity of “The Master” allows the two lead actors and the various competing ideas to play out against a relatively clean backdrop.

In speaking of the novelistic quality of the film, I specifically refer to the sense that, like Tolstoy or Dreiser or Bellow, Anderson is deploying characters and events in an effort to give shape to ideas.  There’s nothing prosaic about the filmmaking, however, which is conceived in sequences of motion and light that sometimes recall the abstraction of Terrence Malick rather than the hopped-up energies of Martin Scorsese or the jazzy flow of Robert Altman, to name two of Anderson’s chief influences.  Gorgeously shot by Mihai Malimare Jr. (who has photographed Francis Coppola’s last few films), with a spooky and compelling score by Jonny Greenwood, it’s exquisitely made.  Anderson may be thinking like a writer, but his movies are movies.

But they are not always warm movies, and the aridity of “The Master” is, finally, its most lingering impression.  It’s a film you admire, with two powerhouse performances, but it’s aloof and self-involved and eccentric.  “Blood” was a head-scratcher, yes, but it galvanized, if only through the strength of Daniel Day-Lewis at its heart.  “The Master” doesn’t have the same magnetic power, but it does excite you at the prospect of Anderson’s future.  Once upon a time people talked quite seriously about the “Great American Novel,” a chimerical blend of intelligence, entertainment and import that would forever change and define literature.  Anderson, god love him, seems determined to make the “Great American Film.”  “The Master” isn’t it, but you come away from it with the sense that may be on the right path. 

(137 min., R, TBD) Grade: B-plus


‘Compliance’ review: a prank call turns into a real horror show

A based-on-truth tale about people manipulated into criminal acts by stranger on the phone.

Compliance.jpgAnn Dowd in "Compliance"
“Compliance” is a slice-of-life film that sneaks up on you nauseatingly, and not just because it’s set in a fast food restaurant.  

Writer-director Craig Zobel’s movie is based on the true story of a predator who phoned various businesses pretending to be a policeman and asking to speak to the manager.  When he hooked an unwitting victim, coerced the person on the other end of the line into performing degrading and even criminal acts on a subordinate: confinement, strip searches and worse.  

Zobel, whose previous film was the little-seen but worthy con man story “Great World of Sound,” is adept at finding actors who make the unimaginable seem completely real.  The restaurant manager (Ann Dowd, painfully believable) is harried and over her head; the target of her ministrations (Dreama Walker, also utterly credible) is frightened and confused; nobody in the film feels like an actor, which is a point of praise.

There’s a skin-crawling effect to watching it all unfold, and a sense of slowly falling into a hole without a bottom.  In large part that’s Zobel is less interested in the perverse motive behind the crime than the slow descent of the victims into its twisted logic.  We watch these dupes make choices, some of which we might have made ourselves, and then we’re sickened to see the consequences of those choices played out.  

Zobel isn’t a sadist about all of this as, say, Roman Polanski or David Lynch or Todd Solondz might have been.  There’s a humanity here, even for the restaurant manager.  But that still doesn’t make “Compliance” easy to ingest.

(90 min., R, Cinema 21) Grade: B

‘Hello, I Must Be Going’ review: fine performances can’t lift a wan film

Melanie Lynskey and Blythe Danner are fine in this small family comedy, but it's a

Hello I Must Be Going.jpgMelanie Lynskey and Christopher Abbott in "Hello, I Must Be Going"
You want to root for “Hello, I Must Be Going,” a soft and heartfelt little film built on the backs of two all-in performances, but the film’s lack of credibility and flabby craft keep defeating your goodwill.  

Todd Louiso, the sometime actor who previously directed “Love, Liza,” is empathetic enough with his actors to draw good work from them.  But the screenplay by newcomer Sarah Koskoff is wan and sometimes even silly, and Louiso never finds a tone to sell it.  

The fault isn’t with his stars.  Melanie Lynskey is quite good as Amy, a newly divorced thirtysomething forced to move in with her parents in her childhood suburban home.  Listless, lifeless and self-pitying, she only emerges through the most unlikely of avenues: an affair with Jeremy (Christopher Abbott), the 19-year-old son of her dad’s business acquaintance.  As she navigates the various passages of life, she must endure the scorn of her mother (Blythe Danner), who dreams of a life that hasn’t quite come to her.

Danner is, in fact, the best thing in the picture:  brittle and frank and cool toward a daughter who has flat-out disappointed her.  She’s terrific.  And you can’t help but feel at least some sympathy toward Amy, at least at the start, particularly as embodied by the winning Lynskey.  But the script’s contrivances and the director’s lax handling aren’t enough to hold you.


Gere faces ‘Arbitrage,’ the ‘Desires’ of film noir and more

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Arbitrage 2.jpgSusan Sarandon and Richard Gere in "Arbitrage"
A slow movie weekend, with only a couple of reviews:  the Wall St-fatcat-in-trouble drama "Arbitrage," with Richard Gere, and "Dangerous Desires," a selection of film noir treats at the Northwest Film Center.  We've also got "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse," "Levy's High Five" and "Retro-a-Gogo" to flesh out the week.

Levy’s High Five, September 14 – September 20

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Beasts of the Southern wild boat.jpg"Beasts of the Southern Wild"

1) "Beasts of the Southern Wild" A dreamy and joyous film about life, death, hope, dreams and wonder on an island in the Mississippi Delta. The miraculous young Quevezhané Wallis stars as Hushpuppy, a wee girl who experiences life in the feral community known as the Bathtub as a stream of wonder and delight, even though her dad (Dwight Henry) is gruff, her mom is absent and a killer storm is bearing down on her home. Writer-director Behn Zeitlin, in his feature debut, combines poetry and audacity in ways that recall Terrence Malick, but with a light and spry touch. Still, all his great work pales in comparison to the stupendous little Wallis, whom you'll never forget. Hollywood, Living Room, Moreland, Tigard

2) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. Cine Magic, Fox Tower, Hollywood, St Johns

3) "The Bourne Legacy" A dense, slick and thrilling spy movie that's got as much brain power as brawn. Writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") turns the trilogy of films about Jason Bourne into the story of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), another souped-up intelligence operative on the run from the secretive organizations which built him. The film cleverly integrates the story of the previous three, but stands alone as a gripping story about a man trying to extend the only life that he has come to know and depending on a geneticist (Rachel Weisz) and his own abilities to stay alive. From the complex narrative to the thrilling final half-hour, it's top shelf stuff. multiple locations

4) "Searching for Sugar Man" A truly remarkable documentary that demonstrates how big and how small this world of ours can be.  Rodriguez was a Detroit singer-songwriter whose poetic and soulful music deserved a much bigger career than the little blip it experienced in the early '70s.  But, in fact, that bigger career did  exist: in South Africa, where Rodriguez was a huge star and didn't know it.  So obscure was Rodriguez in his homeland, in fact, that his overseas fans long believed he had killed himself in an baroque onstage apocalypse.  The Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul tracks this amazing history and then witnesses a third act that you simply have to see to believe.  Mind-blowing, heartwarming and true. Fox Tower 

5) "Robot & Frank" Frank Langella is a delight in a film about a curmudgeonly retiree whose children foist a robot on him to monitor his diet, activities and housework.  The grumpy old fella hates the little electronic buddy (whose voice is provided by Peter Sarsgaard), then he realizes he has a use for it:  he devises a means to use it to get back into his life's work, which happens to be burglary.  Debuting director Jake Schreier and screenwriter Christopher D. Ford nicely balance the mild sci-fi with human comedy, and a sharp supporting cast, which includes Susan Sarandon, James Marsden and Liv Tyler, give the great Langella all the room he needs to be wonderful. Fox Tower




Shining a light on the shadowy world of noir

A series of little-known film noir titles crackles with energy and a sense of discovery.

The Window.jpgView full size
Little festivals of film noir -- ‘40s and ‘50s crime dramas starring Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan and their ilk -- have been pretty commonplace over the past few decades.  

But “Dangerous Desires: Film Noir Classics,” a series beginning tonight and running through the end of September at the Northwest Film Center, stands out.  Curated by the Film Noir Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting the heritage of these dark little nuggets of post-war American angst, it’s filled with discoveries, including some films that aren’t available for home viewing in any form.

Only two of the dozen titles in the film -- “The Glass Key” and “The Blue Dahlia,” both starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake -- can be said to be familiar, and those play on a single night, almost as if being dealt with as an obligation.

The rest of the series peers more intently into the unknown corners of noir.  Tonight’s opening film, presented, by film noir scholar Eddie Muller, is a perfect example.  “The Prowler” is a 1951 Joseph Losey thriller starring Van Heflin as a cop obsessed with a lonely housewife (classic noir girl Evelyn Keyes). Like many of the films in “Dangerous Desires,” it deals with issues of men uprooted after the war, the threat of rupture to the traditional model of the family, and the fatal lures of sex and money.

Another of the opening weekend’s offerings, “The Hunted” (1948), about a woman seeking revenge, is among those in the series that can’t be readily seen elsewhere.  Also in that category is the remarkable “The Window” (1949), which plays on September 23.  Based on a story by Cornell Woolrich, it’s a story about a boy (the gifted and tragic Bobby Driscoll) who witnesses a murder but who can’t get anyone to believe him because of his long habit of telling tall tales.  Shot on location in New York by director Ted Tetzlaff, it’s tense and fresh and, at 73 minutes, remarkably taut.

High Wall.jpgView full size
“High Wall” (1948) is another treat, a very rare MGM film noir with Robert Taylor quite good as a man who admits that he strangled his wife and then comes to believe he may not have done so at that.   And in “Pitfall,” the lustful insurance adjuster in the middle (Dick Powell) is outshined by Lizbeth Scott as the object of his adulterous affections and Raymond Burr as the creepy crooked detective who wants the girl and won’t be told no.

Through the series we get exactly what we want from noir:  dark shadows, flawed heroes, mean little schemes, psychological dysfunction, fallen women, and a pervading sense of claustrophobic, paranoid fear.  The world of noir often looks normal, but the characters have just survived a horrific war and they know how easily ‘normal’ can vanish.  Their urges, longings, and fears drive them to places they never would have imagined visiting in their halcyon days -- and their journeys make for deeply exciting viewing.
 
The Northwest Film Center presents “Dangerous Desires: Film Noir Classics” through September 30 at the Whitsell Auditorium of the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave. Tickets are $9 general; $8 for PAM members, students, and seniors; $6 for NFC Silver Screen members and children.


The Prowler poster.jpgView full size
SCHEDULE

“The Prowler” Friday, September 14, 7 p.m.
“The Hunted” Saturday, September 15, 9 p.m.
“Nobody Lives Forever” Sunday, September 16, 7 p.m.
“Pitfall” Thursday, September 20, 7 p.m.
“The Glass Key” Saturday, September 22, 7 p.m.
“The Blue Dahlia” Saturday, September 22, 9 p.m.
“The Window” Sunday, September 23, 7 p.m.
“Caught”
Friday, September 28, 7 p.m.
“High Wall” Saturday, September 29, 7 p.m.
“99 River Street” Saturday, September 29, 9 p.m.
“Loophole” Sunday, September 30, 5 p.m.
“The Naked Alibi” Sunday, September 30, 7 p.m. 

‘Abitrage’ review: with Gere in a familiar gear, a drama finds a spark of life

The silver fox plays another charming heel in a film about a financial kingpin in money and legal trouble.

Arbitrage.jpgRichard Gere in "Arbitrage"

The moral failings of Wall St. and its fat cat operators are the stuff of headlines today, but they are hardly anything new under the sun. Perhaps that's why "Arbitrage," a thriller from writer-director Nicholas Jarecki seems at once modern and old-school. Its depiction of a crooked big shot feels like it might've been made in the '70s or '80s, despite its contemporary details.

Combining a slick exterior with a morally dubious core, the film stars Richard Gere as Robert Miller, a financier whose hidden chicaneries -- both economic and marital -- start to catch up with him in all at once. He's got money locked up in a foreign mining deal that's going sour, his mistress is demanding more of his time, his company is for sale and the books are slightly dodgy, and, when an accident hits him out of nowhere, he's got a dogged cop poking at him and a nervous witness threatening to crack and tell the truth.

Gere is a past master at playing the charming rogue, and he's surrounded by pros such as Susan Sarandon as his willfully blind missus and Tim Roth as the suspicious detective. Slightly less powerful are Brit Marling as the daughter whom Miller is grooming in the business and Nate Parker as a fellow from whom he asks a favor that cannot be repaid. More seriously, Jarecki never quite pierces the skin of this world, capturing its shiny and grimy surfaces but failing to immerse us in its flaws; too often it's like flipping through a magazine story on the lives of the rich and corrupt.

But even the soft and lax parts of the film are laced with the conundrum that makes movies like this so delicious: Miller is a reprehensible heel, yet, because he's played by Gere and because we're privy to his desperation, we root for him. In this sense, "Arbitrage" is a mirror on the audience, making us realize that we're complicit, if only vicariously, in some crimes which we ought to deplore.

(105 min., R, Living Room TheatersGrade: B


Kurosawa’s “Samurai,” a sacred “Camino,” a “Wild Horse” and more

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

The Bridge on the River Kwai.jpgView full size
"Bachelorette" Comedy about high school mean girls asked to be bridesmaids to one of their former victims. Kirsten Dunst and Isla Fisher star.  (Hollywood Theatre)

“The Bridge on the River Kwai” David Lean’s
1957 Oscar-winner about British prisoners in World War II.  (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday only)

“The Camino Documentary” Work-in-progress screening of Portland filmmaker Lydia B. Smith’s movie about the famed pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.  (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday only)   

“Clue” The original murder mystery game as adapted for the screen in 1985.  (Laurelhurst Theater)   

“Icon Motosports Film Festival"
A night of noisy rides, with free admission.  (Clinton Street Theater, Thursday only)  

“Last Ounce of Courage" Drama about a family and community dealing with war-inflicted loss.  (multiple locations)  

“Queen Live in Budapest, 1986” Freddie Mercury and company rock you, as promised.  (Living Room Theaters, Thursday only)  

“Resident Evil: Retribution” It continues, this time in 3-D  (multiple locations)   

“Resonance” Snowboarding documentary.  (Hollywood Theatre, Friday only)  

“Sports, Leisure and Videotape” A selection of films from the oddest corners of the sporting world, as curated by the folks from Seattle’s Scarecrow Video.  (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday only)   

“West of Zanzibar” Tod Browning’s silent potboiler about lust in the jungle, with Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter, with live musical accompaniment by Subterranean Howl.  (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)   

“Wild Horse, Wild Ride” Documentary about the taming of mavericks (the four-legged kind) in the American west.  (Living Room Theaters)  



Retro-a-gogo: classic films on Portland screens, September 14 – 20

Everything old is new again!

The Seven Samurai.jpgView full size"The Seven Samurai" (1954)
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" The great 1957 World War II drama about British prisoners of war forced to build a span by cruel Japanese captors. (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday Sept. 20 only)

"Branded to Kill"
Deliciously demented yakuza-noir from the master Seijun Suzuki. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)

"Clue" The curiously-structured 1985 film based on the beloved board game. (Laurelhurst Theater)
 
"Crippled Avengers" 1978 martial arts film starring the famed Venom Mob. (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Often quoted, often imitated, never equalled. (Burnside Brewing, Saturday only)

"The Seven Samurai"
This could be the greatest action film ever made, and a masterpiece of world cinema to boot.  Among Akira Kurosawa's many triumphs. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday through Monday only)

"West of Zanzibar" Tod Browning's silent lust-in-the jungle drama, presented with live musical score. (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday Sept. 20 only)

This week’s last-chance movies: ‘Magic Mike,’ ‘The Ambassador’ and more

Catch 'em while you can!

Magic Mike McConaughey.jpgMatthew McConaughey in "Magic Mike"
Four pretty distinct films on their ways out of town after Thursday's final shows. They include "Magic Mike," Steven Soderbergh's shadowy look at the world of male strippers; "The Ambassador," a curious documentary about the African diamond trade; "2 Days in New York," a charming little domestic comedy directed by and starring Julie Delpy; and "Red Hook Summer," Spike Lee's lastest visit to a Brooklyn neighborhood.

‘Kicking + Screening’ brings soccer to the big screen

A mini-fest of movies about soccer rivalries before the Portland Timbers play one of the biggest rivalry matches of the year.

Gringos at the gates 2.jpgfrom "Gringos at the Gate"
It only follows that the world’s most popular sport should have a lot of movies made about it. But perhaps because soccer is still something of a novelty game in the United States, Hollywood isn’t making them.

Fortunately, it’s not that hard to find soccer movies, and even more fortunately there are the good folks behind the traveling film festival “Kicking + Screening” making it possible to see them.

“K+S” is a three-year old endeavor marrying the love of cinema with the love of the beautiful game.  It’s been held in New York and Liverpool and Amsterdam and India, and it arrives here this week with a program built around Saturday’s  epochal match between the Portland Timbers and their eternal antagonists the Seattle Sounders. 

The theme of the program is, naturally, soccer rivalries, and the program consists of two nights of two films each.  On Thursday, there are two films about the passionate teams and fans of South America, the feature film “Argentine Football Club” about the great enemy teams from Buenos Aires, Boca Juniors and River Plate, and the short “Loucos de Futebol” about a lesser-known rivalry in Brazil.  On Friday, the focus is North America, with the feature film “Gringos at the Gate,” about the rivalry between the national teams of the United States and Mexico, and the short “A Most Improbable Life,” about a Mexican immigrant finding his love for the game in the USA.  

On each night, there will be post-screening discussions with one of the filmmakers or another expert, including, on Thursday, Portland Timbers (and former Seattle Sounders) forward Mike Fucito

Screenings will be held at Urban Studios (935 NW Davis) tickets for each night’s screenings are $13. 

The festival launches on Wednesday night with “K + S Word,” a literary event featuring readings and presentation by a variety of local and national writers (including yours truly) discoursing on the subject of soccer rivalry and passion.  The event is free, but donations are encouraged, with all proceeds -- including those from a raffle of soccer collectibles and other goodies -- going to Operation Pitch Invasion, a Portland not-for-profit charity dedicated to building, restoring and maintaining soccer fields in the parks and schools.  (Yet more full disclosure: I serve on the board of OPI.)

It was a dark and chilling night: the ‘Dangerous Desires’ of film noir

The curator of a Northwest Film Center crime film series talks about the hardboiled Hollywood movies he loves.

The Prowler poster.jpgView full size
“All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun,” quipped Jean-Luc Godard famously, and while there are girls and guns in westerns and war films, you can’t help but think that Godard had in mind the sort of movie that French critics called film noir.

Movies about cynical private eyes, crooked cops, scheming dames, and fallen angels, about double-crosses, botched capers, framed innocents and psychopathic kill sprees, movies shot in dark shadows and sweaty close-ups, with titles like “D. O. A.,” “Gun Crazy,” “Kiss of Death,” and “The Devil Thumbs a Ride,” and stars like Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Lizabeth Scott, Claire Trevor: that’s Noir.

Just before World War II, the traditional Hollywood gangster movie began to give way to a new strain of crime story, often inspired by the works of hardboiled novelists Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, often made, at least in part, by directors and screenwriters who had arrived in California from Europe as war-time refugees.  By the end of the ’40s, Noir was the essential American crime style, resulting in key works by such directors as Orson Welles, Otto Preminger, Raoul Walsh, and Jules Dassin and giving starts to the careers of, among others, Samuel Fuller, Phil Karlson and even Stanley Kubrick. 

The story of Noir has been celebrated in documentaries and film festivals for decades, but one of the most notable collections ever to grace Portland is being shown this month at the Northwest Film Center. “Dangerous Desires: Film Noir Classics” is an impeccably curated selection of a dozen titles, all but two of them fairly obscure, and some of them not available for home viewing in any format.  

The series has been mounted for the NFC by the Film Noir Foundation, which is, in its own words, “an educational resource regarding the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of film noir as an original American cinematic movement.”  For the opening weekend of the series, Film Noir Foundation founder and president Eddie Muller, author of several books about Noir, will be on hand to present two of the titles, both in 35mm prints:  “The Prowler,” Joseph Losey’s 1951 tale of a crooked cop (Van Heflin) lusting after a housewife; and “The Hunted,” a 1948 drama about an ex-con (the English actress Belita) out to seek vengeance against the people who sent her to prison.

In advance of his visit, Muller answered some questions about Noir in general and “Dangerous Desires” in particular via e-mail.

Eddie Muller.jpgFilm Noir historian Eddie Muller
In a sense, Noir is like jazz in that it was an American form first recognized as great in Europe.  But Noir also has deep American roots.  So is it an American art form or a European art form or something in between?

I was just using the jazz analogy with my fellow jurors at a film festival in Montreal. Slightly different context. I was suggesting that genre films -- especially crime films -- are like jazz in that the stories typically feature a familiar plot, the way many jazz classics derive from familiar structures and melodies, and we appreciate how different artists interpret the standard piece.  Generally speaking, the foundation of noir--the writing, the style of the language--comes from America, specifically that fresh American masculine voice that emerged post WW1, most famously in Hemingway. When his style was adapted to crime stories in the late 1920s and '30s, most successfully for writers such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler, the seeds of noir were planted. The visual allure of noir, however, the classic chiaroscuro lighting and heightened theatricality, largely came with the influx of European directors trained in Berlin: Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Otto Preminger -- even Alfred Hitchcock to some extent.  Noir is the result of a tough American attitude mixing it up with a sophisticated European style.

So many Noir classics were made at small studios or by second- (or third-) tier units at the big studios, which makes me wonder if there was, during the classic era, a size beyond which Noir could not go.  Could there have been (or are there any) A-movie Noirs?

Absolutely. Every studio produced "noir" on both A and B levels. Once “Double Indemnity” was a box office hit, and was nominated for five Oscars, films of that type became extremely popular. Alan Ladd was Paramount's biggest box office draw, and he made film noir almost exclusively for awhile -- “This Gun for Hire,” “The Glass Key,” “The Blue Dahlia,” etc. Bogart is almost synonymous with noir and he was Warner's biggest draw of the 1940s. Over at Fox, films like “Kiss of Death” and “Nightmare Alley” were absolutely A-list films utilizing the studios biggest stars. At MGM, Louis B. Mayer HATED these kinds of films, but that didn't stop the studio from making them -- and MGM rarely made ‘cheap’ movies. In this series, “High Wall” is a classic example: Robert Taylor was one of the MGM's biggest stars, and this film is almost definitive noir, and a definite "A" production. Poverty Row studios loved this type of film because it required so little in terms of locations, cast size, production. “Detour” is the obvious example. I always say: "All you need to have a good film noir is a man, a woman, and a locked hotel room."

The Hunted poster.jpgView full size
The Noir era was over when the Hays Production Code (Hollywood’s self-imposed system of film censorship) finally collapsed.  But Noir did so many great things in a kind of friction or dialectic against what the censors might've quashed.  Could the classic Noir have flourished had there been complete freedom of content and themes?

Excellent question! I'm not sure of the answer, but I absolutely believe that the existence of the Production Code and the rise of film noir are organically entwined. And I also believe that the Code made filmmakers -- from writers and directors right through to editors and wardrobe designers -- more innovative and creative. The goal was to tell more daring and adult stories without being ‘obvious’ about things like sex, addiction, abortion, homosexuality, you name it. But all that stuff is in there, albeit often in codified fashion. But that's part of the reason the films remain timeless -- they are rarely as simple as we believed them to be. I've had the advantage of watching many of these films with people who worked on them or acted in them and they left me with little doubt about what was being suggested. The filmmakers were often playing a game with the censors, seeing how they could get things into the films. We're really just catching up.

Leaving out the US, France and Germany, which are its chief homes or the places of origin of so many of its innovators, what nations have Noir traditions worth exploring that might not leap readily to mind?

I'm investigating this right now. I plan to do a festival of International Noir. What's obvious to me, having traveled abroad with just this notion in mind, is how wrongly Hollywood-centric the study of film noir has been. As far back as the 1940s there was a trans-Continental give-and-take going on, and not just between the U.S. and Europe. There is an extensive ‘noir’ history in Japan, in Britain, in Spain, in Mexico, Italy, Greece, in Argentina. I've recently seen some wonderful noir films from Buenos Aires, made contemporaneous with the late 1940s noir classics from Hollywood. Many of them have never been seen outside Argentina! Hollywood undoubtedly had the greatest influence on filmmaking around the world, and it's thrilling to see how the noir style was adapted to, or reinterpreted in, different cultures. 

What films in this series do you reckon most people haven't seen and should not miss?

All of them, frankly. I'm a true believer:  If you haven't seen it on movie screen, projected in 35mm, then you haven't seen the actual film. Some of these -- like “The Hunted,” “Pitfall,” “Loophole,” and “Naked Alibi” -- you simply cannot see right now anywhere else than in a series like this. There literally are single prints of these films, and many of them are in the Film Noir Foundation Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.  We have funded the preservation of these titles, and the only way they get shown is with our say-so. So I'm glad the Northwest Film Center asked, because I like to spread the Noir gospels.


Where: The Whitsell Auditorium of the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave. 
Tickets: $9 general; $8 PAM members, students, seniors; $6 NFC Silver Screen members, children

“The Prowler” Friday, September 14, 7 p.m. 
“The Hunter” Saturday, September 15, 9 p.m. 
“Nobody Lives Forever” Sunday, September 16, 7 p.m. 
“Pitfall” Thursday, September 20, 7 p.m. 
“The Glass Key” Saturday, September 22, 7 p.m. 
“The Blue Dahlia” Saturday, September 22, 9 p.m. 
“The Window” Sunday, September 23, 7 p.m. 
“Caught” Friday, September 28, 7 p.m. 
“High Wall” Saturday, September 29, 7 p.m. 
“99 River Street” Saturday, September 29, 9 p.m. 
“Loophole” Sunday, September 30, 5 p.m. 
“The Naked Alibi” Sunday, September 30, 7 p.m.  


‘Samsara’ and ‘The Ambassador’ roam, the ‘Words’ and ‘Summer’ crash, and more

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

samsara 2.jpgfrom "Samsara"
Not a lot of new stuff this weekend, as movie distributors try not to get their opening weekends blitzed by the dawn of a new NFL seasons.  We have a handful of reviews:  a comparison of two fascinating documentaries, "Samsara" and "The Ambassador"; a look at Spike Lee's back-to-the-old-neighborhood picture "Red Hook Summer"; and a slam of the inane literary drama "The Words."  And, eternally, "Also Opening," "Indie/ArtHouse," "Levy's High Five" and (under the old name that it once again sports) "Retro-a-Gogo."

Levy’s High Five, September 6 – September 13

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Searching for Sugar Man 2.jpgRodriguez in "Searching for Sugar Man"

1) "Beasts of the Southern Wild" A dreamy and joyous film about life, death, hope, dreams and wonder on an island in the Mississippi Delta. The miraculous young Quevezhané Wallis stars as Hushpuppy, a wee girl who experiences life in the feral community known as the Bathtub as a stream of wonder and delight, even though her dad (Dwight Henry) is gruff, her mom is absent and a killer storm is bearing down on her home. Writer-director Behn Zeitlin, in his feature debut, combines poetry and audacity in ways that recall Terrence Malick, but with a light and spry touch. Still, all his great work pales in comparison to the stupendous little Wallis, whom you'll never forget. Hollywood, Living Room

2) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. Cine Magic, Fox Tower, St Johns

3) "The Bourne Legacy" A dense, slick and thrilling spy movie that's got as much brain power as brawn. Writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") turns the trilogy of films about Jason Bourne into the story of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), another souped-up intelligence operative on the run from the secretive organizations which built him. The film cleverly integrates the story of the previous three, but stands alone as a gripping story about a man trying to extend the only life that he has come to know and depending on a geneticist (Rachel Weisz) and his own abilities to stay alive. From the complex narrative to the thrilling final half-hour, it's top shelf stuff. multiple locations

4) "Searching for Sugar Man" A truly remarkable documentary that demonstrates how big and how small this world of ours can be.  Rodriguez was a Detroit singer-songwriter whose poetic and soulful music deserved a much bigger career than the little blip it experienced in the early '70s.  But, in fact, that bigger career did  exist: in South Africa, where Rodriguez was a huge star and didn't know it.  So obscure was Rodriguez in his homeland, in fact, that his overseas fans long believed he had killed himself in an baroque onstage apocalypse.  The Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul tracks this amazing history and then witnesses a third act that you simply have to see to believe.  Mind-blowing, heartwarming and true. Fox Tower 

5) "Robot & Frank" Frank Langella is a delight in a film about a curmudgeonly retiree whose children foist a robot on him to monitor his diet, activities and housework.  The grumpy old fella hates the little electronic buddy (whose voice is provided by Peter Sarsgaard), then he realizes he has a use for it:  he devises a means to use it to get back into his life's work, which happens to be burglary.  Debuting director Jake Schreier and screenwriter Christopher D. Ford nicely balance the mild sci-fi with human comedy, and a sharp supporting cast, which includes Susan Sarandon, James Marsden and Liv Tyler, give the great Langella all the room he needs to be wonderful. Fox Tower



‘Samsara’ and ‘The Ambassador’ reviews: filmmakers with the world in focus — and in the crosshairs

Two documentaries of diverse style and aims show what can happen when first-world filmmakers take a look at other cultures.

Samsara.jpgfrom "Samsara"
Two films new to town open some fascinating questions about the nature of non-fiction filmmaking and the ways in which First World artists and journalists confront the Third World.

“Samsara” is a sumptuous film by Ron Fricke, who directed “Baraka” and was cinematographer of “Koyaanisqatsi.”  Like those films, “Samsara” is a non-narrative vision of the panoply of the world -- people, animals, geological and meteorological phenomena, buildings, wastelands, metropolises -- edited together to a musical accompaniment.  

The word ‘samsara’ means ‘continuous flow of life’ in Tibetan, and Fricke and company surely experienced that sensation in making the film, which took them to 25 countries in a span of five years.  They have put together a thoughtful and profoundly gorgeous film in which the works of humanity are celebrated and questioned, the colossal scale of nature is revealed, the cruelties and grotesqueries of life are laid bare.  It was shot in 70mm, and it’s one of the most immersive things the screen has shown us in years.

There’s a lot of immersion in “The Ambassador,” a documentary which ‘stars’ its director, Mads Brugger, a Danish journalist who, in an undercover expose of corruption in Africa, dives into the world of false diplomatic credentials, crooked governments and blood diamonds.  Buying, outright, the title of consul from the Liberian government, Brugger sets himself up in the Central African Republic as a businessman-slash-diplomat, pretending to be interesting in building a match factory but actually forming liaisons with diamond miners and using his diplomatic passport to remove the gems from the country illegally.

The Ambassador.jpgMads Brugger in "The Ambassador"
Brugger isn’t like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, puckishly tweaking a perceived ill in the world at the service of an agenda.  He’s more like a Graham Greene character or a sober (-ish) Hunter S. Thompson, diving into the darkness and taking an active role in it so as to shed light on it.  (With his cigarette holder, riding boots and combat glasses, he strongly evokes Thompson’s Raoul Duke persona.)  There’s a touch of whimsy to his misadventures, but the malfeasance he uncovers -- often using hidden cameras and microphones -- is anything but a joke.

The superficial differences between the films are stark.  Fricke and company set out to create a work of art and have an emblem for their efforts in a gorgeous mandala created by Himalayan monks.  Billions of grains of colored sand are used to ‘paint’ an extraordinarily complex image which, eventually, is wiped away into nothingness, a perfect metaphor for human life.  Brugger, on the other hand, provokes (albeit without much effort) specific acts of criminality and his subjects tumble into holes they themselves have dug.  In his wake, there’s something of a mess:  a lot of money changes hands, some illegal diamonds are in circulation, and no one is arrested or put out of business; the ugly little world he has detailed carries on.

It would be easy to point a finger at Brugger as a provocateur and hold up Fricke as a pure chronicler, but it’s not as simple as that.  Fricke has a point, too, and the way “Samsara” juxtaposes, say, overfed folks shopping at Costco with people picking the stuff of life out of a garbage dump in South America makes a case as damning as anything in “The Ambassador.”  Every edit in cinema has the potential to carry a moral argument, establishing equivalences or disparities between the subjects of two shots, and “Samsara,” for all its holism, isn’t free from the sort of specific contingencies and perspectives that “The Ambassador” explicitly embraces.

In a sense, too, both films present us with portraits of the world as seen from a vantage of privilege.  Brugger, as a white man in sub-Saharan Africa with bags of money and a diplomatic passport, is able to get people to say and do things as shockingly and disturbingly raw as anything Sacha Baron Cohen has ever managed.  He isn’t exactly preying on innocents, but he’s certainly engaging in subterfuge to make bad folks behave badly: a fairly obvious point.  And you strongly suspect that he’d have a far less easy time pulling off his elaborate hoax in a culture more familiar with his brand of journalistic stunts.

Fricke’s intent is, for the most part, nobler -- a vision of the world as unified by the works and forces of humanity and nature -- but he, too, puts people in a frame of his own devising.  The visions of “Samsara” can be breathtaking -- a field of temples in ancient Myanmar, the sand-sculpted canyon walls of Utah, the neurological web of nighttime traffic in Los Angeles, the stupefying power of Iguazu Falls.  But when he focuses on people, the mask of aesthetic indifference drops and you sense yourself being pushed toward a point of view about sex, food, guns, labor, what have you.   Maybe you agree with him, maybe you don’t, but an argument is being made under the guise of objective revelation.  The extraordinary beauty of the work doesn’t change the fact that there’s some preaching going on behind the screen.


“Samsara” (102 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B-plus

‘The Words’ review: there are words for this mishmash, just not nice ones

A story about a novel about a novel should have been erased from the word processor, not made into a film.

The Words.jpgJeremy Irons in "The Words"
Several words are suggested by “The Words,” and none of them are, you reckon, the ones its makers had in mind.

Let’s start with ‘nitwit.’

“The Words” is a nitwit story about a nitwit author who has written a nitwit novel about a nitwit author who has published a nitwit novel which, in fact, he has stolen wholecloth from another writer whose personal behavior, as fictionalized in the novel-within-the-novel-within-the-film, can charitably be described as...nitwit.

There’s also ‘phony.’  Everything about “The Words” feels phony:  the depiction of the writing life; the story of the ‘real’ novelist (that is, the one in the outermost circle) being preyed upon by a journalist; the working and private lives of the novelist in the ‘real’ fellow’s novel; the tale of love and loss in wartime at the innermost core of this utterly unengaging not-really-a-puzzle.

For the record, Dennis Quaid is epically miscast as the ‘real’ novelist, a miscue you almost don’t notice because Bradley Cooper, whom it is hard to imagine reading anything more challenging than a Ziggy cartoon, is playing the purloining novelist in his creation.  Jeremy Irons appears, crusty and lovelorn, as the wronged author at the core of it all, and he’s the only one of the three who seems remotely capable of having composed a sentence, which I suppose adds to the theme of how cruel fate and publishing are, but not in a way the writer-directors of the film intended, surely.

Oh, and one more word comes to mind: ‘kidding,’ as in, ‘you’ve got to be....’  The writer-directors of “The Words” are, you see, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, whose sole previous behind-the-camera screen credit came as the co-writers of...“TRON: Legacy.” 

You know, I take it back:  There are no words.

‘Red Hook Summer’ review: a confused homecoming for Spike Lee

A film meant to evoke "Do the Right Thing" is more muddled than powerful.

Red Hook Summer.JPGClarke Peters in "Red Hook Summer"

In the 23 (!) years since the fiery summer's day of "Do the Right Thing," Spike Lee has had some moments of glory ("Malcolm X," "Inside Man," "4 Little Girls") and inspiration ("Crooklyn," "Clockers," "25th Hour"), but he's never been able to capture the same power, pop energy, passion and polemic force as in that epochal film.

To see his newest work, "Red Hook Summer," is too see how far Lee is from his impressive best.  A companion, of sorts, to "Right Thing," the film takes place in another Brooklyn summer, with young Flik (Jules Brown) dropped by his Georgia-based mom to live for a few months with her dad, Enoch (Clarke Peters), a storefront preacher and boiler repairman in the local housing projects.

It's something of a coming-of-age story, with Flik learning the harsh ropes of big city life alongside an almost-sweetheart (Toni Lysaith) and avoiding the neighborhood tough guys (led by Nate Parker).  Mookie the pizza man (Lee himself) makes an appearance (illogically still delivering pies on foot from Sal's Famous, which is nowhere near Red Hook), and there are other diversions, both filmic and narrative which sometimes engage but more often eat up time frustratingly.

The highlights, without question, are Bishop Enoch's fiery, musical, galvanizing sermons, which dot the story and are implicated with a sensationalist turn in its final portion.  Peters ("The Wire") is superb in these scenes, without which "Red Hook Summer" would be a vague and somewhat desperate attempt to rekindle past promises.  Lee is, as ever, a gifted image-maker, but his storytelling has gotten so lax over time as to barely register.  This isn't the "Right Thing" in any sense.

(121 min., R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: C-plus


Mike Birbiglia, writer/director/star of "Sleepwalk with Me," comes to Cinema 21 on Saturday

The comedian/filmmaker will barnstorm Portland on Saturday.

Sleepwalk with me.jpgMike Birbiglia in "Sleepwalk with Me"
The indie comedy "Sleepwalk with Me," about the struggles of a lovelorn comedian/monologist looks more than a bit autobiographical:  it was co-written and co-directed by its star, Mike Birbiglia, who is, you guessed it, a comedian/monologist who has made some comic/philosophical hay of his star-crossed professional and romantic ups-and-downs.

You'll get a chance to compare the on-screen fellow to the real one this Saturday when Birbiglia comes to Portland's Cinema 21 to introduce the film and participate in q-and-a sessions after some screenings.  Specifically, Birbiglia will chat with the audience after the 4:30 and 9:00 shows and introduce the 7:00 shows. Inbetween, he'll be participating in the live taping of an episode of the Live Wire radio variety show.  

Busy lad:  hope he has time to visit Powell's or take in a food cart....

Nazis in the ‘Sky,’ ‘Inbetweeners’ on the make, ‘Kicking’ at the movies, and more

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

iron sky.jpgfrom "Iron Sky"
“Amateurs and Auteurs" A selection of homemade narrative films curated by local film archivist and artist Ian Sundahl.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

“Batman” Tim Burton’s
1989 revival of the DC Comics hero, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicolson; presented by Cort and Fatboy.  (Bagdad Theater, Friday only)   

“Beloved" Real-life mother and daughter Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni in a tale of women finding confusion in romance.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“The Best of the Northwest Animation Festival” A selection of highlights from the recent event.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)  

“Chinatown” Roman Polanski’s fabulous 1974 noir, with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston and a near-perfect Robert Towne  script.  (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, September 13 only)  

“The Cold Light of Day” Thriller about kidnapping and CIA hijinks.  With Bruce Willis and Henry Cavill.  (multiple locations)   

“The Inbetweeners” English coming-of-age comedy based on cult hit TV series.  (Fox Tower)   

“Iron Sky”
Nazis have been hiding out on the moon, apparently (thanks for the warning, Neil Armstrong!), and now they’re coming back.   (Living Room Theaters)  

“Kicking and Screening” A collection of four films about soccer rivalries around the world.  (Urban Studios, 925 NW Davis, Thursday September 13 and Friday September 14 only)

“Moving Mountains” Made-in-Portland documentary from 1991 about Southeast Asians settling in the Pacific Northwest.   (Northwest Film Center, Thursday only)   

“Rumbon Tropical”
Documentary about Cuban dance masters.  (Clinton Street Theater, Friday only)   

“This Is Now” Drama about a man traveling from Portland to Seattle as part of a quest for meaning in his life.  (Clinton Street Theater, Saturday through Wednesday only)   

“Turn Me on, Dammit!” Norwegian coming-of-age comedy.  (Clinton Street Theater, Saturday through Wednesday only)   

“Uncle Buck”
The late John Candy stars in the late John Hughes’ comedy about an inept but big-hearted surrogate dad.  (Laurelhurst Theater)   

“Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?”
Documentary about the long history of hostilities between Cuba and the United States.  (Clinton Street Theater, Thursday only)   



Nazis in the ‘Sky,’ ‘Inbetweeners’ on the make, ‘Kicking’ at the movies, and more

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

iron sky.jpgfrom "Iron Sky"
“Amateurs and Auteurs" A selection of homemade narrative films curated by local film archivist and artist Ian Sundahl.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

“Batman” Tim Burton’s
1989 revival of the DC Comics hero, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicolson; presented by Cort and Fatboy.  (Bagdad Theater, Friday only)   

“Beloved" Real-life mother and daughter Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni in a tale of women finding confusion in romance.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“The Best of the Northwest Animation Festival” A selection of highlights from the recent event.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)  

“Chinatown” Roman Polanski’s fabulous 1974 noir, with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston and a near-perfect Robert Towne  script.  (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, September 13 only)  

“The Cold Light of Day” Thriller about kidnapping and CIA hijinks.  With Bruce Willis and Henry Cavill.  (multiple locations)   

“The Inbetweeners” English coming-of-age comedy based on cult hit TV series.  (Fox Tower)   

“Iron Sky”
Nazis have been hiding out on the moon, apparently (thanks for the warning, Neil Armstrong!), and now they’re coming back.   (Living Room Theaters)  

“Kicking and Screening” A collection of four films about soccer rivalries around the world.  (Urban Studios, 925 NW Davis, Thursday September 13 and Friday September 14 only)

“Moving Mountains” Made-in-Portland documentary from 1991 about Southeast Asians settling in the Pacific Northwest.   (Northwest Film Center, Thursday only)   

“Rumbon Tropical”
Documentary about Cuban dance masters.  (Clinton Street Theater, Friday only)   

“This Is Now” Drama about a man traveling from Portland to Seattle as part of a quest for meaning in his life.  (Clinton Street Theater, Saturday through Wednesday only)   

“Turn Me on, Dammit!” Norwegian coming-of-age comedy.  (Clinton Street Theater, Saturday through Wednesday only)   

“Uncle Buck”
The late John Candy stars in the late John Hughes’ comedy about an inept but big-hearted surrogate dad.  (Laurelhurst Theater)   

“Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?”
Documentary about the long history of hostilities between Cuba and the United States.  (Clinton Street Theater, Thursday only)   



This week’s last-chance movies: ‘Ai WeiWei,’ ‘Oslo,’ ‘Cosmopolis’ and more

Catch 'em while you can!

Ai WeiWei Never Sorry.jpgAi WeiWei in "Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry"
You could make a couple of thoughtful double-features out of the films that are departing local theaters after Thursday night -- which, conveniently, gives you enough time to do just that.  The titles to catch up with are "Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry," a documentary about the Chinese activist and artist; "Oslo, August 31," an intelligent drama about a recovering drug addict revisiting his old life; "Cosmopolis," David Cronenberg's ambitious adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel about a financier with his life in ruins; and "360," a multi-character drama starring Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, and Anthony Hopkins.

Retro-a-Gogo: classic films on Portland screens, September 7 – 13

Everything old is new again!

Chinatown poster.jpg
"Batman" Tim Burton's 1989 revival of the Caped Crusader, with Michael Keaton beneath the mask, Jack Nicholson chewing the scenery as the Joker, and Cort and Fatboy presenting. (Bagdad Theater, Friday only)

"Chinatown" Whenever I'm asked what my favorite film is, I always say this one, even if, at that moment, it's really something else.  A perfect film which I happened to see at just the right moment of my cinema education. (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, September 13 only)

"The Devil, Probably" A despairing vision of teen ennui from Robert Bresson from 1977, marking one of the last films of his career. (Northwest Film Center, Sunday and Monday only)

"Pickpocket" Another Bresson, this one from 1959, echoing "Crime and Punishment" in its depiction of a thief whose heart turns toward the light.  A classic. (Northwest Film Center, Saturday only)

"Uncle Buck" The late lamented John Candy under the aegis of the late lamented John Hughes.  Bittersweet, in that light, for a comedy.... (Laurelhurst)

Black-and-white on Blu: an addict’s tale

A new medium makes classic movies come alive more vividly than ever before.

8 1-2 silhouette.pngView full sizeAn image from "8 1/2" that changed one critic's view of an entire technology.
I’m often asked if I ever watch movies for fun.  

It’s kind of an odd question, implying that the movies that I watch for my working life are somehow inherently toilsome.  But I get it:  most of the world thinks of watching a film as a leisure activity, whereas for critics moviegoing is, in fact, work.

Anyhow, whenever I’m asked, I always say ‘yes,’ but with two conditions.  The first is that I almost always go to the movies at least once when I’m traveling abroad; the experience of watching a film in another culture is always enlighteningly and excitingly odd.  And the second is that when I do watch movies for fun, it’s almost always at home, and it’s almost always classic films -- either the things that I grew up watching and that turned me onto cinema in the first place, or things that I’ve been meaning to see my whole life and am only catching up with now.

And as it turns out, that activity -- digging into the past for old favorites or new (to me) discoveries -- can be almost as expensive as traveling to another country to take in a movie.

You see, to put it bluntly, I have a problem saying no to Blu-ray releases of classic films, particularly black-and-white classics.  My name is Shawn, and I am addicted to black-and-white on Blu.

Blu-ray, as you ought to know, is a digital disc format with approximately five times the capacity of standard DVD.  That extra storage space means that there is more visual and audio information on a Blu-ray than on a DVD, which, in turn, means that they look and sound better on any TV and they look and sound really good on an HD-TV.  

Blu-rays have been on the market for about six years, starting out in a two-horse race with a format called HD-DVD. In 2008, that format was dropped by all hardware manufacturers and film distributors, leaving the field to Blu-ray as the newest -- and, truly, best-ever -- format for home viewing.  At first, Blu-ray players and titles were rare and pricey.  But that, inevitably, changed, and now Blu-ray is almost certain to pass DVD as the standard for home viewing, and soon.

Naturally, most of the action in the Blu-ray world has been in the release of blockbusters:  the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” films, “Avatar,” “The Dark Knight,” some Pixar titles, and so on.  There’s also a very strong market for Blu-ray editions of TV series, if for no other reason then that the storage capacity of Blu-ray means you buy fewer discs than in a DVD version. 

But for a certain breed of cinephile, the most stirring innovation that Blu-ray brings is the enhancement of classic films to a clarity that they’ve never had since they first premiered in cinemas.  A well-mastered Blu-ray of an older film -- particularly a black-and-white film -- reveals depths of imagery that may never have been seen by any audience ever, given the vagaries of print projection in movie theaters and the relatively degraded quality of VHS and DVD versions.

Stagecoach cantina.jpgView full sizeThe cast of "Stagecoach" (1939): the flies are in there somewhere....
Consider: Last year, I watched a newly-released Blu-ray of John Ford’s 1939 Western “Stagecoach,” a film that I’ve seen perhaps a dozen times over the years.  One of its most famous sequences is set in a cantina and involves an intricate dance of manners, with a gambler finding a polite way to escort the wife of an army officer away from a seat next to a prostitute at the dining table.  

Watching the scene, which I know by heart, I was startled to see something I’d never noticed before:  flies!  Buzzing around the cantina, above the tortillas and frijoles and John Wayne and Claire Trevor and Andy Devine were a couple of ordinary houseflies.  I was giddy:  flies, decades dead, whirling about Ford’s nonchalantly but perfectly composed frames.  I felt like I’d figured out the plot twists in “The Big Sleep” that baffled even the film’s director, Howard Hawks.  It was a new world inside a world I felt I already knew inside-out.

Now, it’s possible that I’d been inattentive on previous viewings and not noticed those pesky flies.  But I’m convinced that it was the enhanced contrast of the Blu-ray -- the deeper and sharper blacks and whites -- that made them stand out.  “Stagecoach” had always had a slightly dusty cast to it in my mind, as, I’d imagined, Ford and his Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bert Glennon had intended.  This Blu-ray version, though, looked as clear and bright as any contemporary black-and-white photography I’ve ever seen.  Like all Westerns, “Stagecoach” is, in part, a fantasy.  But it seemed more realistic to me on Blu-ray than it ever had before.

A similar epiphany hit me while watching a Blu-ray of “Sweet Smell of Success,” another film I’d seen multiple times.  It’s set in the nighttime jungle of New York’s Times Square and thereabouts, circa 1957, and James Wong Howe’s photography is filled with gleaming cars, flashing neon signs, storefront plate glass, barroom mirrors, and so on.  The reflections and distortions these cause become overwhelming in Blu-ray; you almost feel at times like you’re underwater.  And the tiny details of newsprint -- so crucial to the story’s milieu of showbiz and gossip -- have a billboard-sized impact in the enhanced format.

In the last two years or so, I have acquired more than 25 black-and-white feature films on Blu-ray, ranging from “M” and “Modern Times” to “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and “Buck Privates” (gorgeous, I swear) to “Breathless” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” to “On the Bowery” and “Wings of Desire.”  I’ve bought a collection of Buster Keaton short films, the complete works of the French master Jean Vigo, and a four-film box of David Lean directing Noel Coward.  And I have watched virtually all of them the very day they arrived in the mail, some more than once, all with immense pleasure.

On The Bowery.jpgView full sizeGlistening: Ray Salyer (l.) and Gorman Hendricks in "On the Bowery"
Most of these Blu-rays are, as those of similar affliction will have noted, released by the Criterion Collection, the home-viewing distributor that specializes in restored and remastered films with copious special features, such as scholarly audio commentary, attached.  That’s partly because Criterion happens to put things out that I particularly enjoy and, perhaps even more, because Criterion happens to hold half-price-off sales throughout the year, which is just about like offering half-off the cost of a bag of crack to a hopeless drug fiend.

In fact, it was a Criterion Blu-ray that started me on this costly slide.  A couple years back, I complained to a film critic friend that one of my favorite films, Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2,” was being released on a Criterion Blu-ray and that I felt that I was being tricked by a technological scam into buying yet another copy of a film that I already owned on VHS and DVD.  He suggested to me that Blu-ray would, in fact, be the last physical medium on which I would own the film, and that assurance -- desperate fool that I am -- was enough to convince me to go ahead.  

Came the Blu-ray in the mail, and I put it in the player and...oh my:  the dense and gleaming and smoky and cluttered frames Fellini and his crew devised looked vibrant and bold and screamed out at me as they never had before.  The black areas were deep and immersive; the whites shone strong against them; the lines between the two were definitive.  The film, which I truly adore, had never seemed lovelier.

In one very famous shot, a performing illusionist is seen, head and shoulders only, facing the camera in stark silhouette -- a mere outline of black against black, barely defined by gleams of white against his top hat, ears and collar.  It was always a striking image, but in this Blu-ray version, it was overwhelming.  I think I literally gasped to see it.  And I knew instantly that I would never watch my VHS or DVD copies of “8 1/2” again.

Now, to be clear, I own and continue to purchase contemporary and, especially, classic color films on Blu-ray; in the latter category, I can strongly recommend “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Red Shoes,” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” and I’m positively panting for the expected November release of “Lawrence of Arabia” on Blu-ray. 

But I am far more eager to get my hands on high-quality transfers of certain silent films and films noir and the early works of foreign masters and see them in the best possible fashion.  Because, as far as I’m concerned, I have seen the future of cinephilia, and it is black-and-white on Blu.


A ‘Killer’ diller, a wily ‘Robot,’ some ‘Lawless’ brothers and more

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Killer Joe -- McConaughey.jpgMatthew McConaughey in "Killer Joe"
A nicely varied selection of films for this holiday weekend.  We've got reviews of the NC-17 black comedy "Killer Joe"; the low-fi sci-fi tale "Robot & Frank"; the brothers-in-bootlegging film "Lawless"; the slow-burn drama "Oslo, August 31"; and the multi-character web-of-life film "360."  And -- but you knew this already -- we've got "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse," "Levy's High Five" and "Vintage Vault."

Levy’s High Five, August 31 – September 6

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Beasts of the Southern wild chicken.jpgQuvenzhané Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

1) "Beasts of the Southern Wild" A dreamy and joyous film about life, death, hope, dreams and wonder on an island in the Mississippi Delta. The miraculous young Quevezhané Wallis stars as Hushpuppy, a wee girl who experiences life in the feral community known as the Bathtub as a stream of wonder and delight, even though her dad (Dwight Henry) is gruff, her mom is absent and a killer storm is bearing down on her home. Writer-director Behn Zeitlin, in his feature debut, combines poetry and audacity in ways that recall Terrence Malick, but with a light and spry touch. Still, all his great work pales in comparison to the stupendous little Wallis, whom you'll never forget. Hollywood, Living Room

2) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. Cine Magic, Fox Tower, St Johns

3) "The Bourne Legacy" A dense, slick and thrilling spy movie that's got as much brain power as brawn. Writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") turns the trilogy of films about Jason Bourne into the story of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), another souped-up intelligence operative on the run from the secretive organizations which built him. The film cleverly integrates the story of the previous three, but stands alone as a gripping story about a man trying to extend the only life that he has come to know and depending on a geneticist (Rachel Weisz) and his own abilities to stay alive. From the complex narrative to the thrilling final half-hour, it's top shelf stuff. multiple locations

4) “Searching for Sugar Man” A truly remarkable documentary that demonstrates how big and how small this world of ours can be.  Rodriguez was a Detroit singer-songwriter whose poetic and soulful music deserved a much bigger career than the little blip it experienced in the early ‘70s.  But, in fact, that bigger career did  exist: in South Africa, where Rodriguez was a huge star and didn’t know it.  So obscure was Rodriguez in his homeland, in fact, that his overseas fans long believed he had killed himself in an baroque onstage apocalypse.  The Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul tracks this amazing history and then witnesses a third act that you simply have to see to believe.  Mind-blowing, heartwarming and true. Fox Tower 

5) “Robot & Frank” Frank Langella is a delight in a film about a curmudgeonly retiree whose children foist a robot on him to monitor his diet, activities and housework.  The grumpy old fella hates the little electronic buddy (whose voice is provided by Peter Sarsgaard), then he realizes he has a use for it:  he devises a means to use it to get back into his life’s work, which happens to be burglary.  Debuting director Jake Schreier and screenwriter Christopher D. Ford nicely balance the mild sci-fi with human comedy, and a sharp supporting cast, which includes Susan Sarandon, James Marsden and Liv Tyler, give the great Langella all the room he needs to be wonderful. Fox Tower



‘Killer Joe’ review: a harrowing vision of greed and lust in a trailer park

Matthew McConaughey astounds and disturbs as a hit man preying on a wicked family.

Killer Joe -- Church McConaughey.jpgThomas Haden Church (l.) and Matthew McConaughey in "Killer Joe"
The NC-17 designation was devised by the Motion Picture Association of America to distinguish films with strong and pervasive adult content (read: sex, mostly, and violence) from outright porn, the producers of which had co-opted the similarly restrictive X rating, rendering it meaningless.

In the 22-odd years of its existence, the NC-17 has been slapped on approximately 120 new releases.  Most of them were recut and then resubmitted to the ratings board to obtain R ratings (major movie studios generally won’t release NC-17 titles, and lots of theaters can’t, because of lease restrictions, show them).  A couple dozen, including the likes of “Y Tu Mamá También” and “Requiem for a Dream,” were released unrated, their makers deciding not to cut them but, rather, to distribute them without the scarlet stigma of a restrictive rating.  

A handful of films, though, have gone into theatrical release wearing an NC-17 as a kind of badge of honor, a certification of their resolve to show and deal with themes, images and ideas that other films simply won’t touch.  These include “Henry & June” (the first NC-17 title), “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,” “Happiness,” “Mysterious Skin,” and, now, “Killer Joe,” an inky dark comedy from director William Friedkin -- who might’ve garnered an NC-17 for “The Exorcist” or “Cruising” if it had existed when he made them.

“Killer Joe” isn’t the most violent movie in theaters right now, nor is it the most sexually provocative or the most profanity-laced.  But it is so focused on the depravity at its heart that watching it is like subjecting yourself to a nightmare that sucks the air slowly from your lungs.  Art of any sort should have the power to make us feel, and while you may not like what “Killer Joe” makes you feel, there is absolutely no denying that it has an effect on you.  It’s far more straightforward, but the only movie I can compare it to for immediate recognition is “Blue Velvet,” and I say that as praise.

The film is based on a play by Tracy Letts which was suggested by the true story of a Florida father and son who hired a hit man to kill their ex-wife/mother so that they could collect a small life insurance policy.  In Letts’ version, the events are moved to a Texas trailer park, the hit man is a police detective, and the greed, lust, callousness and animal stupidity of the characters is plain and unguarded -- base, unfiltered, animal humanity.  That, frankly, is the stuff of art:  Take these people out of their jeans and pickup trucks and give them togas or horse-drawn landaus and it could be a Greek or Jacobean tragedy.

Playing the detective, in a breathtakingly chilly performance that tops a fine year on screen, is Matthew McConaughey, snaky, lascivious, casually violent, wiser by half than the people on whom he’s preying.  Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church are equally good as Chris and Ansel Smith, the avaricious son and father, respectively, and Gina Gershon is raw and convincing as a truly wicked stepmother who helps spark the talk of murder.  In the middle, eerily still, Juno Temple is a strange and compelling blend of the innocent and the oracular as Chris’s sister, Dottie, who is given by the family -- just outright given -- to the hit man in lieu of prepayment for the murder.

Such is the fallen state of our world that reading the story, learning the details, and even imagining how it plays out makes “Killer Joe” seem no more shocking than something you might see on cable TV.  But Friedkin takes two scenes -- a dinner between Joe and Dottie, and another between Joe and the three conspirators -- and turns them into horrorshow scenes of perversity and terror.   There are laughs scattered throughout the film (Letts is a truly darkly funny fellow), but the two dining sequences inside that double-wide blast all the light out of the film.  On the strength of that pair of scenes alone, the film can boast its NC-17 rating like a combat scar.

To talk so much of the ratings board’s classification of “Killer Joe” slights the film somewhat, because it is a tremendously capable and assured work.  Friedkin, who has also directed an adaptation of Letts’s “Bug,” has never been an ostentatious director; rather, in the vein of Howard Hawks or Robert Aldrich, he’s a master craftsman of plain, solid American vernacular.  He has shown some baroque tendencies in the past (off-screen, he actually directs operas, for heaven’s sake!).  But here, as in “The French Connection” and “To Live and Die in L. A.,” he cedes center stage to a very strong cast and a compelling story, while getting captivating work from cinematographer Caleb Deschanel.   

If “Killer Joe” is, finally, too much for certain audiences to stomach, so be it.  In the hands of Letts, Friedkin and this cast, it feels, despairingly, terribly real, and you can’t blame artists for reporting what humans are actually like.


‘Robot & Frank’ review: a curmudgeon warms up to his mechanical pal

Frank Langella is exquisitely dry and crusty as a retiree who devises a unique use for his robotic househelp

Robot & Frank.jpgFrank Langella and chum in "Robot & Frank"
There’s a terrific balance between human comedy and just-this-side-of-science-fiction in “Robot & Frank,” the debut feature of director Jake Schreier and his writing collaborator Christopher D. Ford. 

Frank Langella is splendid as the irascible Frank, a small-town retiree whose absent children have determined that he needs a household robot to manage his diet, medication and lifestyle.  The little white gizmo (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) drives Frank nuts.  But then he is inspired: the obliging robot can help him keep a hand in his life’s work -- which happens to be burglary.  And suddenly Frank has a spring in his step and a purpose to his days.

There are other angles to the story involving the town library (and its librarian, played by Susan Sarandon), and those are nicely handled.  But the chief spectacle here -- and it’s a good one -- is Langella in gruff, curdled mode, an underappreciated master actor slipping seamlessly into a bespoke role.  

Other science fiction spectacles of the summer have offered us mind-boggling technologies, but there really is no better special effect in the movies than a fine actor given a wonderful part.  And for that alone (although it’s not all it offers), “Robot & Frank” is a real treat.


‘Oslo, August 31’ review: a painful, precise day in the life

A rehabbed drug addict traverses his home town in search of a new start in a compellingly quiet film.

Oslo August 31 -- 2.jpgAnders Danielsen Lie in "Oslo, August 31"
The generic quality of the title “Oslo, August 31st” couldn’t be less like the experience of watching the new film from the Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier. Adapting “The Fire Within,” a 1931 novel by Pierre Dieu La Rochelle (which Louis Malle filmed in 1963), Trier follows his 2006 breakout film “Reprise” with another careful, painful and precise meditation on human desire and confusion.

Anders Danielsen Lie (also of “Reprise”) plays Anders, a journalist who has been given a day’s leave from a suburban drug rehab clinic to interview for a job in the city.  In the span of a day, he visits old friends and colleagues, people-watches at a café, attends a party, meets a girl, reunites with his sister, and stops in at the family home, which his parents are selling.  

The actual incidents sound dry, and Anders isn’t exactly an easy fellow to read.  But the slowness and stillness in the film are, actually, a slow boil, and in Lie’s taciturnity there is pain and even horror.  The world is goes on without him, and the things that he has done to himself and the possibilities that might rise before him are tiny compared to all that is around him.  

That much we all know (or should); the challenge for Anders is to reinsert himself in the quotidian flow of life.  Without a note of sensationalism, Trier makes real drama of the question of whether or not he can do it. In a single day, through a single pair of eyes, Trier and Lie give us an emblem for the world.

(95 min., unrated, probably PG-13, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B-plus

Spike’s ‘Thing,’ Hitchcock’s ‘Window,’ Singleton’s ‘Hood’ and more

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

Boyz N the Hood.jpgIce Cube in "Boyz N the Hood"
“Boyz N the Hood" John Singleton's stirring depiction of life in South Central L. A., with Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut.  (Laurelhurst)

“Charisma" 1999 drama about a Tokyo cop who migrates to a rural community and gets involved with the fight to preserve an unusual tree.  (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday September 5 only)  

“Do the Right Thing” The astounding 1989 Spike Lee film about racial and social tensions boiling over on a Brooklyn street one hot summer day.  (Hollywood Theatre, Friday through Monday only)  

“Doctor Zhivago” David Lean's lavish 1965 adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel about love and political conscience during the Russian revolution.  (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, September 6 only)  

“Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost): A Film about Bobby Bare Jr.”
Documentary about the life of a touring musician   (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday only)   

“The Evil Dead”
The inimitable Sam Raimi cabin-in-the-woods movie; often imitated, never equaled.  (Hollywood Theatre)   

“A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet”
Documentary about the history, impact and operations of the environmental movement, in all its faces.  (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)   

“Rear Window”
Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 treatise on voyeurism, sexual repression and murder; a great cinematic achievement and ravishing entertainment.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday and Sunday only)  

“Showdown in Little Tokyo”
Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee chase down drug dealers in a dubious 1991 entertainment.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

“Suzaki Paradise: Red Lights” 1956 drama by Yuzo Kawashima about a couple trying to survive life in the underworld in post-war Tokyo. (Northwest Film Center, Saturday only)   

“Writing Myself” Portland director Brian Lindstrom’s documentary about an immersive playwriting workshop at Portland’s night-only high school.  (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday only)


Portland animator lets you mess with her work in a fun new app

Joanna Priestley's "Clam Bake" is an interactive treat for you iDevice.

ClamBake_start.jpgView full sizefrom "Clam Bake"
Watching movies on tablet computers can be grand, but something about the devices makes you want to touch them, and most movies don’t exactly allow you to reach into the screen and, you know, do things.

Portland animator Joanna Priestley has, however, found a compromise with “Clam Bake,” a new app for Apple’s iOS mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads.  Kind of an interactive animated film, “Clam Bake” gives you a chance to get inside one of Priestley’s signature abstract films and make things happen -- even as there is something like a beginning, middle and end to it.

On launching the app, you’re greeted by a dozen or so rounded shapes and no text or instructions.  Eventually, inevitably, you tap one of them, and then it transforms and makes noises, and you tap another, and it transforms and makes noises, and so on.  Each object does multiple things after multiple taps, and ultimately, in a different order each time, you come to a final image.  

There’s no point, as such, to “Clam Bake,” but it’s playful, it’s witty, it’s soothing, it’s charming, it’s frivolous -- and, I suspect, it will be inspirational to other film artists who just new that there was a way to render their work specifically for tablets. 

“Clam Bake” was created by Joanna Priestley, with sound by Seth Norman and programming by Jed Bursiek. It sells for $1.99 on the iTunes App Store. 


This week’s last chance movies: ‘Bernie’ and ‘Your Sister’s Sister’

Catch 'em while you can!

BernieJack Black and Shirley MacLaine relax in "Bernie"
Two of the summer's most delightful little comedies are getting out of town before the Labor Day rush:  "Bernie," Richard Linklater's lightly morbid tale of a real-life murder starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine, and "Your Sister's Sister," Lynn Shelton's tale of a muddled man finding himself romantically caught between two half-sisters, starring Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt.  

Vintage Views: classic films on Portland screens, August 31 – September 6

Everything old is new again!

Do the Right Thing poster.jpg
"Boyz N the Hood" John Singleton's stirring depiction of life in South Central L. A., with Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut. (Laurelhurst)

"Charisma" 1999 drama about a Tokyo cop who migrates to a rural community and gets involved with the fight to preserve an unusual tree. (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday September 5 only)

"Do the Right Thing" The astounding 1989 Spike Lee film about racial and social tensions boiling over on a Brooklyn street one hot summer day. (Hollywood Theatre, Friday through Monday only)

"Doctor Zhivago" David Lean's
lavish 1965 adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel about love and political conscience during the Russian revolution. (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, September 6 only)

"The Evil Dead" The inimitable Sam Raimi cabin-in-the-woods movie; often imitated, never equaled. (Hollywood Theatre)

"Rear Window" Alfred Hitchcock's treatise on voyeurism, sexual repression and murder; a great cinematic achievement and ravishing entertainment. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday and Sunday only)

"Showdown in Little Tokyo" Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee chase down drug dealers in a dubious 1991 entertainment. (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

"Suzaki Paradise: Red Lights" 1956 drama by Yuzo Kawashima about a couple trying to survive life in the underworld in post-war Tokyo.  (Northwest Film Center, Saturday only)

"The 10th Victim"
Campy 1965 film with a "Hunger Games"-ish plot about televised murder-as-entertainment, elevated by the presence of Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. (Northwest Film Center, Thursday September 6 only)

A moveable feast of food films for Southern Oregon

An 'eat local' week is built, in part, on a selection of films about where our food comes from.

Big River.JPGfrom "Big River" (2010)
Even by the standards of Oregon they do things a little differently in the Rogue Valley.  Witness the Food for Thought Film Festival, three nights of films about food and food resource management being held as part of Eat Local Week, a drive to get folks to feed on the bounty that grows around them.

Three screenings will be held in three different cities, each focused on daily issues surrounding how we eat and where the things we eat come from.  On September 9, "Mad City Chickens" will show at the Ashland Community Center in an afternoon dedicated to instruction and resources about keeping chickens in your backyard.  On September 12, "Food Stamped," a documentary about feeding a family a healthy diet on a budget of food stamps, will screen at the RCC Higher Education Building in Medford.  And on September 14, a pair of films about modern farming and its effects -- "Truck Farm" and "Big River" will screen at Summer Jo's organic farm and restaurant in Grant's Pass.

The event is sponsored by Thrive, which is an acronym for "The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy."  For more information about the films or the organization, visit their web site or call 541-488-7272 

William Friedkin, still pushing audiences at age 77 with ‘Killer Joe’

The director of "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist" is still capable of pushing us where we don't necessarily want to go.

friedkin.jpgWilliam Friedkin
“I view it as a piece of material that was challenging to me, and I thought would be challenging to audiences.”  

A statement like that coming from most moviemakers might leave you feeling dubious: ‘What do you know about “challenging,” fella?’

But this is William Friedkin talking, the man who made “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” “Cruising,” and “To Live and Die in L. A.,” among others.  So when he talks about taking moviegoers places where they’ve never been, well, you pay attention.

At nearly 77 years old, Friedkin has found new ways to dare and provoke in “Killer Joe,” a hair-raising and darkly funny film, which opens in Portland on Friday, August 31, and is based on a play by Tracy Letts which, in turn, says Friedkin, was based on a true story.

“Tracy originally read this story in a newspaper,” the director explains in a phone interview.  “A father and his son in Florida hired a hit man to kill their ex-wife and mother for a very small insurance policy. So when you ask what’s at the bottom of it, what it’s ultimately about, the answer is greed and the extreme lengths that some people will go to to get out of their unbearable situations.”

Letts transposed the story from Miami to Dallas, turned the hit man into a dirty cop, and turned it into something as horrifyingly and disturbingly human as a Greek tragedy about a morally corrupt family.

Friedkin saw the play some time ago, before directing the film of Letts’ play “Bug,” and then he heard from the playwright that he’d adapted “Killer Joe” for the screen.  Friedkin wanted immediately to make it, but there were problems.  The film is filled with blood, profanity and depraved sexuality, and would present real problems with the movie ratings board (who, finally, slapped it with an NC-17, its most restrictive designation):  how would you finance such a thing?  And who could play the seductive, sociopathic title character -- a cop who hires himself out for murders and has a taste for teenaged girls?

Money was the first hurdle.  “Obviously,” says Friedkin, “no major studio was going to do anything like this, no matter who was in it.  So I had to go to independent producers. I went to Nicolas Chartier, who produced ‘The Hurt Locker.’  And he’s sort of a courageous guy with a number of such projects.  And he does commercial sorts of things so that he can pave the way for things like ‘Hurt Locker’ and this film.  And he picked up on it right away.”

Killer Joe -- McConaughey.jpgMatthew McConaughey in "Killer Joe"
But that still left him with a hole in the middle of the film. One night, Friedkin was watching a TV interview show and saw, of all people, Matthew McConaughey, talking about his life.  “He wasn’t the first guy I thought of,” Friedkin confesses.  But I was very impressed with him.  I didn’t know too many films he’d made before.  I remembered him from (2001’s) ‘Frailty.’  And it occurred to me that he would be exactly the right sort of guy to play Killer Joe.  Not some gruff old grizzly bear, but a really charming guy, good-looking, and unexpected.”

Friedkin reached out to McConaughey, and was, at first, rebuffed.  “Matthew didn’t care for it at first at all,” he remembers.  “He had no interest.  But then he started to think about it, and after a lot of thought he realized the dark humor of it and the truth of it.  And so he said he’d like to meet with me.  We met, and we had about a two hour meeting, and we were on the same page, and we went ahead.”

As it happens, “Killer Joe” comes in the midst of what we might think of as the Summer of McConaughey, with the actor providing real energy, wit and strength in “Bernie” and “Magic Mike” prior to “Killer Joe,” in which he’s joined by Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon Thomas Haden Church, and Juno Temple. Friedkin says that he’s not terribly surprised to see an actor best known for light comedy turn out capable of something deeper.  It is, he explains, a matter of technique.

“A good actor,” he says, “has to be able to go inside himself or herself, into his or her own psyche, to find the character that he or she is playing inside themselves.  They’re not putting on masks, per se.  But even if they’re playing Quasimodo or Hitler, you have to find that character somewhere inside yourself.  You have to find those triggers which, when you use sense memory, will bring you back to those moments when you were angry or afraid or loving or threatening.  You have to find those emotions in yourself.”

Over the years, he continues, he’s developed a sense for when an actor is really probing and delivering something honest, as well as strategies to help an actor who isn’t going deep enough find something true in a performance.

“When I see an actor just putting on an act, so to speak, and not becoming the character, I’m out of the show, I don’t believe it,” Friedkin says.  “So before I cast someone in a film I’ll spend quite a bit of time with them, individually, and learn as much as I can about them, about the things that they’ve experienced that trigger certain emotions.  And then, if necessary, during the shooting or even in rehearsal, I’ll call upon those things, very casually.  I imagine it’s similar to the way a psychiatrist works.  You’re calling on emotions that you know the actor has experienced so that they can draw on those in creating the character.  And then, when you get on the set, you have to provide an atmosphere where the actors feel free enough to create, free enough to draw on their sense memories and not feel like they’re being judged.”

In a way, Friedkin speaks from personal experience when he talks about the freedom from being judged.  Along with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, he was a lynchpin of the generation of so-called movie brats who remade Hollywood in the early ‘70s, that golden era between the death of the old studio system and the rise of the blockbuster movie.

Killer Joe -- Hirsch Temple Friedkin.jpgView full sizeWilliam Friedkin directs Emile Hirsch and Juno Temple in a scene from "Killer Joe"
As Friedkin recalls, “I guess you’d have to say it was a special time, because so many people think that it was.  Having lived through it, I can certainly say that it wasn’t that we had a lot more freedom than there is today.  Several things were different.  The guys who ran the movie studios were interested in all kinds of films, not just one kind of film.  Not simply comic books or video games as movies.  They were interested in all kinds of stories, they would take chances.  And films cost a lot less money to make then.  A lot less.  So they could take those chances.”

At the same time, he says, it wasn’t like the keys to the studios had been handed over to a bunch of lunatic kids.  “We were all watched very closely,” he says.  “We weren’t given a totally free hand by the studios.  They were all over us, making sure we came in on budget, on schedule.  But they did allow us to undertake themes that were clearly different.  Nobody knew we would make hits going into it.  But studios were more interested at that time in challenging audiences.  They weren’t interested in sequels or remakes.  They were much more interested in, well, frankly, trying to replicate the success of ‘Easy Rider.’  They got the feeling that us young guys knew what the hell we were doing.  And, frankly, we didn’t!”


A sleek ‘Cosmopolis,’ a speedy ‘Rush,’ an unreal ‘Imposter’ and more

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Cosmopolis haircut.jpgRobert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"
A truly hectic week, as evidenced by the number of films to do with cars, bikes and travel.  To wit:  David Cronenberg's dark limo ride, "Cosmopolis"; the bike-messenger-on-the-run picture "Premium Rush"; and the darkly comic chase film "Hit and Run."  We've also got reviews of the culture-clash comedy "2 Days in New York"; the exes-trying-to-stay-friends film "Celeste and Jesse Forever"; and the unbelievable but true crime story "The Imposter."  Plus, like clockwork, "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse," "Levy's High Five" and (the newly renamed) "Vintage Views."

Gus Van Sant pulls into the Oscar race with ‘Promised Land’

The Portland filmmaker, who contented for Oscars last with "Milk," is back in the award season-mix.

van-sant.JPGView full sizeGus Van Sant on the set of 2008's "Milk," for which he received an Oscar nomination as best director.
Portland director Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land," a drama about a shady salesman trying to capture the drilling rights to an economically troubled Pennsylvania town, will be released by Focus Features on December 28.  The film had originally been intended for a 2013 release, but the new date indicates that the distributors believe it can be a contender in the Oscar derby for the coming winter.

The film stars Matt Damon and John Krasinkski, who co-wrote the script, as well as Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt, Hal Holbrook and Lucas Black.  Van Sant shot it near Pittsburgh.  It is not currently scheduled to play at any of the fall's film festivals, which often launch movies into awards season.  

Damon and Van Sant previously worked, of course, on 1997's "Good Will Hunting," for which the actor shared a screenwriting Oscar with his friend and co-star Ben Affleck and Van Sant received an Oscar nomination.

Levy’s High Five, August 24 – 30

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

The Bourne Legacy 3.jpgJeremy Renner in "The Bourne Legacy"

1) "Beasts of the Southern Wild" A dreamy and joyous film about life, death, hope, dreams and wonder on an island in the Mississippi Delta. The miraculous young Quevezhané Wallis stars as Hushpuppy, a wee girl who experiences life in the feral community known as the Bathtub as a stream of wonder and delight, even though her dad (Dwight Henry) is gruff, her mom is absent and a killer storm is bearing down on her home. Writer-director Behn Zeitlin, in his feature debut, combines poetry and audacity in ways that recall Terrence Malick, but with a light and spry touch. Still, all his great work pales in comparison to the stupendous little Wallis, whom you'll never forget. Hollywood, Living Room, Tigard

2) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. multiple locations

3) "The Bourne Legacy" A dense, slick and thrilling spy movie that's got as much brain power as brawn. Writer-director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") turns the trilogy of films about Jason Bourne into the story of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), another souped-up intelligence operative on the run from the secretive organizations which built him. The film cleverly integrates the story of the previous three, but stands alone as a gripping story about a man trying to extend the only life that he has come to know and depending on a geneticist (Rachel Weisz) and his own abilities to stay alive. From the complex narrative to the thrilling final half-hour, it's top shelf stuff. multiple locations

4) “Searching for Sugar Man” A truly remarkable documentary that demonstrates how big and how small this world of ours can be.  Rodriguez was a Detroit singer-songwriter whose poetic and soulful music deserved a much bigger career than the little blip it experienced in the early ‘70s.  But, in fact, that bigger career did  exist: in South Africa, where Rodriguez was a huge star and didn’t know it.  So obscure was Rodriguez in his homeland, in fact, that his overseas fans long believed he had killed himself in an baroque onstage apocalypse.  The Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul tracks this amazing history and then witnesses a third act that you simply have to see to believe.  Mind-blowing, heartwarming and true. Fox Tower 

5) “ParaNorman” The second feature from Portland’s Laika Entertainment is, like 2009’s “Coraline,” a gorgeously crafted stop-motion animation that blends a creepy tale with an impish wit, resulting in a smashing entertainment for tweens and their chaperones.  The focus is Norman, a boy whose ability to talk with ghosts is, unbeknownst to him, part of his legacy as a necromancer who must appease a witch whom his town elders executed lest she wreak havoc on the place.  With rich jokes about horror movies and teen angst, impeccable handmade craft, and nicely dense 3-D, it’s a pleasure throughout, even, I suspect, if you’re not rooting for your hometown team. multiple locations


‘Cosmopolis’ review: a sleek and airless limo ride with a cipher

David Cronenberg's adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel is an exquisitely built torture machine -- for its protagonist and, perhaps, for its viewers.

Cosmopolis gun.jpgPaul Giamatti (l.) and Robert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"
There’s a fearlessness knit into the very core of David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis” that you cannot help but admire, even if the film finally pushes you away.  It’s a movie of ideas, of talk, of resistance to the norm.  Even within the context of Cronenberg’s knotty oeuvre (think how dense and oblique he’s been in, oh, “A Dangerous Method,” “Crash” or “Naked Lunch”), this film is a tough sell.  But it’s never less than daring, poised or deliberate.  It doesn’t go down easy, but it clings.

The film, based on a Don DeLillo novel, is an odyssey through the streets of Manhattan in the back of a custom-built limousine.  Our protagonist, Eric Packer, is a young titan of finance whose empire is crumbling based on his misreading of global markets just as his psyche is unraveling because of his failure to connect coherently or significantly with anyone in his life.  

One by one, employees, lovers, doctors, and bodyguards enter his opulent world (or, in the case of his strangely remote wife, he hers), with each encounter serving to confuse or vex Packer further.  Under a credible threat of violence, through streets choked by anarchist rioters, a funeral cortege for a rap star, and a presidential visit to New York, Packer insists on being driven to his old neighborhood for a haircut.  It is, of course, also a rendezvous with meaning, fate, identity.

For Cronenberg, the sleek limo with its plush, high tech interior is a physical space, a mental space, an object of fetish, a challenge in filmmaking.  Sitting in the rear of his car like a paranoid king, amid moody lights and information-spewing screens, heavily guarded and yet desperate enough to step out into the world unprotected, Packer is like a film director who has lost control of a production.  Cronenberg invests his protagonist with an air of power and authority, but he constantly shifts perspectives on him; we never feel that Packer is fully settled, safe, or certain.  And eventually the dread that he feels creeps into the viewer.

In the center of this paranoid parade, Cronenberg has placed Robert Pattinson, the English heartthrob best known for the “Twilight” films.  He’s credible as a New Yorker, less so as a business genius, least of all as a man of iron will.  If he’s meant to be uncomfortably weak, as many of Stanley Kubrick’s protagonists were, it’s a successful bit of casting.  But that would undermine Packer’s status as a villain, so there’s a bit of a problem at the core of the film.  

There’s a problem at the end, too, when Packer’s journey ends in a muddled debate with the man who has been threatening him.  That encounter is one of a series that range from steamy (Juliette Binoche, Emily Hampshire), to creepy (Samantha Morton, Gouchy Boy), to icy (Sarah Gadon, playing Packer’s wife), to frantic (Jay Baruchel) to farcical (Mathieu Amalric).  They don’t quite add up as narrative, but they do create a series of moods that accumulate an increasing sense of despair and hopelessness -- which, too, is stifling.

It’s a credit to Cronenberg’s sheer strength as an artist that he makes “Cosmopolis” compelling:  Packer, after all, is a creep who lacks the magnetism of, oh, Gordon Gekko, and yet we are magnetized through force of craft and a sense of mystery at the heart of the film.  The journey on which he takes us may not satisfy in the ways we normally ask of movies, but if it did it wouldn’t be a Cronenberg, would it?
(108 min., R, Fox Tower) Grade: B-minus


‘The Imposter’ review: a story of personal identity too crazy not to be true

A man poses as a missing boy, even though he's nothing like him, and pulls off the hoax with the boy's family.

The Imposter.pngFrederic Bourdin in "The Imposter"
From the very start of “The Imposter,” we know that Frederic Bourdin is 1) a real person and 2) a fake; that is, he’s a con artist.  He himself tells us so.  

But director Bart Layton’s film takes us to such strange and emotionally-charged places that we cannot believe that what we’re seeing is real, even though it demonstrably is.

Some facts: In 1997, Bourdin was found by police in Spain, and, when they demanded to know who he was, claimed to be Nicholas Barclay, a teenager from San Antonio, Texas, who went missing three years earlier.  Disposed to believe him, Spanish authorities contacted their counterparts in Texas, who called the Barclay family, who had long believed the worst about their missing boy.  Naturally, they were elated.

Nicholas’s sisterflew to Spain for the remarkable reunion, and even though she was confronted with a brown eyed man with a Mediterranean accent, rather than blue-eyed, Texas-drawling Nicholas, she accepted Bourdin as her brother.  She took him home, where the whole family embraced him, if somewhat tentatively, and he proceeded to integrate himself into normal life before having the truth revealed by a private investigator working for a tabloid TV show.

It’s an astounding story, truly, and Bourdin is the most chillingly sympathetic sociopath: frank, remorseless, matter-of-fact.  He’s kind of a titanic figure, easily capable of carrying a whole film.  It’s a shame, then, that Layton takes us on a macabre wild goose chase for the truth about the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay, distracting us, for the most part, from an appropriate sense of outrage toward his central figure.  Bourdin is a heel, but, like so many people over the years, “The Imposter” lets him slip, by and large, away. 
(95 min., R, Cinema 21) Grade: B

‘2 Days in New York’ review: so I married a French woman

Visiting relations turn a Manhattan couple's life into utter chaos, comically.

2 Days in New York.jpgChris Rock (l.) and Albert Delpy in "2 Days in New York"
Slight but winning, “2 Days in New York” is a comedy about ambition and cultural conflict starring, directed by and co-written by Julie Delpy, which rather makes it an example of some of its themes.

As in “2 Days in Paris,” which she also handmade, as it were, Delpy plays a French artist with an American beau who comes into conflict with her French family.  This time, Chris Rock is the fella,  a journalist and radio talk show host, and, once again, Delpy’s actual dad, Albert, plays her cinematic père, Alexia Landeau plays her sister, and Alexandre Nahon plays her sister’s boyfriend.

During a weekend in Manhattan when both Delpy and Rock have big career moments pending, the visiting French relations create good-humored havoc with the neighbors, with bosses, with shopkeepers, and so on.  It’s a predictable sort of humor, but it’s played with intelligence, wit, charm and, blissfully, very little pretense.  

In its final movement the film forces itself a bit much, venturing into screwball comedy territory when it had been more like a slice-of-life before that.  But by then you may well be won over and agree that “2 Days in New York” compresses a mad weekend nicely into 90 or so minutes.


‘Premium Rush’ review: heck on wheels

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is riding against the clock and a dirty cop in an energetic, if ordinary, thriller.

Premium Rush.jpgJoseph Gordon-Levitt in "Premium Rush"
“Premium Rush” is a rather routine thriller that’s got two things going for it: the ticking of a clock and the clickety-click of bicycle wheels.  Both impart a sense of exhilaration to a thin and even silly story, engaging you when, really, you ought to know better.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, a hotshot Manhattan bike messenger who rides a fixie like a bat out of hell.  One afternoon he makes a pickup and winds up with a dirty cop (Michael Shannon) on his tail.  There are subplots concerning Wilee’s girlfriend (Dania Ramirez) and the urgency of the delivery (it’s to do with a Chinese underground economy and illegal immigration).  But chiefly it’s a race against time -- and against cops on two wheels and on four -- on a bike.

Director and co-writer David Koepp (“The Trigger Effect,” “Stir of Echoes”) is wise enough to get out of the way, for the most part, sticking to chase sequences and stopping occasionally (maybe too often) for an expository flashback.  He allows Shannon to go a bit overboard, and he doesn’t get much out of Gordon-Levitt save his innate charm.  But the film doesn’t reach too high, and it keeps you involved so long as it keeps moving, which is most of the time.
(91 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B-minus


Portland indie rental shop Video Verite to close

The closing of a N. Mississippi video store further marks the end of an era of movie-watching.

Video Verite.jpgView full sizeAdieu, Video Verite!
Sad news from longtime Oregonian contributor Marc Mohan, who is the owner of the very fine Video Verite rental store on N. Mississippi Ave.  "Barring a miracle," he said on Wednesday in a Facebook post, the store will close on October 15.  

Video Verite opened in November, 2003, as the first movie rental store in town that didn't stock VHS tapes, just DVDs (and, eventually, Blu-rays).  Mohan opened the store after his long years working at Trilogy Video in Northwest Portland, first as a clerk then as manager.  Sensing the population change in the Mississippi neighborhood near his former home Mohan opened one of the first new-style shops on the street, and he enjoyed a reasonably good run for an indie startup retail business.  

The fate of the store, like that of so many other video stores -- including the big national chains such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video -- was sealed by the trend toward video-on-demand, streaming video and video-by-mail.  Folks would rather not leave the couch, and with tens of thousands of options at their fingertips, they can't be blamed.

Those familiar with Mohan's writing wouldn't have been surprised to see the shelves at his video store.  Video Verite always carried the major studio releases and family-oriented fare you would find at any of the big video chains, but the real allure of the place was the many shelves devoted to foreign, independent, classic, cult and alternative movies and TV episodes.  From the day it opened it was one of the go-to spots for any serious cinephile in the city.  They even used their basement as a makeshift screening room now and again:  you could go to rent a movie and wind up watching one for free.

Speaking on the phone this evening, Mohan reflected that when the store closes -- after a sale of its inventory -- "it will be the first time I haven't worked in a video store since 1991."  

I have often joked darkly, with Mohan and others, that the video store clerk, a character immortalized in our pop culture mythology by Kevin Smith's "Clerks" and the legend of Quentin Tarantino's rise from the check-out counter at Video Archives to the director's chair, has been like the Pony Express rider:  if you were of a certain age, you saw a career appear out of nowhere, spread across the nation, and, now, disappear again.  The closing of Video Verite is further proof of that sad truth.

Portland still has independent video stores, notably the insanely great Movie Madness and, in my corner of town, the surprisingly deep and reliable Impulse Video.  But they're becoming like cobbler's shops or milliners -- outposts for devotees and those who wish to experience nostalgia with their movie-watching.

A classic ‘Noon,’ a horror that dare not ‘Speak,’ a blistering ‘Warrior’ and more

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

The Road Warrior.jpgMel Gibson in "The Road Warrior"
"The Apparition" A horror movie so terrifying that they wouldn't let critics see it in advance!  (multiple locations)

"Best of the 48-Hour Film Project" Quickly-made movies from local filmmaking teams served up in one sitting.  (Hollywood Theatre, Monday only)

“Computer Errors"
Austin’s famed Alamo Drafthouse presents a program of egregious computerized filmmaking to make the case for real movies.  (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday only)  

“The Deadly Spawn”
Campy horror film from 1983 about an alien creature which arrives on Earth via meteor.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)  

“Everything Is”
A selection of musical oddities.   (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)  

“High Noon”
The 1952 Gary Cooper Western with the awesome Tex Ritter theme song, back on the big screen.  (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport, Thursday only

“The Road Warrior” The middle film of George Miller’s Mad Max trilogy -- and, inarguably, the best.  A great, great action film.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday and Sunday only)

“The Speak”
Oregon-made horror film shot in one take. This one-week engagement, with director Anthony Pierce attending, marks the film’s U.S. premiere.  (Hollywood Theatre
 
“Vengeance” Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s 2009 film about a man who seeks revenge for a crime against his family.  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  


This week’s last-chance movies: ‘To Rome with Love,’ ‘Savages,’ ‘Hara-Kiri’ and more

Catch 'em while you can!

To Rome with Love Benigni.jpgRoberto Benigni in "To Rome with Love"
An eclectic collection of films is on its way out of local theaters after Thursday's final shows.  You've got, oh, 40 hours to catch Woody Allen's anthology film "To Rome with Love," Oliver Stone's drug-crime drama "Savages," the 3-D Japanese feudal tale "Hara-Kiri," and the French costume drama "Farewell, My Queen."

Vintage Views: classic films on Portland screens, August 24 – 30

Everything old is new again!

The Road Warriro.jpgView full size
"Alone Across the Pacific" Kon Ichiwara directed this 1962 film about a man sailing across the Pacific from Japan to San Francisco single-handedly.  (Northwest Film Center, Saturday only)

"Batman & Robin"
The dreadful 1997 Batman film with George Clooney as the Caped Crusader, presented in Hecklevision, which is, really, how it ought to have been made in the first place. (Hollywood Theatre, Friday only)

"The Deadly Spawn"
Creature-from-outer-space movie from 1983.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)

"High Noon"
The classic Gary Cooper Western, with its themes of loyalty, betrayal and courage and its great Tex Ritter theme song, back on the big screen. (Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport; Thursday, August 30 only)

"The Road Warrior"
The middle film of George Miller's "Mad Max" trilogy -- and the best, by a reasonably fair distance.  A great, great, great action movie. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday and Sunday only)

"The T.A.M.I. Show"
The 1964 concert film featuring James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and more -- and the final Top Down film of the summer.  (Northwest Film Center, Thursday, August 30 only)

‘Hit and Run’ review: a raucous, crude and funny chase film

Dax Shepard writes, directs and stars, with real-life girlfriend Kristen Bell, as a man with a past on the run.

Hit & Run.jpgKristen Bell and Dax Shepard in "Hit and Run"
Spirited and saucy, “Hit and Run” is a small movie with big spirit, a Tarantino-ish sensibility, and a scattergun ethos that results in more hits than misses.  It’s continually funny and surprisingly tenderhearted, so much so that even when it runs into dead ends and confusions you stay with it.

Dax Shepard, who wrote and co-directs, stars as Charlie Bronson, a mystery man living in the witness protection program in rural California with his girlfriend, Annie (Shepard’s real-life sweetie, Kristen Bell.) When Annie gets a job opportunity in Los Angeles, Charlie determines to help her get there, even though it’s the most dangerous place in the world for him.  And the danger has been heightened by Annie’s jealous ex, who forces Charlie to reveal his true identity and deal with his past.

Along the way, there are outlandish visual and verbal jokes, fistfights and car chases, and some unexpected cameos (including a quite funny performance by Bradley Cooper as a gangster).  It can get sloppy and silly and gratuitous at times, but “Hit and Run” never feels tired.  Its energy and verve overcome its misfires.
(99 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: B


‘ParaNorman’ runs a respectable third at the boxoffice in its opening weekend

A solid if not eye-opening boxoffice performance is accompanied by good-but-not-glowing reviews.

ParaNormanView full size"ParaNorman": not quite cleaning but, but still doing nicely.
"ParaNorman," the stop-motion-animated horror comedy by Portland's Laika Entertainment, earned an estimated $14 million in North America in its first three days of release, good for in third place in the weekend's movie boxoffice derby. 

The widely-predicted frontrunner, "The Expendables 2," which also premiered on Friday, took in $29 million for first place, and the spy thriller "The Bourne Legacy" added $17 million to its gross in its second weekend. 


"ParaNorman," which was made for a budget estimated at $50-60 million, earned an additional $5 million in limited release overseas.

In comparison, Laika's 2009 film "Coraline" opened to $17 million domestically en route to an eventual North American total of $75 million, with another $49 million earned overseas.

Critically, "ParaNorman" was well-received.  On the review-aggregating site "Rotten Tomatoes," it scored 87%, meaning that 83 out of 95 reviews were positive.  On another site, "MetaCritic," which applies a more analytical formula to reviews, it scored a 73 on a scale of 0-100: a solid if not spectacular 'yes' score.  And according to Movie Review Intelligence, yet another aggregating site, reviews for the film were 69.3% positive

David Cronenberg’s ‘Cosmopolis’: a master director tackles an odyssey of modern life

The master filmmaker describes the making of his challenging new film and praises its surprising star.

Cronenberg stare.jpgDavid Cronenberg
Film audiences have had 35 years to figure out David Cronenberg, and they’d be fools if they thought they’d managed the trick.  

Just when you reckoned you had the Canadian writer-director pegged as a master of sci-fi and horror (“Scanners,” “The Fly,” “Videodrome”) he turned to tales of sexual confusion (“Dead Ringers,” “M. Butterfly,” “Crash”), then to crime stories (“A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises”) and then, just last year, to a biopic about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (“A Dangerous Method”).

Now he’s back, very quickly, with “Cosmopolis,” an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel about Eric Packer, a financial tycoon riding in a limousine through a tumultuous Manhattan day as his fortune is buffeted by global markets and his state of mental well-being decays.  Ostensibly, the troubled fellow is trying to get downtown to get his haircut.  But like Odysseus’s voyage home in “The Odyssey,” there’s much more to it than that.

Describing the story in a telephone interview from his Toronto base, Cronenberg explains that “the barber shop is not just a place where you go to get a haircut.  It is his past.  He’s returning to his childhood, to capture or reconnect with something that in his young adulthood he has lost.”

Packer is an unsympathetic protagonist, a titan of finance at age 28 who browbeats his employees, cheats on his wife, and presumes (and often incites) the worst in every person and every situation he encounters.  It’s no wonder that he travels in an armored car, with a bodyguard, under constant fear of death threats.  And yet, Cronenberg, following DeLillo, finds a poignancy to his situation.  

“As the movie progresses,” he says, “he becomes more and more vulnerable and childlike, and he begins to confess that he doesn’t know how to interact, how to talk to his wife.  He says, ‘This is how people talk, isn’t it?’  Although he is incredibly powerful and successful in his abstract bond-and-money-trading way, he has disconnected himself.  Just as he has insulated his limo, he’s insulated his life from the vibrancy and human energy of the city.  And he’s trying to connect with that.”

There’s a terrific claustrophobia to “Cosmopolis” based simply on the fact that (again, following DeLillo), it’s predominantly set in the interior of the protagonist’s high-tech limousine.  Cronenberg, who confesses that “For me to just do what is normal is not that interesting,” was excited by the challenge of making a movie in such a confined space.

“I really like the structure,” he says.  “I showed my crew two movies.  I showed them ‘Lebanon,’ which takes place entirely inside an Israeli tank, and I showed them ‘Das Boot,’ which takes place almost entirely inside a German submarine.  And in some ways this limo of Eric’s is a tank and a submarine.  But it’s also a kind of vacuum tube or bell jar.  It’s his environment that he’s created. The limo becomes something surreal.  It becomes his moving environment that he forces everyone to come to, not just for conversations and business but for sex and medicine.  You come into my environment and I control the space.  Even the way he sits: it’s like he’s on a throne at the back of the limo.  And it gives you the sense that this is his place of power, and he’s created this environment to exercise and demonstrate that power.”

Cosmopolis shoot.jpgDavid Cronenberg (behind camera) directs Robert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"
Given the heavy New York atmosphere of the film, it’s something of a surprise that Cronenberg should have chosen the British actor Robert Pattinson for the lead role.  Pattison is best known, of course, for the relatively featherweight demands of the “Twilight” films, which reveal little of the heavy, internal and intellectual stuff that “Cosmopolis” demands.  After declaring that “casting is a black art: there’s no rule book to guide you,” Cronenberg explains that he watched some of Pattinson’s non-“Twilight” work, especially “Little Ashes,” in which he played the young Salvador Dalí, and felt he’d found his man.  Still, he admits, there is, in all such matters, a leap of faith.  

“It’s just intuiting that he can do the role,” he says.  “Because you’re asking him here to do things he hasn’t done before.  But I was convinced by the time that I had done all my work that he was the right guy.  I knew he was good, and he surprised me by how good he was.”

One of Pattinson’s challenges was the sheer density of the dialogue.  “Cosmopolis” is filled with deep, thick, abstract conversations that can feel more literary than cinematic.  But Cronenberg says that it’s a mistake to think of cinema as a more purely visual than verbal art.  “If you ask me ‘What is cinema?,’” he says, “I would say that the essence of cinema is two people talking.  That’s the thing we photograph most in a movie: a person’s face, usually talking.  Even in an action movie you get a lot of that, percentage-wise.  I’ve never shied away from dialogue because, as I say, I find it innately cinematic. You find people who say, ‘That’s theatrical,’ because for them theater is dialogue. But to me that’s completely wrong.  Dialogue is innately cinematic, and when you think of something as ‘theatrical’ you’re thinking of something else, you’re thinking of something structural.”

Cosmopolis haircut.jpgRobert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"
What’s more, he says, DeLillo’s dialogue uniquely lends itself to the screen.  “I think of Don’s dialogue in the way I think of David Mamet or Harold Pinter,” he explains.  “It’s based in reality, it’s the way people speak, but it’s also very stylized.  It has an askew kind of quality that gives it a heightened coherence.  And everybody in ‘Cosmopolis’ speaks in the same way; they understand this kind of talk.  And that only happens when you’re in a very enclosed community.  But in a weird way that’s what you get with Don:  a closed community of Don DeLillo.”

That said, Cronenberg continues, his “Cosmopolis” is not DeLillo’s. “My approach to adapting his book,” he explains, “was to accept the difference between the two media, and to be brutal about it and not to resort to voice-overs reading the book to you and so on.  I’ve said it many times: to be loyal to the book you have to betray the book.  And I did that with ‘Cosmopolis.’  Although in the case of ‘Cosmopolis,’ almost every word of dialogue in the movie is directly from the book.”

The finished film is a chilly look at this unstable moment in American culture, with unrest on the left and the right, a financial system seemingly on the verge of collapse, and all the traditional ways of understanding ourselves and our world challenged.  Cronenberg says that, as a Canadian, he feels that he’s got a front-row seat to the spectacle of a superpower in a state of change and tumult.

As he puts it, the Canadian cultural critic Marshall McLuhan believed “that not being in America but being in a kind of backwater and observing America gave him a perspective that an American couldn’t have.  And there could be some truth to that.  You can’t claim it as a triumph or victory; it’s just happenstance.  But in Canada we are uniquely positioned to observe America, because in one way we’re obsessed with America, and our destinies are very linked, and in another way we really are a very different culture. So I think that being a Canadian and living in Toronto gives me kind of a perfect perspective to do a New York story.”

("Cosmopolis" opens in Portland on Friday, August 24.)


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