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Category: movie (Page 5 of 7)

Oregon bank robber says an Oscar-winning movie drove him to crime

June 4, 2012 /

The documentary "Inside Job," about the causes of the global financial crisis, gives a man the idea to get some justice of his own.

raymondcarlson.jpgMultnomah County Sheriff's OfficeRaymond Knudson
Some people are inspired by works of art to change their lives.  You hear of people reading books or seeing movies or visiting great architectural wonders and resolving to be better humans or casting off their everyday lives for something nobler and more selfless.

Raymond Carl Knudson isn't, apparently, one of those types.  

On April 6 of this year, Knudson, having just watched the Oscar-winning 2010 documentary "Inside Job," which points a finger at banks and banking regulators as the culprits behind the 2008 economic crash, walked into a Gresham, Oregon, Bank of America and handed a clerk a note declaring "Give me all the money no marked bills no die pack" (sic).  He was handed $425, stuffed the loot into a paper bag from McDonald's, and left.

To his credit, Knudson, who pled not guilty last week to charges that could land him in prison for 20 years, drove immediately from the bank to the nearest police station and turned himself in -- not three minutes after the heist.  That's where he confessed to having been motivated by watching the movie -- and to his atrocious spelling.

So, in a twisted way, he was inspired to do good after all.  Although you do wonder just what type of movies they make available to prison inmates.....

A noisy ‘Snow White,’ a daring ‘Not a Film,’ a choppy ‘Polisse’ and more

June 1, 2012 /

This week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Snow White and the Huntsman 2.jpgCharlize Theron in "Snow White and the Huntsman"
The big multiplex opening this weekend is "Snow White and the Huntsman," but we've also got reviews of the daring Iranian documentary "This Is Not a Film," the French police story "Polisse," the French buddy tale "The Intouchables" and the low-fi American indie comedy "The Color Wheel."  And, yes, "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

A gorgeous ‘Stallion,’ a lovely ‘Otter,’ a stoned ‘School’ and more

June 1, 2012 /

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

The Sand Pebbles.jpg
“The Black Stallion” The gorgeous 1979 Carroll Ballard film about a boy and a horse.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)  

“Hard to Kill” Hard not to make fun of Steven Seagal; B-Movie Bingo makes a community event of it.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)  

“High School” Stoner comedy that they forgot to screen in time for print deadlines.  (multiple locations)  

“My American Cousin” Prize-winning 1985 film by Sandy Wilson about growing up in British Columbia  (Northwest Film Center, Monday only)  

“My Grandmother” A Russian silent film from 1929 is accompanied by a live score.  (Alberta Rose Theatre, Sunday only)  

“Otter 501” Documentary about the tumultuous young life of a sea otter pup.  (Fox Tower)  

“The Sand Pebbles” From 1966, a slice of macho starring Steve McQueen.  (Laurelhurst Theater)  

"Total Recall" Those purveyors of late-night fun, Cort and Fatboy, kick off a Summer of Schwarzenegger with the 1990 sci-fi mind-bender.  (Bagdad Theater, Friday only)

“Valhalla Rising” Before “Drive,” director Nicolas Winding Refn made this nearly-silent sort-of action film about medieval barbarism.  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  



Levy’s High Five, June 1 – 7

May 31, 2012 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea window.jpgRachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in "The Deep Blue Sea"
1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since.  Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power.  The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing.  Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film.  See it.  Living Room Theaters

2) "Bernie”  It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing.  Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent  funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing.  Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. multiple locations

3) "Sometimes a Great Notion" Before the Oscar-winning classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," another film crew came to Oregon to adapt a Ken Kesey novel for the big screen. Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Richard Jaeckel, Michael Sarrazin and Lee Remick were the stars, and Newman produced and, after a dust-up with the guy he first hired, also wound up directing. The result was something of a misfire, but a spirited one (with a singularly indelible death scene), but the stories about wild times during its making are legendary and a real hoot. Oregon author Matt Love has written a charming book about the shoot, "Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel," and -- schedule permitting -- he'll share some of the amazing tales he's uncovered after each screening. Hollywood Theatre, Friday through Monday only

4) "This Is Not a Film" While under house arrest and facing an insanely harsh sentence for his moviemaking, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi filmed an ordinary day in his life: watching TV, making phone calls, drinking tea, feeding his son's iguana, staring out the window, taking out the trash. He edited the footage and smuggled it out of Iran inside a cake, premiering it at Cannes and reminding the film world of the plight of creative artists under the Islamic regime in his country. It's a movie in which the most ordinary details -- that lizard, the trash run, the celebratory fireworks in the street -- serve as subtle metaphors for Pahani's situation. It all seems offhanded, but it's ingenious and, taken in context, devastating. Hollywood Theatre Theatre

5) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”  Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting.  Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art.  At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them.  A mouthwatering film:  literally.  Lake, Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

‘This Is Not a Film’ review: a sly and daring expose of life under house arrest

May 31, 2012 /

An Iranian director subtly -- and bravely -- reveals his fate.

This Is Not a Film.jpgView full sizeJafar Panahi and friend in "This Is Not a Film"
In December 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi (“The White Balloon,” “Offside”) was charged with committing acts of propaganda against his country its security and sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban from making movies.  

The following spring, while awaiting appeal of his sentence, Panahi spent an ordinary day drinking tea, taking phone calls, watching TV, listening to noises from the street, imagining a new film project, and, subversively, filming it all with the help of documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. The pair edited the footage, saved it to a flash drive and smuggled it out of Iran inside a cake.  The result, entitled “This Is Not a Film,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, 2011, and has helped direct the attention of the movie and political worlds to the plight of Iranian filmmakers and to Panahi’s situation in particular.

Predictably, not much happens in “This Is Not a Film”; dude is under house arrest, after all.  But it’s absorbing and clever.  Panahi’s activities -- acting out a potential future film project, letting his son’s pet iguana climb over him, reacting in fear to the noise of fireworks in the streets marking the Persian new year, collecting garbage from the other apartments in the building with the janitor -- all have a metaphorical resonance.  At one point, he replaces the high-quality camera which he and Mirtahmasb have been using with his iPhone, demonstrating how easy it would be for someone with his determination to make a movie and share it with the world, governments, censors and even prisons be damned.

“This Is Not a Film” has no special effects, no soundtrack, no plot to speak of, and yet it is, in many ways, one of the most tense films you can imagine:  the real stakes of real life don’t often have the shape of narrative cinema, after all, and we almost never get to see them played out in real time like this.    

(77 min., unrated, probably PG, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-plus


‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ review: a classic tale raucously retold

May 31, 2012 /

A truly evil queen and some delightful dwarves balance out a bland heroine.

Snow White and the Huntsman.jpgChris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart in "Snow White and the Huntsman"
Sometimes wondrous, sometimes overwrought, “Snow White and the Hunstman” is a big, noisy rendering of the fairy tale has been movie fodder since the silent era and particularly since Walt Disney’s 1937 animated masterpiece.  There have been dozens of versions of the story; two already this year, in fact:  the big screen comedy “Mirror, Mirror” and, with liberties, TV’s “Once Upon a Time.”  But this is, in many ways, the largest in scale.

In the hands of first-time director Rupert Sanders and a small clutch of screenwriters, this “Snow White” adheres more or less to the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, with a vain and evil queen, a beautiful and doomed princess, a sympathetic assassin, friendly dwarves, a poisoned apple, a handsome prince and so on.  

In some cases, the film augments the tale’s supernatural elements:  the queen has an array of horrific powers, a dark forest is terrifyingly alive, and a fairyland is similarly bewitched but in a far happier way.  In other ways, it puts a rather more human face on things than we’re used to:  the dwarves (there are eight) are played, deliciously, by such actors as Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Nick Frost, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan, none of whom feels especially cartoonish.

The core of the story, as in virtually all versions, lies in the jealousy of the vain queen (Charlize Theron, absolutely chewing up the scenery) toward the youth and beauty of the princess (Kristen Stewart, looking, as ever, more stricken than inspired).  In this go-round, the queen has a brother (Sam Spruell) who does her awful bidding and Snow White has two champions:  a huntsman who refuses to kill her (Chris Hemsworth. in a nicely roguish turn) and a prince (Sam Claflin) who has loved her since their youth.  A bit of “Robin Hood” has been added, with the queen depicted as a  usurper whose cruel dominion over the realm is contested by rebels who require the sort of inspiration that Snow White can provide.  But otherwise, it’s the tale you know.

What’s not familiar is the scale and the texture and all the special effects.  Sanders combines whimsy and horror in ways that might very well spook the younger members of the audience.  Some of it is quite fetching:  the moss-covered beasties who live among the fairies, the queen’s habit of morphing into birds, the soldiers built of shards of black glass.  But some, too, is heavy-handed, particularly when shot through with the bombastic score by James Newton Howard.  And the film feels long, partly because the story is a bit overstuffed, partly because the pace of the telling can get gummy and loose.

Still, if you’ve a mind to see a classic fairy tale rendered as an action movie, and if you want to see a sizeable handful of fine English actors have grand fun playing grizzled dwarves, there are worse ways to spend two hours than in the company of “Snow White and the Huntsman.”    

(125 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B-minus


‘Polisse’ review: a multi-threaded tale of French police and their woes

May 31, 2012 /

The personal and professional lives of a child protection squad make for a volatile, uneven drama.

Polisse.jpgMaiwenn, Jeremie Elkai and Joey Starr (l. to r.) in "Polisse"
“Polisse” is a sprawling, pied, uneven policier about the professional and private lives of the men and women on the Child Protection Unit of the Paris police.  Faced with a daily diet of ghastly crimes, struggling to keep the horrors and stresses of their work out of their homes, they’re constantly on edge, as likely to lose control of themselves with suspects as with each other and with their families and partners.  

Directed and co-written by the actress Maïwenn, the film covers a period of several months during which a photojournalist (Maïwenn herself) is embedded with the squad.  She gets close enough to her subjects to begin an affair with one of them (Joey Starr), a turn of events which is known to all and yet never mentioned as a possible problem with her work.  That’s but one of perhaps two dozen stories the film encompasses, the lot of them knit together very loosely in the manner of an episodic TV series.

Some of the drama, comedy, sexuality, and human tension in “Polisse” (the title is meant to evoke a childlike spelling of the word ‘police’) is genuinely engaging.   And a few of the actors (especially Starr and Karin Viard as a divorcing policewoman) are quite strong. But the shagginess of the thing, the lack of a throughline, and the fleeting nature of the incidents make the whole thing feel arbitrary.  When the chunks are strong, you can imagine whole films being built around them; when they’re not, you wish someone had found the resolve to cut them out.  “Polisse” won a jury prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, but it’s only a patchwork success.
    
(127 min., unrated, surely R, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B

‘The Color Wheel’ review: mumblecore becomes fumblecore in comic road movie

May 30, 2012 /

An indie comedy about bickering siblings lack the polish of its low-budget peers.

The Color Wheel.jpgAlex Ross Perry and Carlen Altman in "The Color Wheel"
If you think that the tiny indie movies known as ‘mumblecore’ -- movies like “The Puffy Chair” and “Quiet City” -- are easy to make, watch one that systematically botches the staging and framing and pacing and all the other little aspects of film craft that those movies get right.  Watch “The Color Wheel.”

The fitfully funny comedy follows a quarrelsome brother (director and co-writer Alex Ross Perry) and sister (co-writer Carlen Altman) on a road trip to fetch her belongings from an ex-beau’s apartment.  Along the way, they abuse each other, and everyone they encounter -- stranger or acquaintance -- piles on and adds to the woe.  

They’re an appalling pair, deliberately, but the unsteadiness of the moviemaking means that the line between laughing with the filmmaker/stars and laughing at them is blurred in ways that Perry can’t control.  Maybe the characters will grate on you, maybe you’ll find them quirky fun, but the sheer clumsiness of the enterprise is patent and undeniable.  The best mumblecore movies -- the best low-budget films of any stripe -- make virtues of their restrictions of scale and means.  “The Color Wheel” succumbs to them without the least hint of a fight.  There’s handmade and then there’s amateurish.  This, alas, is the latter.
    
(83 min., unrated, probably R, Northwest Film Center, Friday through Sunday only) Grade: C


Movies: a breezy ‘Men,’ a hard ‘Hit’ and more

May 25, 2012 /

This week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Men in Black 3 2.jpgJosh Brolin (left) and Will Smith in "Men in Black 3"
Not a heck of a lot new at the multiplex this weekend, but the big picture, "Men in Black 3," a sequel that nobody eagerly awaited, is a nice surprise. We've got only one other in-house review:  "Hit So Hard," a documentary about grunge drummer and addiction survivor Patty Schemel.

Other than that, the old standbys:  "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

‘Angry Men,’ ‘Girl Power,’ Jon Jost and more

May 25, 2012 /

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

12 Angry Men.jpg
“12 Angry Men” Sidney Lumet’s classic 1957 courtroom (well, jury room) drama, with Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and 10 other fired up actors.  (Laurelhurst)  

“Ambrosia” Free premiere of a 39 minute sci-fi action film made in Oregon.  (Living Room Theaters Thursday only)  

“Chinese Take-Away” Story of an unlikely friendship between a Chinese emigrant and a Buenos Aires shopkeeper.   (Living Room Theaters)  

“Drone: Minimalism and Meditation” A selection of avant garde and experimental short films.  (Hollywood Theatre, Monday only)  

“Girl Power” A compilation of vintage Saturday morning cartoons originally geared toward young girls.  (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday only)  

"Jon Jost at the Northwest Film Center” The great independent filmmaker (and sometime resident of Oregon) presents two films -- the 1977 classic “Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Dead End)” and the 2008 “Parable” -- as the kickoff to several days of screenings and workshops.  (Northwest Film Center, Thursday)  

“Michael Crichton Double Feature” Portland State professor Dustin Morrow presents and discusses “Looker” (1981) and “Runaway” (1984), both of which the famed sci-fi author wrote and directed.  (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)  

“Mighty Fine” Chazz Palminteri and Andie MacDowell in the story of a family that moves from New York to New Orleans.  (Fox Tower)  

“Point Break” The great surfing bank robbers film (shot partly in Oregon) presented in Hecklevision, which allows you to text your jokes and jabs to the screen.  (Hollywood Theatre, Friday only)  

“Saving Private Ryan” Steven Spielberg’s monumental 1998 World War II film.  (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday and Sunday only)  

“Squirm” Killer worms!  1976 cult fare.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)  

“Ten” Abbas Kiarostami’s 2002 meditation on womanhood in modern Iran, built around ten conversations between female passengers in a moving car.  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  

“Trannysnatchers!” Avant-garde horror with demon worship, gender-play and whatnot, all of it made in Portland.  (Clinton Street Theater, Friday only)  



Levy’s High Five, May 25 – 31

May 24, 2012 /

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

Sometimes a Great Notion poster.jpgView full size
1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since.  Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power.  The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing.  Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film.  See it.  Living Room Theaters

2) "Bernie”  It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing.  Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent  funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing.  Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. Fox Tower

3) "Sometimes a Great Notion" Before the Oscar-winning classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," another film crew came to Oregon to adapt a Ken Kesey novel for the big screen. Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Richard Jaeckel, Michael Sarrazin and Lee Remick were the stars, and Newman produced and, after a dust-up with the guy he first hired, also wound up directing. The result was something of a misfire, but a spirited one (with a singularly indelible death scene), but the stories about wild times during its making are legendary and a real hoot. Oregon author Matt Love has written a charming book about the shoot, "Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel," and he'll be sharing some of the amazing tales he's uncovered after a screening of the film at the Hollywood Theatre on Saturday night at 7 p.m.

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”  Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting.  Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art.  At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them.  A mouthwatering film:  literally.  Lake, Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

5) "The Cabin in the Woods" A slasher movie inside a horror movie of another sort inside yet another narrative, one which looks out and the audience and asks why they (that is, we) keep lining up to watch other people get slaughtered.  A group of college students head to the titular location for a weekend’s bacchanal, only to be preyed upon and killed in grisly fashion, as per the familiar genre rules.  At the same time, a group of bureaucrats/scientists in a control room manipulate the victims and their killers in the service of...something.  Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have fun in the vein of “Scream” and in the vein of “The Truman Show” -- and they come up with an intriguing theory to explain the allure of horror films as well as a (literal) hell of a climax. Bloody, funny, clever. multiple locations

‘Men in Black 3’ review: an unsought sequel affords surprising delights

May 24, 2012 /
Josh Brolin adds a dash of droll magic to a time travel subplot and lifts a film above its expected quality.
Men in Black 3.jpgJosh Brolin (l.) and Will Smith in "Men in Black 3"
It’s rarely worth assessing a movie by considering what it might have been, but in the case of the third film in a series that has been dormant for a decade after a brilliant launch and a catastrophic follow-up, it’s almost unavoidable. “Men in Black 3” reunites stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith with director Barry Sonnenfeld in a sequel that almost nobody but corporate moneymen was itching for.  The Lowell Cunningham comic book series that inspired the previous two films about secret government agents keeping a lid on the activities of alien creatures who live on Earth hasn’t been active for almost 20 years, there haven’t been new episodes of the animated version of the material since 2001, and the 2002 “Men in Black II” seemed to have effectively killed off the franchise, possessing none of the verve or charm of its 1997 predecessor. Factor in Sonenfeld’s absence from the big screen since the horrific 'comedy' “RV” (2006) and Smith’s steadily diminishing boxoffice stature, and it’s no wonder that expectations for a new “MIB” should be at rock bottom, a premonition only bolstered by word that the new film would have a plot involving time travel -- frequently a mark of creative desperation in these sorts of things. How pleasant, then, to find that “Men in Black 3” is a fairly brisk, sometimes funny, periodically inspired film.  Yes, it’s a special-effects sequel, with all the noise and excess that implies.  But there’s more freshness to it than you would expect, and there’s a performance in the center that honestly makes it all worthwhile. That would be the work of Josh Brolin, who is simply astounding as the 1969 version of Agent K (Jones in the present tense), whom Agent J (Smith) must go back in time to rescue from  a time-traveling bad guy (the blustery Jemaine Clement) who seeks to kill the young K both for personal reasons and to facilitate an invasion of the Earth by his species. Brolin does an uncanny Jones -- the still, probing eyes; the stiff, hunched shoulders; the brow and mouth pursed in doubt; the deadpan voice that somehow mixes a drawl with staccato.  It’s an impression, yes, but also an interpretation:  Brolin’s K hasn’t hardened into the Jones incarnation yet; his youthful verve and openness continually surprise J.  And the wit comes as much from Brolin’s timing and control as from the sheer fun he obviously has playing the part.  It’s not the sort of thing that will be remembered come awards time, but it’s one of the most enjoyable performances you’ll see in a movie this year. Actually, “MIB 3” has a couple other terrific acting turns --  Michael Stuhlbarg (“A Serious Man,” “Hugo”) plays a sweetly prescient alien and Bill Hader, joins the ranks of, among others, David Bowie, Crispin Glover and Jared Harris in creating a droll and sharp Andy Warhol for the screen. The latter appears as part of the time-travel story (turns out, per the script, that Andy was an MIB agent and his scenesters were mostly aliens), as are the 1969 Mets and the Apollo 11 space mission.  These are all woven cleverly into a script credited to Etan Cohen (with, it seems, a small team providing assists) that manages to accrue depth and layers as it moves forward toward an action finale (something which “The Avengers,” which is a better movie in many ways, did not).  And Sonnenfeld, who has sometimes been guilty of gratuitous garishness, keeps the gimmickry minimal, employing flourishes only occasionally and using 3-D almost naturalistically -- or as naturalistically as can be hoped for in a movie in which the villain has a deadly dart-spewing spider-thingy living inside of his palm. So did the world need another “Men in Black”?  No, not at all.  But if there had to be one, then it’s certainly a relief that it should be one as agreeable as this. (105 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B

‘Hit So Hard’ review: a grunge musician’s real-life survival story

May 23, 2012 /

She drummed for Hole and babysat for Kurt and Courtney -- and lived through hell and tells the tale.

Hit So Hard.jpgDrummer Patty Schemel, star and subject of "Hit So Hard"
In many ways, “Hit So Hard,” the story of Patty Schemel is familiar to the point of being clichéd:  a ‘90s Seattle rocker spirals into alcoholism and drug abuse until she winds up homeless, then slowly achieves sobriety and a new life.

But Schemel ran in heady circles:  she was chummy with Kurt Cobain and his missus, Courtney Love, and she played drums in Love’s band Hole at that group’s height. So her tale of downfall and survival has absorbing echoes and connections.  What’s more, Schemel was an ardent videographer who, somehow, held onto her tapes, which means that her personal archives provide a truly rare view into the musical world known as grunge at something like its media-hyped height.

Director P. David Ebersole combines frank interviews with Schemel, her family and friends, and her bandmates to assemble this portrait of a talented woman dealing with the weighty pressures of the rock world, the drug world, and her own sexuality.  But it’s a long film for such a familiar story.  And, despite Schemel’s appealing candor, the highlight of the film is, by far, those precious images of Cobain horsing around with his baby daughter, helping Love write songs, and behaving like an ordinary fellow:  peace, love and normalcy in the midst of madness and pain.
    
(103 min., unrated, probably R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-minus

This week’s last-chance movies: ‘We Have a Pope,’ ‘Mansome,’ ‘Sound of My Voice’ and more

May 23, 2012 /

Catch 'em while you can!

We Have A Pope.jpgMichel Piccoli in "We Have a Pope"
The busy spring cleaning of local moviehouses continues this week, with a number of notable titles on their way out of Portland-area theaters after Thursday's final shows.  These include the Italian papal comedy "We Have a Pope"; Morgan Spurlock's male grooming documentary "Mansome"; the tale of a creepy religious cult "Sound of My Voice"; and two maligned film: the raunch-comedy sequel "American Reunion" and the shaggy dog (literally, in this case) marital comedy/drama "Darling Companion."

Washington moviegoer charged with slapping someone who wouldn’t stop talking

May 22, 2012 /

We've all wanted to do it. One dude did, and now probably wishes he hadn't.

theater talker.jpgunrealitymag.com
We've all wanted to do it, and now we know why we shouldn't.  A Seattle-area man has been charged with felony assault for slapping the face of a fellow moviegoer who wouldn't stop talking or throwing popcorn at others during an April film screening. As irresistable as it may seem to champion the slapper at the expense of the boor, it turns out that the person who was ruining the movie for others was a 10 year-old boy who lost a tooth in the incident and his assailant was a 21 year old man. Which kind of puts a different spin on things. 

I have no doubt the little so-and-so needed to be tossed from the theater.  But as a parent (whose kids were taught IMPECCABLE theater manners), I can't condone this particular outcome.  I can get behind the corporal punishment of in-theater talkers, texters and food-throwers, no question.  But when minor children are involved, I think that the parents should be summoned and that the offended party should be allowed one free shot at each of 'em, with the tacit understanding that mom and dad will determine appropriate justice for their little darlings when they get 'em home.

Thanks to Movieline for posting the story, which leaves out one vital detail:  what film were they watching?  Given the date of the incident -- April 11 -- and the fact that 3-D glasses and a 10-year-old were involved, I'm guessing "The Hunger Games".....which is, of course, about violence among children. 

You. Cannot. Make. This. Stuff. Up.

Woman making a film in Oregon or SW Washington? You’ve got a Faerie Godmother with funding money!

May 21, 2012 /

Applications for a $3000 grant are now open.

Faerie Godmother2.jpg
Filmmaking is an expensive enterprise, which makes it hard. And indepedent filmmaking in a town like Portland is even harder. And it almost goes without saying, sadly, that it can be harder still for women filmmakers in Portland or hereabouts to raise money for their projects than it is for their male peers.

Heartening to learn, then, of a potentially game-changing grant being offered by Women in Film, Portland Oregon, an organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the work of women filmmakers in Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

In conjunction with the Faerie Godmother Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, WIF-PDX is accepting applications for its 2012 Faerie Godmother grant, a package of services, goodies and support topped by a $3000 cash grant.  The completed application, which is available online, is due on July 31.  Bon chance!


Tugg combines crowdfunding and video-on-demand to let moviegoers program the theater

May 18, 2012 /

A new online system allows film lovers and local communities to bring special film events to theaters near them.

One Day on Earth.jpgfrom "One Day on Earth"
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could reconfigure the moviegoing experience, if you go out to see a film and feel relatively confident that the people you’d be seeing it with would be were sufficiently invested in the show that they’d treat it -- and you -- with the appropriate attention, decorum and courtesy?

Heaven knows the modern multiplex experience -- a torture of in-theater advertising, unrepentant texting and telephoning, noisy snacking, and various other indicators of impending cultural collapse -- isn’t like that any more.  And that’s without even factoring in the quality and monotony of the films that you can choose from, which, as we all know, are rarely as good as the best of what’s on TV on a given night.

But now there may be another way to go to the movies, to see films with a like-spirited community, to select what you’d like to see and when you’d like to see it, and to be joined in the screening by others, known to you or not, who share a similar passion for the same sort of thing, no matter how unusual or specialized it may be.

That’s part of the idea behind TUGG,  a new service that combines crowd-funding, like Kickstarter, with the build-your-own-entertainment model of video-on-demand -- but in a movie theater. With relationships with movie theaters all across the country and a library of more than 400 feature-length films, including new independent films, classic Hollywood and foreign movies, dramas, documentaries, and genre pictures, Tugg allows film lovers or people with a common interest in a particular subject matter to create a screening at a local theater at a time and date of their choosing.  

The system was developed over the past two years in Austin, Texas, and it has been out in the world in beta format since the South by Southwest festival in March.

In mere months, Tugg has been used across the US to spread new independent films outside of the traditional channels of distribution, to showcase small films that can’t necessarily sustain an weeklong run at a theater in certain communities, and to combine social issue campaigns with nights out at the movies.  In April, an Earth Day screening of the documentary "One Day on Earth" resulted in 1800 tickets being sold through TUGG to screenings in 11 different cities; one Los Angeles theater alone had 400 attendees.

It’s a truly simple system:  You create an account on Tugg and connect it to your social networks (Facebook, Google+, or Twitter), select a movie from Tugg’s library, choose a date and time, and select from among the theaters in your area that work with Tugg (the list includes many Regal and Cinemark theaters as well as local houses such as Portland’s Living Room Theaters).  An invitation goes out to the people on your network, who can then reserve a seat for the event with a credit card.  When a minimum percentage of the seats has been reserved, the screening is guaranteed as a go and credit cards are charged for the tickets.  And then you and your friends (and friends of your friends) attend just as you would any ordinary movie screening -- with the novelty that everyone in the theater is connected by the fibers of social networks as well as by the desire to see this film at this particular time with this particular group.

ReGeneration.pngfrom "#ReGeneration"
Portland has already seen one successful Tugg event -- a screening of “#ReGENERATION,” a documentary about the contemporary wave of social activism among young people, held at the Living Room Theaters earlier this month.  Chris Baker, a Lake Oswego native who co-produced the film, says that he and his colleagues immediately recognized that Tugg was particularly well suited to a film like theirs about new ways of imagining society.

“We heard about Tugg through our distributors,” Baker explains, “and we decided it was a great way to promote our project.”  In Portland, Baker and company had a triple-threat of promotional tools:  a strong interest in the subject matter of the film, a community which is already very supportive of independent movies, and Baker’s own web of personal connections.  “Being born and raised in Portland,” he says, “I reached out to several people within the community to help spread the word.  And of course I had some family and friends take part in the screening.”

“#ReGENRATION” is coming back for another bite of the apple in Portland, on June 6 (details). But another screening, of the documentary “El Bulli,” about the famed chef Ferran Adrià, was due to be held at the Living Room but failed to garner enough ticket reservations in time for the film to be shown.

Tugg co-founder Nicolas Gonda explains that, so far, the system works just as well for classic or narrative films as for new and issue-driven movies.  “The films we’ve shown have really run the gamut, from classics like ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,’ to recent releases like ‘The Tree of Life’ and cult films like ‘The FP.’”

According to Gonda, “It may not make sense for a theater to program a weeklong run of a small independent film with no marketing budget attached.  But in almost every community there is potential for like-minded individuals or organizations to facilitate a one-off screening through Tugg.”

The films are principally shown in the digital DCP format, but Tugg can also work with 35mm film prints and other formats.  Currently, Tugg is in negotiations with major distributors to get even more films -- both back-catalogue and current releases -- into its system, and is seeking more theatrical venues in more communities as potential host sites.

“People nationwide are using Tugg to bring their communities together,” says Gonda. “We’ve received feedback from Tugg users who say it’s particularly rewarding to share a film with a theater packed full of your friends, family and fellow film fans.”


The dazzling ‘Cunningham,’ the lost ‘Jobs,’ Chilean zombies and more

May 18, 2012 /

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

Bill Cunningham New York.jpg"Bill Cunningham: New York"
“Bill Cunningham: New York” Dazzling and delightful Oscar-nominated documentary about a New York Times photojournalist and unlikely pillar of the fashion world and high society.  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  

“Daughters of the Dust” Director Julie Dash will be present for a screening of her 1992 feature about life in the Gullah regions of Georgia and South Carolina.  (Northwest Film Center, Monday only)  

“H. P. Lovecraft double feature” The silent short feature “The Call of Cthulhu” and the full-length “The Whisperer in Darkness” help keep Portland’s love of the cult writer alive.  (Clinton Street Theater, Friday to Sunday only)  

“The Killing” Stanley Kubrick’s great, tense, doomy 1956 heist movie. A perfect film noir.  (Laurelhurst Theater)  

“NW Animation Festival” A selection of short films from around the world.  (Hollywood Theatre, Friday to Sunday only)  

“Payback” Documentary, based on a Margaret Atwood book, about the culture of debt and bankruptcy.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“The Perfect Family” Kathleen Turner in a dark comedy about a mom trying to reshape her family into an ideal.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview” Feature-length chat with the computer guru from the days when he was running the doomed company NeXT.  (Hollywood Theatre)  

“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” Before the internet meme featuring a sarcastic Gene Wilder, before Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, um, revisited it, the original 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book became a classic for good reason.  Presented in a sing-along version. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)  

“Zombie Dawn” Low-budget zombie movie from Chile. And if that isn’t intriguing enough, you get a free comic book with your ticket.  (Kiggins Theatre)


Levy’s High Five, May 18 – 24

May 17, 2012 /

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

Jiro Dreams of Sushi.jpg"Jiro Dreams of Sushi"
1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since.  Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power.  The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing.  Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film.  See it.  Living Room Theaters

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride.  Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them.  His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling.  The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. Academy, Laurelhurst

3) “The Portland Queer Documentary Festival” Now marking its sixth year, QDocs, as it’s known, continues on as the only festival in the hemisphere dedicated to non-fictional films dealing with LGBT issues (there’s also one in Australia, which is rather a schlep...).  This year’s crop is predictably diverse, with several films on contemporary political issues such as marriage rights (“Question One”) and gay clergy (“Love Free or Die”) and a number of portraits of artists who have carved out space in fields not immediately associated with gay and lesbian performers such as country music (“Chely Wright: Wish Me Away”) and comic books (“King of Comics”). A particular highlight is “Vito,” a compelling, smart and moving portrait of the late film historian and activist Vito Russo. Many of the films will be presented by their directors or subjects; all screenings will be held at McMenamins Kennedy School. Full ticket and schedule information

4) “Bernie”  It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing.  Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent  funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing.  Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. Fox Tower

5) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”  Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting.  Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art.  At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them.  A mouthwatering film:  literally.  Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters




‘Bernie’ review: Richard Linklater’s light and lighthearted Texas true-crime story

May 17, 2012 /

The unlikely comic trio of Shirley MacLaine, Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey brings a sordid little tale to sparkling life.

Bernie.jpgShirley MacLaine and Jack Black in "Bernie"
Based on a true story, filled with real people, and deftly mixing comedy, pathos and the macabre, “Bernie” is a delightful and compact confection from director Richard Linklater (“Dazed and Confused,” “Waking Life,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset”), who’s just as good with a pair of unlikely costars as he is with the ordinary Texas townsfolk who populate the film.

The film tells the story of Bernie Tiede, an East Texas mortician beloved in his community for his charitable works, his cheerful spirit and his attentiveness to widows.  After the death of one of the town’s richest men, Bernie befriended the fellow’s irascible -- nay, mean -- wife, Marjorie, and became her unlikely best friend, to the point that the suspicious and sharp old gal gave him control of her fortune.  It was eyebrow-raising stuff, and then Marjorie stopped being seen around town and some folks got more suspicious than ever.

Working from a script he co-wrote with Skip Hollandsworth, who chronicled the story in a magazine article, Linklater intermixes the recollections of actual denizens of Carthage, Texas, where it all took place, with the dramatic telling of the story as acted by Jack Black as Bernie, Shirley MacLaine as Marjorie and Matthew McConaughey as a district attorney.

The three are marvelous.  Black espouses a mincy fussiness, uses his powerful singing voice beautifully, and stretches more than he ever has, even in Linklater’s “School of Rock.”  MacLaine, 57 years into a movie career that began when she was 21, plays her wicked role with just the right blend of comedy and villainy.  And McConaughey (whom Linklater discovered, recall) manages subtly to expose the dumb core of his prima donna prosecutor.

“Bernie” is slight but terrific.  The intertwining of the sharply tuned actors and the guileless (and often hilarious) townspeople is seamless, the tale is sometimes despairing but never heavy, and the blend of drama, comedy and music is brisk and fresh.  Linklater has many estimable qualities, but with this film he reminds us that he can craft a cinematic soufflé better than just about any director in America.
    
(104 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: A-minus


QDocs, "Plymptoons" and EFF Portland make for a busy week of film festivals

May 17, 2012 /

A diversity of film events turn up at once, making for a rich and hectic week.

Vito.jpgVito Russo from "Vito" at QDocs
The weather may be hollering, ‘get outside,’ but Portland filmlovers have ample reason to head for the great indoors in the coming week.

Two festivals of note and a barnstorming film tour highlight a truly eclectic crop of movie choices, and we’ve got the skinny on all three.


QDoc
(by Grant Butler)

Portland’s Queer Documentary Film Festival, kicked off at McMenamins Kennedy School on Thursday night with “Wish Me Away,” about country singer Chely Wright, followed by a big party at downtown’s new restaurant Corazon. But the festival kicks into high gear today, with screenings of 11 additional films being held Friday through Sunday. Here are five of the standouts:

“King of Comics”  German cartoonist Ralf König has been shocking and entertaining readers since the 1980s with his graphic and often hilarious comic books “Gay Comix.” His drawing style is reminiscent of R. Crumb, with a touch of delicious crude humor. This portrait of the artist shows him giving a hilarious reading of some of his best stories, intermixed with a melancholy look at his life, which has involved broken relationships and loneliness, showing there can be tears behind the laughter. This is a 21-and-over screening. (9 p.m. Friday; 80 minutes; Germany) B+

“Question One”  President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage earlier this month is just the latest chapter in the ongoing debate over marriage equality, and this documentary offers an even-handed look at the emotions on both sides of the issue. In 2009, Maine’s state legislature approved same-sex marriage, prompting a constitutional ballot battle that ended with voters overturning the right to marry by a significant margin. Filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile follow both gay activists fighting the ballot measure, as well as Christian supporters and ministers who believe that marriage can only be defined as between a man and a woman. The film captures the complex thoughts and concerns of people on both sides of the referendum — no easy task. The filmmakers and one of their subjects, Darlene Huntress, will be in attendance. (6 p.m. Saturday; 113 minutes; United States) A

“This Is What Love In Action Looks Like” Gay-conversion therapy is one of the most-controversial practices by some churches today. It prompted a national firestorm in 2005 when a Tennessee program called Love In Action became the focal-point of protests after a 16-year-old gay boy was forced into the program by his parents against his wishes. Memphis bloggers and activists began protesting outside the treatment facility, eventually getting the attention of national TV news, leading to the eventual dissolution of the program. This film asks questions about the intersection of Christian faith and free will, and whether any gay-conversion programs have any merit — not just those directed at teens. Director Morgan Jon Fox will be in attendance. (11:30 a.m. Sunday; 70 minutes; United States) B+

“Love Free or Die”  Gene Robinson made international news when he was made a bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire in 2003, prompting the Anglican Church to ban him from its 10-year conference of bishops five years later. But Robinson went to England anyway, shadowing the conference with speeches at a handful of churches that dared to invite him to preach. The portrait shows how Robinson’s efforts to get the Episcopal Church to recognize same-sex marriage and the role that gays and lesbians have in the clergy is fleshed out with snapshots of his homelife, including his own marriage to his longtime partner when it became legal in New Hampshire. Director Macky Alston will be in attendance. (4 p.m. Sunday; 82 minutes; United States) A-

“Vito”  Gay film historian Vito Russo helped show the dismal way that Hollywood has treated gays and lesbians on film with his landmark book “The Celluloid Closet” and his live presentations in the 1980s that showed hundreds of examples of homophobia on film. But Russo was more than a scholar, becoming an outspoken activist in the early years of the AIDS crisis, before the disease cut his own life short. Interviews with family, friends, and archival interviews with Russo create a full portrait of someone who loved cinema, and wanted to see gays and lesbians depicted fairly in the medium. Director Jeffrey Schwarz will be in attendance. (7 p.m. Sunday; 93 minutes; United States) A

Full ticket and program information


Adventures in Plymptoons.jpgView full size
The Great Northwest Film Tour
(by Shawn Levy)

The Oscar-nominated cartoonist Bill Plympton is, of course, a native son of Oregon, so it’s only right and proper that he bring a film about his life and art to his home state.  And by that you can take it to mean the whole state -- or as much of it as hosts a McMenamins brewpub movie theater.

“Adventures in Plymptoons,” directed by Alexia Anastasio and featuring interviews with a great many of Plympton’s peers and chums, both local and national, will play at no fewer eight of the McMenamin brothers’ theaters in a span of nine days.  And Plympton and Anastasio will be on hand throughout the event to discuss their project.  

The tour, which has been mounted by the Oregon Media Production Association trade group, begins on Saturday at the Mission Theater in Portland, followed by screenings at the Old St. Francis School in Bend (Sunday), the Kennedy School in Portland (Tuesday), the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove (Wednesday), the Olympic Club in Centralia, Washington (Thursday), the Edgefield Powerstation in Troutdale (Friday, May 25), the Bagdad Theater in Portland (Saturday, May 26) and the St. Johns Theater in Portland (Sunday, May 27).

Saturday’s event is being billed as an “Industry Premiere,” with many of Portland’s famed animators and filmmakers expected to attend.  And the next-to-last show, on May 26, is a gala fundraiser for the OMPA, with musical performer Weird Al Yankovic  adding to the festivities.

Full ticket and schedule information


EFF Portland.jpgView full size
Experimental Film Festival Portland
(by Shawn Levy)

It’s been a few years since Peripheral Produce has held one of its seminal PDX Film Fests, and that hasn’t been because there’s been a lack of new experimental film projects created in this most creative of towns.  Rather, PDX Fest honcho Matt McCormick has been working busily films of his own and simply hasn’t been up to the heavy task.

With the thought that it would take a whole collective of people to replace McCormick and his team, the filmmakers in the group called Grand Detour have combined their talents to mount a new festival dedicated to film on the margins.  Experimental Film Festival Portland (or, cheekily, EFF Portland) will run from Tuesday, May 22 through Sunday, May 27, with premieres of new works from, among many others, Portlanders Vanessa Renwick, Pam Minty, and Karl Lind.

The several programs, comprising dozens of films in all, bear names like “Eruption,” “Mycology” and “Magma Flow” and screen at various locations around town.  It all climaxes on May 27 with the Dill Pickle Club history group hosting a symposium on experimental film at the Clinton Street Theater,featuring new work from McCormick, Brooke Jacobson and Jim Blashfield, and, later in the day, the premiere of Renwick’s new film, “Charismatic Megafauna,” presented at the Hollywood Theatre with live musical score.

Full ticket and schedule information


‘Mansome’ review: a lighthearted look at the culture of male grooming

May 17, 2012 /

The director of "Super Size Me" takes a look at men (like himself) who take care with their appearance.

Mansome.jpgJason Bateman (l.) and Morgan Spurlock in "Mansome"
In “Mansome,” the intrepid, self-revealing documentarian Morgan Spurlock turns his whimsical eye toward contemporary male attitudes about personal grooming.  With the aide of celebrity talking heads (including Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, who co-produced and carry on a film-long conversation during a visit to a day spa), and specialists in such fields as beard-growing, hairpiece manufacture, and body-shaving, it’s a breezy, fleeting film that offers more ‘who knew’ moments than epiphanies.

Spurlock, who risked his health with a fast-food diet in “Super Size Me” and sports a signature handlebar moustache, reveals the stories of a champion beardsman whose life is built around healthy beard growth, a New York businessman who obsessively tweaks his appearance with cosmetic treatments, a professional wrestler who shaves his impressively hairy body every working day, and the manufacturer of a deodorant designed for men to wear in, um, their pants.  These are peppered with cameos by a clutch of famous faces, ranging from Paul Rudd and John Waters, who raise sharp points, to Zach Galifianakis, who adds randomness, to Adam Carolla, whose patter any 12-year-old could predict and write without seeing the film at all.

As I say, there’s not a lot of meat on the bones of “Mansome” -- certainly not compared to, say, the steroid expose “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.”  Nor is there the sort of zest that infused Spurlock’s last film, “Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope”  (which appeared in April, bless his busy heart).  But there are a few chuckles, a few head-scratches and, thankfully, very few missteps. It charms.

(82 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B


‘Mansome’ review: a lighthearted look at the culture of male grooming

May 17, 2012 /

The director of "Super Size Me" takes a look at men (like himself) who take care with their appearance.

Mansome.jpgJason Bateman (l.) and Morgan Spurlock in "Mansome"
In “Mansome,” the intrepid, self-revealing documentarian Morgan Spurlock turns his whimsical eye toward contemporary male attitudes about personal grooming.  With the aide of celebrity talking heads (including Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, who co-produced and carry on a film-long conversation during a visit to a day spa), and specialists in such fields as beard-growing, hairpiece manufacture, and body-shaving, it’s a breezy, fleeting film that offers more ‘who knew’ moments than epiphanies.

Spurlock, who risked his health with a fast-food diet in “Super Size Me” and sports a signature handlebar moustache, reveals the stories of a champion beardsman whose life is built around healthy beard growth, a New York businessman who obsessively tweaks his appearance with cosmetic treatments, a professional wrestler who shaves his impressively hairy body every working day, and the manufacturer of a deodorant designed for men to wear in, um, their pants.  These are peppered with cameos by a clutch of famous faces, ranging from Paul Rudd and John Waters, who raise sharp points, to Zach Galifianakis, who adds randomness, to Adam Carolla, whose patter any 12-year-old could predict and write without seeing the film at all.

As I say, there’s not a lot of meat on the bones of “Mansome” -- certainly not compared to, say, the steroid expose “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.”  Nor is there the sort of zest that infused Spurlock’s last film, “Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope”  (which appeared in April, bless his busy heart).  But there are a few chuckles, a few head-scratches and, thankfully, very few missteps. It charms.

(82 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B


‘God Bless America’ review: killing off pop culture, one reality star at a time

May 16, 2012 /

A screed against the worst aspects of the culture goes off the rails, but not without raising some real issues.

God Bless America.jpgJoel Murry and Tara Lynne Barr in "God Bless America"
Genetically akin to “Falling Down” and “Natural Born Killers,” with a twist out of “The Professional,” “God Bless America” is what’s known in Yiddish as a geschrei or in French a (ital) cri de couer: (ital) an impassioned outburst, a shout to the heavens, a cry from the heart.

Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait (the squealing, gnarly-haired comedian and, by now, auteur of a handful of cult films) vents his frustration with contemporary American culture, values and mores in the story of Frank, a middle-aged schlub who, divorced, friendless, jobless and diagnosed with cancer, goes on a spree to kill reality TV stars, parking space hoggers, movie theater talkers, and others who violate his code of simple human decency.  In the process, Frank accrues a co-conspirator, Roxy, a high school girl with just as many peeves and maybe even more anger at the world.

The pair are played by Joel Murray (Freddy Rumson from TV’s “Mad Men”) and relative newcomer Tara Lynne Barr. Murray isn’t exactly a deep performer, but he fits the role well, and Barr is quite game.  As the film progresses, though, their characters come to seem less like people than like mere vehicles for Goldthwait’s personal outrage.  And in that context, their anger (not to mention the murders they commit) seems disproportionate and contrived.  “God Bless America” offers a few laughs and a moment or two of drama, but it’s finally more of a conceit -- and a familiar one -- than a film.
    
(100 min., R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-minus


This week’s last-chance movies: ‘Bully,’ ‘Damsels in Distress,’ ‘Marley,’ and more

May 16, 2012 /

Catch 'em while you can!

Bully.jpgfrom "Bully"
For some reason, we've got one of the busiest movie weeks of the year about to hit Portland:  almost 20 feature films and 8 new or continuing festivals or special events.  So it's no wonder that the local movie screens need to get out the broom and sweep clean.  Thing is, they're sweeping out some very good films in the process.  Wednesday and Thursday mark your last chances to see the well-worthwhile "Bully," "Damsels in Distress," "The Kid with a Bike," "Marley" and "The Salt of Life," as well as the locally-made indie "Blue Like Jazz" and the action film "Safe House."  Choose accordingly and get watching!

‘The Dictator’ review: in a tired fiction, Sacha Baron Cohen loses his comic bite

May 15, 2012 /

He's still crude and sometimes quite funny, but there's little electricity in the make-believe compared to his real-world exploits, and the result is Sandler-esque.

The Dictator.jpgSacha Baron Cohen in "The Dictator"
Sacha Baron Cohen occupies a unique space in the comedy world.  In three personae invented on TV and enlarged for movie screens -- Ali G, Borat and Bruno -- he ambushed celebrities, public figures and ordinary Britons and Americans, reveling in crude humor, trafficking in vile stereotypes, and, alarmingly often, getting his subject/victims to reveal their own prejudices and dark sides.

It was frequently sophomoric and often quite hilarious, but it was also a finite enterprise:  as the career of Michael Moore demonstrates, a fellow can only catch other folks by surprise for so long before the echo of his own fame precedes him and his access to unguarded sources dries up.

And so Cohen and his team -- director Larry Charles and a cohort of writers who worked on “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” -- have invented a new character who shares some attributes with the comedian’s other false faces but who lives inside a fictional world, which rather blunts the satire.  “The Dictator,” the lumpy comedy in which this new fellow appears, feels not so much like a sibling of Cohen’s brilliant TV work or the stupefying “Borat” and “Bruno” movies as it does a cousin with only some of the genetic gifts its relatives enjoys.

Cohen plays Supreme Leader Aladeen, president-for-life of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya, which he rules with callous brutality.  When Aladeen addresses the United Nations on the subject of Wadiya’s nuclear weapons program, he is kidnapped and stripped of power by a scheming underling (Ben Kingsley) who plans to democratize the nation in order to exploit its oil reserves.  Aladeen survives the coup but is left to the mercies of modern New York, which is filled with the sorts of people whom he has mercilessly despised and belittled throughout his life.  

He’s taken in by Zoe (Anna Faris), the over-eager operator of a politically correct grocery, and has a chance encounter with Nuclear Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), a Wadiyan scientist whom Aladeen had ordered to be executed years earlier (all of his victims, learns, actually had their lives spared by an executioner disloyal to the regime).  Together, the two exiles plan to scuttle the plans for regime change in Wadiya, restore Aladeen’s despotic monarchy, and get back to building nukes.

All of this is an excuse for one outrageous, grotesque, gratuitous joke after another.  Like Cohen’s other personae, Aladeen is a seething mass of biases and bigotries, and he continually hates on and debases women, minorities, celebrities, children, old folks, ordinary Americans, and, really, anyone who wanders through into his gaze.  Some of it is funny, and much of it is shocking, but little of it has the satiric impact or sense of danger that accompanied the antics of Cohen’s previous characters, who risked the chance of having political or cultural figures explode at them or ordinary folks -- often mobs of them -- beat them up.  Here, in a purely fictional context, it’s all make-believe, and the sparks that occasionally result from the cheek and the crudeness aren’t nearly so bright.  (And Charles, needless to remind anyone, is no one’s idea of a master comic filmmaker.)

For all its boundary-pushing, “The Dictator” only once makes you feel truly uncomfortable, very near the end, when Aladeen lists the qualities that make a nation a dictatorship and virtually anatomizes the contemporary American political, economic, journalistic and cultural milieu.  But that moment, a weird inversion of Charlie Chaplin’s famous paean to human rights at the end of “The Great Dictator,” doesn’t resonate amid the caustic frivolity of the rest.  “The Dictator” has a few laughs along its bumpy path, but not enough of them to indicate that Cohen has found a means to escape the shadows of his early career and forge a second act for himself.

(82 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: C-plus


Movies: Hot summer films, tepid ‘Shadows,’ an eerie ‘Voice’ and more

May 11, 2012 /

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

dark shadows 2.jpgJohnny Depp in "Dark Shadows"
In this week's paper, we weigh in on the eleventy-jillion movie releases due in Portland theaters between now and Labor Day in our annual Summer Movie Guide.  We've also got reviews of the films that open today, including the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp horror comedy "Dark Shadows," the Norwegian comic thriller "Headhunters," the multi-character British charmer "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," and "Sound of My Voice," a creepy film about life in a charismatic cult.  And those bad pennies:  "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Cruel ‘Games,’ tireless ‘Searchers,’ several fests and more

May 11, 2012 /

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

The Searchers.jpgJohn Wayne in "The Searchers" (1956)
“Funny Games” Writer-director Michael Haneke’s terrifying 1997 film about a pointless and sadistic home invasion (he later remade it himself in Hollywood, to far lesser results).  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  

“HDFEST” A selection of new films from around the world made for and projected in high-definition formats.   (Living Room Theaters, Tuesday through Thursday only)  

“Inter-Action: Animated Shorts” A collection of recent animated films by SEAT (the Seattle Experimental Animation Team), presented by Seattle animator Tess Martin.  (Northwest Film Center, Thursday only)  

“The Invisible War” Documentarian Kirby Dick (“This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” “Derrida”) looks into the under-reported phenomenon of sexual assault in the American military.  (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)  

“Jesus Henry Christ” A boy conceived in a laboratory seeks his biological father; stars include Toni Collette and Michael Sheen.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“Pacific University Senior Theses Films” A presentation of the work of soon-to-be graduates of Pacific University’s Media Arts Department.  (CLinton Street Theater, Thursday only)  

“Sprout Film Festival” A collection of films about the lives and accomplishments of people with learning disabilities.   (McMenamins Kennedy School, Saturday only)  

“The Searchers” John Wayne stars as the brutal, dogged, racist Ethan Edwards, who spends years seeking a neice who has been kidnapped by Native Americans, in John Ford’s 1956 classic.  (Laurelhurst Theater)  


Summer Movie Roundup: ‘Sumer is icumen in’ with a bang and lots of echoes

May 11, 2012 /

All the summer movie news you need for only-in-Portland film events, big global blockbusters and everything in between.

The Dark Knight Rises.jpgChristian Bale as Batman in "The Dark Knight Rises"
Today's paper includes my massive Summer Movie Preview, which may have appeared before you earlier this morning in a stream of blog posts, tweets and social media detritus.

As my small gesture toward decluttering your heads, I've (trendy verb alert) aggregated the whole shebang here.

To wit:

Mini-essay on Summer Movies 2012
May releases
June releases
July releases
August releases
Films with undetermined release dates
Photo slide show of dozens of images from the summer's releases and events

It's a lot, yes.  How nice of somebody (and I only take partial credit here) to break it all down and map it out.

Levy’s High Five, May 11 – 17

May 10, 2012 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea window.jpgRachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in "The Deep Blue Sea"
1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since.  Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power.  The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing.  Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film.  See it.  Living Room Theaters

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride.  Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them.  His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling.  The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. Academy, Laurelhurst

3) “Bully” An emotionally overwhelming documentary about threads of violence in our social fabric.  Focusing on five or children who’ve been tormented and abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they took their own lives, documentarian Lee Hirsch advocates without the use of any talking heads, statistics or editorial posturing.  Rather, his film actually depicts everyday acts of bullying and -- worse -- the ineffective and even hurtful responses of school authorities.  At times, the pity, outrage and empathy the evokes threaten to drown you.  But there’s a hint of light, too.  At moments you might feel slightly manipulated.  But when you look into the eyes of two fathers whose sons killed themselves rather than continue to be bullied, quibbles about journalist practice vanish from your mind. Fox Tower

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”  Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting.  Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art.  At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them.  A mouthwatering film:  literally.  Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

5) "The Cabin in the Woods" A slasher movie inside a horror movie of another sort inside yet another narrative, one which looks out and the audience and asks why they (that is, we) keep lining up to watch other people get slaughtered.  A group of college students head to the titular location for a weekend’s bacchanal, only to be preyed upon and killed in grisly fashion, as per the familiar genre rules.  At the same time, a group of bureaucrats/scientists in a control room manipulate the victims and their killers in the service of...something.  Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have fun in the vein of “Scream” and in the vein of “The Truman Show” -- and they come up with an intriguing theory to explain the allure of horror films as well as a (literal) hell of a climax. Bloody, funny, clever. multiple locations



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