That girl: Susan Sarandon (via NickDrake)
Category: movies (Page 36 of 45)
A solid if not eye-opening boxoffice performance is accompanied by good-but-not-glowing reviews.
View full size"ParaNorman": not quite cleaning but, but still doing nicely.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.
The master filmmaker describes the making of his challenging new film and praises its surprising star.
David CronenbergJust 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.”
David Cronenberg (behind camera) directs Robert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"“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.”
Robert Pattinson in "Cosmopolis"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.)
Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.
"ParaNorman"
A primal form of filmmaking finds its latest expression in Laika Entertainment's "ParaNorman."
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009)Think of it: Alfred Hitchcock tells Cary Grant to walk across the set. The camera exposes the film frame-by-frame, 24 still shots per second. Later, the developed film is run through a projector at that same speed so that, as if paging through a flipbook, the hundreds of still images flipping past create the impression that someone is moving in front of us.
We know it’s an illusion: the two dimensions of a movie screen, even when augmented with 3-D technology, never look as entirely real as the action in a live stage play or opera or dance recital. But the sense of motion through time and space in motion pictures is so convincing that we suspend disbelief. We’re convinced we’re watching Cary Grant -- who might be decades dead, or at least not in the room with us or 40-feet tall -- walk.
Compare the work of stop-motion animators such as Chris Butler and Sam Fell, the directors of “ParaNorman.” Like Hitchcock, they’ve got actors whom they can touch and move into whatever positions they require for a scene, all with the aim of creating that same sense of lifelike motion when the finished film is projected. Their leading man, Norman, strides and stumbles and struggles before us just as if he were doing so right in front of us, the illusion of life complete.
Of course, as Norman is a puppet, the achievement is, in a way, more remarkable. Every iota of motion we see in “ParaNorman” was not only photographed by Butler and Fell but actually manipulated by them and their team of animators, millimeter by millimeter, inch by inch, frame by painstaking from -- which is a lot more work than Hitchcock ever had to do. And, what’s more, they had to build Norman, craft his clothes, render his every expression by hand and bit of body language and every wrinkle of his clothing and hair.
Yes, it’s a ton of work. But there are benefits, too, to consider: Stop-motion actors never think for themselves, never complain about retakes, never tire of long hours, and more or less do whatever is, in a manner of speaking, asked of them. Hitchcock always claimed that he never said that actors are cattle (“I said, ‘all actors should be treated like cattle,’” he half-jested), but he never denied noting enviously of Walt Disney, “If he didn't like an actor, he could just tear him up.” Hitchcock was never an animator, but he knew that, among filmmakers, only animators approached something like 100% creative control over their casts.
As Hitchcock would have known, stop-motion animation is virtually as old as the narrative cinema. There were lots of short films made using puppets, cutouts, clay figures and ordinary household objects from the silent era on, and there were memorable bits involving puppets in such feature films as “The Lost World” (1925) and “King Kong” (1933), among many others.
Still, it wasn’t until the mid-‘60s, when several successful television series and specials were made using puppets and stop-motion technology, that the prospect of full-length stop-motion features became easier to imagine for both filmmakers and audiences, culminating, in a sense, in the great, award-winning work done at Will Vinton Studios and Laika Entertainment, both, of course, of Portland, and Aardman Animations of Bristol, England.
The history of stop-motion is filled with iconoclasts, visionaries, crackpots, clowns and magicians -- in other words, it’s pure cinema. Have a look.
KEY FILMMAKERS
View full sizeRay Harryhausen
View full sizeWill Vinton
View full sizeJan Svankmajer
View full sizeThe Brothers Quay
View full sizeNick Park and Peter Lord
View full sizeHenry SelickNOTABLE TITLES
"Gumby" The great stop-motion animated star of 1950s TV was Art Clokey’s strange green creature who, with his orange horse, Pokey, had simple adventures in a spare (and never fully explained) animated world. A massive hit, the show aired on network television for more than a decade, spun off millions in toy sales, and inspired later TV series and a famous Eddie Murphy gag on “Saturday Night Live.”
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) The animation studio Rankin/Bass achieved instant immortality with this holiday classic, a 47-minute made-for-TV film. The studio followed up successfully with a series of similar works based on Christmas songs (“Frosty the Snowman,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”), but was never quite so fortunate in branching into stop-motion feature films or TV series.
"Davey and Goliath" If you are of a certain age, you’ll recollect that the only children’s entertainment available on TV on Sunday mornings was this 1960s Christian show, created by Art Clokey of “Gumby” fame, about the moral and life lessons learned by Davey and his dog, Goliath (who, like Calvin’s Hobbs in the comic strip, could talk only to his owner). The dozens of episodes were made with real attention to detail and, notably, featured African-American characters.
The California Raisins Starting with a 1986 commercial in which they sang and danced to Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” these claymation characters became the stars of a massively popular advertising campaign for raisins (featuring music by Ray Charles and Michael Jackson), appeared in award-winning TV specials, and became a brief but highly successful merchandising craze. And all of it originated in Northwest Portland’s Will Vinton Studios.
"Celebrity Deathmatch" A funny, irreverent MTV series which ran from 1998 to 2007 and combined the vogue for professional wrestling with a thick dose of satire aimed at the culture of celebrity. Featuring a cast of regular commentators and such bouts as Charles Manson vs. Marilyn Manson, Hilary Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky, Dean Martin vs. Jerry Lewis, and The Three Stooges vs. The Three Tenors, it used clay animation to comically gory and deliciously shocking effect.
"Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" (2005) A follow-up, of sorts, to Henry Selick’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which Burton produced, it’s a creepy fantasy about a wedding proposal gone wrong. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter provide voices (naturally), and the whole thing is, ironically, more human than anything Burton has made in years.
"A Town Called Panic" (2009) Based on the Belgian TV series of the same name, this wildly dreamlike feature film used low-fi stop-motion to render the remarkably strange story of a horse, a cowboy, an Indian, an infinite pile of bricks, and an army of aquatic aliens. None of it makes a whit of sense, but it was played with terrific verve and wit. Bonus: most of the short films from the original series are online to enjoy.
"The Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009) Director Wes Anderson has always been a meticulous tinkerer, so it almost seemed natural that he chose stop-motion animation (using puppets) to adapt Roald Dahl’s story about a felonious fox, his claque of collaborators, and the nasty farmers trying to stop their wave of pilfering. Made with the most delicate and intricate of craft, it’s a pure pleasure.
The directors of Laika Entertainment's second feature talk of influences, rainy days and hard work.
View full size"ParaNorman" men: Chris Butler (l.) and Sam FellMaking an animated feature is a big job, and thus it’s not at all unusual to find a pair of filmmakers at the helm. In the case of “ParaNorman,” that team is composed of Chris Butler, who wrote the script, and Sam Fell, his co-director.
The pair recently spoke about their fondness for stop-motion animation, the artistic vibe of Portland, and other matters “ParaNorman” in a conference call. Their comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Can you point back to any stop-motion films that made you want to work in the medium?
Fell: I’d have to say it was the films of Ray Harryhausen. I’m too young to have seen them when they first came out, but they were in rerelease when I was young and I saw them on the big screen. And then later, when I was in college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I saw the films of Jan Svankmajer, the Czech surrealist, especially his version of “Alice in Wonderland,” which was mind-blowing.
Butler: I think I’d also have to say Harryhausen, with all those amazing creatures. I really loved the “Sinbad” movies. And then when I was a student I saw films by Ladyslaw Starewicz and Jiri Barta, and those really impressed me.
So many of the best stop-motion films have a dark aspect to them. Is there something inherently creepy about the technique?
Butler: We’ve talked about this, actually, and we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a little bit magical and a little bit ghoulish. In 2-D animation you’ve got a drawing of an object and in CG you’ve got a representation of the object, but in stop-frame you’ve got the actual object itself, and you’re manipulating it a little like a god. It’s a kind of black magic.
Fell: They would have hung us for this 300 years ago!
You’re both English, so I’m curious if you see any similarities between Bristol, the home of English stop-motion animation, and Portland, the home of the American brand.
Fell: Well, it rains a lot in both places, so you might as well stay indoors playing with dolls!
Butler: They’re both kind of hippie towns in the sense that they kind of nurture creativity and a kind of homemade scale of things. They’re not too big and they’re not too pricey, especially compared with London or Los Angeles.
Stop-motion seems like such an arduous process. Wouldn’t it be easier to draw the film or render it on a computer?
Butler: Well, it does seem larger than life when you see it getting made, because it involves so much physical effort. You visit the set and it’s noisy and there are armies of people making things and shooting off sparks. And if you visit another animation studio where they’re working in 2-D or CG then you just see people quietly working at their desks.
Fell: There’s much more direct interaction with the material if you’re working in stop-motion. You’ve got the models right in front of you and you can see what’s happening. You wouldn’t dare touch it for fear of breaking it, but you can see it, which is a big help. You have the ability to look at every single frame before you shoot it. On 2-D or CG films, you have people emailing you their work, which is a different feel.
Butler: But it is ridiculously difficult. I think that’s why it’s only done by people who are mad enough not to care about how hard it is.
Fell: Our most productive week was two minutes of finished footage.
There’s so much wonderful craft in the film. Do you have a favorite bit?
Fell: I liked Norman’s little bicycle quite a bit. It’s a lovely thing and it actually worked. Like a tiny Swiss clock.
Butler: I really liked when we were able to see the light coming through Norman’s ears.
There have been more stop-motion features on American screens in the past five or ten years than perhaps at any time. Is the medium on the rise?
Butler: I think it is. Laika is gearing up to increase their output over the next few years. And it’s not only the numbers of films but the stories are so different. The medium is able to tell so many types of stories, and there are many more opportunities with each success.
The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.
"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. Cinema 21, 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
The second feature by Portland's Laika Entertainment garners kudos. And now we wait for the boxoffice results....
"ParaNorman"Over at MetaCritic, the film currently gets a 69 rating (out of 100, which means the low side of "go see it"). At Rotten Tomatoes, it's currently pulling an 82 (again, out of 100). The two sites differ in that MetaCritic reads reviews, assigns them a number grade and then uses a secret formula to derive the final score; RT simply sees a review as a thumb-up or thumb-down and counts them all accordingly, arriving at a percentage. It's a pretty good start, although still early; by this time Friday, I expect nearly 175 reviews to be up at RT and 45 or more at MetaCritic.
It's not the wall-to-wall raves enjoyed by Laika's 2009 debut, "Coraline," but it's good news. In all, like me, folks are more enamored of the filmmaking -- the handmade puppets, the painstaking animation, the 3-D, the voice talents -- than the script and story. But few people, if any, are outright hostile (though some do wonder about whether the film is appropriate for pre-tweens).
Here are some passages to ponder:
"'ParNorman,'a dark and slightly dotty 3-D fable about a boy who communes with the dearly and not so dearly departed, sometimes gets a little out of hand, especially at the end. Even so, it may be the most fun you'll have with ghosts and zombies all year." -- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
"Far more than Norman’s adventure, which takes him from home to a cemetery and deep into his town’s history, what pulls you in, quickening your pulse and widening your eyes, are the myriad visual enchantments — from the rich, nubby tactility of his clothes to the skull-and-bones adorning his bedroom wallpaper. When Norman pauses while brushing his teeth to make a scary face in the mirror, the foamy toothpaste dripping like zombie drool, you may find yourself tapping into your own inner monster and goofily grinning right back." -- Manohla Dargis, New York Times
"Unlike 'Coraline,' which focused intently on the childhood terror of suspecting your parents may not be who they seem to be, the story of ParaNorman sprawls in a dozen directions. There are zombie attacks (mostly funny, rarely scary), teenage antics (the kids drive around in a van that bears a faint resemblance to Scooby-Doo’s Mystery Machine) and a third-act revelation that changes the tone of the film from spooky to beautiful, gentle tragedy. None of this is all that engaging. But the art design of the movie makes up for the slack story." -- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
"What works about "ParaNorman" is its subtle interweave of the stoical and the heroic. The voice work is inspired, without a lot of theatrical flourish. The low-key musical score by Jon Brion, one of the year's best, teases out the macabre humor in each new challenge faced by Norman. For all their painstaking detail, I never much took to the Tim Burton universe of stop-motion,"The Nightmare Before Christmas"or "Corpse Bride." But "Coraline" and "ParaNorman" are several steps up in terms of ... well, everything that makes a film successful and interesting. The stories seduce rather than bully. The throwaway gags are choice....And despite a heavy-going and not-great final 20 minutes, "ParaNorman" gets you in Norman's corner and keeps you there." -- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"Like many of the Amblin' films of the '80s, "ParaNorman" has a kid as the protagonist, but the film doesn't speak down to its audience. Instead, it tells a sometimes sad, often scary story about perception and institutionalized lies and the things that we are driven to do by fear, and it treats all of its characters, even the most cartoonish of them, with respect. Whatever I expected from the film, it wasn't something this smart and mature." -- Drew McWeeny, HitFix
The most negative review so far has come from Marshall Fine, the longtime Gannett newspapers critic who now plies his trade at his own web site. Even in dismissing the film, though, Fine declares appeaciation for the filmmaking:
"Directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler from a script by Butler, “ParaNorman” is a marvel of stop-motion animation, built on a script of flat jokes and frantic, frenetic but uninvolving action. It wants to be a horror comedy, but the horror is mild-mannered and the comedy never ignites." -- Marshall Fine, Hollywood and Fine
The second feature from Portland's Laika Entertainment is a grand romp for tweens -- and for those who appreciate fabulous filmmaking.
"ParaNorman"For its second feature film, Portland’s Laika Entertainment once again combines brilliantly crafted stop-motion animation with a cheekily dark tale to create a fabulous entertainment.
“ParaNorman,” based on an original script by co-director Chris Butler, is the story of Norman Babcock, a small town boy who’s ostracized by everyone, including his family, because he claims (truthfully, as it turns out) to be able to talk with the dead. It turns out that the town is, unknowingly, living under a curse cast centuries ago by a girl whom the Puritan founders burned as a witch. Norman, it happens, is descended from a line of necromancers who are able to soothe the spirit of the witch to sleep and stay her from her vengeance. But Norman doesn’t learn about his powers until it may be too late to stop the witch from wreaking heck.
Butler and his co-director Sam Fell have terrific fun with this material, using it as a springboard to poke fun at the conventions of horror movies, at school-age trauma, at modern family life. The film is filled with gleeful humor aimed at tweens, spiced with just the right degree of horror to engage kids who’ve outgrown their “Goosebumps” books but are still too young for slasher films. So few movies are pitched appropriately at kids (especially boys) in this age group that it’s a pleasure to see one at all, let alone one done well. On the level of storytelling alone, “ParaNorman” is a delight.
But being, like Laika’s first film, 2009’s “Coraline,” a work of stop-motion animation, “ParaNorman” is at least as much about its texture as its story. Butler, Fell and company have built a comically grotesque world of pear-shaped dads, muscle-headed quarterbacks, feral bullies, lumpy teachers and rubbery zombies amid whom Norman, with his affection for horror movies and nerdy mien, seems positively normal. The tiny sets are brimming with witty details, the motion of characters and objects is rendered with flawless fluidity, the 3-D depth adds layers of richness, and the occasional computerized effects are meted out judiciously. In its technique, “Coraline” was a genuine work of art, and “ParaNorman” succeeds it worthily in that regard.
Witty, too is the vocal work. Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Road”) gives Norman the appropriately exasperated tone, rising toward a struggle between his heroic and frightened sides as the film moves along. Beside him, Tucker Albrizzi is a fondly dim best friend, Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes a fine feral bully, Casey Affleck is particularly funny as a high school hunk, and Anna Kendrick is snippy and shallow as Norman’s older sister.
Being an entertainment aimed at those still of school age, “ParaNorman” is almost obliged to have a moral, and perhaps it’s guilty of banging on its theme that we should be accepting of those who are different from the rest of us a bit heavily. But the overall cheekiness of the film far outweighs its preachy moments. For the most part, it’s a brisk, funny and engaging movie that does genuinely exciting things with little bits of string and wire and such. In a sense, stop-motion animation is the purest form of moviemaking, and this is a fine example of the genre, as well as another reason to be proud of the home team at Laika.
(93 min., PG, multiple locations) Grade: B-plus
New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.
"Barfly" Celebrate the birthday of author Charles Bukowski with a screening of this Barbet Schroeder film and a selection of readings from the late poet and novelist's works. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)
“The Bastard Swordsman” 35mm martial arts goodness: a 1983 Wu Tang joint. (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)
“Dark Horse” A darkly comic love story by world-class misanthrope Todd Solondz. (Living Room Theaters)
“Drugstore Cowboy” Gus Van Sant's 1989 breakout film, set in a Portland that seems only to exist in memory and being shown on a rooftop not far from where it was filmed. (Northwest Film Center, Thursday only)
“Factory of One” Premiere of locally-made documentary about one man’s elaborate plans for attending Burning Man. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)
“Falling Overnight” Drama about love between a young cancer patient and a photographer. (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday only)
“Jaws” Steven Spielberg's landmark summer classic, back on the big screen before school starts again. (Clackamas Town Center, Eastport, Thursday only)
“The Jazz Singer” Not the Al Jolson talkie but the Neil Diamond thingy (Mission Theater, Wednesday only)
“The Karate Kid” The 1984 original, with the Oscar-nominated performance by Pat Morita. Accept no substitutes. (Laurelhurst)
“Laura” A brilliant, glossy film noir directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)
“Mad Max” A young Mel Gibson stars in this blistering post-apocalyptic cop story. (Tigard Joy Cinema, Friday through Monday only)
“Metropolis” Fritz Lang's silent classic, with live musical accompaniment by Bent Knee. (Hollywood Theatre, Friday only)
“The Misfits" John Huston's 1961 film of an Arthur Miller script marked the last work by Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Tin House hosts the screening to mark the publication of Adam Braver's Marilyn-centered novel, "Misfit." (Hollywood Theatre, Sunday only)
“Mourning” Iranian drama about parents trying to discuss their child’s future without his knowing about it. (Northwest Film Center, Tuesday only)
“Pegasus” Drama from Morocco about a psychiatrist whose work with a complex case causes him to unravel a bit himself. (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday only)
“The Prize” A woman and her daughter flee the tyranny of the Argentine dictatorship. (Northwest Film Center, Sunday only)
“Project Youth Doc 2012 Screening” The works of this summer’s crop of student filmmakers premiere. (Hollywood Theatre, Monday only)
“’70s SciFi Double Feature” Rarely-screened episodes of “UFO” and “Space 1999”. (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)
“Super Chill” Premiere of a made-in-Portland internet comedy series. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)
“Unhinged” Portland filmmaking pioneer Don Gronquist’s star-crossed 1982 slasher movie gets an ultra-rare screening. (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)
“Voice Without a Shadow” A 1958 crime drama by B-movie master Suzuki Seijun, based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto and concerning a newspaperman investigating a string of murders. (Northwest Film Center, Sunday only)
A streak of films in which the Canadian director featured the daring star comes to an end.
Viggo Mortensen in "A Dangerous Method"Rather, he waxed fondly about his frequent collaborator, Viggo Mortensen, with whom he made three consecutive films -- "A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises" and "A Dangerous Method" -- before breaking the streak with his new movie, "Cosmopolis," which opens in Portland on August 24.
Asked if he had tried to find a part for Mortensen in the film, in which the protagonist, a financier driving through Manhattan, encounters a variety of people, Cronenberg responded, "I was looking for it, but, frankly, you don't do an actor
a favor by miscasting him, and I would never do that to Viggo. I literally could not find a role that worked
for him."
Pressed about a few specific possibilities which would've required Mortensen to wear even more makeup than he had to in order to play Sigmund Freud in "Dangerous Method," Crnenberg replied, "Well, a you know, he's fearless and
he's unafraid and his body is just material for the character. He's not looking to be a star that way."
For my full interview with Cronenberg, see Sunday's Oregonian or check this blog late Friday afternoon.
Catch 'em while you can!
"Monsieur Lazhar"Everything old is new again!
"Barfly" Celebrate the birthday of author Charles Bukowski with a screening of this Barbet Schroeder film and a selection of readings from the late poet and novelist's works. (Hollywood Theatre, Saturday only)
"The Bastard Swordsman" 35mm martial arts goodness: a 1983 Wu Tang joint. (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)
"Drugstore Cowboy" Gus Van Sant's 1989 breakout film, set in a Portland that seems only to exist in memory and being shown on a rooftop not far from where it was filmed. (Northwest Film Center, Thursday August 23 only)
"Jaws" Steven Spielberg's landmark summer classic, back on the big screen before school starts again. (Clackamas Town Center, Eastport, Thursday August 23 only)
"The Jazz Singer" Not the Al Jolson talkie but the Neil Diamond thingy. (Mission Theater, Wednesday August 22 only)
"The Jazz Singer" Not the Al Jolson talkie but the Neil Diamond thingy. (Mission Theater, Wednesday August 22 only)
"The Karate Kid" The 1984 original, with the Oscar-nominated performance by Pat Morita. Accept no substitutes. (Laurelhurst)
"Laura" A brilliant, glossy film noir directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)
"Mad Max" A young Mel Gibson stars in this blistering post-apocalyptic cop story. (Tigard Joy Cinema, Friday through Monday only)
"Metropolis" Fritz Lang's silent classic, with live musical accompaniment by Bent Knee. (Hollywood Theatre, Friday only)
"The Misfits" John Huston's 1961 film of an Arthur Miller script marked the last work by Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Tin House hosts the screening to mark the publication of Adam Braver's Marilyn-centered novel, "Misfit." (Hollywood Theatre, Sunday only)
"Voice Without a Shadow" A 1958 crime drama by B-movie master Suzuki Seijun, based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto and concerning a newspaperman investigating a string of murders. (Northwest Film Center, Sunday only)
The director of "A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises" and the upcoming "Cosmopolis" says that he may still have some fantasy films in him.
David CronenbergFor the first decade or so of his career, the Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg was a master of idiosyncratic horror and science-fiction films, whipping up the remarkable likes of "Scanners," "The Fly," "Videodrome" and "Naked Lunch." But if you looked at his more recent output -- "A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises," "A Dangerous Method" and his new film, "Cosmopolis," which opens in Portland on August 24 -- you would think he had foresworn his genre root for other avenues.
Not so he told me in a recent telephone interview. Asked outright if he considered that he had completely left behind fantastical filmmaking, Cronenberg replied:
There was a lot more interesting stuff in our talk. It will run in Sunday's Oregonian and appear online sometime Friday afternoon.I've never felt that I was only a director of sci-fi or horror. "Dead Ringers," which was 1988, was based on two real guys. "M. Butterfly" was based on a real guy. And "Spider" was not exactly fantastical. It was a sketch of schizophrenia as seen from the inside. So I've done that. And the flip side of that is that I have not turned my back on any genre filmmaking. After all, "A History of Violence"and "Eastern Promises" are genre films. So I don't feel that I've ruled out anything. If there was a great sci-fi concept, a great fantasy or horror film concept, that I felt was fresh and new and I could bring something to it, I wouldn't turn my back on it.
The Fifth Annual Columbia Gorge International Film Festival takes over downtown with hundreds of movies and associated events.
from "Shouting Secrets," the opening night film of the Fifth Columbia Gorge International Film FestivalIt's about as big a movie event as you can imagine occurring in Vancouver, and it's a bit of a mystery. Originally mounted as the Washougal International Film Festival, the CGIFF seems to be the brainchild of Washington filmmaker and actress Breven Angaelica Warren and her Angaelica arts foundation. It's a massive undertaking, involving volunteers and, obviously, tons of prep work, but very little in the way of media outreach, which is why I keep speaking about it so obliquely.
The festival runs Wednesday, August 15 through Sunday, August 19, and I'm very eager to hear more about it from anyone who attends. Drop a note here if you can remember to after seeing all those movies.
In Portland, the cult of alternative moviegoing is thriving while it shrinks elsewhere in the country.
"Oslo, August 31"The problem, the distributors told Burr, is that there are very few art movie screens left in the city and the majority of them are controlled by Landmark Theaters, an arthouse chain based in Los Angeles. Landmark claims that their Boston screens are being taken up by a couple of this summer's arthouse hits -- "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and "Moonrise Kingdom" -- and that they have too many films queued up to save a spot for "Oslo."
This is actually a common condition in many cities even bigger than Boston. The independent theaters where art and revival movies thrived in an earlier era have vanished, or been gobbled up by corporate chains based elsewhere, and the variety of films available on a given night is considerably less than it might be. There are, arguably, more movies in theatrical distribution today then ever, but in most cities there are fewer places than ever where that multitude of films can be seen.
Not so in Portland, where the urban core -- a circle with a radius stretching from, say, City Hall to (pointedly) the intersection of 43rd and NE Sandy -- is home to more screens dedicated to art, indie, alternative, foreign, and experimental film than to Hollywood blockbusters. In that area, you find the independently owned/operated Northwest Film Center, Cinema 21, Living Room Theaters, 5th Avenue Cinema, Mission Theater, Clinton Street Theater, Bagdad Theater, Cinemagic Laurelhurst and, at the outer limits, the Hollywood Theatre, plus the Regal Fox Tower, the main corporate home of alternative movies in Portland. All of those theaters almost always -- or at least regularly -- show stuff that's not in the multiplexes. For that sort of fare in the same area, there are but three choices: Regal's Pioneer Place multiplex and the two Regal multiplexes at the Lloyd Center. I count 29 primarily indie screens and 24 mainstream screens. I don't think there's another major American city where the downtown movie scene has a similar aspect.
That surplus of indie theaters in Portland has several implications. For one, there are more screens to debut more films than most cities -- and that includes cities much bigger than Portland or Boston. In any week, the NFC, Cinema 21, Living Room, Clinton Street and Hollywood account for as many as a dozen premieres, some for a single night, most for a full week minimally. As a result, and throwing in the annual film festivals that most often play at those theaters, Portland sees nearly 1000 new titles annually.
Secondly, if an indie film does find an audience in Portland but has to move out of the theater where it debuted to make way for a new film, it has other screens to appear on, meaning it can stay in town for months. Just last year, such films as "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," "Pina," "Drive," "The Guard" and "The Tree of Life" played in Portland for far longer than in other cities of any size simply because they were able to draw enough of an audience after months to make it worthwhile for the owners of various indie theaters in town to keep showing them.
The shame at the heart of Burr's story is that Boston once had the definitive alternative cinema scene in the country, with the famed Brattle, Coolidge Corner and Orson Welles theaters practically inventing the idea of the calendar movie house that mixed classic titles, new foreign releases and American indies on their schedules. Now, sadly, that day seems to have passed the city by. And, indeed, most other American cities as well.
It turns out that in movies, as in so many other things, tiny Portland has an embarrassment of riches to enjoy.
Being geniuses together, Maria Callas, Luchino Visconti, Leonard Bernstein (via IfCharlieParkerWasAGunslinger)
Thank god it’s…. (via AlisonDiLaurentis)
Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.
Jeremy Renner in "The Bourne Legacy"
The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.
"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. multiple locations
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) "The Story of Film: An Odyssey" Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins has gumption, all right. He has crafted a 15-hour tour through the century-plus of cinema, all over the world, filled with cranky opinions, beguiling finds, glimpses of forgotten history and interviews with accomplished masters. Starting with Edison and the Lumière brothers and ranging to the modern day, touching on all continents, this is an informative, enlightening and remarkably entertaining history, in the vein of Martin Scorsese's "A Personal Journey Through American Film." Cousin's epic screens throughout August in five three-hour chunks, starting this weekend. This week's bit deals with the rise of the Hollywood studio in the 1930s and the international explosion of vital cinema after World War II. Visit the Northwest Film Center, which is presenting, for full details.
5) "Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry" A documentary that feels as current as a news alert on your smart phone. American director Alison Klayman was granted remarkable access to the famed Chinese artist and activist Ai WeiWei, peering into his atelier and private life and traveling with him to exhibitions in Europe and public-interest investigations in Sichuan. She reveals a robust, lusty, bold, and playful spirit, a man with voracious appetites, fearless convictions, and a spry aesthetic. The film goes backward to tell the story of Ai's father, a noted poet crushed in the Cultural Revolution, and takes us to the brink of Ai's 2011 arrest on charges of tax evasion -- a matter which has only been (partly) resolved this summer. An invigorating and intimate portrait. Living Room Theaters
A new star and a new plot line are grafted onto the hit film series, and the result is exhilarating.
Rachel Weisz and Jeremy Renner in "The Bourne Legacy"Tony Gilroy, who wrote the first three “Bourne” films, co-writes here (with his brother, Dan) and directs, as he did on the superb “Michael Clayton” and the underrated “Duplicity.” And he pulls off several impressive feats.
For one, he manages to move the “Bourne” series away from its initial star, Matt Damon, to a new protagonist, Aaron Cross (played by Jeremy Renner), in one of the most audacious and clever strategies I’ve ever seen. A fair bit of “Legacy” actually overlaps with 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” -- characters, plot lines, actual scenes -- so that, in effect, the new film dovetails into the old, creating a vivid sense of continuity.
Gilroy also expands his palate as director impressively, following Doug Liman, who launched the series, and Paul Greengrass, who made the energetic second and third entries, in mounting explosive and gripping action sequences. Lots of films ratchet up into non-stop kinetics in their final acts and lose coherence, both as storytelling and as cinema. “Legacy” maintains a very high level of craft and accomplishment in both, and Gilroy proves himself more capable of choreographing massive action sequences than a lot of folks who make them for a living.
Chiefly, though, “Legacy” places the “Bourne” movies on a par with the James Bond films as a franchise big and sturdy enough to absorb a change of protagonist without losing punch or momentum. The “Bourne”-iverse is more political, more human-scale, more vulnerable, and more paranoid than the world of Bond. But the films themselves are every bit as juicy and intense.
“Legacy” starts with two plot threads: Cross is out in the wilds of Alaska on a survival-course test that turns into something more than that while bureaucrats in Washington and New York confront the potential scandal that will hit them if Jason Bourne and his story become known.
A decision is made to wipe out all of the operatives who, like Bourne and Cross, have been genetically altered into super-human agents. Cross survives and then, fearing that the physical and mental enhancements that turned him from a wounded simpleton to an ubermensch are temporary, makes his way to Maryland to track down the scientist (Rachel Weisz) who helped transform him. All the while, cold-blooded governmental operators (led by Edward Norton and Stacy Keach), are trying to eradicate him and all evidence of the program in which he participated.
The script makes absolutely no concessions to explanation, prologue or backstory. If you don’t know exactly what’s going on at the start, you might never find out. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. Just bear in mind that many, many bad guys -- some of them in elective office -- are out to kill off the one good guy, and you’ve got your bearings. And after that, hold on for a heck of a ride. The action sequences in Alaska, in a large house in Maryland, and in the streets and alleys of Manila are tremendous white-knuckle thrill rides.
Renner conveys human pathos beneath the potentially robotic veneer of the enhanced Cross, much as Damon infused Bourne with confusion and fear. Especially compelling is a sequence in which, before his treatment, he’s a maimed dope agreeing to dangerous experimental treatment. Weisz and Norton are sharp-minded and steely-willed on different sides of the chase, and there are appearances by a number of performers (including “Bourne” veterans Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, and Albert Finney) who enrich the milieu and give weight to even the smallest moments.
There’s real fire in “Legacy,” but there’s human frailty and desperation, too, which is something that the Bond films have never had. It doesn’t exactly offer lightness, and it can be exhausting to keep up with. But there is no doubt that the “Bourne” series is in good hands or that the handoff from Jason Bourne to Aaron Cross has been successfully achieved. The result is a newly revived spy movie franchise -- and the best big-budget action film of the summer.
(126 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B-plus
A crude comedy takes aim at the fallen state of American politics with scattershot results.
Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell in "The Campaign"Will Ferrell stars as Cam Brady, a smarmy Republican congressman whose professed values contrast starkly with his actual professional and personal lives. He’s running unopposed for a fifth term, but when a sex scandal hits, his financial backers, the billionaire Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow), decide to stake a darkhorse candidate against him. They recruit Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), a well-meaning weirdo who sees the campaign as a chance to do good for his hometown. Little does he know, though, that the Motch brothers have darker plans.
The Motches, of course, are meant to be the Koch brothers, who have financially backed the Tea Party and a variety of super PACs. But this film barely lays a finger on them; Aykroyd and Lithgow are cardboard villains with less life in them than, oh, Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy in “Trading Places” (in which Aykroyd played, more or less, the Cam Brady character).
Similarly, the various attack ads and faux pas that the two candidates engage are occasionally hilarious (Ferrell and Galifianakis haven’t so resembled actual living humans in a screen comedy in years, which helps). But wrapping the whole thing in a sentimental ending turns it into a fraud. “The Campaign” might have been truly -- and appropriately -- scabrous in other hands; those of the “South Park” guys or Mike Judge, say. But director Jay Roach and writers Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy play it safe and down the middle. No actual political contributors or candidates need fear harm.
(A final sidenote: a truly despicable thing occurs throughout the film, namely the repeated use of CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer appearing as himself and reporting on the events of the script as if they were real. He’s joined by others -- Chris Matthews and the “Morning Joe” gang from MSNBC, most often. But Blitzer is supposed to be a serious journalist, not an opinion-monger. He has no place in something like this -- or, more to the point, on the air afterwards as a trustworthy disseminator of facts.)
(90 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: B-minus
New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.
View full sizefrom "Fat, Bald, Short Man"“An Evening with Leif Peterson” The Portland experimental filmmaker shares two new works which restage Bible stories in varied historical settings. (Northwest Film Center, Sunday only)
“Excalibur” John Boorman’s terrific Arthurian adventure film, with, among others, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson. (Laurelhurst Theater)
“Fat, Bald, Short Man” Feature-length animated film from Columbia about the life and times of a beleaguered office worker. (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday only)
“The Finger” Black comedy about the coming of democratic reform to provincial Argentina. (Northwest Film Center, Tuesday only)
“48 Hour Film Project” Two nights of screenings featuring films made during the annual hurry-up-and-shoot filmmaking contest. (Hollywood Theatre, Wednesday and Thursday only)
“Homegrown DocFest” A night of locally made nonfiction films sponsored by the folks at NW Documentary. (Mission Theater, Friday only)
“Strange Days” Kathryn Bigelow’s creepy depiction of the perils of interconnectivity still resonates long after Y2K has passed. (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)
Gathering of the Gods IX: John Huston, Pele and Michael Caine on-set of Victory (1981) (via FYeahDirectors)
Shawn Levy's books include the best-sellers The Castle on Sunset, Rat Pack Confidential, Paul Newman: A Life, King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, and Dolce Vita Confidential.
He also wrote and narrated the podcast Glitter & Might. The former film critic of The Oregonian and KGW-TV, he has written for Sight and Sound, Film Comment, American Film, Interview, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Black Rock Beacon. He jumps and claps and sings for victory in Portland, Oregon.
