
Sammy Dizzy Jr. (source: Vintage Everyday)
A suburban theater takes on a keep-Portland-weird vibe.
The Joy Theater in Tigard is one of those theaters you're surprised to still see functioning in the age of the multiplex. A stand-alone, single-screen theater located on a busy stretch of SW Pacific Highway, it has functioned mainly as a second- or even third-run theater during the past few decades, and most recently it was the sole theater in the Portland metropolitan area fully dedicated to showing Bollywood films. The out-of-town management which was running the theater under that policy recently shuttered it, and it's been dark for at least a few months.MB cheats: Brando reads cue cards off the chest of Robert Duvall on the set of “The Godfather” (via SalesOnFilm) (Note: he used this trick rather than memorize lines, he said, to create ‘spontaneity’ in his performances)
Considering the career paths of a director reaching maturity and another in the autumn of his professional days.
In some sense, an artist can be said truly to have found a voice when one of his or her works is recognizable from a few characteristic touches.Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.
Not very much new stuff in the hopper this weekend. We have reviews of the '80s metal love story "Rock of Ages," the invention-of-the-vibrator comedy "Hysteria" and a program of New Czech Cinema at the Northwest Film Center. Add to that the usual stuff -- "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five" -- and that's all she wrote.New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E
“The Bus” Documentary about that great icon of the American road, the Volkwagen Bus. (Hollywood Theatre)The five movies playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.
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) "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. Fox Tower
5) "Monsieur Lazhar" This delicate, sweet and, surprisingly, harrowing little drama was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, and it's a mark of its quality that it's a very good film despite that sometimes dubious distinction. Mohamed Fellag stars as the title character, a secretive and formal man who arrives at a Montreal school out of the blue and volunteers to take the place of a teacher who has left under horrid circumstances. Gradually his compassion and wisdom come to heal wounds, just as his own personal pains are revealed. Writer-director Philippe Falardeau dances around the clichés inherent in the scenario as if they didn't exist, eliciting wonderful performances from his cast (especially the kids) and real emotions from the audience. Cinema 21
A survey of recent films from the Czech Republic includes a movie directed by Vaclav Havel.
Nowadays, particularly in Portland, the Czech cinema is arguably best known as a font of wild animation. But there’s a long and fecund history of live-action works from Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, from Jirí Menzel and Milos Forman through Jan Hřebejk and Jan Sverák, a tradition which is still alive today.“How do you like them apples….?”
The actor has his own way of finding a part: you gotta give him that.
A hot director and two hot actors rip apart and reassemble a classic.
One of the coolest theatrical events of 2011 was a London adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" in which director Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting," "Slumdog Millionaire," "127 Hours") had his two stars -- Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller -- switch roles for alternating performances: one night one of them would play Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the other would play the Monster, and the next night visa versa.“What I wouldn’t give for a large sock of horse manure….”
International posters for Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952)
Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters
New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E
“Derrida” Documentary about Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher and founder, if that’s possible, of the post-structuralist concept of deconstruction. (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)The skater known as Juvie Hall plans to visit nine countries for a film about her sport.
Roller derby competitors can put on a lot of miles on their skates without ever actually going anywhere. But one of the big wheels on a Portland roller derby team is getting ready to let her sport take her around the world.
In the coming year, Portlander Diana Federoff, who skates under the nom de track Juvie Hall, will travel to Mexico and eight other countries to compete in roller derby matches and make a documentary about the culture of the sport and its role in empowering women everywhere.
"Flat Track Around the World," as the film is known, is the brainchild of Federoff and a pair of Portland moviemakers, Cynthia Lopez and Alison Grayson. The intent of the film, as Federoff puts it, is to "ask how roller derby changes with the cultural and economic conditions of various countries and what drives people to roller derby in these different places."
The "Flat Track" crew will start production in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Tijuana in late June, then embark on a global journey in 2013: Australia, Singapore, Israel, Russia, France, Norway, Brazil and Peru. "There are 40 countries around the world with leagues," Federoff explains, and these destinations were chosen "to show the spectrum of how derby exists around the world."
Federoff, a writer and attorney with degrees from three universities, reckons that her experience with roller derby is typical. "I went as a spectator," she recalls, "and I said to myself, 'I have to do this.' I hadn't skated in maybe 20 years, since I was a kid, and I really hadn't ever played a team sport."
For the past three years, under her alter-ego Juvie Hall, Federoff has been a regular among the raucous, rolling throngs of skaters in Rose City Rollers matches. This season, she captained her team, Guns n Rollers, to the league semi-finals ("My legal skills have come in handy in arguing with the refs," she admits).
Federoff says that the camaraderie that she has enjoyed in the Portland roller derby community has been echoed in her experience of contacting skaters around the world to find subjects and settings for "Flat Track."
"We didn't have to do a lot of reaching out," she says. "In fact, they've been reaching out to us. We've had offers of places to stay and guides to various sights. The community is tight-knit and strong and inclusive."
Like so many independent film projects these days, "Flat Track" raised its initial budget of $9400 on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. That sum -- more than they had originally sought -- will allow the filmmakers to use their three-city visit to Mexico as a kind of proof-of-concept trip, helping them shape the themes of the larger film and giving them footage that they can share with donors, sponsors and investors from whom they'll seek money for the longer voyage and the feature-length film.
To find out more about the project or follow blog updates from Federoff and her crew as they travel to Mexico and beyond, visit its web site.
The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.
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) "The Triplets of Belleville" Before he made the utterly charming "The Illusionist," animator Sylvain Chomet made this utterly charming film about gangsters, music, bicycle racing, kidnapping, a sad-eyed boy, a fat dog, and a heroic grandmother. In some ways it's impossibly French, with the hot jazz and the Tour de France and the noirish touches. But the sheer imagination of the thing, the execution, the relentless eccentricity, and the infectious (and Oscar-nominated) music make it, I think, universally accessible. It was no surprise to see Chomet go on to adapt a Jacques Tati script in his subsequent film: this one, with all its quirks and its purely cinematic heart and soul, would have delighted the comic master. Northwest Film Center, Friday through Sunday only
4) "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. Fox Tower
The tale of 12-year-old sweethearts on the run is delightfully light and filled with the director's iconoclasm and quirks.
“Moonrise Kingdom” is Wes Anderson’s seventh feature film, and in some ways it’s typical of all of them, with tropes and tics and themes and actors familiar from the likes of “Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” and the rest. (Indeed, so strong is Anderson’s artistic stamp that it even permeated 2009’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” a stop-motion animated movie based on a Roald Dahl novel.)© 2025 Shawn Levy Dot Com
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