American Made
See review this issue.

★ B-Movie Bingo: Army of Darkness
Your monthly opportunity to literally check off a bingo card full of B-movie clichĂ©s! This month features Sam Raimi’s classic Army of Darkness, which—a quarter-century after it was made, and after a gritty Evil Dead remake and two gory, goofy seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead—remains some of the most fun you can have watching a moron fight zombies.

★ Battle of the Sexes
See review this issue.

★ Gerald's Game
See review this issue.

The Illinois Parables
Deborah Stratman’s “11-part historical compendium, comprised of discrete stories of power, struggle, landscape, technology, and ideology.” Director in attendance.

Kid Flicks: Heidi
The NW Film Center’s series of films ostensibly made for children continues with Heidi.

★ Killer of Sheep
Charles Burnett’s gritty 1977 portrait of a Watts ghetto, has a lot to live up to—namely, its own hype. Burnett made Killer of Sheep as a UCLA film student for $10,000, using friends and neighbors as actors and shooting on weekends for over a year. The resulting film has been heralded by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time, and was called “one of the most striking debuts in movie history” by GQ. Not only does Killer of Sheep live up to its own mythology, it transcends it as a fascinating, melancholy, and entertaining work of art and social realism. CHAS BOWIE

★ Magic Mike XXL
Do we need to see this same cast of beefheads grind on each other some more? Does anyone need more of this? Answers: Yes and OMG YES. FUCK YES. SO MUCH. ELINOR JONES

Manhattan Short Film Festival
“Ten short films selected from 589 entries from 27 countries will screen in over 250 cinemas across six continents during the week of Sept 26-Oct 5.” Huh. That’s a lot of numbers.

★ Misery
Stephen King stuff seems to be everywhere these days, what with It breaking records and Gerald’s Game on Netflix and The Dark Tow—okay, probably best to not mention The Dark Tower. Anyway, Misery is one of the few decent King movie adaptations! Kathy Bates is scary.

Mother!
Darren Aronofsky’s latest is the kind of movie that’ll have some declaring it a work of genius and others decrying it as a piece of garbage. (I’m guessing zero people will land in the middle; nobody’s leaving Mother! with a shrug.) And good luck trying to classify it: Is it an arthouse horror movie? A thriller? A twisted romance? Sure, Mother! could be a trippy take on a disintegrating marriage, or it could serve as a Biblical allegory for the creative process. Is it a far-reaching indictment of America’s lifestyle consumerism, or just a movie about how far Aronofsky has his head up his ass? Is it brilliant? Is it terrible? Is it both? It’s Mother! ERIK HENRIKSEN

Pearl Jam: Let’s Play Two
A documentary chronicling “Pearl Jam’s legendary performances at Wrigley Field during the Chicago Cubs’ historic 2016 season.” So just in case you were wondering: Pearl Jam! They’re still around!

★ Portland EcoFilm Festival
See Film, this issue.

Portland Queer Film Festival
Decades ago, a fledgling showcase for queer film known as the Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival got its humble start. Now known as the Portland Queer Film Festival, it returns to Cinema 21 with documentaries, features, and more. This year’s films were not screened for press; see more at pdxqueerfilm.com.

Radio Dreams
Hamid (Mohsin Namjoo), the program director of a Farsi-language radio station in the Bay Area, spends a day trying to stage an on-air jam session that will bring together the Afghan rock band Kabul Dreams and Metallica. What could be the foundation for some fun culture clashing or manic comedy is instead given the tone of a Tarkovsky film, all long takes and slow conversations. ROBERT HAM

Serial Mom
John Waters’ 1994 comedy starring Kathleen Turner and Ricki Lake. Huh! Ricki Lake!

Sonic Cinema: Black Sabbath—The End of the World
The Hollywood’s music film series screens a doc about Black Sabbath’s final tour.

Super Dark Times
See review this issue.

Victoria and Abdul
At certain moments, Victoria and Abdul works as a comedy about pomp and royal absurdity, and as an excuse to watch the always enthralling Dame Judi Dench. Dench (once again) portrays Queen Victoria as a straight-talking widow who befriends a handsome man (Ali Fazal) that her prejudiced staff look down upon. But the comedy is heavy-handed, and gets pushed aside so the filmmakers can spend time playing up Victoria’s “heroism” and vulnerability, rejecting the engaging, complicated truth in favor of clumsy sentimentality. JULIA RABAN

★ Voices in Action: Human Rights on Film: Delores
The NW Film Center’s human rights film series screens Delores, which examines the legacy of civil rights activist Dolores Huerta—a legacy that’s become so convoluted that when Barack Obama adopted Huerta’s slogan of “Yes, we can” (“Si, se puede” in Spanish) for his 2008 presidential campaign, he erroneously credited CĂ©sar ChĂĄvez for coining the phrase. Although Chavez and Huerta jointly cofounded the United Farm Workers union (UFW), ChĂĄvez was quickly emblazoned as a symbol for the labor rights movement while Huerta’s contributions fell through the cracks. Peter Bratt’s moving documentary seeks to put an end to that, tracing Huerta’s most monumental hurdles with commentary from Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem, and the 87-year-old Huerta herself. Director in attendance for evening shows on Fri Sept 29 and Sat Sept 30. EMILLY PRADO

Woodshock
See review this issue.


recommended MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. Theater locations are accurate Friday, Sept 29-Thursday, Oct 5, unless otherwise noted. Movie times are updated daily and are available here.