Film, Portland Mercury

Film Shorts

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

This week: The Source Family: a cult! The Iceman: a murderer! Cartoons: some cartoons!

QDOC: PORTLAND QUEER DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
Festival runs from Thurs May 16-Sun May 19 at the Kennedy School and Bagdad Theater. For more info, see Film, this issue. Not all films were reviewed; for a complete festival lineup and showtimes, see queerdocfest.org.

BAYOU MAHARAJAH
Should you spend 90 minutes watching a documentary about musician James Booker, a man who called himself "The Black Liberace"—a charming, black, gay, one-eyed, drug-addicted, self-destructive, alcoholic, paranoid schizophrenic who was insane on the keys and worked with some of the most famous jazz, blues and R&B artists of the 20th century but never made it as big as he should have because his personal demons were too great? Yes. Fuck yes. ELINOR JONES

I AM DIVINE
A documentary that celebrates the life and career of Divine should be fun—and for the most part, I Am Divine is a laugh-out-loud blast, thanks in no small part to interviews with the enchanting John Waters. The blingy doc follows Harris Glenn Milstead's rise from wig-curious Baltimore shy guy to Waters' muse to being crowned the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. It's breezy, informative, and full of genuine love for the actor who died in 1988 of a heart attack. COURTNEY FERGUSON

I AM A WOMAN NOW
This absolutely essential documentary introduces five elderly transsexual women, all of whom were patients of one Casablanca doctor who performed sex-change operations as early as the 1950s. Nostalgic, inspiring, and compelling, I Am a Woman Now respectfully catalogues the triumphs and challenges faced by these women over the years, from archival footage of glamorous Parisian cabarets to present-day German knitting conventions. ALISON HALLETT

INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR
James Franco and Co. recreate the deleted 40 minute S&M scene from William Friedkin's infamous 1980 film Cruising, with a straight, married friend of the celebrity uncomfortably assuming the Pacino role. (The scenes where the cast talk about how brave Franco is, as they put on leather codpieces and prepare to get paddled, are a hoot.) The idea of reinterpreting a once-reviled film as a positive gay landmark is intriguing, but the emphasis on Franco goading on his star from the sidelines makes this seem more like an elaborate edition of Punk'd, albeit one with occasional flashes of hardcore sex. ANDREW WRIGHT

MR. ANGEL
See Film, this issue.

FILM SHORTS
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Errol Flynn's Kevin Costner impersonation is... okay. Laurelhurst Theater.

At Any Price
Someone, someday is going to effectively dramatize the struggle of family farmers in the U.S., but it wasn't Gus Van Sant with Promised Land, and it sure as hell isn't Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo) in the tedious, morally slipshod At Any Price. Zac Efron is a hotshot teenager who wants to be a racecar driver, Dennis Quaid is his sleazy farmer dad, and Heather Graham prances around in cutoffs trying to have sex with everything; plot points about agribusiness jostle uncomfortably with murder, infidelity, and betrayal. It's all very self-serious, and—except for when Efron is flexing in a wifebeater—all very uninteresting. ALISON HALLETT Fox Tower 10.

Black Rock
Oh good lord, there's a term for when mumblecore meets horror... "mumblegore." Black Rock is that. Written by mumblecorps general Mark Duplass and directed by his wife Katie Aselton, the boilerplate horror-thriller pits three bickering girlfriends (Eselton, Kate Bosworth, Lake Bell) against shotgun-wielding poachers on a remote island. Think Deliverance with lots of purdy mouths squealing lots of bland mumbles. COURTNEY FERGUSON Living Room Theaters.

City Baby
See review this issue. Cinema 21.

Diabolique
The Sharon Stone remake of 1955's Les Diaboliques. Hey, remember the '90s? When Sharon Stone was in all those movies? Weird! Whitsell Auditorium.

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby is about how the belief that wealth can buy happiness is corrosive (to paraphrase an essay I got an A on in ninth grade). Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby is about how rich people throw the best parties! And while they undeniably do, to give in to the spectacle is to miss the point. ALISON HALLETT Various Theaters

The Iceman
Michael Shannon, with his unparalleled track record of convincingly playing freaks and psychos, is a perfect choice to play Richard Kuklinski, the real-life mafia hit man who murdered over a hundred people. Unfortunately, Shannon's supporting cast—Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta—leave him adrift, with only Chris Evans playing on Shannon's level, in the guise of an even-more-twisted killer. One wonders what could have happened if The Iceman had started with a decent script, rather than the leaden cliché-fest that director and co-writer Ariel Vromen saddled his production with. PAUL CONSTANT Fox Tower 10.

Midnight's Children
Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel. Fox Tower 10.

Mud
The latest from writer/director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) is a sad, sweet story about growing up and discovering that adults don't hold all the answers. If that sounds like a cliché, Mud offers a worthwhile variation that contains real feeling. NED LANNAMANN Century Clackamas Town Center, City Center 12, Fox Tower 10, Hollywood Theatre.

NW Animation Festival
Animated short festivals are a dicey proposition in this day and age, given that you can find all or most of the material on YouTube. On top of that, you'll usually have to sit through an hour of conceptual scribbles that some film board has convinced itself is high art. Thankfully, that isn't the case for the annual NW Animation Festival, where the majority of selections are solidly entertaining cartoons you should be supporting with your money. The standout submission, "The Eagleman Stag," packs more personality and deep thinking in a nine-minute short than most full length features you'll see this summer; "Otzi," by Cartoon Brew, will delight anyone with an appreciation for the morbid side of Adventure Time; and "Fresh Guacamole" is remarkably straightforward while cunningly employing every animation trick in the book. Bottom line: you'll see something new, and you'll probably like it. More info: nwanimationfest.com. BEN COLEMAN Hollywood Theatre.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mira Nair's third masterpiece—her first is, of course, Salaam Bombay!, and the second is Mississippi Masala—succeeds as a political thriller (big themes, big images, big Hollywood sound), a work of global cinema (it connects several stories in very different and distant societies—USA, Turkey, Philippines, and Pakistan), and as a criticism of the dominant economic form for the past 30 years (market fundamentalism). The film concerns a young, bright, and ambitious Pakistani man, Changez (Riz Ahmed), who, after obtaining a business degree from Princeton, enters a position in a Wall Street firm that makes its money in much the same way that Romney's Bain does (stripping vulnerable companies of their value). Changez is on top of the world until two planes bring down the Twin Towers. Suddenly the society he loves is transformed into a society that hates him, his color, his culture, his religion. Changez returns to Pakistan a bitter and broken man but eventually becomes a popular anti-American professor at a university in Lahore. His lectures are fiery, his followers dedicated, and his commitment to Islamist politics is absolute. But that is not the end of the story. There is an important surprise near the end of Nair's third masterpiece. CHARLES MUDEDE Living Room Theaters.

Repressed Cinema
A monthly series at the Hollywood Theatre, "showing vintage and contemporary films that are obscure, neglected, and from the fringe." This month: 1962's Fallguy. Hollywood Theatre.

Return to Noir Ville
As the 20th century recedes, film noir seems more an attitude than an actual genre. The phrase itself—which wasn't coined until after the fact, by French critics—refers to gritty, bleak American thrillers from the '40s and '50s, almost always shot in black and white. There's usually a murder and a femme fatale to accompany it; trench coats, fedoras, and plumes of cigarette smoke are de rigueur. But watching the 11 selections in this year's edition of Cinema 21's noir series, the commonality doesn't have so much to do with murders, or dames, or nicotine. These films are all about love—more specifically, about passion and obsession, about some poor johnny getting dizzy over a skirt. Also see "Blackjacks and Wise Cracks," Mercury, May 8. NED LANNAMANN Cinema 21.

Something in the Air
With Something in the Air, Olivier Assayas, the director of Carlos, Irma Vep, and Boarding Gate, revisits the twilight of the global social revolution that had the center of its spirit in the year 1968. The revolutionaries are French, urban, young, beautiful, dedicated, and intelligent. During the day, they listen to lectures about Pascal and Marx, and at night, they destroy private property with their anarchy signs, propaganda posters, and bombs. We know how all of this enthusiasm and revolutionary energy will end, we know that this rebellion is more youthful than political, but the film's direction, art direction, wardrobe, cinematography, and performances never lose your interest for one moment. CHARLES MUDEDE Living Room Theaters.

The Source Family
The Source Family was a cult that spun out from a wildly successful LA health-food restaurant in the early '70s, and a film examining the commune and their charismatic leader, Father Yod, AKA Jim Baker—a war veteran, movie stuntman, and criminal who killed multiple men with his bare hands—would seem to promise something weird and grimly fascinating. Celebrating polyamory, sex magic, and the "sacrament" of marijuana, Baker eventually amassed 13 wives (many of them underage), a flock of brainwashed, white-robed followers, and his own psychedelic rock band called Ya Ho Wha 13. Things of course did not go so well for the Source Family, and Baker died in a hang-gliding accident in 1975 (best celebrity death ever). The slow-moving The Source Family was made with the full participation of the former cult members, and while it stops short of deifying the immensely sleazy Baker, the documentary still pulls its punches—and not without reason, as most of the cult's survivors seem truly damaged by their pasts. Still, it fails to offer any outside perspective of the goings-on within the cult, or any real analysis or criticism of Baker's methods; as such, we're left to guess at the psychology of what actually went on. NED LANNAMANN Hollywood Theatre.

Star Trek Into Darkness
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

The Thief of Bagdad
Douglas Fairbanks' 1924 silent fantasy classic is a dreamlike spin on tales from the Arabian Nights with Fairbanks is at his rascally, athletic best. While this beautiful, long film isn't as iconic as the groundbreaking 1940 remake, it has every right to be. NED LANNAMANN Whitsell Auditorium.

To the Wonder
Terrence Malick's latest is a lot less confounding than The Tree of Life (there aren't any dinosaurs in it, for better or worse), in large part because rather than tackling the entirety of existence, it focuses on something ostensibly smaller: relationships. In particular, one between Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben Affleck). Because it's Malick, everything looks stunning, though it never loses its Ansel Adams-like layer of precision and distance. It sounds great, too: Only a few lines of dialogue are spoken (Affleck gets about two lines), though much is said, via subtitled voiceover. But while the impressionistic To the Wonder is remarkable to see and hear, it's also both intimate and remote—an odd sensation that keeps the film's characters just past arm's length. ERIK HENRIKSEN Laurelhurst Theater.

Tristana
Luis Buñuel's 1970 satire skewers sexual mores and masculine ego, as Catherine Deneuve's young orphan pinballs between a wealthy guardian (Fernando Rey) and a handsome artist (Franco Nero). Buñuel's own obsessions are, as ever, at the forefront and he's wonderfully playful with the material, even if the film seems deliberately stripped of emotion. NED LANNAMANN Whitsell Auditorium.

Twilight Zone! Twilight Zone! Twilight Zone!
A bunch of classic Twilight Zone episodes? Okay! Hollywood Theatre.

Upstream Color
Like his first film, Primer, Shane Carruth's sci-fi/body horror/romance Upstream Color can come off as clammy and occasionally baffling. Movies that make you work for it can be a tough draw, of course, and Carruth's melding of Kubrickian control and Malick's expansiveness will likely have some begging off early. Those on the film's wavelength, however, may well find themselves floored by the nearly wordless final act, where all of the seemingly disparate elements are drawn together with a beauty and power that's a little freaky to behold. ANDREW WRIGHT Laurelhurst Theater.

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Prime Directive Achieved!

Denis C. Theriault — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Finally, an American reviews Star Trek into Darkness. by Denis C. Theriault

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Paramount Pictures did not allow Portland critics to see Star Trek into Darkness until after the Mercury's deadline. So! We had an English gentleman review it. He did not care for it. Now that it's screened here, however, we felt a moral imperative to offer an American perspective.]

EVERY GENERATION, it's long been said (actually, I don't think that's true; I'm pretty sure I'm making this up), inherits the incarnation of Star Trek it most deserves.

The original TV series, immaculately conceived in a campy manger nearly 50 years ago, arrived dripping with American optimism and ham-fisted Cold War and racial allegory. And then fans watched their beloved icons burn out like the rest of the 1960s before bursting back onto the silver screen in the dark, harsh Reagan years.

The characters were tired, jaded, and fatter, just like every other post-Vietnam culture warrior. They battled an old villain, fought for the soul of an old friend, saved the fucking whales, and faced their fear of a changing, demilitarizing world. Then they were replaced.

Which is a long way of ponderously getting to the movie I'm supposed to be talking about, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams, just like he did when he rebooted Star Trek in 2009—in the process, making the franchise's first honest-to-Roddenberry mainstream hit—has brought us precisely the Star Trek movie we deserve. And, purely as a bonus, it's among the best entries the franchise has ever produced—maybe even better than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the vaunted 1982 movie it's clearly designed to parallel (and not always for the best).

The film delivers on the title's implied promise of Darkness, but thankfully without the grim, severe wash of the Dark Knight franchise, where bleakness infects everything we see. Earth in Trek's 23rd century—and here, we see more of it than ever before—is a wondrous place of gleaming glass towers done up in Apple Store white.

Darkness here lurks mostly inside the hearts and minds of Starfleet officers grappling with the same moral ambiguities afflicting our own post-terror 21st century. The plot is set in motion by the brazen atrocities of an inside agent known—at least when we're introduced to him—as John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Then comes the hunt, by James T. Kirk (Christopher Pine), to bring Harrison to justice.

That search, and its resulting complications and conspiracies, drop several potent questions: What corners should we cut to protect ourselves? What horrors should we awaken? Are we no better than the monsters we attempt to prosecute?

It's a risky shift for a franchise built around a sense of wonder and the veneration of the human spirit. It could have been crippling. Or just boring. But for all the gloom at its heart, Star Trek Into Darkness is a harmony joyride. And it's brilliantly funny—funnier than the franchise's actual stab at comedy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof nail pitch-perfect renderings of well-known characters, and then a group of actors who are proving increasingly comfortable in those roles make them their own.

Pine's Kirk, unleashed in bedrooms and bars and everywhere else he goes, is the tempestuous, rakish flirt everyone only thought William Shatner was. Karl Urban's McCoy finally, gloriously lets fly with a full complement of curmudgeonly one-liners. And Simon Pegg, as a frantic, flapping Scotty, may be the very best thing about this entire movie (he wrote, while pouring out a glass of Seagram's for Jimmy Doohan).

That isn't to say this movie is perfect. Far from it. In some ways, despite all its winks and nods and Easter eggs, it was unfortunate Abrams decided this second movie, just like the original crew's, had to revolve around the same villain. Fuck an alternate universe with unlimited possibilities!

That said, Cumberbatch is a revelation, both sympathetic and vicious—his steely blue eyes doing more in seconds than Ricardo Montalban's cleavage managed in an entire movie. That's wonderful, but sustaining the ribbon between new and old becomes tedious by the end of the movie. Familiar scenes are twisted, though maybe pointlessly? There's a tribble? And there's a long-distance space call to poor Leonard Nimoy, who, wearily, essentially just tells our new crew what happened in Wrath of Khan. The result is a climax—weirdly telegraphed in the film's trailers—that's "ACTION PACKED," but a bit distracting and disjointed.

But even all that is a quibble. And maybe that's the point. As a Trekkie, I'm tainted by what I already know—for good or for ill. You might not be. You'll like it because it's a pretty good movie. I like it because it's a really good Star Trek movie.

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Bucking Labels

Vince Mancini — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Buck Angels headlines this year's Portland Queer Documentary Film Fest. by Vince Mancini

TO SAY BUCK ANGEL, subject of Dan Hunt's new documentary Mr. Angel, is "just a regular dude" is both 100 percent true and demonstrably false, which is part of his allure. As seen in Mr. Angel—one of the highlights of this year's QDoc: Portland's Queer Documentary Film Festival—Buck is a muscular guy with facial hair and tattoos, as well as female genitalia that he's not shy about being photographed with. "I love my vagina, don't you love your vagina?" he famously asked Tyra Banks on an appearance on her show depicted in Mr. Angel. ("I dunno, it's aiiight, I guess" was her response.)

It's hard to say whether it's more compelling that Angel's gone from tomboyish child to drug-addled fashion model to transgender porn star to public speaker, or that he's done all those things AND still feels so casual to be around. He doesn't evoke any of his labels—porn star, man with a pussy, transgender activist; he feels like "one of the guys," for lack of a better phrase, and in so doing, makes you reexamine your preconceived notions of those labels. In person and onscreen, he puts people at ease. It's easy to see why people look at him as an oddity, but just by being who he is, he tends to diffuse people's fear of "oddity." And it should probably go without saying, but holy shit is that an important thing.

"When I get asked to do appearances or be on shows like Tyra, I'm not that worried about being sensationalized," Angel tells me. "I am gonna be sensationalized, or an oddity. I am. But for myself, I know I'm going to go on there and flip it. Because I'm really good at doing that. I know who I am, I know what I'm doing, and that changes the way people think about me. Because what does that mean, to be an oddity? They don't even know what that means anymore."

One thing Buck seems to understand is that at the heart of any kind of understanding or acceptance is empathy, and empathy is a two-way street. He doesn't come at you screaming, "Here I am, this is normal!" Not that you can blame anyone for doing that, but Buck has learned to be more clever. He simply presents himself as he is, and, because he's so charismatic, 90 percent of the time people come away thinking, "You know what? That guy seemed pretty normal." He tricks people into thinking it was their idea. Which works just as well in real life as it did in Bugs Bunny cartoons, though it's a little harder to achieve.

These days, it can feel like the path to acceptance is paved with dense acronyms coined the week before, and trying to memorize the myriad different types of gender identity and sexuality—genderqueer, transgender, cisgender, heteronormative, blah blah blah.

"We're programmed to do that. Everything needs a label. What is your sexuality? What is your gender? And even the LGBTQ... I... A.... They keep adding labels!" Angel says. "And no disrespect to that community, but... they're messing it up. Forget the labels. People hear that stuff and... it's not real. I think when people see me, and I get to talk to these kids, I get to explain to them, what does make a man and a woman? I get to deprogram them."

What comes through from talking to Buck, and from watching Mr. Angel (two things that often go hand in hand these days, with Angel speaking to film festival audiences as often as he can, including this Saturday in Portland), is that a more open society isn't necessarily achieved by creating the most inclusive pronouns, or successively traversing the minefield of potential offense when you talk about sexuality and gender. It's about respecting individuals. And the best way to do that is just to meet them.

"I just think by being who you are and not worrying what people think, that helps the world to open up,” he says. “It's a hard thing for people to understand that they can be themselves."

For more on QDoc, see Film Shorts, My, What a Busy Week!, and queerdocfest.org.

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Eat the Elephant

Matt Stangel — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Cutting up this year's Experimental Film Festival Portland. by Matt Stangel

EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL PORTLAND—EFFPortland—is entering its second year with over 100 films and videos, along with an entire week of screenings, lectures, workshops, installations, performances, parties, and exhibitions.

Festival co-directors Hannah Piper Burns and Ben Popp say that if you're going to eat an elephant, you've gotta do it piece by piece. EFFPortland is that elephant, and you want to eat it, but there's just so much: Even before the official opening screening on Wednesday, May 22, pre-fest events like the Seattle Experimental Animation Team's "Bloodbath and Beyond" (Mon May 20, Valentine's, 232 SW Ankeny, 8 pm) show how large a young festival can become in a creative ecosystem that's hungry for experimental media.

So, like I said, we're dealing with an elephant. Here's how your meat cuts up:

BOOBS: There will be boobs! And peeners and stuff! At "Volatile (The NSFW Screening)" in particular (Fri May 24, Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th, 10:30 pm).

CREEPERS: Where there are boobs, there are creepers. In Stefan Nadelman's Wild Bichons, which screens as part of "Covalent Bonds (The Local Screening)" (Fri May 24, Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, 8 pm), the makeup alone was enough to creep me out in an "Aphex Twin channeling Heath Ledger's Joker channeling a vaudeville drifter" sort of way. And then there's the fact the protagonist is gleefully devoured by a pack of cute little white dogs.

FUN SMART-PEOPLE SHIT: A wide range of people call themselves experimental filmmakers. Like the guy who films firecrackers exploding in bananas, which is good times until he tells you it's about banana farms in such-and-such terrible place and yada yada yada. That is bummer smart-people shit. At EFFPortland, expect fun smart-people shit. Like Kiel Fletcher's 1984 (screening as part of "Covalent Bonds," Fri May 24, Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, 8 pm), featuring a Mountain Dew-addled voiceover summary of the George Orwell classic—coupled with a hilarious associative clip show that mis-illustrates the book while functioning as literary criticism.

STUFF THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE TRIPPING: I've never felt like I was tripping while not actually tripping so much as when I watched the screener for the Karl Lind-curated "The B Side" (Sun May 26, Clinton Street Theater, 3 pm). It's a program of shorts, but it lulls you in with the commercial side of experimental film—music videos and pretty stop-motion animation—before launching into head-fuck territory. Like Shalo P's The Heart, which is like tapping into hell's shared wifi connection: a video collage of kung fu movies and art films, broken videogame environments, and swirling masses of tortured souls make the bed for chaos and transcendence. Peter Burr's Alone with the Moon is a hypnotic black-and-white pointillist animation of the op-art variety, while Shana Moulton's A Unique Boutique features a catwalk of disembodied clothing and a series of goofy, pseudo-mystical find-yourself sequences.

FOR THE CHILDREN (AND YOUR INEVITABLE HANGOVER): If you don't want to give your children hallucinations, there's a screening for that! "Nucleon" (Sat May 25, Studio Two, 810 SE Belmont, 1 pm) is a kid-safe program designed to appeal to adult chaperones. The program centers around the awe inspiring and the inquisitive: Wladymir Lima's Borboletas Delicadas (Delicate Butterflies) finds a narrative space between fairy tale and metaphysical conspiracy, explicating the magical voids thought to exist within the hollow bones of butterflies. "Nucleon" will be followed by a hangover-friendly program called "Viscosity" (3 pm), described by festival organizers as a bit more contemplative and dark than the rest of the fest, and you can stick around for the EFF alumni screening "Resonance Structure" and the best-of program, "Noble Gases" (7 pm).

JODIE MACK: Considering that Jodie Mack—known for her wildly imaginative stop-motion paper animations—is a featured fest contributor, it'd be a shame not to at least mention her film/live performance, "Dusty Stacks of Mom: The Poster Project," (Thurs May 23, Studio Two, 7 pm), a rock opera that re-imagines Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon to tell the story of Mack's mother's ailing poster business. (Mack will also lead a lecture and workshop at Portland State University on Thursday, May 23, at 10 am, if learning is your thing.)

For more info and a complete schedule, see effportland.com.

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Babe in the City

Alison Hallett — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

City Baby is a commercial for Portland—for better and worse. by Alison Hallett

AT THIS MOMENT in time, a movie made and set in Portland can't help but carry a banner. Thanks to bikes and novelty doughnuts and everything else, the cultural output of our city doubles as an ambassador for the Portland brand—a fact the new movie City Baby is palpably aware of.

The bands on the City Baby soundtrack are Portland bands; the beautiful young actors are Portland actors; the cityscapes and landmarks the prettiest onscreen representation of our city outside of Portlandia's opening credits. But City Baby unpacks the glossy, packaged-for-consumption version of Portland to find the actual people living inside, with impressive skill and insight.

Director David F. Morgan and co-writer/star Cora Benesh hair-split the white urban hipster demographic into a number of categories probably indistinguishable to anyone not already familiar with them: There's the pretty trust-fund girl, the kinda-douchey ad agency guy, the cranky service-industry employee who thinks she's destined for better things.

Protagonist Cloey (Benesh) is gorgeous and bored, an overgrown child who's never had to think much about what she wants to do with her life, thanks to the dual fortunes of being super hot and super rich. She dates a washed-up rock star (Andrew Harris) and indifferently explores her creativity by playing a gay teenager in a terrible local theater production. She's not stupid, she just doesn't really care about anything—and she doesn't have to. "The world opens its arms to a pretty girl," her father (Daniel Baldwin!) observes.

Cloey is a deeply realistic, deeply unlikeable character, and while her storyline feels true, it's tough to emotionally invest in her struggle to become slightly less self-absorbed. A subplot involving Cloey's best friend Paige (Jillian Leigh) is more satisfying: While Cloey traipses through the world encased in privilege, Paige comes to terms with actual adulthood and the compromises it entails.

City Baby might look like a commercial for Portland, but it turns a refreshingly critical eye on the city's most frequently exported stereotypes. There's real social commentary and insight here—and, yeah, the soundtrack is pretty good, too.

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Going, Not Quite Boldly

Matt Davis — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

A British gentleman reviews Star Trek into Darkness. by Matt Davis

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Paramount Pictures did not allow Portland critics to see Star Trek into Darkness until after the Mercury's deadline. However! Since the film has already opened overseas, we turned to our esteemed London correspondent, Mr. Matt Davis, for a review.]

IN AN EFFORT to satisfy the Mercury's desire for "a British review" of the new Star Trek film (Americans prefer to say "movie," I believe), I dressed up as a chimney sweep and saw it at a cinema ("movie theater") in Piccadilly Circus, near Buckingham Palace, opposite a theatre—an actual one, you understand, with the 'e' and the 'r' in the correct order, and featuring actors who went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. (Dame Helen Mirren is currently starring as the queen in a play about Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II). Everything you just read is true apart from the chimney-sweep outfit. I was, of course, wearing mostly Vivienne Westwood, and the Mercury paid £13.60 for my ticket, or $20.82 at today's rate. Oof.

It's appropriate that I went and saw the new Star Trek film in London dressed fantastically and that the ticket was expensive because (A) Star Trek into Darkness came out in Europe before the United States, and (B) a bit of the film is set in London, and (C) every scene drips with money, including the costumes. Hot single-pleated pants on Captain Kirk (played by the beefy and rambunctious Chris Pine), for example. The film cost $185 million to make, employing hundreds of people to do digital effects alone, and dozens of people to do the costumes. Lovely looking scenes follow on from each other and Michael Giacchino's score for the enormous 21st Century Symphony Orchestra sounds as crisp as the batter on my favourite fish and chips.

The film also stars my fellow countryman Benedict Cumberbatch as a genetically superior being, Khan. Which he clearly is—genetically superior, I mean, all straight backed and fresh faced and 6'2" from the rugby pitch at his private school.

Trouble with a Star Trek film—even one from the franchise as charmingly rebooted as this one—is that they're a bit like a groom's speech at a wedding. The audience is already warmed up, they want to like it, and all the groom has to do is walk it in, not say anything too offensive, and trot out a few formulaic lines. Everybody laughs, nobody remembers the details, and if pressed they'll trot out a platitude about the fellow, saying, "Well, he seemed awfully nice."

Case in point: In this film, a central question is whether Spock (Zachary Quinto, the actor playing him, is gay, you know... now that is interesting) might show emotion. God, at this point, half a century since the storyline was original, who cares? Ooh, there's some nice trumpet over this bit, though. And that lens flare on Uhura's (Zoe Saldana, phwor) lip gloss probably cost thousands in the post-production.

Likewise, the handsome Cumberbatch performs his part adequately. He'd make a good James Bond. Simon Pegg is nice and funny as Scotty. But it's blah. The whole thing is blah. No surprises. Why set a scene in London? I've no idea, apart from the fact that it prepared the audience for Cumberbatch's British villainy—and again, a British villain? Boldly going where everyone has been before.

I wish director J.J. Abrams had pushed things somewhere a bit more unpredictable. Maybe a Uhura Crying Game-style transsexual reveal? That would have been nice. I don't know. Go see it and be unsurprised. Of course, I never gave a speech at my own wedding, and I ended up with a divorce. And I hate life most of the time, ergo I hate Star Trek. But you'll probably like it fine.

[ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: Update! Now we have an American review too, from Denis C. Theriault. He liked it fine!]

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Good Grief, Gatsby

Alison Hallett — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrmann's Technicolor wank fest—now in 3D! by Alison Hallett

I DON'T KNOW if other readers of The Great Gatsby will relate to this, but I tend to almost forget that Gatsby is a novel of the roaring '20s, full of flappers and fast cars and gin-fueled debauchery. When I think about Fitzgerald's book, I think about that far-off green light at the end of the pier, representing all the things we think money can buy us, and about James Gatz's tireless, doomed quest to reinvent himself, and about how Daisy Buchanan is a total cooze.

So it was a surprise to see, at a recent screening of director Baz Luhrmann's new film adaptation, audience members dolled up in fringed, drop-waisted dresses, just like the shallow, thrill-seeking partiers who pack Gatsby's house night after night. That's a bit like dressing up as Jar Jar Binks for a Phantom Menace screening, no? Well, in this case, not really: In Luhrmann's hands, Gatsby is sheer spectacle, and these lavish, over-the-top parties are the centerpieces of a lavish, over-the-top film.

The film introduces a dopey framing device for Fitzgerald's classic story—Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is at a sanitarium in the Midwest, see, recovering from a case of "morbid alcoholism" he picked up back East (WebMD gives me that diagnosis all the time). As per morbid alcoholism's well-known "novelist cure," his doctor encourages him to write about his recent experiences in New York. And so in addition to Tobey Maguire's already-annoying voiceover—"this movie needs more of Tobey Maguire's resonant baritone," said no one ever—we're treated to 3D lines of text from the novel that drift across the screen like the effluvia of the world's most pretentious skywriter. Throw in newsreel-style montages of the glittering 1920s, and Luhrmann ensures his audience will remain safely insulated from emotion, character development, or any idea more complex than "Carey Mulligan is pretty" for much of the film. (Note: Carey Mulligan is very pretty.)

A few scenes will make you forget that Baz Luhrmann jizzes Technicolor: When Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) insists that Nick arrange a meeting with his long-lost love Daisy (Mulligan), then goes ridiculously overboard fixing up Nick's house for afternoon tea, we catch a glimpse of a different, better movie, one where 3D window dressings are set aside for an actual character study—and one that DiCaprio, incidentally, would be perfect in. (Tobey Maguire, on the other hand, has long been the most milquetoast actor in Hollywood, so it comes as no surprise when he eventually slams the door on West Egg and yells, "Fine! I didn't want to play with you guys anyway!")

And as for the parties, thrown by Gatsby to lure in Daisy from across the bay? The parties are a Baz Luhrmann energy blast of sound and spectacle—if you've seen Moulin Rouge or Romeo + Juliet, you probably already know how you feel about that. The dresses are pretty, the cars are shiny, the girls are good at wiggling their tummies, and the wildly anachronistic soundtrack? That, actually, is just kind of confusing. (What if Fergie and will.i.am are time travelers....)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby is about how the belief that wealth can buy happiness is corrosive (to paraphrase an essay I got an A on in ninth grade). Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby is about how rich people throw the best parties! And while they undeniably do, to give in to the spectacle is to miss the point.

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Geek Out

Earnest "Nex" Cavalli — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is more of the same. That's a good thing. by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli

IF YOU ENJOYED the 2012 debut of Dragon's Dogma, you'll love Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. It feels like an old-school PC roleplaying game expansion pack: full of new monsters, new quests, and new areas to explore, but with little in the way of novel ideas. Dark Arisen is very much "more of the same," but if that's what you're looking for, you'll be hard pressed to dislike what Dark Arisen adds to the title.

Adds? Like, "in addition to?" Absolutely. Dark Arisen is such a large accession that Capcom opted to forego standard downloadable-content release practices and has instead combined Dark Arisen and the original Dragon's Dogma into a single, $40 release. Given the scope of the original game, this means your $40 is going a long, long way—it's not quite as lengthy as Skyrim, but even a cursory trip through the story will occupy 50 hours. Double that if you plan to explore a bit.

If you're new to Dragon's Dogma, all you need to know is that it's a typical fantasy roleplaying adventure, set in Gransys, a land equally inspired by Tolkien and Japanese design tropes. The key to combat, however, lies in training "pawns"—computer-controlled characters that make up your party and represent a surprisingly competent analog for a group of friends gathered around a table, playing Dungeons & Dragons.

If I must slam Dark Arisen for anything, it's that the vast majority of its content is underground. Given the setting, it's quite pretty, not to mention surprisingly diverse—but one of the main draws of the original was exploring the vast plains of Gransys. Still, since Dragon's Dogma is included in the package, I can't fault Dark Arisen too much. It's a huge fantasy game for devoted gamers—and should be an immediate purchase for anyone who gets off on slaying giant monsters.

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Film Shorts

Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

This week: Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist! David O. Russell's Three Kings! And some xenomorphs!

42
In 1947, America's two most beloved pastimes, baseball and racism, came to a contentious head when Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite the noblest of intentions, 42 addresses this momentous occurrence with all the clumsy tact an overly glossy Hollywood sports film can possibly muster, heavy-handedly topping The Blind Side at the game of feel-good race relations and athletics. EZRA ACE CARAEFF Various Theaters.

Admission
Imagine, if you will, a screwball romantic comedy starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, America's sweethearts. It would be madcap! A romp! Zingers would zing, opposites would attract, and bespectacled brunettes nationwide would wallow in the satisfaction of seeing one of our own smooch Josh from Clueless. (Suck it, Silverstone!) But alas, there's not that much fun to be had in the new Fey/Rudd teamup Admission, directed with ponderous good intentions by Paul Weitz (About a Boy). Admission is overstuffed and clumsy, and though it takes a running leap toward madcap romcom fun, it misses by a wide margin. ALISON HALLETT Academy Theater, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater, Liberty Theatre.

Aftershock
Torture porn magnate Eli Roth (Hostel) plays "Gringo" in this Chile-set film in which travelers discover an earthquake "is just the beginning of their nightmare." Not screened in time for press; review forthcoming. Living Room Theaters.

Aliens
See My, What a Busy Week! Hollywood Theatre.

Black Swan
While Darren Aronofsky's dance/horror flick is a lot of things—beautiful, weird, sexy, daring—it's a bunch of other things, too: inconsistent, goofy, unintentionally funny. Ticket proceeds go to Oregon Ballet Theatre and the Hollywood Theatre; screening is preceded by a meet and greet, a costume contest, and OBT performances and followed by a Q&A with Interim Artistic Director Anne Mueller and OBT company members. ERIK HENRIKSEN Hollywood Theatre.

Cloud Cult: No One Said It Would Be Easy
This 2009 documentary on Minnesota band Cloud Cult follows the band's formation, development, environmentalist agenda, and the personal tragedy of the band's Craig and Connie Minowa, who lost a child at age two. While there's a compelling story here, the film is doused in reverent worshipfulness, making it clear it's a fans-only project. NED LANNAMANN Mission Theater.

Disconnect
Are you scared your teenager is going to sext a naked picture of himself to the wrong person and then kill himself? Terrified of identity theft? Losing sleep over underage online prostitution? Then you should see the terrible, dumb Disconnect! It will validate every one of your internet-based night terrors. ALISON HALLETT Fox Tower 10.

The Great Gatsby
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Harry Smith Séance
The Oregon Cartoon Institute presents a selection of films by experimental filmmaker Harry Smith, with an introduction by Rani Singh, the curator of the Harry Smith Archives, and a panel with Singh and authors Darrin Daniel and Sheldon Renan. Hollywood Theatre.

He's Way More Famous Than You
"Armed with a stolen script and two pitchers of sangria," aspiring actress Halley Feiffer (played by Halley Feiffer) attempts to make it big in Hollywood in this "zany bit of fame-whore lambasting." Okay. Clinton Street Theater.

Identity Thief
I know you're kinda interested because Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) is in it, and she's so damn funny and good, and you're probably still harboring some Arrested Development-based affection for Jason Bateman, even though he's done literally nothing since then to justify your ongoing interest. But just... don't even worry about it. ALISON HALLETT Various Theaters.

In the House
François Ozon's latest, in which a 16-year-old "insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student and writes about his family in essays that perversely blur the lines between reality and fiction." Moral: NEVER TRUST A 16-YEAR-OLD. Living Room Theaters.

Iron Man 3
Tonally, Iron Man 3 takes a few riffs from Christopher Nolan's happiness-loathing bat-movies, which means it's the darkest Iron Man to date. But! Thanks to writer/director Shane Black's blisteringly great dialogue—not to mention his willingness to throw one or two hard left turns into Iron Man 3's plot, imbuing it with subversive humor—it's also the Iron Man that's both the funniest and the most fun. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Kung Fu Theater
1972's Queen Boxer on 35mm. Hollywood Theatre.

The Loreley's Grasp
Amando de Ossorio's 1976 tale of "violent bloodletting, buxom young beauties, and mythical creatures." Clinton Street Theater.

The Lyrical Space of Claire Denis
A series focusing on French filmmaker Claire Denis (Chocolat), featuring "nine of her directorial efforts, plus three of her best-known assistant-directed films" (like Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law and Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas). More info: nwfilm.org. Whitsell Auditorium.

Midnight's Children
Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel. Fox Tower 10.

A Mother's Day Aquatic Arts Revival
"Aquatic arts dance collective" the Olivia Darlings present "old and rare footage of synchronized swimming," along with a 16mm video they made with Y La Bamba. Proceeds benefit the Olivia Darlings and their goal of an "aquatic arts revival." Hollywood Theatre.

A Night at the Opera
The Marx Brothers! That is all you need to know! Laurelhurst Theater.

Pain & Gain
Somewhere out there in an alternate universe, I like to think that the Coen brothers directed Pain & Gain. It's a premise that seems ideal for them: the true story of a team of lunkheaded Florida bodybuilders who decide to kidnap a wealthy deli owner and hold him hostage until he agrees to sign over his fortune. The story gets weirder, ultimately involving a porn magnate, a retired private detective, several bushelsful of severed body parts, and a whole lot of stupid choices. But for whatever reason—karmic punishment?—we live in a universe where Michael Bay directed Pain & Gain. PAUL CONSTANT Various Theaters.

The Place Beyond the Pines
The latest from Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) is made up of three interlocking stories, focusing first on Luke (Ryan Gosling), a stunt motorcyclist who makes his living as a daredevil with a traveling carnival; then on rookie cop Avery (Bradley Cooper), who investigates corruption in the police force; and then Luke and Avery's sons, who, 15 years in the future, meet in high school. Pines is a big, jumpy, restless film, filled with intriguing characters whose motives remain tantalizingly hazy. But it's also got grand ambitions, and these very qualities are what make it frustrating: Despite its plottiness, it's far more effective as a character study than as some epic commentary on fathers and sons. ALISON HALLETT City Center 12, Fox Tower 10, Lloyd Mall 8.

Play Again
A documentary that frets over "the consequences of a childhood removed from nature" by taking six teenagers and sticking them in the woods with "no electricity, no cell phone service, no virtual reality." This just in: Settle down, old people. Everything's going to be okay. Clinton Street Theater.

Portland Stew
A monthly "open screening potluck" that combines food and experimental film. More info: cstpdx.com. Clinton Street Theater.

QDoc: Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival
The Queer Documentary Film Festival kicks off with a screening of I Am Divine, with director Jeffrey Schwarz and actress Mink Stole in attendance. For more info, see next week's Mercury. Bagdad Theater.

Return to Noir Ville
See Film, this issue. Cinema 21.

Room 237
A documentary that examines Stanley Kubrick's The Shining from the point of view of five obsessed fans. Their takes on the film vary wildly; one sees it as an allegory for the slaughter of Native Americans, another thinks it's all about the Holocaust, another claims the film is Kubrick's veiled confession about his role in faking the Apollo moon landing. While the occasional bit of insight is sprinkled among these conspiracy theories, for every bit of fun trivia there's some truly crackpot junk. NED LANNAMANN Living Room Theaters.

Seconds
Rock Hudson stars in John Frankenheimer's 1966 sci-fi thriller. Whitsell Auditorium.

Spring Breakers
Here are some of the problems you may have with director Harmony Korine's already infamous Spring Breakers: (1) The young college gals depicted in the film invite degradation upon themselves with voracious, proud abandon. (2) Plotwise, there's probably less here than meets the eye. And perhaps most importantly, (3) Spring Breakers may make you come to the sudden, surprising realization you have a big stick up your ass. This is one hell of a polarizing film, and I'll say right now that, as someone who's sick of stale, predictable Hollywood product, I loved it. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY Academy Theater, Bagdad Theater, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater.

Star Trek Into Darkness
J.J. Abrams' sequel to his 2009 reboot Star Trek. Paramount isn't screening this for critics until three hours before public screenings start—as far as bad signs go, that's pretty much a red alert. Various Theaters.

Three Kings
David O. Russell's fantastic Gulf War flick from 1999, starring George Clooney, Ice Cube, Marky Mark, and Spike Jonze. Fifth Avenue Cinema.

Trance
Trance, like most Danny Boyle movies, is confident, and gorgeously shot, and beautifully scored—and there's undeniable potential in the idea of a psychological heist flick. But while Trance's first 10 minutes or so are tight, flashy, and fun, from the second "I know! Let's hypnotize him!" is turned into a supposedly legitimate plot point, everything goes from taut and sharp to messy and sloppy. ERIK HENRIKSEN Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters.

The Waiting Room
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to spend a day in an Oakland hospital filled with uninsured patients, here you go: The documentary The Waiting Room tracks numerous tragic stories, showing us the anguish of everyone in a hospital—from the patients who can't afford care to the hospital staff scrambling to figure out how to treat everybody. Though I would've liked to see more about the patients and how our health care system operates, The Waiting Room successfully offers a glimpse at some of America's most troubling issues. ROSE FINN Hollywood Theatre.

Women's Edge Film Series
A "new collection of independent films for women and by women." This time: The Mosque in Morgantown, a "rare look at the real controversies that divide a Muslim community." Clinton Street Theater.

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Blackjacks and Wise Cracks

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Return to Noir Ville: Cinema 21's noir series returns. by Ned Lannamann

AS THE 20TH CENTURY recedes, film noir seems more an attitude than an actual genre. The phrase itself—which wasn't coined until after the fact, by French critics—refers to gritty, bleak American thrillers from the '40s and '50s, almost always shot in black and white. There's usually a murder and a femme fatale to accompany it; trench coats, fedoras, and plumes of cigarette smoke are de rigueur. But watching the 11 selections in this year's edition of Cinema 21's noir series, the commonality doesn't have so much to do with murders, or dames, or nicotine. These films are all about love—more specifically, about passion and obsession, about some poor johnny getting dizzy over a skirt.

That's the case with 1944's Laura, in which Dana Andrews' detective falls head over heels for a picture of murder victim Gene Tierney (who can blame him?). In 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice, John Garfield attempts to off Lana Turner's older husband. Love, similarly, runs through Nicholas Ray's masterful In a Lonely Place (1950), in which Bogart's not-so-nice guy is accused of murder—but the film is more interested in his troubled, wild relationship with Gloria Grahame. It's a stunning movie, crazily romantic and monumentally fucked up, just like most love affairs.

1950's terrific Gun Crazy dwells in the inherent romanticism of lovers on the run (a theme revisited years later in Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands); here, circus sharpshooters John Dall and Peggy Cummins become bank robbers and quickly run out of road and rope. The family drama of 1945's Mildred Pierce is bookended by an excellent noir framework, and Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953) follows an honest detective taking down his entire, corrupt police bureau. Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1950) transplants noir conventions to London, where American hustler Richard Widmark tries to take over the city's wrestling racket; it includes some great-looking chases and the classic wrestling match between Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki.

Speaking of fight scenes, there's an incredible one in a tiny train compartment in 1952's The Narrow Margin (it was later borrowed wholesale for From Russia with Love). Shot almost entirely aboard that claustrophobic train, Margin is one of the true gems in the series, a lean, razor-sharp thriller about a cop escorting a witness from Chicago to LA with baddies in pursuit.

The series includes three neo-noirs from later decades, too, which update noir conventions with a few twists—like color. 1981's outstanding Body Heat is Lawrence Kasdan's first and best film, asking: What happens when you add graphic sex to a film noir? (Answer: lurid awesomeness.) Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye is a riff on Rip Van Winkle, with Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) about 20 years out of step with 1973 Los Angeles. It removes all the passion from classic noir tropes in favor of pot-haze detachment and washed-out pastels, and the result, surprisingly, feels far more dated than noirs from the '40s and '50s. Meanwhile, the Coen brothers' 1985 debut Blood Simple is a breezy, bloody, wickedly funny Texas thriller that does noir conventions a solid.

A 13-day festival pass is only $40, and individual shows are $6. You can't go wrong with any of the selections, but if time or dollars are tight, let me steer you toward The Narrow Margin, In a Lonely Place, and Body Heat.

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So Many Boobs!

Marjorie Skinner — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The voluptuous beauty (and little else) of Renoir. by Marjorie Skinner

MOST WOULD AGREE that looks aren't everything. Director Gilles Bourdos' Renoir respectfully offers a counterpoint. Filmed in rich, light-drenched hues by cinematographer Ping Bin Lee (Flight of the Red Balloon, In the Mood for Love), which reference the paintings of its subject, Renoir visits world-renowned painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet) in his later years. Along for the sun-dappled ride through the French Riviera is his son Jean Renoir (Vincent Rottiers), who went on to become the famed filmmaker Jean Renoir (La Grande Illusion, The Rules of the Game), and also Andrée Heuschling (Christa Theret), a tempestuous orphan who became the elder Renoir's last muse before his death in 1919.

Enamored with its own beauty, Renoir primarily functions as an attractive series of tableaus. There are certainly dramatic undercurrents at play, like Renoir Sr.'s grief over the recent loss of his wife and reawakened obsession with young female flesh. (Theret is perpetually draped around the film in states of undress, with particular affection paid to her knockers.) Throughout the film, WWI rages in the background, but only in glimpses, underscoring Auguste's determination to shut all ugliness out of his world.

If it's beauty you're after, you'll find it unsullied in Renoir, but if you want to sink your teeth into characters and action, you'll be turned off by the film's pretentious delight in its own good looks. Measure your expectations according to the extent of your pleasure in impressionist pastorals and voluptuous nudes, and act accordingly.

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Shakespeare in Space!

Alison Hallett — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Hunky Dory: Sad teenagers sing songs sadly. by Alison Hallett

AS A THEATER CRITIC, I've seen more re-contextualized Shakespeare than one human ever should—so a movie about an embattled drama teacher trying to put on a rock-opera version of The Tempest doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm. And nothing about Hunky Dory ever caused me to question my initial skepticism—it's a boilerplate story of One Teacher Who Makes a Difference, with a dash of '70s pop thrown into the mix.

Minnie Driver plays Vivienne, a brand-new drama teacher at a high school in Wales who's all fired up about the possibility of art to expand her students' horizons. And so she organizes a quirky musical that inter-cuts Shakespeare's soliloquies with David Bowie songs, giving charming, floppy-haired teenagers the chance to stare dreamily into the middle distance while singing an a cappella rendition of "Life on Mars?" In the process, Vivienne butts heads with a bitchy social studies teacher and a loutish PE teacher, and of course her students have issues of their own, ranging from family trouble to gay crushes.

There's nothing really wrong with Hunky Dory—it's just deeply, blandly unoriginal. All the tropes of a teen movie are here, but there's nothing to enliven them—no spark of insight or wit that distinguishes this movie about misunderstood teenagers from all the other movies about misunderstood teenagers. Except, I suppose, for those pop songs, which do pack a nostalgic wallop. If Billy Elliot is your favorite movie, Hunky Dory is probably just the film you've been looking for.

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Film Shorts

Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

This week: Safety Last! Forbidden Planet! JAPANESE EXPERIMENTAL FILMS FROM THE 1970S AND 1980S!!!

The Angels' Share
At a moment when it seems neoliberalism (pro-market ideology) is unstoppable (it continues today as if the crash of 2008 and the bank bailouts never happened), and the left appears to have no alternatives to capitalist economics, Ken Loach, one of the leading socialist directors of our times, makes a film that is so far from reality that it only be described as a fairy tale. It is not a bad film. The characters (a group of Glaswegian criminals who are sentenced to community service) and the subject matter (how this group finds hope in learning about the production and culture of high-end whiskey) are masterful. Yes, petty criminals often end up doing community service; yes, petty criminals can learn a new skill that improves their chances in the job market. But no, a petty criminal with no prior experience in whiskey tasting and sniffing will not be able to fool professionals. Is this all that is left for the left? Slumdoggy fairy tales? CHARLES MUDEDE Living Room Theaters.

B-Movie Bingo
The Hollywood's series features B-movies, with the audience marking down clichés on a custom-made bingo card. This time around: Omega Cop. Hollywood Theatre.

The Big Wedding
I try not to rag on aging actors for being old, which seems shortsighted, but still. That doesn't mean I want to see a POV shot filmed from the perspective of Susan Sarandon's vagina, depicting Robert De Niro leering hungrily at it. How 'bout SaranDON'T, am I right? VINCE MANCINI Various Theaters.

Blow Up
Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 drama that you feel guilty about never having seen. See it now before Michael Bay's remake comes out—that film is scheduled for 2015. Whitsell Auditorium.

Burn
A doc about "Detroit's Engine Company 50, one of the busiest firehouses in the country." Not to be confused with Kirk Cameron's Fireproof. Hollywood Theatre.

The Company You Keep
Robert Redford's latest, about aging members of the Weather Underground who're forced to deal with their old secrets after a young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) starts digging. It might be melodramatic (and, at least for all the lefty baby boomers in the audience, predictably back-patting), but The Company You Keep is still engaging and sharp, as full of conviction as its haunted characters. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

The Deep
A preview screening of a film in which "a fisherman tries to survive in the freezing ocean." Not yet screened for critics. Hey, you know what's an underrated movie? Deep Rising. Check that out if you haven't! Treat Williams is a national treasure. Clinton Street Theater.

First Night
A British romantic comedy. Not to be confused with 1995's First Knight, in which Richard Gere played Lancelot, Sean Connery played King Arthur, and Julia Ormond played Guinevere! Steamy! Clinton Street Theater.

Forbidden Planet
The 1956 sci-fi classic starring Leslie Nielsen and Robbie the Robot! Rest in peace, Leslie Nielsen. Burn in hell, Robbie the Robot, you Cylon sack of shit. Laurelhurst Theater.

The Fruit Hunters
A film about "fruit fanatics"—including Bill Pullman, whose "obsession leads him on a crusade to create a community orchard—and "fruit detectives" who "investigate Renaissance-era paintings for clues, hoping to rediscover lost fruits." FRUIT! Hollywood Theatre.

Getting to Know YouTube
Local presenters help you to "climb into YouTube's deepest caverns of collective consciousness and unearth hidden treasures, stretching the boundaries of what tubes and you were meant for." Okay! Hollywood Theatre.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" was inspired by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. "My hands were steady," Seger sings. "My eyes were clear and bright. My walk had purpose. My steps were quick and light. And I held firmly to what I felt was right—like a Rock." This film was not screened for critics. Various Theaters.

Gimme the Loot
See review this issue. Living Room Theaters.

Girl Rising
An activist documentary following "nine girls from developing countries," featuring narrators such as Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, and, um, Selena Gomez. Fox Tower 10.

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
Portland's annual celebration of all things slimy and betentacled. See hplfilmfestival.com for more info. Hollywood Theatre.

Hunky Dory
See review this issue. Hollywood Theatre.

The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman
KBOO—of course KBOO—presents an agit-prop documentary made in response to another agit-prop documentary, Waiting for Superman. Sadly, neither of these films feature Al Gore or Superman. Neither of them. FYI, Man of Steel comes out on June 14! That movie will have at least one of those dudes in it. Clinton Street Theater.

Iron Man 3
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Jack the Giant Slayer
I am entirely in favor of the current trend of reframing familiar fairy tales as big budget, bludgeoning blockbusters. So what if it still hasn't been done very well? That's scarcely the point—these movies contain monsters, swords, magic, and knights in armor. My inner child goes a long way to forgiving the shortcomings of these loud, usually thoughtless films—and while Bryan Singer's loud, thoughtless Jack the Giant Slayer has many shortcomings indeed, I'm more or less okay with them. NED LANNAMANN Various Theaters.

Leonie
A based-on-a-true-story flick about a woman (Emily Mortimer) who falls in love with "a famous Japanese poet and gives birth to a son: world renowned artist and architect Isamu Noguchi." At long last, Isamu Noguchi's story shall be told! This film also features Christina Hendricks, who is very pretty. Living Room Theaters.

Mud
The latest from writer/director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) is a sad, sweet story about growing up and discovering that adults don't hold all the answers. If that sounds like a cliché, Mud offers a worthwhile variation that contains real feeling. NED LANNAMANN Cinetopia Progress Ridge 14, City Center 12, Fox Tower 10.

No
Advertising, in a post-Mad Men world, is prone to idolization—and in Pablo Larraín's No, the industry gets the rock star treatment. A dramatization of the 1988 Chilean plebiscite that ousted longtime dictator Augusto Pinochet, No specifically focuses on the influence of advertising on campaign politics, with Gael García Bernal playing the hotshit young creative secretly hired to lead the opposition's campaign to vote "no" on Pinochet. MARJORIE SKINNER Living Room Theaters.

Oblivion
A sci-fi action flick from Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski. At first, Oblivion just kind of sits there, a hodgepodge of borrowed elements from Wall-E, Planet of the Apes, Moon, The Matrix, Portal, and Mass Effect. (Thanks to a slick dogfight, there's even some Top Gun.) But give it a bit of time. Turns out Kosinski's making something pretty interesting with this pastiche; just as lead character Jack (Tom Cruise) suspects, there's a twist or two, but it turns out there are a few more surprises as well. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!
A comedy about a Jewish family and their gay son. Director and stars in attendance; screens as a fundraiser for Basic Rights Oregon. Clinton Street Theater.

Picture in Picture: Japanese Experimental Films of the Late 1970s & 1980s
What's an image? What's a film? What can it be? Experimental cinema gets at these questions, which are alive and well in Cinema Project's "Picture in Picture," a two-night program featuring lush 16mm prints of Japanese experimental works from two filmmakers, Takashi Ito and Toshio Matsumoto. Some films are slow and sublime: In Matsumoto's "Connection," he reiterates the image of a blue sky and moving clouds in a series of geometric cuts and splices of the image. Others are anxiety-ridden, with rapid cuts and psychedelic colors, like Matsumoto's "Atman," with its demonic figures and neon. JENNA LECHNER YU Contemporary.

Renoir
See review this issue. Fox Tower 10.

Rerun Theater
A "sci-fi TV tribute" to producer Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds). Hollywood Theatre.

Safety Last!
A digital restoration of Harold Lloyd's 1923 silent classic. Cinema 21.

Ten Questions for the Dalai Lama
The official synopsis for this documentary about "one man's journey through the Northern Himalayas" begins thusly: "Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when... when...." Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Clinton Street Theater.

This Is Spinal Tap
"This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry." Hollywood Theatre.

Videofest
Shot films from students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Clinton Street Theater.

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Armor Wars

Erik Henriksen — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Shane Black's new movie is great! (And stars Iron Man.) by Erik Henriksen

HOLLYWOOD'S BARS are, no doubt, full of them: writers and actors and directors who had their time in the spotlight, only to be pushed aside when someone better, sexier, or more successful showed up. Los Angeles is a fickle town, and, the cliché goes, you're only as good as your last picture. Which is why it's always surprising to see someone come back, let alone come back successfully: It's not that they can't, it's that they're rarely given the chance.

Which brings us to Shane Black, who, for a stretch, had it better than most: Hollywood's go-to guy for action comedies, he wrote Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and The Long Kiss Goodnight. But the wheels started to shake when he was one of the four writers of 1993's Schwarzenegger debacle Last Action Hero, and then he disappeared—forgotten or written off—until 2005. That's when Black wrote and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, teaming up Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer for a hyper, whip-smart riff on pulp detective novels. In his review of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for this august publication, Wm. Steven Humphrey called the film clever and violent, while also fretting that it bore the skeevy, frantic feel of "watching a very funny meth addict tweak out." That is correct, and good god do I love the hell out of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Black hadn't made a movie since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang until Marvel's corporate overlords, Disney, gave the surprising go-ahead for him to direct and co-write Iron Man 3. Maybe after The Avengers, Marvel wanted to set a new tone for their superheroes, or maybe they figured there wasn't much to lose after the shrug-inducing Iron Man 2. Whatever their thinking, good on 'em: Iron Man 3 blows the first two Iron Man movies out of the water, standing up there with Thor and The Avengers as one of Marvel's best and most enjoyable blockbusters. Sharp and twisty and hilarious, it's a great Shane Black movie that also happens to be a great superhero movie.

As Iron Man 3 begins, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., predictably excellent) is weary with insomnia and plagued by anxiety attacks. Years of quipping and avenging have taken their toll—and that's before a brutal terrorist calling himself the Mandarin (a seriously phenomenal Ben Kingsley) starts setting off bombs and hijacking TV signals, cannily and relentlessly terrifying every American. When Tony's pal Happy (Jon Favreau) is caught in one of the Mandarin's attacks, Tony vows revenge—sleepless nights and panic attacks be damned.

Tonally, Iron Man 3 takes a few riffs from Christopher Nolan's happiness-loathing bat-movies, which means it's the darkest Iron Man to date. But! Thanks to Black's blisteringly great dialogue—not to mention his willingness to throw one or two hard left turns into Iron Man 3's plot, imbuing it with significantly more subversive humor than my dumb synopsis suggests—it's also the Iron Man that's both the funniest and the most fun. Crackling and cackling with Black's smartass energy and go-for-broke enthusiasm, Iron Man 3 feels like Marvel threw a bunch of comic books and money at Black and Downey Jr., stepped back, and told them to have a blast. And then they did.

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Geek Out

Earnest "Nex" Cavalli — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Injustice: Gods Among Us: Holy hadouken, Batman! by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli

SUPERMAN VERSUS BATMAN: Who wins? That question lies at the heart of Injustice: Gods Among Us, a new title from the people responsible for Mortal Kombat that pits DC Comics characters against one another in appropriately bombastic brawls. While you won't see Wonder Woman decapitate Aquaman, Injustice proves that Marvel isn't the only company capable of adapting its heroes for virtual fisticuffs—and more crucially, that fighting games can be enjoyed solo.

Without spoiling the plot of Injustice, I can say that those who follow DC's books will feel right at home with the story: Superman decides the best way to save humanity is by turning despot, and Batman disagrees. It's not Shakespeare, but as a blend of comic book and fighting-game storytelling, Injustice handily accomplishes its goals. Gameplay-wise, Injustice is designed as an exceedingly user-friendly fighter, drawing equal inspiration from Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. From a control standpoint, there simply aren't any other fighters as easy to pick up and play as Injustice, at least that also boast enough depth to satisfy the hardcore set.

This alone would be impressive, but the key to Injustice's success is how fully it embraces singleplayer gaming. Not only does Injustice feature a standard arcade mode (complete with unique storylines for each fighter), it also boasts a five-hour-long story mode and 240 unique missions. All told, you could easily blow 50-plus hours of your life with Injustice without even touching the game's almost entirely lag-free online multiplayer components.

Whether you're a fan of DC Comics or fighting games, you'll find dozens of reasons to love Injustice. Objectively, it's not the best fighter of the current console generation—but I can't remember the last time I had so much fun beating the hell out of a humanoid mass of pixels.

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Empire State of Mind

Rose Finn — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Gimme the Loot's New York déjà vu. by Rose Finn

SPIKE LEE'S 1989 breakthrough Do the Right Thing still reverberates through American cinema, influencing more than a few filmmakers—including, I suspect, writer/director Adam Leon, the man behind Gimme the Loot. Unfortunately, Leon is no Lee: His characters aren't nearly as convincing, and the script lacks the passion and vision it needs to be effective.

Gimme the Loot follows two teens from the Bronx, Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington), both of whom are avid graffiti artists and drug dealers. When a rival gang smears their latest tag, Malcolm and Sofia decide to get revenge by tagging the most viewed New York icon—the giant Home Run Apple of the New York Mets' Citi Field. But they need $500 to do so, which sends them on a weekend-long journey of selling weed, stealing, and screwing people over, all laced with cheeky repartee.

Though their banter starts off funny and charming, it doesn't provide us much insight into who these characters really are. Like Do the Right Thing, Gimme the Loot aims for a slice-of-life portrayal of New York, but thanks to a few lukewarm portrayals, we don't experience enough of Malcolm or Sofia's anger or hurt to get sucked into their lives. Too often, Gimme the Loot feels more like an "Above the Influence" commercial, rather than an honest account of two kids trying to get by. (By the time we see Malcolm and a wealthy blonde Manhattanite smoking weed and making out on her bed, I was wondering when Mr. Raditch would come in and talk to these troubled teens about making the right choices on this very special episode of Degrassi.) By the time Gimme the Loot ends, we don't know much more about Sophia and Malcolm than when we started—and nothing seems to be terribly different for them, either.

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His Name Is Actually Mud

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Small, worthwhile truths are buried in Mud's coming-of-age story. by Ned Lannamann

ELLIS AND NECKBONE are two 14-year-olds living up a tributary of the Mississippi in Arkansas. Early one morning they pilot their little motorboat to an empty island out on the big river, where they find a bigger, better motorboat stranded up a tree, washed up there by floods. But as soon as they decide they're going to fix it up and get it back on the water, a mysterious stranger appears. Mud (Matthew McConaughey) makes a deal with them—if they bring him some food, they can have the boat.

Of course, Mud's hiding out from the law, and while the echoes of Great Expectations are undeniable, writer/director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) finds a beautiful coming-of-age story in this Dickensian riff. What Nichols absolutely nails is that sense of boyhood receding into maturity, of Ellis and Neckbone's make-believe adventures suddenly turning into a very real one. Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland are both outstanding as Ellis and Neckbone, respectively—and McConaughey is generally okay, too, except for the one scene where he has to howl in emotional pain and literally pound sand.

The best parts of Mud all involve the two kids, but there are some terrific supporting performances, too: a steely Sam Shepard as the creepy old man who lives across the river, and a hilarious Michael Shannon as Neckbone's philandering uncle. (There's also Reese Witherspoon as Mud's estranged girlfriend, but let's move on. She isn't awful, I guess.) Toward the end, Nichols allows his plot to run amok—there's a ridiculous shootout and an encounter with a pit of poisonous cottonmouths that seem particularly contrived—but these false notes pale in comparison to what Mud gets right. At its heart, it's a sad, sweet story about growing up and discovering that adults don't hold all the answers. If that sounds like a cliché, Mud offers a worthwhile variation that contains real feeling.

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Mostly Pain

Paul Constant — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Pain & Gain: a premise worthy of the Coen bros., unfortunately it's by Michael Bay. by Paul Constant

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE in an alternate universe, I like to think that the Coen brothers directed Pain & Gain. It's a premise that seems ideal for them: the true story of a team of lunkheaded Florida bodybuilders who decide to kidnap a wealthy deli owner and hold him hostage until he agrees to sign over his fortune. The story gets weirder, ultimately involving a porn magnate, a retired private detective, several bushelsful of severed body parts, and a whole lot of stupid choices.

But for whatever reason—karmic punishment?—we live in a universe where Michael Bay directed Pain & Gain. This is not entirely a bad thing: Bay's coked-up camerawork and obscene overuse of filters, slow motion, and other directorial trickery works pretty well with the idiocy on display in the story. The problem comes, as it usually does, with Bay's sense of humor. In Bay's world, no punchline is funnier than laughing at a fat woman because she's fat, and no subtle joke goes un-bludgeoned. He's overwhelmed by the tone changes that the script requires, so the third act's hideously gory twists land awkwardly after the first hour's (mostly) harmless shenanigans.

Thankfully, at least, Pain & Gain was made with the perfect cast: Mark Wahlberg brings his not-quite-self-aware slowness to the American dream-believing "mastermind" of the plot, Daniel Lugo, and he's as compelling as you've seen him in a while. Likewise, the Rock is better as a coke-headed born-again Christian than he's been in years. Everyone else in the cast—Rob Corddry, Ken Jeong, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson, Coen regular Tony Shalhoub—acquit themselves admirably, too. In that alternate universe I mentioned before, the Coen brothers gathered the same cast to make Pain & Gain, and some of these people won Oscars for it. In this universe, we're left holding a greasy, mixed bag.

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Film Shorts

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Ken Loach's The Angels' Share! Cronenberg Jr.'s Antiviral! Steve Martin, back when he was funny!

Antiviral
Antiviral reminds me of David Cronenberg's early work—in fact, it's directed by an early work, his son Brandon. Li'l Cronenberg's directorial debut is a noir detective story centering on Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), who gathers colds, rashes, and other viral commodities from celebrities to sell to obsessed fans. Syd's using his body to smuggle viruses—until the world's biggest celebrity ends up dead and Syd gets infected with her killer bug. While it feels like Cronenberg Lite, Jones is captivating, the dystopian world is intriguing, and there's some fine, nasty bits of body horror. COURTNEY FERGUSON Hollywood Theatre.

Arthur Newman
See review this issue. Fox Tower 10.

Best of the 39th Northwest Filmmakers' Festival
A selection of shorts from last year's Northwest Filmmakers' Festival. More info: nwfilm.org. Whitsell Auditorium.

Big Night
This is a movie that foodies like. As part of the Mission's "Eat Drink Film" series, admission includes dinner, "with the actual menu taken directly from the film (and book)." Again: Foodies will be at this. Consider yourselves warned. Mission Theater.

The Big Wedding
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Blancanieves
Winner of best film, best actress, and eight other prizes at this year's Goya Awards, Blancanieves—"Snow White" in Spanish—is billed as "a tribute to silent films," but like most silent films, it's not actually silent; there's just no spoken dialogue. The soundtrack is exhilarating and makes the film as much about rhythm—the alternately lightning fast and seductively slow clapping, wrist twirling, and cape flourishing in flamenco and bullfighting—as it is about the perseverance of a seriously unlucky young woman. JEN KAGAN Fox Tower 10.

The Company You Keep
Robert Redford's latest, about aging members of the Weather Underground who're forced to deal with their old secrets after a young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) starts digging. It might be melodramatic (and, at least for all the lefty baby boomers in the audience, predictably back-patting), but The Company You Keep is still crackling and sharp, as full of conviction as its haunted characters. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Creepers
See My, What a Busy Week! Hollywood Theatre.

The Duellists
Before he'd amaze with Alien and Blade Runner, entertain with Thelma & Louise and Gladiator, and infuriate with Prometheus, Ridley Scott made his first feature: 1977's The Duellists, starring Harvey Keitel, Keith Carradine, and Albert Finney. Laurelhurst Theater.

Everything Went Down
A musical directed by PSU professor Dustin Morrow and featuring Kate Tucker. Director in attendance. Whitsell Auditorium.

Girl Rising
An activist documentary following "nine girls from developing countries," featuring narrators such as Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, and, um, Selena Gomez. Fox Tower 10.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Hansel and Gretel (Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton) are now contract killers, ridding the countryside of a surprisingly bountiful amount of witches using an arsenal of steampunk weaponry. The two aren't exactly well adjusted: They've got some sort of pseudo-sexual relationship in which Hansel sleeps curled up on the floor next to his sister's bed. And as a child, that evil witch forced Hansel to eat so much candy that he's now a diabetic. This playful goofiness makes Hansel & Gretel a brainless, fun fantasy, with plenty of R-rated gore and just the right amount of bodice-heaving sex appeal. NED LANNAMANN Laurelhurst Theater.

The Iceman
A preview screening of a film starring Michael Shannon as a contract killer. Not yet screened for critics. Clinton Street Theater.

It's a Disaster
See review this issue. Hollywood Theatre.

The Jerk
Remember when Steve Martin was funny? Yeah, I know, it's been a long time—before most of us were alive, I'm thinkin'. But when he was on, the guy was unstoppable. In 1979's The Jerk, Mr. Bringing Down the House plays Navin R. Johnson, a huge moron that was "born a poor black child." Only he's white—incredibly so. It's dead-on hilarious slapstick, social commentary, and—most of all—shows Steve Martin's comic skills chopping like a damn Ginzu knife. Just lava-hot funny. Insert cliché about the mighty falling here. ADAM GNADE Bagdad Theater.

The Manson Family
2003's crime drama flick about wacky ol' Charlie Manson. Clinton Street Theater.

Mud
See review this issue. Century Clackamas Town Center, Cinetopia Progress Ridge 14, Fox Tower 10.

Pain & Gain
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Plan 9 from Outer Space
Ed Wood's so-bad-it's-moderately amusing non-classic, presented with a 10-minute-long music video ("Vampira Chant"), a Vampira look-alike contest, and trivia. Mission Theater.

Project Viewfinder
The premiere of work from young filmmakers participating in the Project Viewfinder program run by the School of Film, Outside In, New Avenues for Youth, p:ear, and the Bud Clark Commons Media Project. Directors in attendance. Whitsell Auditorium.

Rosemary's Baby
"What have you done to him? What have you done to his eyes, you maniacs?" Fifth Avenue Cinema.

The Sapphires
Based on a true story, The Sapphires follows a group of Aboriginal Australian girls who escape the racism of their native country to pursue a career as a girl group—as entertainers for US forces fighting in Vietnam! Despite barely knowing where Vietnam is, the group embarks under the managerial leadership of the drunk but protective Dave (Chris O'Dowd). Despite a Disney-like corniness, The Sapphires takes on serious issues of race identity, an offbeat romance, and a few spine-tingling musical numbers with enjoyable aplomb. MARJORIE SKINNER Fox Tower 10.

Scary Movie 5
You get what you deserve, America. Various Theaters.

Sexy Tuesdays Movie Montage
A "mind-boggling media clip show" followed by "a discussion of sexual politics in pop culture" with Bitch cofounder Andi Zeisler and Bitch online editor/Mercury traitor Sarah Mirk. Clinton Street Theater.

The Shining
"Hi, I've got an appointment with Mr. Ullman. My name is Jack Torrance." Whitsell Auditorium.

Sholay
The 1975 Bollywood film, with a "tasty, Indian-spiced popcorn snack mix" from Masala Pop. Hollywood Theatre.

Side Effects
Thanks to cagey advertising, audiences will be in for a surprise as Side Effects unfolds: What starts as an intensely accurate study of a young woman's depression gradually contorts itself into something else entirely. Steven Soderbergh's calculated eye, paired with Scott Z. Burns' script, finds plenty to grab onto in the story of 28-year-old graphic designer Emily (Rooney Mara), who struggles with crippling depression. After a jarring suicide attempt, Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) starts Emily on Ablixa, a new, unproven antidepressant, at which point things get even more intense. ERIK HENRIKSEN Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

Specticast Concert Series
A monthly filmed concert series. This month: Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London. Clinton Street Theater.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
A gang of crooks—led by Robert Shaw, stealing scenes as effortlessly as he would a year later in Jaws—hijacks a New York subway train. Except—hey, it's Walter Matthau! As a grumpy transit cop! 1974's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is easily the most thrilling film ever made about public transportation bureaucracy. ERIK HENRIKSEN Hollywood Theatre.

To the Wonder
See review this issue. Cinema 21.

Vanessa Renwick Retrospective
Two nights of work from Portland artist Vanessa Renwick, with each program accompanied by an interview and Q&A, plus the release of Renwick's new DVD compilation, NSEW: All Over the Map. Hollywood Theatre.

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Someone Else's Problems

Erik Henriksen — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

To the Wonder: Terrence Malick falls in wuv. by Erik Henriksen

LET'S START with math, because if there's one thing everybody fucking loves, it's math! The amount of time that passed between the release of Terrence Malick's Badlands and the release of Days of Heaven: five years. Between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line: 20 years. Then seven years until The New World, and then another six before 2011's The Tree of Life. Since 1973, Malick's made a grand total of five films; if he'd stuck to his schedule, To the Wonder wouldn't be out until November of 2042. But nope: Here it is, a mere two years after he befuddled everyone with The Tree of Life. But To the Wonder doesn't feel rushed, nor does it feel slight; if the reclusive Malick was able to make something like this in such a relatively short amount of time, it makes you wonder what the hell he's been up to for the past three decades. Probably just hanging out. Watching Justified. Drinking mojitos. Terrence Malick is a fiend for mojitos.

To the Wonder is a lot less confounding than The Tree of Life (there aren't any dinosaurs in it, for ~~better or~~ worse), in large part because rather than tackling the entirety of existence, it focuses on something ostensibly smaller: relationships. In particular, one between Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben Affleck). The first time we see Marina and Neil, they're deep in love—or deeply infatuated, which, in the short term, might as well be the same thing. Laughing and running and nuzzling, they swoon their way through Mont Saint-Michel with passionate abandon, with neither the ancient monastery nor the heavy, slate-gray sky causing them any concern.

Marina also has a young daughter, Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline), and it's only a matter of time until Marina and Tatiana leave Paris to live with Neil in his home: Oklahoma. Overcast skies and worn-down monuments are jarringly replaced with unflinching sun and sterile suburbs, and Marina and Neil's overpowering romance starts to become less and less overpowering. Hanging around the small-town periphery are a few more residents: Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), a priest trying to make his way through his hollow faith, and a rancher and childhood friend of Neil's, Jane (Rachel McAdams).

Because it's Malick, everything—whether in France or America, on rain-battered beaches or in soulless subdivisions—looks stunning, though it never loses its Ansel Adams-like layer of precision and distance. It sounds great, too: Only a few lines of dialogue are spoken (Affleck gets about two lines), though much is said, via subtitled voiceover, by Marina and Quintana.

But while the impressionistic To the Wonder is remarkable to see and hear, it's also both intimate and remote—an odd sensation that keeps the film's characters just past arm's length. Malick gets close to these people and their lives, and he ventures deeper still into Marina's thoughts and emotions, but To the Wonder never shakes the sensation of hearing a good friend vent about their troubled relationship: There are problems, sometimes brutally personal ones, but they're still someone else's problems. Assembled from fragmentary, pieced-together glimpses, To the Wonder feels like it might be Malick's most personal film, but it falls short of grabbing hold, never quite able to make us feel rather than observe. Early in the film, still intoxicated by Neil, Marina proclaims, "Love makes us one"—a sentiment that's easy enough to go along with. But later, when "You make me laugh!" is given as the reason Neil is so desirable, the relationship becomes as head-scratchingly inexplicable as anything in The Tree of Life: Most of what we've seen Neil do is glower, pout, glare, or sullenly stare into the distance. To the Wonder gets close, but somehow not close enough. We never know as much about these people as Malick does, which means all their problems are someone else's.

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Florida Ruins Everything

Elinor Jones — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Arthur Newman is boring and lives in Florida. by Elinor Jones

COLIN FIRTH and Emily Blunt are delightful, talented English actors. As dumb, ugly Americans, we love that about them. Their accents and posture demonstrate that they are not like us. They are classy. And better. So why their agents recommended that they both ditch their charm and act like losers in Arthur Newman is beyond me.

Arthur Newman is about a Florida man who is so miserable in his life, and so bad as a dad and a Kinko's manager, that he fakes his own death and hits the road with the new name of (wait for it) Arthur Newman. This is a character who, when presented with the special opportunity to create whatever new life he wants, decides to go to fucking Indiana. Along the way he meets Mike (Emily Blunt), an equally tortured loser. Is this stranger ALSO concealing something about herself? Maybe! (Yes.)

Much more interesting than watching Mike and Arthur open up about their secret lives is watching Colin Firth and Emily Blunt try to shake their English-ness to become schluppy Americans. Blunt comes out fairly okay, but Colin Firth—excuse me, Oscar-winner Colin Firth—is painfully hard to watch as he awkwardly trips over lines like "How's life treatin' you?" in some failed folksy dialect. Come on, man! You're Mr. Darcy! You're Mark Darcy! You're the motherfucking KING! Why are you doing this? Stop trying to be from Florida. That's gross. And you're bad at it.

Now then, aside from really weird casting, was Arthur Newman good? Um, not really. I spent a long while thinking I was on the verge of liking it before realizing I was actually just really bored. It's a shame that Colin Firth and Emily Blunt didn't combine their quaint-as-fuck forces to make something better.

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Robert De Niro Gets the Hoary Whoreys

Vince Mancini — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The Big Wedding: In which Robert De Niro goes down on Susan Sarandon. by Vince Mancini

THE BIG WEDDING isn't a bad movie, just an evil one. The fact that it appears to have been competently made is much more unsettling than if it were a mistake: Watching the film is like watching a craftsman who could've devoted his engineering talents to building better prosthetics or artificial heart valves, but instead he buries depleted uranium landmines beneath a third-world schoolyard. What sort of evil could seduce such a scientist down the path of the wicked? You guessed it! KATHERINE HEIGL. DUNT DUNT DUNNNN!

The odd thing about The Big Wedding is that it feels like writer/director Justin Zackham wanted to make a strangely subversive sex comedy for grandparents, but was only allowed to do so if he ticked off every box on the romcom cliché checklist. What we end up with is a bizarre amalgam in which a 69-year-old Robert De Niro brags about "laying pipe" on Diane Keaton and frankly discusses—and then attempts—cunnilingus on Susan Sarandon. All of this takes place within the context of a wedding romcom that otherwise could've been Frankensteined together from outtakes of Love Actually and She's Just Not That Into You.

An abridged list of romcom tropes appearing in The Big Wedding:

• Set in a huge old house in New England

• Old exes rekindle relationship (... in a film starring Diane Keaton)

• Handjob under the dinner table scene

• Characters competing to take the too-old virgin's virginity (Topher Grace's 29-year-old doctor character, in this case)

• Robin Williams high-lariously stunt cast as a priest

• Katherine Heigl

• "The List" (male character has to complete a checklist to win a woman's heart, probably the second-oldest stock sitcom storyline next to...)

• "The Visit" (someone's conservative relatives are visiting, so characters have to pretend to be not gay/divorced/living together)

• The big third-act speech to get the woman back

• The switcheroo wedding

• The risqué sculpture reveal

The list goes on, but I have a word limit. As for the weird sex comedy hidden beneath the turd tinsel, well, I try not to rag on aging actors for being old, which seems shortsighted, but still. That doesn't mean I want to see a POV shot filmed from the perspective of Susan Sarandon's vagina, depicting Robert De Niro leering hungrily at it. How 'bout SaranDON'T, am I right?

The Big Wedding is weird and not good, but I would pay to Kickstart whatever Harmony Korine-esque genre prank Justin Zackham was initially attempting. There's a character in The Big Wedding named "Alejandro" who was supposed to be an adopted Colombian boy whose in-laws are repeatedly racist towards him—who was literally played by an English guy with a fake tan. I don't know how to read that except as a meta-joke about the lily whiteness of the genre.

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Disaster Porn

Alison Hallett — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

It's a Disaster is a middling comedy about yuppies and the end of the world. by Alison Hallett

HOW DO EIGHT YUPPIES survive the apocalypse? By duct-taping the windows and doors and hitting the merlot, at least according to the middling new comedy It's a Disaster.

In a longstanding tradition, eight friends regularly meet for Sunday brunch—three couples, plus their unlucky-in-love friend Tracy (Julia Stiles), who drags along the sketchy dude she happens to be dating at the moment. This time, it's Glen (David Cross), a teacher who seems like he might be the first decent guy Tracy's met. (Savvy viewers know never to trust a Glen.)

The film's first act unfolds predictably enough—there's some friendly backbiting, some hinted-at drama simmering below the surface, and a friend whose newly minted veganism provokes eye-rolling in everyone else. It's only when a neighbor shows up at the door in a hazmat suit that anyone realizes what's happened: There's been a coordinated bomb attack, downtown has been decimated, and survivors are being urged to seal their doors and windows and stay inside.

Throwing a group with complex social dynamics into a sealed pressure cooker is a tried and true formula, but this Breakfast Club for bourgie grownups never really takes off—given that the end of the world seems nigh, the stakes in It's a Disaster remain oddly low. (Red wine or white?) It's nice to see Julia Stiles getting some work—as a dyed-in-the-wool type-A intense person, I uncomfortably identified with her character's stern intolerance of a chronically late brunch guest, and indeed the best thing about It's a Disaster is that it's got a decent range of female characters.

But I'm reaching: This is a passable comedy, but not a great one; a mild, inoffensive little movie that doesn't break new ground, but isn't horribly derivative, either. There are worse ways to spend 88 of the minutes you have left in this life. There are also, most certainly, far better ones.

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Crazier Than Jack

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Room 237 offers crackpot theories about The Shining—and little else. by Ned Lannamann

THE SHINING might be the most confounding movie Stanley Kubrick ever made. Ostensibly a horror film, the 1980 movie has its share of problems: It's overlong, unevenly paced, uncomfortably creepy, and dramatically unsatisfying. It contains an over-the-top performance by a showboating Jack Nicholson, and an unbelievably grating one by a sniveling Shelley Duvall. But, as becomes evident the more you watch it, The Shining is a pitch-black comedy containing far more depth, symbolism, and artistry than the Stephen King novel upon which it was based.

The documentary Room 237—named after a particularly sketchy room in the Overlook Hotel—examines The Shining from the point of view of five obsessed fans. Their takes on the film vary wildly; one sees it as an allegory for the slaughter of Native Americans, while another thinks it's all about the Holocaust. While the occasional bit of insight is sprinkled among Room 237's loony conspiracy theories, for every bit of fun trivia—how the hotel's infamous carpet pattern mirrors the Colorado state flag, or how continuity errors lead to a missing chair and a typewriter that changes colors—there's some truly crackpot junk. One theorist (filmmaker Jay Weidner) claims The Shining is Kubrick's veiled confession about his secret role in faking the Apollo moon landing for NASA. Another (artist Juli Kearns) insists a tiny poster of a skier actually shows the hedge maze's minotaur, and that the windows in the hotel manager's office are architecturally impossible. (She would know. She's mapped out the entire Overlook Hotel in her spare time.)

The problem with Room 237 is that director Rodney Ascher allows for no context or analysis of these nutty theories; he simply lets their disembodied voices blather over footage from the film, offering neither condemnation nor corroboration. One could argue that Ascher is using a wholly objective approach, letting the commentators hang themselves with their own silliness. But in the end, with so many dangling questions and unsubstantiated claims, it feels like lazy, inclusive filmmaking—the very opposite of the painstaking meticulousness that characterizes Kubrick's work.

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Film Shorts

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

This week: Robert Duvall! Hatchets in faces! Radical faeries!

Best of the 39th Northwest Filmmakers' Festival
A selection of shorts from last year's Northwest Filmmakers' Festival. More info: nwfilm.org. Whitsell Auditorium

Blancanieves
See review this issue. Fox Tower 10.

The Company You Keep
See review this issue. Fox Tower 10.

Filmed by Bike
See My, What a Busy Week! Clinton Street Theater.

The Films of Pierre Étaix
The complete works of French filmmaker Pierre Étaix, all on 35mm, including Le Grand Amour, Land of Milk and Honey, As Long as You're Healthy, Yo Yo, and The Suitor. More info: nwfilm.org. Whitsell Auditorium.

Homegrown DocFest
Short documentaries made by students in the NW Documentary Workshop, plus a dance performance from A-WOL Dance Collective. More info: nwdocumentary.org. Mission Theater.

Let's Bury the Hatchet (Deep in Your Face)
A locally produced, excellently titled, not-screened-for-critics revenge flick, accompanied by two short films. Director and cast in attendance. Clinton Street Theater.

The Little Fugitive
A 35mm restoration of Ray Ashley and Morris Engel's 1953 film. Whitsell Auditorium.

No Place on Earth
Caver (and Fred Flinstone sound-alike) Chris Nicola recently discovered remnants of human life while exploring Ukrainian caves. He figured out that five Ukrainian Jewish families lived in these caves for nearly two years during World War II, and in No Place on Earth, we watch as actors depict those families' lives. Given the actors and the intense soundtrack, No Place isn't shy about telling you when to feel sad and nervous—and while I would have preferred to hear the survivors tell their own tales, it’s a gripping story nonetheless. ROSE FINN Living Room Theaters.

Oblivion
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Occupy Love
Director Velcrow Ripper's film that aims to capture "the heart of the movement of movements that is sweeping the planet in response to today's economic and environmental causes." Oh, Occupy! So cute! Director Q&A via Skype between screenings. Clinton Street Theater.

On the Road
Jack Kerouac's annoying, classic novel is given reverential film treatment, with all of Kerouac's ponderous post-adolescent bluster intact and none of his jazzy kinetic energy. You'd think Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) would be a great pick to make it all work onscreen, and his two unknown leads are fine as Kerouac and brother-in-arms Neal Cassady. But the movie worships the book's pages much too severely, making for a somber, serious, un-fun movie. Prestige cameos by Steve Buscemi, Elisabeth Moss, Amy Adams, and the back of Aragorn's naked weiner (playing the back of William S. Burrough's naked weiner) aren't enough to elicit interest, and Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst are in it too, which doesn't help. NED LANNAMANN Hollywood Theatre, Laurelhurst Theater, Living Room Theaters.

The Outfit
A grim Robert Duvall plays an ex-con looking to get even in this 1973 thriller. Screens as part of the Hollywood Theatre's Polyester Pulp: The ’70s Crime series. Hollywood Theatre.

Radical Faerie Film Festival
A selection of shorts that make "80 minutes of fabulous mayhem and altered reality" and cover various facets of "radical queer sensibilities." Q Center.

Repressed Cinema
A monthly series at the Hollywood Theatre, "showing vintage and contemporary films that are obscure, neglected, and from the fringe." This month: 16mm car-related shorts, from European car commercials to "sexy Loni Anderson reminding you to wear a seatbelt." Hollywood Theatre.

Room 237
See review this issue. Cinema 21.

Starbuck
A fortysomething slacker discovers that 142 people—all of whom are the result of artificial insemination, and all of whom are his biological children—are suing him. Not screened for critics. Fox Tower 10.

Upstream Color
See review this issue. Hollywood Theatre.

Vanessa Renwick Retrospective
Two nights of work from Portland artist Vanessa Renwick, with each program accompanied by an interview and Q&A. Hollywood Theatre.

We Are Winning, Don't Forget: Short Works by Jean-Gabriel Périot
Work from French political filmmaker Jean-Gabriel Périot. Director in attendance. More info: cinemaproject.org. YU Contemporary.

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