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Movies & TV
Posted inMovies & TV

Film Review: In Heretic and Don’t Move Meek Heroines Fawn and Freeze

This fall, femmes find new ways to survive.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Much has been made of Brit cinema heartthrob Hugh Grant’s heel turn in A24’s suspenseful horror film Heretic. It’s as if someone actually started listening to the actor, who has loudly proclaimed for decades that his bashful grimaces and hair shakesโ€”found in iconic hits like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Love, Actuallyโ€”are just mannerisms […]

Posted inHoliday Guide 2024 ๐ŸŽ…

Seasonโ€™s Reelings:โ€จYour 2024 Holiday Movie Guide

Spend time NOT talking to family with our previewโ€จof the holidays’ most-hyped new releases.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

ย  [Editor’s note: Read all our holly jolly HOLIDAY GUIDE articles here. Looking for a print copy? Good! You can find it in more than 500 spots across Portland with this handy map!] ย  Holidays are usually meant for time with family, which is obviously why so many people elect to go to the movies […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Allee Willis: Creative Force, ‘Dangerous Woman,’ Songwriter Behindย Friends Theme

A new documentary The World According to Allee Willis reveals your favorite artists’ favorite artist.
Avatar photo Melissa Locker

Allee Willis was your favorite artists’ favorite artist decades before Chappell Roan.

Allee Willis was a truly fascinating, wildly-creative artist who worked almost exclusively behind the scenes. She was your favorite artists’ favorite artist decades before Chappell Roan.

Allee Willis: creative force behind the Friends TV Show Theme, Dangerous Woman to Soviet newspapers
Allee Willis: Creative Force, Dangerous Woman, Queer Songwriter Behind Friends’ Theme
Further Proof That Friends Is Queer-Coded

Posted inMovies & TV

Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s Gloriously Dumb and Luminous Opus

When it’s truly singing, the infectious film gestures at the passion and poetry that come from an artist with nothing left to prove.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

Megalopolis is the career-culminating passion project of Francis Ford Coppola, a director whose over 50 years of filmmaking have set his name in stone. This timeโ€”more than 13 years since his previously, mostly self-financed ghost story Twixtโ€”he borrowed the full $120 million budget for Megalopolis against the 25 percent stake he owns in the fifth […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Film Review: My Old Ass Is a Horny Teen Sex Comedy Meets Time Travel Tearjerker

It’s Fall! So here’s your pansexual Hallmark movie.
Avatar photo HR Smith

At a September preview of My Old Ass, writer and director Megan Park said she originally intended to end the film with a crane shot pulling out of a cranberry bog to reveal a giant penis made of cranberries. โ€œ3,000 pounds of frozen cranberry dick,โ€ said Park, smugly. โ€œIt was iconic.โ€ย  It’s good Park didn’t […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Evil Does Not Exist Is About Glamping and Other Forces Beyond Our Control

The new film from Drive My Car director Ryลซsuke Hamaguchi strays from the clean conservationist message that would typically accompany such beautiful cinema of the natural world.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

At the center of Evil Does Not Existโ€”the latest narrative feature from Japanese writer-director Ryลซsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car)โ€”a town hall meeting unfolds. As is the nature of most town hall meetings, the intent is to gather feedback, in this case from the locals of Mizubiki village, a rural community just a few hours outside […]

Posted inMovies & TV

The Hype About The Peopleโ€™s Joker Is Entirely Warranted

The hilarious debut feature from Vera Drew parodies comic book icons to tell a trans coming out story.
Avatar photo Robert Ham

The hilarious debut film feature from Vera Drew, The People’s Joker, packs a lot into its 92-minute runtime—action, animation, DC comic parody deep cuts, some truly vicious and necessary jabs at some of SNL’s current stars, and a healthy scattering of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it asides. There’s been a lot of hype surrounding the pop culture parody coming of age film, but it’s entirely warranted.

Posted inMovies & TV

The Beast Is a Sci-Fi Time-Traveling Romance Alive With the Anxiety of 2024

Bertrand Bonello crammed so much into this film that it threatens to tear at the seams, but Seydoux’s and MacKay’s chemistry holds it together.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

Like Gabrielle waiting for the metaphorical “beast” to swallow her whole, with a Bertrand Bonello joint you’re always prepared for something to happen, for the whole film to veer into terrain both surreal and unsettling.

Like Léa Seydoux waiting for the metaphorical “beast” to swallow her whole, with a Bertrand Bonello joint you’re always prepared for something to happen, for the whole film to veer into terrain both surreal and unsettling.

a movie that is both a period piece and a critique of period pieces

Bertrand Bonello crammed so much into The Beast, that it threatens to tear at the seams, but Seydoux’s and MacKay’s chemistry holds it together.

Posted inMovies & TV

Film Review: Problemista Is a Bizarre, but Surprisingly Honest, Movie About US Immigration

The comedy genius behind Los Espookys and that SNL “Papyrus” sketch, Julio Torres’ first feature is queer, surreal, and over the top.
Avatar photo HR Smith

Problemista takes place in a universe where a call to customer support can spiral into a telenovela-style showdown, where bureaucracy traps people in infinite loops of Escher-like offices, and where Craigslist takes the seductive form of actor Larry Owensโ€”who knowingly whispers โ€œBowflexโ€ from within a web of trash.ย  In this way, this first feature from […]

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