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78/52
See review, this issue. NW Film Centerâs Whitsell Auditorium.
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BRAZIL
There are two things Terry Gilliam is legitimately great at: Making provocative films, and provoking the people who give him the money to make them. In 1985, Gilliamâs masterpiece on both fronts, Brazil was (barely) releasedâa delirious fever dream of dystopian sci-fi that blends the best of Fritz Lang and Steven Spielberg into a funny, sad, and scary satire. The only thing more audacious than the film is the story of Gilliam dragging Universal Pictures into a very public street fight to save his film from the scissor-happy hands of the studioâand winning. Savor Gilliamâs victory on the big screen while you can. BOBBY ROBERTS Clinton Street Theater.
CLUE
The phrase âahead of its timeâ is frequently misused as a means for people who like shitty things to excuse their enjoyment of said shit by suggesting people who donât freely ingest shit were simply too dumb to appreciate it properly. This phrase is rarely applied accurately, but in the case of the 1985 board game adaptation (!) Clue, it fits like a butlerâs white leather glove. The combination of source material and its gimmicky âcome back each week and get a different ending!â theatrical hook turned audiences off, but as kids (primarily theater kids) rediscovered it on home video, its whip-smart-and-lightning-fast dialog delivered by a troupe of amazing comic actors (Madeleine Kahn! Michael McKean! Tim fucking Curry!) providing quality characterization in service of a legitimately good mystery finally earned Clue the due it deserved in the first place. BOBBY ROBERTS Academy Theater.
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COCO
See review, this issue. Various Theaters.
THE DISASTER ARTIST
James Franco directs James Franco as Tommy Wiseau, director of what many consider to be the single worst film ever made, The Room. This film is intentionally funny, as opposed to The Room, which is incomprehensible trash in every respect. Co-starring an old pug and Dave Franco. Cinema 21.
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FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Wes Andersonâs adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl story was the film that caused everyone to simultaneously realize all his previous films were quirky stop-motion shoebox diorama comedies. Itâs just that he was limiting himself by making them with actual people. Remove the limitation, and you wind up with the most charming, warm, and funny entry in his filmography. BOBBY ROBERTS NW Film Centerâs Whitsell Auditorium.
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THE FORCE
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Peter Nicks followed the Oakland Police Department around for two yearsâtwo chaotic and particularly scandal-plagued years. In The Force, Nicks takes the role of a dispassionate observer, capturing meetings of high-level officials dealing with police shootings and misconduct, training sessions for incoming cops (including one guy you just KNOW will be a problem), meetings with outraged community members, and the day-to-day policing of a beat cop. My only knock on The Force is a complimentary one: I wish I could see wayyyyyyy more than what was squeezed into 93 minutes. Nicksâ footage would thrive in, say, a miniseries on Netflix or HBO; Iâd watch 10 hours of it, easy. Danielle Outlaw, Portlandâs new police chief who worked at the OPD during the course of the movie, doesnât make final cut, but itâs still a good doc to watch if youâre paying attention to issues here. Read our full review in next weekâs Mercury. DOUG BROWN NW Film Centerâs Whitsell Auditorium.
GRINDHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL: ALLIGATOR
Before screenwriter John Sayles was known as the lyrical, incisive, and insightful scribe behind some of the most human films of the â80s and â90s (Eight Men Out, Passion Fish, Lone Star, The Secret of Roan Inish) he was something of a grindhouse wunderkind, churning out quick ânâ dirty schlock scripts thatâdespite being intended as low-budget genre ripoffsâmanaged to maintain a grasp on something resembling art. His first film was the mean-spirited Jaws riff Piranha, and he followed that up two years later with... a bigger, more ambitious Jaws riff, starring Robert Forster as a cop who descends into the Chicago sewers to face a giant man-eating mutant alligator. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre.
JANE
Based on recovered footage of iconic primatologist Jane Goodall during her groundbreaking chimpanzee research in 1960s Tanzania, Jane unfolds in a traditional National Geographic documentary format: beautiful nature footage paired with reserved British voiceover (provided by Goodall herself). Anyone with a passing interest in Goodallâs writings about the social relationships of chimpanzees will be delighted by the dramatic film clips of chimps stealing bananas from her camp set to an energetic score by Philip Glass. Mixed-in moments of Goodallâs perfectly-lit beauty seem out of place with her professional reflections until the film reveals this recovered footage was shot by Hugo van Lawick, a gifted wildlife photographer and, in time, Goodallâs first husband. The authentic relatability to both these love storiesâvan Lawick falling for Goodall and Goodall discovering her lifeâs workâpushes Jane beyond the confines of a nature film into the territory of being a pretty ideal date movie. SUZETTE SMITH Cinema 21.
JUSTICE LEAGUE
Before I can give Justice League a fair critical assessment, one thing must be said: For the first third of the movie, Aquaman swims in JEANS. That alone is an abomination that can never be forgivenâbecause I can accept an Aquaman that doesnât have gills, or even fins... but if you expect me to accept an Aquaman that swims in jeans, you are eternally fucked in the head. Thanks for that aside. Now, despite the previously mentioned abomination, Justice League is not all bad. However, it is mostly not good. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY Various Theaters.
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
Director Yorgos Lanthimosâ morality play uses the myth of Iphigeniaâwho was sacrificed by her father to appease the godsâas a springboard, but itâs the mythology of cinema that Lanthimos is intent on exploding as he uses sterile, slow, almost Kubrickian imagery to interrogate the story. The surreal hilarity of Lanthimosâ last film, The Lobster, is totally absent here; Sacred Deer is, in the moment, an unpleasant experience. But as the director is careful to announce early on, this is not a film about what you seeâitâs about what you realize hours, maybe days, after youâve left the theater. Lanthimos gets under your skin and stays there. NED LANNAMANN Cinema 21.
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LADY BIRD
Watching Lady Bird is kind of like reopening your high school yearbook for the first time in years, wincing and smiling in equal measure. Greta Gerwigâs directorial debut is sweet, tragic, and sentimental, which is exactly how a coming-of-age movie should be. CIARA DOLAN Hollywood Theatre.
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LAST FLAG FLYING
What is the value of a comforting lie? Thatâs the question at the heart of Last Flag Flying, Richard Linklaterâs sort-of sequel to 1973âs The Last Detail, in which three Vietnam vets reunite after decades apart to bury a casualty of the Iraq War. None of them can quite agree on how much truth can be humanely dispensed in the wake of a tragedy. Fuck if I know either, and fuck if Linklater knows, but he sure is willing to puzzle it out. Like a lot of Linklater movies, Last Flag Flying is better at asking questions than responding to them, and there are no easy answers here. So Linklater does what he does best: He establishes characters who feel like real people, then set them against problems that are hard to solve. If they havenât solved them by the time the credits roll, well, thatâs how it goes sometimes. BEN COLEMAN Living Room Theaters.
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
âInventedâ is a rather melodramatic overstatement, but The Man Who Invented Christmas is still an affable, gentle holiday biopic that covers the two months in 1843 in which Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. As presented in Susan Coyneâs mostly accurate screenplay, the kind-hearted but financially struggling Dickens (Dan Stevens) is on a tight deadline, and heâs having trouble with the story. He interacts with his imagined characters (including a fine Christopher Plummer as Scrooge) in a manner thatâs thankfully less precious than it could have been, though director Bharat Nalluri does delight in showing Dickens stumbling across details that will make their way into the book (e.g., a ghostly waiter named Marley). The charismatic Stevens finds depth in Dickensâ flawsânotably his disdain for his embarrassing father (Jonathan Pryce)âand carries us through the authorâs own Scrooge-like mini-redemption. Itâs a warm, hearty yuletide tale, perfect for visiting relatives. ERIC D. SNIDER Living Room Theaters.
MANNEQUIN
Celebrate the post-Thanksgiving consumerist frenzy in the best way possible: with this 1987 Pygmalion riff about a tortured artist (â80s whiteboy go-to Andrew McCarthy) who accidentally creates a vessel for Egyptian royalty (the super-Egyptian looking/sounding Kim Cattrall) to embody. This vessel, a mall display mannequin, comes to life, does his job better than he can, and in return he teaches it how to be a real girl so he can fuck it a lot as the producers spam Starshipâs Nothingâs Gonna Stop Us Now in the background. Co-starring Sophia from The Golden Girls, Anthony from Designing Women, and James Spader before he became a sleepy-eyed sack of sneers in a shitty fedora for NBC. BOBBY ROBERTS Fifth Avenue Cinema.
NOVITIATE
Set in the midst of the Catholic Churchâs 1964 âVatican IIâ reforms, Novitiate begins with 17-year-old Cathleen (Margaret Qualley) entering a convent and telling us, âUnder everything else, we were women in love.â She means with God; the point of writer/director Margaret Bettsâ sensitive spiritual drama is that sometimes that relationship feels one-sided. Cathleen, raised by an agnostic mother (Julianne Nicholson), found her own way to the sisterhood and has an earnest connection with the Lord that doesnât preclude having doubts. Meanwhile, the strictly old-school Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo), whoâs been a nun for 40 years and is 100 percent certain of everything, finds herself struggling with the Vatican II rebranding. Qualley is a soulful lead, but the emotional center is Leoâs heartbreakingly relatable performance as a woman whose world is changing. ERIC D. SNIDER Cinema 21.
PIPE ORGAN PICTURES: THE IRON HORSE
One of legendary director John Fordâs earliest films, a silent movie about the construction of the first trans-continental railroad. Enjoy this (probably not all that historically accurate) look back at Americaâs past, with live organ accompaniment by Dean Lemire. Hollywood Theatre.
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PSYCHO
Of all the things this Hitchcock classic is often championed forâits score, its cinematography, its fucking perfect sense of pacingâmaybe the most notable achievement is how completely it manipulates an audienceâs empathy. Steven Spielberg is often considered one of cinemaâs master magicians, but even he wouldnât be so bold as to hinge an entire movieâs success on his ability to not only put you in a matricidal, murdering peeperâs shoes, but convince you to put those shoes on yourself without even thinking twice about it. Hitchcock has made better films, but never any as sneaky as Psycho. BOBBY ROBERTS NW Film Centerâs Whitsell Auditorium.
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ.
Remember Jake Gyllenhaalâs bulging eyes in Dan Gilroyâs excellent thriller Nightcrawler. They were the eyes of a man who almost entirely lived in his head. The main character in Gilroyâs latest, Roman J. Israel, Esq., also lives deep inside of his head, but we see his extreme-mindedness not in his eyes but his walk. Played by the great Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel is a lawyer who has a monstrous memory. He can recall with no effort all of the details of dead and forgotten cases; he lives in his dreams of a better and more just American society; he walks like his mind has no idea that it has a body. The film is not Washingtonâs best, but it, and that walk, will not disappoint Washingtonâs fans. CHARLES MUDEDE Various Theaters.
THE SECRET OF NIMH
Were it not for NIMH, the world of feature film animation might not still exist. In 1982, Disney was a clumsy, confused beast that couldnât score a hit to save its life, despite its near-monopoly on childrenâs entertainment. Enter filmmaker Don Bluthâor rather, exit Bluth, in a frustrated huff, from Disney, along with a whole squad of talented animators sick of the rut they were stuck in. They grabbed a weird, gently moody little sci-fi/fantasy story for kids and let their ambitions run wild all over itâand kicked Disneyâs ass with a beautifully animated adventure about a brave mom trying to take care of her kids. Not only did this success allow for new voices in animation to be heard, it forced Disney to fight for its crown. The animation renaissance of the â90s? You can thank Mrs. Brisby for that. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre.
THE SQUARE
Through the eyes of a satirist, the world of contemporary art museums is what one might call a âtarget-rich environment.â Pretense, hypocrisy, decadenceâtheyâre all there, just waiting to be mocked. And the mercilessly acerbic Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ăstlund, whose Force Majeure was one of the sharpest critiques of matrimony and masculinity in recent memory, would seem to be just the person to do it. And he does so in smart and entertaining fashion, at least until a drawn-out final act turns The Square from a sharp-tongued takedown into an example of the kind of high-minded narcissism it decries. MARC MOHAN Cinema 21.
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THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
See review, this issue. Hollywood Theatre.
WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
âWe are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.â NW Film Centerâs Whitsell Auditorium.
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
DID YOU KNOW: The guy who directed Mad Max: Fury Road and Babe: Pig in the City also directed an adaptation of John Updikeâs supernatural feminist fantasy about a trio of Rhode Island witches (Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer) who are seduced and manipulated byâand seek delicious revenge uponâJack Nicholson, whose character is named Daryl but who is basically just Jack Nicholson: a lustful, piggish, disgusting (and disgustingly charming) demon of a man. BOBBY ROBERTS Laurelhurst Theater.
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WONDER
Itâs easy to live a snarky life. I see a lot of movies that are god-awful, and the world around us is also pretty god-awful, and without wanting to, I seem to have âThis is stupidâ on the tip of my tongue more often than not. So when a movie comes along that is goodâlegitimately, sincerely good, like flowers or soup or dogsâI find myself grasping at a way to describe it. Wonder, directed by The Perks of Being a Wallflowerâs Stephen Chbosky, is that good movie. Itâs about a little boy, Auggie (Roomâs Jacob Tremblay), and his mom (Julia Roberts), his dad (Owen Wilson), and his older sister (Izabela Vidovic). Auggie was born with a condition that makes him look different, so thatâs what Wonder focuses onâbut itâs not really what this movie is. This is a portrait of a group of humansâgrown-ups and kids, but mostly kidsâwho are whole, complicated people, who have opportunities to be selfish and opportunities to be kind. Wonder defaults to kindness in a manner that feels both totally inspiring and completely organic. ELINOR JONES Various Theaters.
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WONDERSTRUCK
Todd Haynes has been in the zone for quite some time now, creating a remarkable streak of films that establish glorious illusions, and then burrow deeper for the real, messy deal. Wonderstruck, the directorâs first movie for a younger audience, feels like an anomaly in other, less intriguing waysâincluding an atypically slack narrative and an occasional case of the cutes. But then the third act kicks in, and everything gets terrific. ANDREW WRIGHT Laurelhurst Theater, Academy Theater.
â MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. Theater locations are accurate Friday, November 24-Thursday, November 30, unless otherwise noted. Movie times are updated daily and are available here.