1, 2, 3, Whiteout: The End of the Light Age
Combining “strange settings from various cities and languages, found footage, a raw sci-fi sensibility, and incredible soundscapes,” 1, 2, 3, Whiteout: The End of the Light Age follows a “struggle against the reign of man-made light and the world it represents.” Not screened for critics. Clinton Street Theater.
100 Feet
See review.
5th Annual KnowFilmFast Horror Competition
A bunch of local home-brewed horror films—all under six minutes and 66 seconds in length, and all made in 66 hours and 6 minutes. “The KnowFilmFast Horror Film Fest,” the press release warns. “It’s a scary motherfucker.” The Know.
Always: Sunset on Third Street 2
Takashi Yamazaki’s manga-inspired drama, screening as part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Appaloosa
Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen are convincingly badass as a couple of hired guns who come to the aid of a small town in New Mexico territory that’s threatened by a corrupt, murderous rancher. Jeremy Irons oozes menace as the bad guy, and the hatchet-faced Renée Zellweger isn’t completely awful as the default love interest, the only woman in this tiny shit-town who isn’t a whore. (…Or is she?) Adapted from one of Robert B. Parker’s eleventy-thousand novels, Appaloosa contains enough guns, horses, and billowing clouds of dust to populate every Western for the next 10 years. You’ve seen this movie before, but it’s a really good one. NED LANNAMANN Century Clackamas Town Center, City Center 12, Fox Tower 10.
Big Man Japan
A comedy about a slacker who occasionally transforms into “a stocky giant several stories high, sporting tight purple briefs, tattoos, and an Eraserhead-style hairdo.” Obviously, he then defends Japan from villainous freaks. Part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Body of Lies
Body of Lies stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, and it’s set among the terror threats and deeds of radical Muslims. But while Lies feels more authentic and nuanced than most big-budget action flicks—it points out, for example, that fighting terrorism is probably necessary, and in the same breath, adds that it’s also an undoubtedly futile fight—at the film’s core, it still doesn’t do much more than use the tumultuous Middle East as a backdrop for the sort of hammy spy thriller that Tom Clancy might write on a good day. By the final third of the film—when a terrorist pulverizes a captured American’s fingers with a hammer and says, “This is Guantánamo!”—the film’s more or less a lost cause, though I guess it deserves some brownie points for trying. ERIK HENRIKSEN Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Pioneer Place Stadium 6, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
Brideshead Revisited
Director Julian Jarrold was last responsible for the nauseating Becoming Jane, and at first, it looks as though he’s going to handle Brideshead just as clumsily. This film, like Evelyn Waugh’s book, is told from the perspective of Charles Ryder (slightly-too-old Matthew Goode), an upper-middle class striver completely out of his depth—but the filmmakers don’t do enough to remind us that Charles is our narrator. The voiceovers are scarce, the cinematography (by Jess Hall) is square and pompous when it should be dazzling, and the score (by Adrian Johnston) thunders when it should be stricken with awe. Still, the acting is more nuanced than the screenplay for Becoming Jane ever allowed. Soon we’re sucked in to the life of poor, desirous Charles, who goes up to Oxford to read history and finds himself fraternizing with a flaming creature named Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), whose idea of fun is snacking on plover eggs gathered by hand at his ancestral home; lecturing his teddy bear, Aloysius; and getting roaring drunk before noon. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t linger at Oxford for long, and the remaining point on the love triangle—Sebastian’s sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell)—is always present, but only fleetingly interesting. ANNIE WAGNER Laurelhurst Theater.
Burn After Reading
Like a Jason Bourne flick filtered through Dr. Strangelove, the Coen Brothers’ great Burn After Reading more or less serves as an excuse for the Coens to play around with the clichés and charms of the espionage genre, while also having fun with the same sort of sad, aimless, and fantastically funny characters that usually populate their films. Also, the plot involves a self-powered dildo machine. ERIK HENRIKSEN Fox Tower 10, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, St. Johns Twin Cinema and Pub, Tigard 11 Cinemas.
Choke
By day, sex addict Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) slaps on a goofy wig and works at a town that recreates what life was like for 18th century colonists; by night, he goes to restaurants, intentionally chokes on food, and takes financial advantage of whatever good Samaritan/sucker Heimlichs him. While Choke is fun, and while it thankfully retains Chuck Palahniuk’s cynical, self-deprecating, hyper-testosteroned tone (this is, after all, the sort of film where heart-to-heart conversations are had over illicit handjobs), it also comes across as a bit self-satisfied, a bit too straightforward, and a bit overly neat. ERIK HENRIKSEN Hollywood Theatre.
Classic Concerts: Alternative Festival
Concert footage from The Smiths, The Cure, Souxsie and the Banshees, and Depeche Mode. Clinton Street Theater.
The Duchess
In the hype surrounding The Duchess, much has been made of the parallels between the film’s subject, Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, and her real-life direct descendant, Princess Diana. But Georgiana (played by period piece habitué Keira Knightley) does not need the Diana hook, and her story is very much her own. Advantageously married at 17 to the Duke of Devonshire (a cold, complicated Ralph Fiennes), Georgiana became famous for her style and charisma. Though there’s no shortage of drama at play here, there are long stretches that move very slowly—fortunately, it’s a handsome film (and at times impressively racy). Besides, it pays off, gradually becoming a surprisingly substantial and anguished damning of the gilded cages in which women of Georgiana’s ilk were kept—used as baby machines, manipulated with threats of separation from their children, and forced to endure humiliation. MARJORIE SKINNER Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Fox Tower 10, St. Johns Twin Cinema and Pub.
Eagle Eye
Eagle Eye takes your deepest fears and turns them into a horrifying (and largely ridiculous) morality tale of overbearing governmental control. In a nutshell, Shia LaBeouf and that chick from Made of Honor find themselves forced to follow the whims of a mysterious woman’s voice, who not only has control over their cell phones, but anything digital: flashing roadside signs, GPS systems, video monitors at McDonald’s. The technological cat ‘n’ mouse premise may start out as unbelievable, but by the final reel Eagle Eye reaches an astounding level of implausibility that is both eye-rollingly bad and—luckily for the audience—unintentionally hilarious. WM.™ STEVEN HUMPHREY 99W Drive-In, 99W Twin Indoor Cinema, Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Cinetopia, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
A Girl Cut in Two
Director Claude Chabrol’s black comedy, en Français. Hollywood Theatre.
Hamlet 2
In Hamlet 2, the ordinarily very funny Steve Coogan (Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, 24 Hour Party People) plays Dana Marschz, a loser whose dreams of being an actor have given way to becoming a lousy high school theater teacher. Marschz is so dull that his wife (Catherine Keener) begs him to start drinking again, even though he’s a recovering alcoholic. Anyway, when the school threatens to cut the drama program, Marschz writes a play and casts his rough-and-tumble students. The play—a sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet that features Jesus and a time machine—is astonishingly bad, but it quickly becomes a lightning rod of controversy. Hamlet 2 is appealingly off-kilter, but it feels choppy, like large segments ended up on the cutting room floor, and the film doesn’t do Coogan justice. NED LANNAMANN Laurelhurst Theater.
Happy-Go-Lucky
See review. Fox Tower 10.
Haunters
A fun, seasonal documentary about creepy haunted houses and the even creepier people who make them. Plus! Local favorites Point Line Plane did the soundtrack. Plus! Like delicious trick or treat candy from questionable strangers, it’s free! ERIK HENRIKSEN Someday Lounge.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
The Disney Channel tween cash-cow hits the big screen. Anticipation for the film is running high among High School Musical fans like “scooterboy07,” who posted on IMDB.com that “this movie is AWESOmE!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM ALL!!!!” Bridgeport Village Stadium 18, Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Division Street, Evergreen Parkway 13, Hilltop 9, Cameo Theatre, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place Stadium 6, Roseway Theater, Sherwood 10, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
I Just Didn’t Do It
In this week’s best bet for a date movie, a young man accused of groping a schoolgirl insists he’s innocent as he “plunges into a Kafka-esque nightmare.” Screens as part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
La Strada
Federico Fellini’s 1954 classic. Fifth Avenue Cinema.
The Lost Boys
Haim and Feldman, rockin’ it Jack Bauer style. Laurelhurst Theater.
A Man Named Pearl
Pearl Fryar was the son of a sharecropper living in the South, and when he bought a house in a neighborhood where racist neighbors worried he would let his yard go, he proved them wrong and then some: Fryar’s exquisite topiaries are seemingly the only lifeline for his dippy little town, which mainly serves as an inconsequential blip on the freeway. Pearl’s garden brings tourists from all over, his sculpture-like pieces have been displayed by museums, and his hard work and something-from-nothing story is surprisingly fortifying to take in. MARJORIE SKINNER Cinema 21.
Man on Wire
In August of 1974, Frenchman Philippe Petit—not content with having walked a tightrope between the twin towers of both Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbour Bridge—decided to try his luck rigging a tightrope between the big daddies of all the world’s twin towers, the World Trade Center. James Marsh’s new documentary brings Petit’s feat to life—an accomplishment that is either breathtakingly stupid or brave. And while I’m usually skeptical of documentaries that switch between B-roll and interview footage, the B-roll in this case is so outrageously implausible that it’s more than enough to keep any viewer gripped. If you suffer from vertigo, for example, this movie will make you feel sick. Hell, I don’t, and it still did. MATT DAVIS Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater, Living Room Theaters.
Max Payne
The fact that Max Payne is an awful movie shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who’s sat through any cinematic adaptation of any videogame ever, from Super Mario Bros. to Street Fighter to Doom to Resident Evil to Double Dragon to Hitman to Tomb Raider. What is kind of surprising, though, is just how little Hollywood has learned in its quest to lure Nintendo fanboys into movie theaters. While the videogame industry has learned an incredible amount from feature films (at this point, the narratives in the best videogames frequently eclipse those offered by mainstream Hollywood), that pollination apparently only goes one way. Fifteen years after Hollywood started adapting videogames to the screen, the stupid, dreary Max Payne is as stylistically and narratively inept as 1993’s Super Mario Bros. ERIK HENRIKSEN Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Pioneer Place Stadium 6, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
Mock Up on Mu
Craig Baldwin’s latest is a promising-sounding mash-up of sci-fi, western, and horror. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Momma’s Man
See review. Cinema 21.
Morning Light
Suddenly I’m nine years old again, watching The Wonderful World of Disney on a Sunday night—but instead of getting to see something awesome like The Million Dollar Duck or The Cat from Outer Space, the movie this particular evening is a documentary called Morning Light about a bunch of boring, rich kids racing a Disney-financed sailboat around Hawaii—and it’s not even animated for Christ’s sake. KIALA KAZEBEE Fox Tower 10.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
The Juno comparisons are inevitable: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is another Michael Cera-starring teen flick about the personal and romantic turmoil of angsty, hoodie-clad teenagers—hip adolescents who wear the same clothes I do, but look better in them. Unlike Juno, though, there’s no sense that Nick and Norah is trying to impress the grownups with how many big words it knows. Nick and Norah is just a sweet, surprisingly sharp little teen romp, more in the vein of the 1999 guilty pleasure Can’t Hardly Wait than Diablo Cody’s recent twee-fest. Unless you’re the type of adult who finds yourself talking about John Hughes movies a LOT, though, Nick and Norah probably isn’t for you: Ultimately it’s a cute, funny teen movie. For teenagers. ALISON HALLETT Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Forest Theatre.
The Order of Myths
Mobile, Alabama is the site of the original Mardi Gras celebration. It’s also the place where the last ship full of slaves from Africa landed, in 1859, and a KKK lynching as recently as 1981. So it’s not entirely surprising that Mobile’s present day Mardi Gras celebration—the focus of the doc The Order of Myths—is “the last stronghold of segregation,” with two kings, two queens (the white queen is a descendant of the man who brought that last slave ship to Mobile), and ornate but segregated parades and masquerades. But hey, “the blacks and the whites get along fine,” says one old white guy in a festive mask, noting that some white people attend black peoples’ balls and vice versa. His nonchalant attitude is prevalent in this fascinating film, but it’s a point of view that’s increasingly being challenged by folks who are tired of Mobile’s “way of doing things.” Director Margaret Brown tightly weaves the communities and critics together, then leaves it up to the viewer to side with tradition or progress. AMY J. RUIZ Hollywood Theatre.
The Pool
An early screening of the latest from Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men). Smith will be in attendance for this screening; the film officially opens in Portland on Friday, October 31. Pick up next week’s Mercury on Thursday, October 30 for our review.
Pride and Glory
See review. Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Pioneer Place Stadium 6, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
Quarantine
What? A crappy-looking horror flick that wasn’t screened for critics? Why, I never…. Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Tigard 11 Cinemas.
Rachel Getting Married
See review. Fox Tower 10.
The Recruiter
A doc following U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Clay Usie—”one of the most successful recruiters in America”—as he watches four of his recruits enter boot camp. Seriously Pissed Off Grannies, you know what to do.
Religulous
For atheists accustomed to the one-way street of religious acceptance (on which I will respect your right to believe what you want to believe, and you will attempt to limit my access to birth control), there is something refreshing about Bill Maher’s Religulous, in which the unflappably egomaniacal Maher travels the country interviewing people about their faith, in order to: (A) point out the errors of logic, fact, and history inherent to their worldview, and (B) make fun of them. Alas, the film suffers from two things: a lack of focus, and an abundance of Maher. ALISON HALLETT City Center 12, Fox Tower 10, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema.
Saw V
A fifth serving of torture porn. Not screened for critics. Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Pioneer Place Stadium 6, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
The Secret Life of Bees
Set in a generically sepia-toned 1964, The Secret Life of Bees uses the Civil Rights Act, the violent racism of the South, and the bravery of African Americans who sought to exercise their right to vote as hastily draped window dressing for the film’s main concern: a little white girl with mommy issues. ALISON HALLETT Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, City Center 12, Fox Tower 10.
Sex Drive
Oh, poor Ian Lafferty (Josh Zuckerman). Like so many kids stuck in the rigid formula of teen sex comedies, he desperately wants to “get his nut.” But standing in Ian’s way is 500 miles of open road, a nonstop parade of wacky hijinks gone wrong, and his ever-looming virginity. Welcome to Sex Drive, which might as well be named Losin’ It 2008, or American Pie VIII: Stifler’s Revenge. It’s all pretty much the same. EZRA ACE CARAEFF Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Hilltop 9, Tigard 11 Cinemas, Wilsonville Town Center 9.
Strawberry Shortcakes
Four Tokyo women look for love in Hitoshi Yazaki’s film, based on Kiriko Nananan’s manga. Part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Sway
Miwa Nishikawa’s drama, screening as part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
The Pope’s Toilet
Uruguayan smuggler Beto (César Troncoso) makes money for his wife and daughter by hawking Brazilian products on his bicycle, but it’s dangerous work, and it doesn’t exactly come with health insurance. When Pope John Paul II comes to visit the town. Beto decides to build a toilet for Brazilian pilgrims—which ultimately serves as a metaphor for a great deal in this humorous, well-crafted meditation on what it really means to be from the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. MATT DAVIS Living Room Theaters.
Tokyo Gore Police
Spilling more blood than a slaughterhouse for hemophiliac cows, Tokyo Gore Police outdoes itself in sticky, gooey, unadulterated gore. Rivaling the lawnmower scene in Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive for pure gross-out bloodwork, this Japanese sci-fi splatter flick is so over the top you’ll wonder how you lived without it for so many long and lonely years. Set in a futuristic Tokyo where self-mutilation is “cute” and the police bureau is populated with corrupt rent-a-cops, one officer (who has a panache for wearing school-girl outfits) hunts down serial killers. And not your run-of-the-mill serial slayers either, but mutants with ninja star-shooting eyes and man-eating vaginas! More awesome selling points: massive shooting dicks, gator-like arms with toady tongues, and enough bloody geysers to send a portly man flying about a warehouse on the pure propulsion of his arterial flow. COURTNEY FERGUSON Clinton Street Theater.
Tokyo Tower: Me, Mom, and Sometimes Dad
A hit Japanese drama screening as part of the Northwest Film Center’s “Japanese Currents” series. Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Tuya’s Marriage
Tuya’s husband is disabled, so it’s a good thing Tuya is a badass. She herds sheep, fetches water, and carries drunk neighbors on her llama—all while raising a family in inhospitable inner Mongolia. But when she busts her back trying to lift up a truck (!), she knows something must be done or the family will starve. So she divorces her husband and puts out a call for suitors with one condition: the ex will live with them. Things don’t end well (thee things never do), but it’s a beautiful portrait of a woman who knows what she wants and a country that can almost give it to her. LOGAN SACHON Hollywood Theatre.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen’s three previous movies took place in London, and it seems he’s finally left Manhattan behind altogether. Vicky Cristina Barcelona functions well as a fluffy bit of tourism, but even more so than as a Spanish travelogue, the movie works—as with much of Allen’s work—as escapism into the world of mysteriously wealthy people. As for the much-ballyhooed kiss between Scarlett Johansson and Penélope Cruz, it’s pretty tame. The real fire comes from Cruz’s performance; she’s riveting and hilarious as a passionate, possibly insane firebrand, and whenever she shares the screen with Johansson, it’s easy to forget that Johansson has all the charisma of a wet paper bag. NED LANNAMANN Fox Tower 10.
W.
It’s hard to say for sure how liberals, who are certainly director Oliver Stone’s intended audience, will react to this light-hearted cinematic indictment of George W. Bush. A lot of them probably can’t get enough of seeing Bush mocked and deconstructed, and will therefore love this. But a good number of them, one suspects, will be bored—they’ll go in wanting a new, revelatory way of seeing the president and come out having had a few good chuckles amid one long, familiar, flashback that they’re very ready not to have happen again. ELI SANDERS Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Century Eastport 16, Cinemagic, Cinetopia, City Center 12, Cornelius Stadium Cinemas, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema, Pioneer Place Stadium 6.