20,000 Days on Earth
See review this issue. Cinema 21.
The Best of Me
See review this issue. Various Theaters.
Björk: Biophilia Live
Shot last year at a London show, this concert film of the Icelandic art-popper is suitably bizarre and eye-popping. Wearing a pincushion dress and an immense 'fro wig, Björk is backed by a (rather spectacular looking) women's choir and a bunch of T-shirted dudes playing strange instruments like a Tesla coil, a digital pipe organ, a MIDI gamelan thingy, and a pendulum harp. It doesn't all sound great—and parts of the performance veer into laughably goofy performance art territory—but, in all, it's quite a spectacle to behold. Considering the last time Björk played Portland was a 1995 show at La Luna, this may be our closest chance of catching her live. NED LANNAMANN Mission Theater.
The Book of Life
See review this issue. Various Theaters.
The Fly
See My, What a Busy Week! Academy Theater.
Fury
See review this issue. Various Theaters.
Giuseppe Makes a Movie
A documentary about Giuseppe Andrews, a man with over 30 films on his filmography—all made with his friends in his trailer park. Not screened for critics. Hollywood Theatre.
Men, Women & Children
See review this issue. Various Theaters.
Reel Music
The annual Reel Music festival dumps a wealth of music films onto Portland filmgoers for the 32nd year running. It kicked off with the much-anticipated Heaven Adores You, a stirring (and suitably depressing) documentary about Elliott Smith from director Nickolas Rossi. For more, see "A Reel-y Musical Fest," Mercury, Oct 8. NED LANNAMANN NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.
Repressed Cinema
A monthly series at the Hollywood Theatre, "showing vintage and contemporary films that are obscure, neglected, and from the fringe." This month: two 35mm Andy Milligan films, Guru The Mad Monk and The Body Beneath. Hollywood Theatre.
Re-run Theater
A 16mm screening of Steven Spielberg's little-seen Something Evil, a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC in 1972, about a demonic force making itself known in Dennis Weaver's house. Hollywood Theatre.
The Room
With its interminable sex scenes and abandoned plot threads, some could say The Room is a "bad" movie, but this raises the question of what makes a movie "good." Is it a comprehensible script? Believable acting? Sets that don't look like they're going to topple over at any second? The Room contains none of these elements, yet that hardly detracts from its remarkably high entertainment value. In fact, The Room may have you questioning the reasons you've ever enjoyed anything in your life—as well as serving as incontrovertible proof that making a movie is very, very difficult. Director Tommy Wiseau in attendance; screenings also include the Portland premiere of The Neighbors, Wiseau's sitcom. NED LANNAMANN Cinema 21.
Rudderless
William H. Macy's directorial debut tells the story of a dad (Billy Crudup) whose son dies during a college shooting incident. Sad Dad Times™ ensue, signified by the three Bs: booze, beard, and (living on a) boat. Then Sad Dad finds Dead Son's old recordings and decides to play his songs, starting a band with Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Ben Kweller. You'd best believe they fucking rock their local bar's open mic! A movie like this lives or dies by its music, and the songs are kinda maybe okay, but Rudderless can't escape its intrinsic goofiness—there's a scene in which the band plays a punk-rock version of "Wheels on the Bus" that will have the entire theater facepalming. Still, Crudup is worth watching in anything, and the plot's late twist, while unearned and too-casually introduced, is certainly interesting. NED LANNAMANN Living Room Theaters.
The Shining
"Hi, I've got an appointment with Mr. Ullman. My name is Jack Torrance." Hollywood Theatre.
The Skeleton Twins
Is it possible for estranged fraternal twins (Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader) to attempt suicide on the same day? Sure, it's possible, but it isn't especially believable. After Craig Johnson, who previously directed the Northwest-set True Adolescents, establishes this credibility-straining premise, The Skeleton Twins finds its darkly comic groove. If it feels like a Sundance Film Festival sensation, that's because it was, and though these small-scale domestic dramas struggle to find paying customers outside the hype-filled bubble of Park City, Johnson's sophomore effort is better than most. KATHY FENNESSY Various Theaters.
Sound & Chaos:
The Story of BC Studio
With its cavernous, somewhat dangerous recording rooms and hyperactive owner, Brooklyn-based BC Studio is a perfect subject for a documentary exploring its history in the underground rock scene and some of the amazing music tracked there (Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit," among others). Unfortunately, Sound & Chaos only scratches the surface of the studio's history and the life of its twitchy but engaging owner, Martin Bisi; directors Ryan Douglass and Sara Leavitt have a hard time finding the right balance between awestruck reverence at Bisi's résumé and explaining why recordings from BC Studio sound as good as they do. Things get interesting toward the end, when they fix their lens on the gentrification threatening to push the studio out of its Gowanus location—but like the rest of the film, that discussion remains vague, offering up little evidence as to why we should care. Co-director Ryan Douglass in attendance. ROBERT HAM Hollywood Theatre.
St. Vincent
See review this issue. Various Theaters.
Young Ones
Young Ones is the sort of movie where people stare off into the distance more often than they speak, and when violence comes it's fast and loud and aesthetically unkind. You could call it sci-fi because there are some robots in it, but this is a story of Biblical simplicity: Michael Shannon is the hardscrabble patriarch of a family on the ass end of an global drought. His son is an amiable dork who may be too weak for the tasks of survival. His daughter has a real shitbird boyfriend. It's a potent recipe for one hell of a Western, robots or no. BEN COLEMAN Hollywood Theatre, Kiggins Theatre.
