* The Asphalt Jungle
Here is a glamorous three-piece suit caper just waiting to be turned into a George Clooney remake. Problem is, it probably could not be made any better. Minting the image of the urbane burglar, John Huston’s 1950 classic follows a group of smooth as silk jewel thieves. Told with documentary-like precision, the story explores the city, from the glum slums to the swank penthouses, meanwhile exploring the minds of these criminals. Laurelhurst
* Away All Boats
WWII captain Hawks and boat commander MacDougall must put aside personal grievances in order to manage a crew of inexperienced officers in battle, eventually landing at Okinawa. Both humorous because of the incompetence of the soldiers, and poignant because of the portrait of war. Released in 1955, and shown Monday in pristine 35 mm. Admission for veterans is free. Clinton Street Theater
* Bon Voyage
Bon Voyage has a big theme (Germany’s invasion of France), big actors (in terms of reputation), and big emotions (a young man’s eternal love for a famous but shallow movie actress). The speed of the film’s narrative is always high, and the characters are kept in constant motion, rarely stopping to rest and look at the big world around them. If this were an American movie, it would have been described as intelligent and even profound; but as a French movie, it is big, dumb, and lots of fun. (Charles Mudede) Fox Tower 10
Breakin’ All the Rules
Jamie Foxx gets dumped by his girlfriend and then writes a book about it. Lloyd Mall
* City Without a Home
Filmmaker Dee McDonald travels with and interviews the inhabitants of a homeless tent city who must move camp every 30 days. Q & A with the filmmaker after the screenings. Fifth Avenue Cinemas
* Coffee and Cigarettes
Based upon the existentialist’s perennial props–coffee, cigarettes–it’s easy to assume Coffee and Cigarettes will fulfill the circular non-aspirations of ’90s slacker art films. A collection of black-and-white shorts directed by Jim Jarmusch (some of which were in fact filmed in the ’80s and ’90s), it follows a formula similar to his 1991 film A Night on Earth: concretize the mise en scene (here, conversation over coffee and cigarettes) and flow in the players, for a portfolio in character interaction and bare direction. It’s a meditation on the extraordinary in the mundane–and, at first, it seems the emphasis is “mundane.” But, starting with the short starring Tom Waits and Iggy Pop, magic starts to happen. As the scripts unloosen, tension between players becomes more genuine, recurring topics emerge, the magnetic pull of coffee and cigarettes is pondered, and the film attains a hypnotic ship-like sway. (Julianne Shepherd) Cinema 21
* The Crying Ladies
Three women in Manila’s Chinatown make their living as professional mourners (or criers) at traditional Chinese funerals. The film explores each of the women’s lives, one who is trying to regain custody of her son, another who lives in the past, romanticizing the days when she was a B-movie actress, and a third who is having an affair with her best friend’s husband. Illuminated are both the women’s struggles and victories, painting a comic picture of ordinary life. Hollywood Theatre
The Day After Tomorrow See review this issue. Regal Cinemas, etc.
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Whereas the last Michel Gondry/Charlie Kaufman collaboration, Human Nature, eventually crumbled under its own quirkiness (considerably helped along by the staggering blandness of Tim Robbins), Eternal Sunshine finds director and scribe fitting perfectly together. This is a film that travels far beyond most of our imaginations. It is also one of the most beautifully assembled romances you will ever see. (Bradley Steinbacher) City Center 12, Edgefield, Fox Tower 10, Lloyd Cinemas
* Evil Cult See review this issue. Sabala’s Mt Tabor Theatre
* Good bye, Lenin
In 1989, Alexander Kerner (Daniel Brühl) is a young East Berliner not beginning, as he had hoped, a career in space, but one as a TV repairman. Though not happy about his situation, Alexander is not an angry youth, nor is he openly hostile to his mother, whose faith in the Socialist Party contradicts his emerging political beliefs. During a protest against the state, which is brutally repressed by the police, Alexander’s mother chances to see him being beaten and arrested by the very cops who serve the party that she is devoted to. The mother faints and has a heart attack, which sends her into a coma. During her sleep, the Berlin Wall falls, East Germany dissolves into West Germany, and the society changes its money, its clothes, its entire mode of material existence. After eight months, the mother awakes, but because she is frail, the doctor strongly recommends that her recovery not be shaken by shocks and surprises. It’s at this point that Good Bye, Lenin! becomes interesting. (Charles Mudede) Laurelhurst
* Honeymoon in Vegas
Nick Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, and James Caan star in this film about love, money, and flying Elvises. Blind Onion
* Hukkle See review this issue. Guild Theater
* I’m Not Scared
The advertising slogan for Gabriel Salvatore’s I’m Not Scared, “Who can you trust when everyone’s a suspect?” lends a poignant and desperate resonance to the film’s unsettling plot. In an isolated village in southern Italy, 10-year-old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) gradually uncovers an inhumane and jarring secret about his family. Michele’s distrust of the people around him grows, and the young actor skillfully expresses the revelatory pain that arrives with the betrayal of childhood trust. Intense, subtle performances make it difficult to keep an objective distance as the film works to articulate a painful conflict between the loving abandon of childhood and fearful confusion of growth. The adults in the film are depraved and frightened, and Michele must shoulder the immense responsibility of remaining courageous in the face of their threats. A devastating and provocative film capable of provoking uncomfortable philosophical illuminations. (Evan James) Fox Tower 10
Kitchen Stories
A spoof on how science can make for more efficient living, the fictional Swedish Home Research Institute sends observers to examine kitchen habits in 1950s Norway. The subtext of this gentle comedy is a homosexual love story. The “text” is much less interesting. Beware: your grandparents will love it. (Andy Spletzer) Cinemagic
* The Laws of Attraction
Laws of Attraction is a flawlessly functional romantic comedy. I highly recommend it for those desiring heartwarming love-resolutions, or researching how to write romantic comedy screenplays. And, if I remember correctly, we get to see Pierce Brosnan with his shirt off three or four times, and once in a pair of skimpy black briefs. (Evan James) Kennedy School, Mission Theater
Man on Fire
Now, I’ve nothing against revenge tragedies. However, director Tony Scott (Enemy of the State, Top Gun) is a worthless washed-up hack that should’ve been kicked out of Hollywood years ago. A lobotomized monkey couldn’t ruin a movie with Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning–and yet somehow? Tony Scott has managed to rise to the task. (Wm. Steven Humphrey) Regal Cinemas, etc.
* Mean Girls
Mean Girls is no Heathers–it lacks the surreal quality of the teenage years, the quality that’s found a strange but correct analogue in supernatural teen dramas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch–but it’s pretty good. Really, when you think about what sort of crap is out there for teenagers, about how teenagers live and interact and what Hollywood thinks is at stake for them (Chasing Liberty, anyone?), Mean Girls starts to look great. It’s funny, lively, and smart, with a couple of characters who seem realer than not, and had I seen it as a teenager it might have changed something for me. Regal Cinemas, etc.
* Monsoon Wife
Monsoon Wife‘s most compelling aspect is its documentary peek into Cambodia. The plot concerns itself with the sex trade and the unsavory brand of tourism and exploitation that is attracted by it, although it frequently gets away from itself with disjointed subplots that appear to exist in order to both create a fuller picture of this depravation and to present positive, unrelated aspects of the country. (An absurdly immature, rich, horny tourist exists entirely as a tool for the film’s expository motives.) Visually, the film is beautifully shot, and seems to have made good use of its relatively low budget. It is a compelling subject, and the film is remarkable as the first American film to be shot entirely in Cambodia–a rarity that alone makes the film worthwhile. Still, it would have benefited from a tighter narrative focus. Shown as a benefit for the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center. (Marjorie Skinner) Fifth Avenue Cinemas
New York Minute
The Olsen twins are agents of socialization in a conservative America; New York Minute is loaded with superficial morals ranging from familial friendship and personal responsibility, to a half-baked swipe at the evils of pirated music. What’s worse, though, is that NYM‘s screenplay has some, hmm… racially unsound moments written by screenwriters apparently thinking with less depth than the Olsen’s pedicurist. (Julianne Shepherd) Milwaukie 3 Theater
Osama
Osama is not directly about bin Laden. The film is about a little girl forced to disguise herself as a boy to prevent her jobless mother and grandmother from starving under the oppressive Taliban regime–subtle. It’s a fantastic film, with invaluable historic significance, but a devastatingly joyless experience. (Marjorie Skinner) Laurelhurst
Painters Painting: Picasso, Pollock, Brakhage, Ross
Director Paul Haesaerts captures Pablo Picasso in action, painting images on a piece of glass. Similarly, Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg immortalize Jackson Pollock in their 1951 documentary. Following are two films by Stan Brakhage, who painted directly onto celluloid creating abstract images. Finally, wind down with the teachings of Bob Ross and his television show, Joy of Painting. Whitsell Auditorium
Raising Helen See review this issue. Regal Cinemas, etc.
The Saddest Music In the World
Set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, the film is about a wealthy beer baroness (Isabella Rossellini) who throws a radio contest to see which country produces the saddest music in the world (and to sell beer to the depressed masses, especially the Americans terrorized by prohibition). Representatives from all over the globe come to face off, tournament-style. Curiously, most of the music in this film is quickly cut short, squandering an opportunity to showcase a limitless range of powerful styles. Also, curiously, most of the music really doesn’t seem all that sad. (Marjorie Skinner) Fox Tower 10
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 can best be described with a shrug. As in: it’s fine, no big deal, just what you would expect. It is a harmless home run–uninspired, for the most part (especially when compared to the original), but certainly watchable. This, I’m well aware, is not high praise, but then Shrek 2 is impervious to both praise and derision; safe and cozy thanks to the massive success of its predecessor, the film can just sit back and patiently tally what is sure to be its massive profit. (Bradley Steinbacher) Regal Cinemas, etc.
A Slipping Down Life
Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce star in this 1999 film about a small-town woman who becomes obsessed with a barroom country musician. Fox Tower 10
Soul Plane
Tom Arnold, Snoop Dogg, and Method Man star in this film about the first black-owned airline, which features hydraulics, subwoofers, and big booty stewardesses on the planes. Century Eastport 16, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV
* Sound of Silence: The Films of Nick Peterson
A collection of six of local Portlander Nick Peterson’s films will show tonight. Primarily based on young people falling in and out of love, the films speak without dialogue, capturing the poignant moments and actions between all that blabbing. Guild Theater
Spartan
The story centers on one secret service agent, whose only meaning in life is his work. Suddenly the daughter of a powerful politician is kidnapped. Twists and turns lead the agent to a seedy stream of white slavery that connects Boston with Yemen. In Yemen, like everywhere else, the most valued object is a blond American teenager. And according to this film, made by a Jewish director, it is the duty of black Americans, Mexican Americans, and working-class white Americans, to protect, even at the cost of their lives, this all-American treasure–the blond beauty. (Charles Mudede) Hollywood Theatre
* Spellbound
Spellbound is a documentary that follows eight pre-teenage contenders in the 1999 National Spelling Bee finals. Pix Patisserie
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring
The five seasons are governed by very different generic conventions–meaning it’s entirely possible to enjoy one and abhor the next. The opening parable “Summer” is successful, but the next two episodes (a coming-of-age vignette and a cop drama) come up short by comparison. Then “Winter”–by far the most successful segment, and the only full episode to feature director Kim Ki-duk as the main character–explodes into an astounding ode to labor and atonement. (Annie Wagner) Fox Tower 10
* Stupidity
Since stupidity runs rampant, it’s amazing the subject has never been given a full scientific treatment. However, documentarian Albert Nerenberg and his film Stupidity, have taken a step in the right direction. The first thing we learn about stupidity is that none of the people interviewed can define it. However, they do seem to know it when they see it. Nerenberg makes the case that in actuality, we know much more about the concept of intelligence–even though stupidity causes much more damage in the world. Using experts, Nerenberg gives us a guided tour of how 20th-Century scientists developed the I.Q. (intelligence quotient) test, and the surprising origins of words like “idiot,” “moron,” and “imbecile.” An even more interesting theory is how corporations, politicians, and the entertainment industry have learned to use “stupidity” to sell their products. (Wm. Steven Humphrey) Clinton Street Theater
* Super Size Me
In an inspired bout of artistic commitment, Morgan Spurlock set aside a month during which he ate nothing but McDonald’s. The effects of this endeavor were astounding. He put on 30 pounds in 30 days, suffered periods of intense chest pain, shortness of breath, and was told by multiple doctors that if he continued at his unorthodox eating he would die from liver failure within six months. As the movie progresses, a palpable sense of dread mounts, as Spurlock continues to stuff McNuggets and french fries in the face of terrible health reports. (Justin Sanders) City Center 12, Fox Tower 10
* Suspiria
A young American dancer arrives at a European ballet school only to find another American woman seemingly fleeing for her life. The girl trys to settle in at the school but is troubled by strange noises and bizzare occurrences. She eventually discovers that the evil is within the school, and she isn’t safe. Fifth Avenue Cinemas
Troy
If you were going to bring an epic tale to life on the big screen, it would be nice if you could find an epic tale to tell. Troy, the latest big budget action/drama/war/romance/ adventure film by hack director Wolfgang Petersen (Perfect Storm, Air Force One, Outbreak) and starring Brad Pitt, has absolutely no idea what story it’s trying to unravel. Playing out something like the Cliffs Notes version of Homer’s enormous epic poem, The Illiad, on which it’s based, Troy attempts to conquer a huge amount of territory, but has no battle plan. (Katie Shimer) Regal Cinemas, etc.
Two Men Went to War
Based on a true story and set in 1942, the story of an old sergeant in the Army Dental Corps, and a young private who both want to see the battles of war. With two revolvers and a dozen grenades, the two go AWOL on a mission to infiltrate occupied France. Fox Tower 10
Van Helsing
Hugh Jackman plays Van Helsing, a long-haired Nancy-boy, who is paid by the Vatican to run around Europe and kill monsters, and who’s eventually sent to Transylvania to kill Dracula. On his journey, he meets up with a sweet piece of ass (Kate Beckinsale) who also wants to kill Dracula because–surprise!–he killed her family. BUT! Unbeknownst to them, Drac has an evil scheme in mind! (Wm. Steven Humphrey) Regal Cinemas, etc.
* What the Fuck Do We Know?
What the #$*! Do We Know?, is a tidy, slick, and thoroughly compelling documentary-infused narrative, which attempts to break the ice of quantum physics without putting us to sleep. The dramatized portions follow a few days in the life of Portland photographer Amanda, affectionately played by Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, as she deals with her separation from a cheating husband. These scenes were filmed at various sites around Portland, which adds a certain resonance to the action. Interspersed throughout the narrative, noted quantum physicists break it down, posing huge questions about reality, and our perceptions thereof. They touch on deliciously radical and heretical topics, but stop short of simple explanations, which gives the film a lovely, meditative feel, while simultaneously making you smarter. (Brian Brait) Bagdad Theater, Hollywood Theatre, St. Johns Pub
* Wrestlevania w/Catwoman from Outerspace
See My What a Busy Week pg 19 Sabala’s Mt Tabor Theatre