2010 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts
The animated short films are the fun-size candies of the Oscar nominations—they're invariably delightful, short bursts of sweetness. It goes without saying that the Wallace and Gromit short A Matter of Loaf and Death is brilliant, with the prudent dog desperately trying to keep Wallace out of an unwise relationship with a mysterious blonde spokesmodel. Logorama is a heavy-handed, yet outrageously innovative and entertaining French film about a hard-boiled city constructed entirely of company logos, wherein the cops (all Michelin Men) hunt down a sociopathic fugitive on the run (trash-talkin' Ronald McDonald). Let's just say Adbusters found their new favorite film. It's a great group of films—not a stinker in the bunch. COURTNEY FERGUSON Hollywood Theatre.

7th Planet Picture Show
Local blogger/KJ (and former Mercury intern) Will Radik hosts a film screening during which he and others heckle the shit out of crappy movies, Mystery Science Theater 3000-style. This week's film: the Turkish version of Star Wars. Mt. Tabor Theater.

Alice in Wonderland
The fact that Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland isn't a straight retelling of the Lewis Carroll books might be motivated, as stated, by a desire to give the tale more narrative heft, but it also feels like a pulled punch. (In his version Alice is 19, returning to the place she thought she'd dreamed of as a child.) Following Alice (Mia Wasikowska) through Burton's Wonderland is a perfectly scenic carnival ride—punctuated with the occasional plucked eyeball and rotting severed head—but the attempts to work up the plot with simple conflicts and run-of-the-mill set-ups are little more than enablers to the next visual treat. Burton seems torn between the intimidation of a beloved classic and confidence in his own appeal, but somewhere in the middle with Burton and Alice is not a terrible place to be stuck. MARJORIE SKINNER Various Theaters.

The Art of the Steal
See review. Cinema 21.

Avatar
James Cameron's sci-fi epic is exactly as visually arresting and technologically revolutionary as promised, but the CG and the artistry behind it are so good—the film's bizarre landscapes and inhabitants are so organic, complex, and emotive—that, remarkably, you'll forget you're watching one big special effect. And so we're left with Avatar's story—which, thanks to its too-easy morality and stilted dialogue, isn't gonna impress anyone. What will impress, though, are the moments of holy-shit spectacle. Avatar isn't perfect, but it is extraordinary. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

The Blind Side
Sandra Bullock is a natural fit for the role of sassy, wealthy, Southern, evangelical MILF do-gooder Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took in a homeless African American teenager after scooping him off the streets of Memphis. That boy, Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), went on to become one of the most sought-after young football players in the country, receiving numerous college scholarships, and now plays professionally for the Baltimore Ravens. At its heart, The Blind Side is a straight-ahead feel-good family movie—but there are aspects of it that'll make you squirm. Leigh Anne and her husband Sean (Tim McGraw) are rich off the profits of some 60-odd fast food restaurants, with two sweetheart children, but it's Leigh Anne who runs the family and dominates the film: Rarely do more than five minutes elapse without her breaking in with a piece of her mind, telling everybody—from a drug dealer to a racist lady-who-lunches to a high school football coach—what's what, with a cocksure fearlessness typical of someone upon whom fortune has always smiled. (And who carries a gun in her purse.) There's no escaping the cringingly congratulatory, rich-white-folk-bail-out-helpless-black-kid dynamic, but, well, that's just kind of what happened, by all accounts (it's harder to misrepresent people who are still alive). And once you allow yourself to drop the liberal guilt and just like the Tuohys, you're left with a pretty good story. MARJORIE SKINNER Various Theaters.

Brooklyn's Finest
Action director Antoine Fuqua's latest is a cop drama starring Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, and Richard Gere. Not screened for critics. Various Theaters.

Conan the Destroyer
"I suppose nothing hurts you." "Only pain." Bagdad Theater.

Cop Out
A loving, overlong homage to the omnipresent buddy cop flicks of the '80s. Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, Stakeout, Lethal Weapon—all are represented and affectionately mined to create what director Kevin Smith obviously hoped would be the über-buddy cop movie. Half the time you'll laugh harder than during most of the films you'll see all year, and half the time you'll shift in your seat and feel like someone's poking you with a fork. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY Various Theaters.

The Crazies
If you're going to see one remake of a 1970s horror flick this year... no seriously, you could do so much worse than The Crazies. It's a remake of George A. Romero's 1973 film of the same name, in which a town loses its shit after the military accidentally releases a sanity-shaking toxin into the water supply. I haven't seen the original, so please don't ask me how it stacks up—but I can tell you that this one is scary. COURTNEY FERGUSON Various Theaters.

Crazy Heart
A great film that centers around a grizzled slab of a man, on the waning sunset years of life, battling addiction and years of neglect to once again regain his faded glory. At his side, an inspiring young woman hides scars of her own even as she acts as the muse that triggers his valiant comeback. If all this sounds familiar, it is. It's impossible to ignore the fact that no matter how excellent Crazy Heart is, the screenwriter should pay royalties to Robert Siegel, writer of The Wrestler. EZRA ACE CARAEFF Various Theaters.

Easy Rider
See I'm Going Out. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

Epicocity Project PDX Film Night
A group of kayakers "explores the Pandi river system in Papua New Guinea, documents the last receding glaciers in Bolivia, and maps the deepest river ever recorded in Africa." Presented by Next Adventure. Filmmakers in attendance. Hollywood Theatre.

Family Time Cinema
"Kid-created films and shorts by local filmmakers." See if you can tell the difference! Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

Filmusik: Kansas City Confidential
The 1952 noir Kansas City Confidential gets the Filmusik treatment, with voice actors and musicians providing live performances for the film. Hollywood Theatre.

The Ghost Writer
Fuck the Polanski apologists—if some time behind bars will prevent this man from making any more movies like The Ghost Writer, it's a win-win for everyone. Ewan McGregor plays the titular scribe, who's been handed what appears to be the gig of a lifetime: the chance to ghost the memoirs of a recently disgraced former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan). One thing, though: The ghost's predecessor just wound up swimming with the fishes under exceedingly suspicious circumstances. Within minutes, the film's mystery begins to unfold like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon as acted by a series of Tennessee Williams heroines. Suffice to say, Chinatown this is not. ZAC PENNINGTON Fox Tower 10.

Green Zone
See review. Various Theaters.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Presented as a (brace yourself) sing-along. No, we don't know what you did to make God hate you so much. But it must have been something pretty bad. Bagdad Theater.

Home
A charmingly eccentric family living on the side of an unused stretch of freeway has their lives upended when the road is suddenly opened to traffic. The gradual downward spiral of their mental states as more and more vehicles whiz outside their windows reveals their own peculiar set of survival mechanisms and the impact of industrial proximity on the health of the human psyche. MARJORIE SKINNER Living Room Theaters.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' immediate distinction is not that it was directed by Terry Gilliam—it's that it's the last movie to appear on Heath Ledger's IMDB page. Parnassus stars Ledger as Tony, a shady businessman who's rescued from near death by a passing traveling circus. The circus, run by one Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), boasts a magical "Imaginarium," a gateway to a world that's molded by the imaginations of all who enter. Gilliam salvaged enough of Ledger's performance that Tony's character is grounded in the real world—it's only in the world of the Imaginarium that he's replaced by actors Jude Law, Johnny Depp, and Colin Farrell, thanks to a tweak to the plot (when you go inside the Imaginarium... your face changes! Sure, okay). Ledger's death necessitated this device, but every time Depp or Farrell's face pops up, it's an unwelcome reminder not only of Ledger's death, but that these actors are only present thanks to this fairly flimsy last-minute workaround. ALISON HALLETT Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater, Living Room Theaters.

In the Heat of the Night
See I'm Going Out. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

The Last Station
While the expression "behind every great man is a great woman" has rightfully fallen into disuse, The Last Station is based on just such a historical formulation: the turbulent relationship between Leo Tolstoy and his wife, Sofya. This, though, is no tale of stoic devotion, of wifey tending the fires while her husband is out sowing his genius. Sofya Tolstoy (fiercely portrayed by Helen Mirren) is indeed devoted to her husband—they've been married for 50 years, during which time she's served as his supporter and secretary, famously copying multiple drafts of War and Peace by hand. She is also utterly determined to see his legacy preserved, in a manner that befits both of their labors. Leo and Sofya's grand, crumbling passion is depicted with unerring emotional precision by Plummer and Mirren. ALISON HALLETT Fox Tower 10, Hollywood Theatre, Tigard 11 Cinemas.

Making Music: The Art and Craft of David Rivinus
The official synopsis begins with a pretty amazing sentence: "David Rivinus never intended to be a maverick as a violin maker." Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

North Face
North Face describes, in frostbitten, vertiginous detail, the efforts of four men who're determined to climb the biggest, baddest mountain in the Alps. The year is 1936, and the North Face of the Eiger is the last great Alpine face to remain unscaled. A team of hot young German mountaineers takes up the challenge (supported by the Nazi party, a fact that's made as little of as possible); a pretty young newspaperwoman adds a touch of romantic intrigue. Because North Face is based on a true story, and its salient plot points are a matter of historical record, I'm going to spoil a couple of them: Everybody dies. The mountain wins. While the backstory tries to force a connection to the characters that goes beyond the elemental "Man vs. Enormous Fucking Mountain," it never really succeeds—once the snow starts blowing around, and everyone's faces get all black and frostbitey, you can't really tell them apart anyway. It's an undeniable nail-biter, though. ALISON HALLETT Living Room Theaters.

On the Waterfront
See I'm Going Out. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

Our Family Wedding
See review this issue. Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century Clackamas Town Center, Lloyd Mall 8.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
At its goofy best, Percy Jackson feels like a fun episode of Hercules or Xena, and is about as well made. This is the sort of movie where, when the heroic teen protagonists board a Greyhound bus to begin their journey to Hades, AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" plays over the soundtrack; later, in a casino owned by the mythical lotus eaters, a satyr does a choreographed dance routine with a bunch of skanky Vegas showgirls to "Poker Face." Percy Jackson, you might have started out as a soulless and calculated Harry Potter knockoff, but apparently, you know me well: Give me a cool fight against a hydra and a stoned-out-of-his-mind satyr dancing to Lady Gaga, and you've won me over. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
...and are gravely disappointed by The Blind Side. Okay, no: Art curators Bernice Rose and Arne Glimcher present the case that Picasso and Braque's work was influcenced by early cinema. Artists Chuck Close and Julian Schnabel weigh in, too, with narration by Martin "C'mon, the last half of Shutter Island wasn't really that bad, was it?" Scorsese. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

Police, Adjective
Drink a minimum of three cups of coffee before you head into Police, Adjective, a tedious Romanian film in which absolutely nothing happens. MARJORIE SKINNER Hollywood Theatre.

The Princess and the Frog
By my estimation, Disney's animated features took a dramatic turn for the terrible with the release of Pocahontas in 1995. With a few exceptions, the 15 movies since have squandered a good deal of cultural capital—what American kid wasn't half-raised by Disney cartoons? How much would you have to pay the average American adult to watch Chicken Little? But Disney's newest, The Princess and the Frog, abruptly and unexpectedly reminded me just how good Disney movies used to be. ALISON HALLETT Academy Theater, Avalon, Kennedy School, Milwaukie Cinemas.

Remember Me
The new flick starring Twilight's Robert "R Patz" Pattinson. Not screened in time for press; hit portlandmercury.com on Friday, March 12 for our review. Various Theaters.

Rocaterrania
See review. Clinton Street Theater.

She's Out of My League
See review. Various Theaters.

Shutter Island
The sort of movie where supposedly smart characters do idiotic things; where lightning dramatically flashes to underscore plot developments; where things lunge from shadows not because it makes sense for them to do so but because... well, lunging is just what things in shadows do. Director Martin Scorsese seems eager to try out some time-honored genre clichés: The music jolts, character actors offer dire warnings, and for its first hour or so, Shutter Island is, if not scary, satisfyingly creepy. I won't spoil how it ends, but suffice to say there's a shot of DiCaprio screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the heavens, and also that the climax would be considered pretty shoddy even by M. Night Shyamalan's standards. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Sleeper
"I'm what you would call a teleological, existential atheist. I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey." Laurelhurst Theater.

Terribly Happy
A small-town detective drama of uncertain tone, Terribly Happy concerns a Copenhagen cop who's reassigned to the countryside after a breakdown leaves him rattled and pill-dependent. Ostensibly a very dark comedy, it's hard to find much to laugh at here, as the well-intentioned cop slowly comes around to the town's corrupt, wife-beating ways. ALISON HALLETT Fox Tower 10.

Tibetan Film Festival
We refuse to acknowledge this film festival. THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Bagdad Theater.

A Town Called Panic
Good luck getting the kids to settle down for a movie with subtitles. Adults won't fare much better with this spastic, meandering stop-motion adventure that boasts pretty designs but rinky-dink animation. ANDREW R TONRY Hollywood Theatre.

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
The gang from the legitimately funny Canadian sitcom Trailer Park Boys are back with their second full-length feature—and this time it's more "mayhem-y" than ever. Trailer park residents Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles are out of the joint, and each are looking to start their own successful business. Pair this with the park's A-hole landlord's scheme to take Julian's property (while staying sober) and the result is, as usual, a trainwreck of mammoth and hilarious proportion—involving four or more trains... carrying nitro... and doused in gasoline. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY Clinton Street Theater.

Valentine's Day
Maybe the easiest (though not the cheapest) way to make a decent romantic comedy is through sheer quantity. Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, and Taylor Lautner are just some of the stars in the exhaustingly big ensemble cast of Valentine's Day. Touching on multiple generations and scenarios, this film is like a mash-up of at least six different movies, and its interconnected characters aren't on screen long enough to get annoyed with them. Sure, the something-for-everyone, feel-good strategy is transparent, and not every joke works, but there are honestly funny moments and effective tearjerkers, too. If you're going to indulge/withstand one corny Hollywood romcom, you'll come through this one unscathed. MARJORIE SKINNER Various Theaters.

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman
Eric Bricker's documentary about architectural photographer Julius Shulman serves as a laudatory obituary for the man who died in July at age 98. Shulman, whose photographs captured (and in some cases shaped) the careers of modernist architects like Richard Neutra, Frank Gehry, and Frank Lloyd Wright, was a committed environmentalist. But the film leaves out the awkward question of how Shulman's work also served to glorify and promote the American ideal of living in a single-family home a mile or two from a freeway, isolated from one's community by a gas-guzzling automobile. In many ways it's odd that the film is premiering here in Portland, the international capital of urban planning and design—and a place where Shulman's famous image of the Stahl house, overlooking Los Angeles in 1960, would be perceived by bike and smart growth advocates as anathema. Sexy photos of sexy houses, though. Undoubtedly. MATT DAVIS Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

The White Ribbon
A smoldering and horrifying masterpiece from Austrian director Michael Haneke (Funny Games). The methodical, even glacial, pace of the film, which lingers on mundane and momentous exchanges alike, draws the audience unwittingly into a subtly taut experience. You may not find yourself gripping the edge of your seat in the theater, but the wary sense of secret evil will dog you for days. MARJORIE SKINNER Fox Tower 10.

The Wolfman
Desperately intending to evoke the feel and nostalgia of 1941's horror classic The Wolf Man, director Joe Johnston's The Wolfman is about as fun to watch as that attention-hungry, paste-eating kid you pitied in kindergarten. Chockfull of showy, heavy-handed sound effects and overbearing scare tactics, it falls flat in the suspense and fright departments, gravely mistaking bombast for atmosphere. COURTNEY FERGUSON Avalon, Kennedy School, Milwaukie Cinemas.

The Young Victoria
A film that concerns exactly what its title indicates: the early years of England's Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt), including her romance and subsequent marriage to Prince Albert (Rupert Friend). Victoria's struggles here are primarily personal, regarding the rites of passage necessary to becoming a functional adult as well as a monarch: having the strength and self-trust to claim your distance from close but controlling family members, learning which men can be trusted, and so on. The prioritization of reservedly faithful representation (to the queen, if not to history) can be a bit of a letdown for fans of all-out bodice rippers—there is a notably minimal use of tears, blood, and dramatic obsessions born out of repressed desires. MARJORIE SKINNER City Center 12, Laurelhurst Theater, Tigard 11 Cinemas.