â MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. Theater locations are accurate Friday-Thursday, unless otherwise noted. Movie times are updated daily and are available here.
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS
Wyrd War presents this screening of a very special slice of early '80s schlock. It's a great entry into that sci-fi sub-sub-sub-genre of "Films about the future that our present has placed in the past," a genre that includes Transformers: The Movie, Back to the Future Part II, and this shameless act of theft (three counts of it, even) by Italian director/producer combo Enzo G. Castellari and Fabrizio De Angelis. Armed with a bunch of leather, some roller-skates, and the talents of Vic Morrow and Fred Williamson in pure paycheck mode, Castellari and De Angelis (under-) cooked this cinematic turducken that stuffs The Road Warrior into The Warriors into Escape From New York, winds it up, and watches it go tottering around killing everything in what's basically a six-block radius. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre
3100: RUN AND BECOME
The poster for this film makes it look like a forgotten '70s sci-fi epic, all orange and round and ominous. But it's actually a documentary about a Finnish paperboy running the world's longest race as a means to achieve enlightenment. And that sounds peaceful and purposeful if you're the sort of person who thinks running is a fun activity in and of itself, a concept that's dystopically sci-fi to anyone who is actually, you know, sane. Cinema 21
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BARTON FINK
"I'm a writer, you monsters! I create! I create for a living! I'm a creator! I am a creator!" Academy Theater
CRIME + PUNISHMENT
Director Stephen Maing's documentary follows a group of police officers called the NYPD 12, and their fight to stop unjust profiling and quotas in the department. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium
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GET OUT
Although first-time writer/director Jordan Peele is known primarily as a sketch comedian, Get Out is not a comedy. After the film was nominated as one for a Golden Globe, film writers started a little Twitter brushfire over whether or not the nomination made sense (it doesnât), prompting Peele to respond: âAt the end of the day, call Get Out horror, comedy, drama, action, or documentary, I donât care. Whatever you call it, just know itâs our truth.â While Get Out is frequently funny in a gallows humor sort of way, itâs not a comedy. Itâs not a doc either, despite being built on the undeniable truth that America has never stopped fearing, fetishizing, and commodifying Black people. And even if the filmâs plot didnât steer hard into metaphysical sci-fi grotesqueryâcrashing into unnerving surreality like a stray deer darting into the roadâthe truth that anchors Get Out lends its scares both potency and resonance. Itâs not only a full-blown horror film, but one of the genreâs all-time best. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
People talk a lot of shit about Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomâWillie Scott just screams, Short Round is annoying, it's racist as fuck, etc.âand yeah, all of that is true to varying degrees (the colonialist bullshit especially) but goddamn is it way more fun, exciting, and just plain weird than its boring Sunday afternoon sitcom follow-up, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Of all the Indiana Jones films, this is the one that most closely resembles the pulp serials that served as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' inspirationâfor all the good and bad that entails. Revisit this mean-spirited Looney Tunes adventure and (snake) surprise yourself. BOBBY ROBERTS Mission Theater
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HEREDITARY
If youâre not comfortable with the very real possibility that youâll be drenched in sweat and cowering in the fetal position by the end of Hereditary, perhaps this is one cinematic experience you should skip. But youâd be missing outâwriter/director Ari Asterâs feature debut might be one of the most beautiful and nauseating horror movies ever made. CIARA DOLAN Academy Theater
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JULIET, NAKED
Juliet, Naked is based on a novel by Nick Hornby, whoâs established a solid career from writing about middle-aged hipster assholes who slowly come to realize that no one likes middle-aged hipster assholes. But Juliet, Naked differs from Hornbyâs past works like High Fidelity and About a Boy in that it centers on a sympathetic woman dealing with idiot men rather than the idiot men themselves. ELINOR JONES Various Theaters
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KUNG FU THEATER: FIST OF THE WHITE LOTUS
This monthâs installment in Dan Halstedâs ongoing celebration of all things whoop-ass is a rare 35mm print of 1980âs Fist of the White Lotus, starring goddamned legend Gordon Liu as, like, the 400th person in the history of Kung Fu cinema to vow revenge after some unruly dickhead inflicts grievous injury upon the institution of Shaolin. But what makes White Lotus so uniquely amazing? A combination of Liu's magnetism, Lau Kar Leung's choreography, and the ruthless fountain of ass-whup and shit-talk himself, Pai Mei, as played by the role's onscreen originator Lo Lieh. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre
THE NUN
Despite what you've heard, this is not the horrifying final chapter in the Sister Act trilogy. That was a just a photoshopped meme thing or whatever from Twitter. It's not real. Yes, I know you're disappointed. It sounded cool to us, too. Various Theaters
PEPPERMINT
Remember when Eli Roth remade Death Wish earlier this year? Oh, you forgot that happened already too? Anyway, fuckin' Eli Roth remade Death Wish earlier this year with Bruce Willis, and it was somehow even more repugnant and detrimental to humanity than the original. Well this movie is like director Pierre Morel saw that one and said "heyyyyy... I can be even stupider, plus way more racist than that," and made this action fantasy starring Jennifer Garner as a one-woman killing spree protecting America from Mexican gangs and getting a ton of likes and subscribes for it. Various Theaters
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PICK OF THE LITTER
See review. Various Theaters
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THE RELUCTANT RADICAL
A documentary from director Lindsey Grayzel, following Oregon environmental activist Ken Ward as he stages contentious protest after contentious protestâsometimes alone, sometimes with others, sometimes supported by his family, sometimes dressed as Santa, sometimes ending up in jail. Radicalâwhich uses, as a sort of framework, Wardâs 2016 decision to forcibly shut down pipelines that bring oil from Canadian tar sands into the US, and the resulting trialâalso checks in with the activists and supporters around Ward (like his very patient physician wife, who, with only a slight sense of weariness, notes that she needs to get a better grasp on bail laws considering how often her husband gets arrested). Itâs really about larger issues, though: How much should one person fight for whatâs right? How much can one person do? Director in attendance. ERIK HENRIKSEN NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium
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SEARCHING
What makes Searchingâa mystery that takes place predominantly on a series of computer desktopsâmore than a gimmick is how well it captures the limited but instantly recognizable emotional language of computer use: the typed but unsent message, the search query thatâs loaded with dread, the shortened email subject line that belies bad news. All of these are effectively deployed in service of a fairly conventional missing-person story, enabling the filmâs limited field of view to capture the feelings of familial isolation, technological confusion, and desire for connection. BEN COLEMAN Various Theaters
SLICE
A story about a ghost, a werewolf, a shitty pizza place that is built over a gateway to hell, Chance the Rapper, Zazie Beetz, Hannibal Buress, Steve from Stranger Things, Paul Scheer, and scooters. And drugs. Which writer/director Austin Vesely was apparently on during the creation process. Lloyd Center 10
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Ken Kesey is considered a literary legend, primarily due to the reception of his first two books. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was his 1962 debut, and the film adaptation in 1975 hoovered up awards while pushing Jack Nicholson firmly into icon status. 1964's Sometimes a Great Notion was his second book, but the first of his works to be made into a film, by no less than Paul Newman, beating Cuckoo's Nest to theaters by four years. Great Notion is Kesey's masterwork, a dense, emotional, and powerful story of a stubborn logging family noisily imploding under self-applied (and largely unnecessary) pressures. Newman's adaptation of that story? Well, to put it in terms a member of Notion's Stamper clan might understand: Goddammit all he sure enough fuckin' well tried, didn't he? And if he didn't quite get that power captured on film, he very definitely got the state's beauty up on the screen. I'm not that nostalgic for Oregon's bygone daysâI was born here, have never not lived here, and the romanticizing of the Hatfield and McCall eras is completely beyond me. But through Newman's eye, I can almost see why people would want to go there. Almost. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre.
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STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
In 1981, a guy who had never seen Star Trek before was given the job of rescuing the series from its creator Gene Roddenberry, whose titanic ego and pretension led to 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture being a disappointing, overpriced mess of a movie that played like a remake of an old episode (which it was). So Nicholas Meyer, then known primarily for writing and directing one movieâthe sweetly batshit romance/thriller Time After Time (H.G. Wells kills Jack the Ripper in '70s San Francisco!)âwas given half of the previous film's budget, about four sets, about 300 yards of burgundy fabric, and was told "go get 'em, kid!" Meyer then decided to make an old-school naval thriller that was also a Shakespearean revenge flick, that was also a direct sequel to a semi-decent episode from Star Trek's first season, that never put the hero and the antagonist in the same room together even once, and then brazenly killed off the series' most beloved character in the climax. Naturally, it became the best Star Trek film ever made, and the measuring stick by which literally every other film in the series would be measured, and fall short. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre
SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASSSSS SONG
Before there was blaxploitation, there was Sweet Sweetback and his song so badass you had to add three more esses to the end of it to properly convey said badassery. Melvin Van Peebles' film is landmark not only for its subject matter, but because it proved to audiences, other filmmakers, and executives that there was money to be made in Black film, and that Black filmmakers didn't need to wait on the studios to make it. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium
TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR
A benefit screening of the 1995 sleeper hit about three drag queens (Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo, who blows the other two off the screen whenever the camera gets even a hint of him) who get stranded in a small town and teach the people living there a little about living better and louder than they are. 100% of all proceeds go to The Living Room, a safe haven for GLBTQQ youth in Clackamas County. Hollywood Theatre
