FILM SHORTS SAMSARA
A Must-see.”
“
- HARPER’S BAZAAR
PARANORMAN Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s this little kid, and he can see dead people. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “This kid, he’s probably well adjusted and super popular with his peers, am I right? A hit with all the ladies?” No! Believe it or not, he’s kind of an outcast! A social pariah, even! Okay, now I don’t want to spoil anything, but the twist? This social handicap of his might turn out to save the day. Sounds crazy, right? I know, but it’s true! That, unfortunately, is the recycling-bin plot the talented animators at LAIKA have saddled themselves with on ParaNorman. It doesn’t get any better in the telling, and probably gets worse, which is a shame, because the animation is so finely crafted and obviously painstaking that not loving it makes you feel like a real poopface. VINCE MANCINI
PICKPOCKET Robert Bresson’s 1959 film. Also screening this weekend: Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977). Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
PORTLAND YOUTH MEDIA FILM FESTIVAL
STARTS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 AT A THEATER NEAR YOU CHECk lOCAl lISTINgS FOR THEATER lOCATIONS AND SHOwTIMES SPECiAL ENgAgEMENTS NO PASSES OR DiSCOUNT COUPONS ACCEPTED
A marvel throughout.” – Richard Brody, THE NEW YORKER
“ ! Spike Lee is back.”
HHHH – Joshua Rothkopf, TimE OuT NY
THE POSSESSION What’s this? Another crappy horror flick that wasn’t screened for critics? Why, I never.... Various Theaters.
PREMIUM RUSH
“A
PORTLAND MERCURY BRAVEWED AND 9/5 ACCOMPLISHED 2 COL. (4.75) X 4.375 FILM .ALL.WRD.0905.PM
Short films from Portland youngsters, with everything from a zombie movie to a documentary on the Columbia Slough. Hollywood Theatre.
CS
#1
A film based on the wet dreams of bike couriers everywhere, Premium Rush is one of the stupidest movies ever, which is to say it’s both remarkably silly and surprisingly fun. A thriller set in the exhilarating world of... uh... bike couriering, it stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt—the guy your girlfriend likes more than she likes you—as Wilee, a character whose name is (A) pronounced like the coyote’s, and (B) nearly as dumb as the phrase “premium rush.” Bike courier Wilee, like most people with fixies, never shuts the fuck up about his fixie, and he also says things like “Brakes are death!” and “Runnin’ reds, killin’ peds.” He’d be insufferable if JoGoLev, who is way more handsome and likeable than you, didn’t play him. ERIK HENRIKSEN Forest Theatre, Living Room Theaters.
PROMETHEUS
A prequel to Alien, Ridley Scott’s return to science fiction, and, on both counts, a disappointment. ERIK HENRIKSEN Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.
★ RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK IMAX See My, What a Busy Week!, pg. 11. Bridgeport Village Stadium 18, Lloyd Center 10 Cinema. ★ RED HOOK SUMMER See review this issue. Hollywood Theatre.
REPRESSED CINEMA A new monthly series at the Hollywood Theatre, “showing vintage and contemporary films that are obscure, neglected, and from the fringe.” This month: “Amateurs and Auteurs,” featuring homemade movies from the early 1940s to the 1980s. Hollywood Theatre.
RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION
This is the fifth Resident Evil film; for the fifth time, Milla Jovovich is gonna fuck up some zombies. It did not screen for critics. Weird. Various Theaters.
BRIEF VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE AND A DISTURBING SITUATION
STARTS FRIDAY 9/7 HOLLYWOOD THEATRE 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. • (503) 281-4215 www.hollywoodtheatre.org
/REDHOOKSUMMER
34 Portland Mercury September 6, 2012
★ ROBOT AND FRANK Grumpy ex-con Frank (Frank Langella) is old, tired, and starting to lose his memory. So his son buys him a robot—a “health care aide,” who’s programmed to monitor and improve Frank’s physical and mental health. The robot takes out the trash, goes grocery shopping, and keeps Frank company. Frank hates the robot... until, thinking back on his days as a cat burglar, he realizes he might be able to trick the robot into helping him pull off a heist. A goofy plot twist or two aside, Robot and Frank is phenomenal—funny and sad and kind and weird and insightful. It’s one of my favorite movies I’ve seen in a long time. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.
★ SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED Until the dark day of I Can Has Cheezburger: The Movie!, Safety Not Guaranteed will stand—as far as I can tell—as the only motion picture inspired by an internet meme. While its origins make Safety Not Guaranteed sound slight and disposable—a few steps above Battleship in Hollywood’s “Oh shit, what else can we turn into a movie?!” descent—the difference is that Safety Not Guaranteed is both staunchly independent and very, very good. Sweet and clever, it’s a film that transcends its roots to become—and I know we’re only halfway through 2012, but fuck it—one of the best films of the year. ERIK HENRIKSEN Academy Theater, Bagdad Theater, Edgefield, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater, Mission Theater.
SAMSARA The guys known for arranging footage of stuff have arranged a bunch more stuff! With a world music soundtrack! The creators of Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi return to cinemas with Samsara, and this time, the focus of their artfully arranged travelogue is the ongoing struggle of man versus nature, and how one’s always trying to get the upper hand. Monks push around colored sand to make a mosaic; storms push around people’s homes and cars, filling them with dirt and rubble; patterns illustrate the dualities of tradition/ modernity and creation/waste. I spent a lot of time thinking about my groceries, bills, and girls who broke my heart. JAMIE S. RICH Fox Tower 10.
★ SLEEPWALK WITH ME Turn on NPR and you’ll hear an example: “Real people” telling “true stories” are everywhere these days. Stand-up comedian Mike Birbiglia is a real person who has a true story about his career in comedy, ending a relationship, and a sleep disorder, and he’s gotten pretty good at telling it: First in a one-man show, then a book, and now the gently endearing film Sleepwalk with Me, co-written with storytelling high priest Ira Glass. Describing a story as “true” suggests there’s only one way to tell it, but if this mild little comedy has a moral, it’s this: Even a true story is changed in the telling. The best we can do is to tell our stories honestly and well. Co-director and star in attendance for 4:30, 7, and 9 pm shows on Sat Sept 8. ALISON HALLETT Cinema 21.
THIS IS NOW A locally produced film that “explores the triumphs and difficulties of finding one’s spiritual path.” Clinton Street Theater.
★ TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! A quirky Norwegian film that follows Alma (Helene Bergsholm) over the course of a particularly trying couple of months during the dog days leading up to her 16th birthday. Possessed by hormones, she gets busted for racking up phone-sex charges (we first meet her, mid-purchase, on the kitchen floor), rides rolls of coins when the register gets slow at work, and slips into erotic daydreams about virtually everyone she encounters in her tiny Norwegian village. Dammit doesn’t need to say much about horny teenage girls other than, unapologetically, that they exist, and can do so without conforming to the dead stock of bad girl associations–Alma’s a sweet, ballsy, normal girl who shoulder taps for beer and shares a ritual with her friends in which they religiously flip off the road sign for their hometown every time they pass it. While the ending is a bit too pattingly winking and cute, Dammit tells its short, forthright tale briskly and with a curtsy before moving off stage right. MARJORIE SKINNER Clinton Street Theater. ★ UNCLE BUCK “Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.” Laurelhurst Theater.
WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP? A documentary about “half a century of hostile US-Cuba relations” and “the Cuban Five, intelligence agents sent to penetrate Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami [who are] now serving long prison sentences.” EMINEM. SIT BACK DOWN. THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU. Clinton Street Theater.
★ MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. THEATER LOCATIONS ARE ACCURATE FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7-THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 13, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. FILM TIMES AND SHORTS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE AT PORTLANDMERCURY.COM.