RISE OF THE ZOMBIES
MOVIES = WW Pick. Highly recommended. Editor: WALKER MACMURDO. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: wmacmurdo@ wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
LUST OF THE DEAD 1-4 CAMP BLOOD 1-5
AND MANY MORE OLD CLASSICS GO TO MY WEB SITES BACOLLECTORS.COM OR BAAVIDEOS.COM
OPENING THIS WEEK A Man Called Ove
Hannes Holm adapts Fredrik Backman’s best-selling novel of the same name, in which a shitty old Swedish guy befriends a young family who moves in next door. Zany life lessons are learned all around. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Cinema 21.
The Accountant
In this new action thriller, Ben Affleck plays an accountant, but not in the lame “paperwork” way. In the cool “blowing guys’ brains out” way. Perennial bad-guy character actor J.K. Simmons co-stars. Not screened for critics. R. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Living Room Theaters, St. Johns 1 & 2, Vancouver
Do Not Resist
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! S W NE S ! W NE ! S W NE
B Ominous tones accompany images of armored vehicles driving through suburbs. SWAT teams burst into private residences with an Orwellian sense of authoritarianism. In this timely documentary, director Craig Atkinson addresses the impacts and consequences of the militarization of law enforcement in the United States. This film takes a decidedly negative stance on police militarization and lays it on thick, juxtaposing clips of laughing law enforcement officers with footage of fearful protesters in Ferguson, MO fleeing from teargas. These menacing scenes are used to captivate viewers before launching into subdued segments featuring formal seminars and senate meetings as the film attacks its opponents with both emotional appeals and factual evidence. Do Not Resist is a quick watch; but it becomes repetitive as it Atkinson hammers home the same point: Police militarization is expensive and flawed. The film provides an adequate defence for its arguments, but leaves many elements of this complicated subject unexplored. Nonetheless, Do Not Resist is sure to affirm those who already agree with the documentary’s ideology, convert a few wavering civilians, and shame anyone out there who legitimately believes that Concord, New Hampshire is in dire need of an armored personnel carrier. NR. CURTIS COOK. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, Oct. 18- Oct. 21.
Under the Sun
B+ After years of negotiation, North Korean officials finally let Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky produce a completely reliable, totally unscripted, 100 percent believable account of
everyday life in the DPRK. Psych! As we jaded, Vice documentarywatching, neo-liberal kulaks know full well, there’s nothing Westerners find more creepy than hundreds of small children behaving themselves and dancing and singing in unison. Especially if it’s to honor the birthday of Beloved Father and Sun of the Communist Future Kim JongIl. In fact, the absurdity of what the Communist state expects to pass as convincing propaganda has its own brand of zany comedy—until Mansky zooms in on the eyes of a sobbing preteen as her dance instructor berates her with a chorus of “Do you understand, Comrade?” When Mansky’s camera floats over the crowd, the audience is complicit in, even amused by, the antics of the bizarre North Korean state. But when he finds a target—that one face that can’t quite hold the smile, that one school-aged girl who can’t keep her eyes open out of boredom or fatigue or both—you suddenly don’t feel like laughing anymore. NR. GRACE CULHANE. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 12.
White Girl B
The Panic in Needle Park. Kids. Requiem for a Dream. Every generation needs its “white people gone wild in NYC” story, and Elizabeth Wood’s directorial debut is a strong addition to the canon. Leah (Morgan Saylor) quickly finds herself over her head after a move to a Hispanic neighborhood, juggling an internship at a Vice-like magazine, her dreamy suitor Blue (Brian “Sene” Marc) and a brick of cocaine, left behind after Blue is snapped for a minor drug offense. In some respects, Wood weaves the sexual, social and professional concerns of the internship generation into White Girl, contrasting Leah’s penchant for getting other people into trouble with Blue’s penchant for getting swallowed by a racist justice system. In others, Wood relies too hard on this subgenre’s penchant for “edginess,” crudely relying on sexual violence to punish Leah for her misbehavior. When White Girl isn’t dressing up as a morality play, it sharply confronts the social and political anxieties of the most idealistic generation in generations. When it does, it’s a sex-and-drugs shockfest that isn’t as shocking as it would’ve been 20 years ago. R. WALKER MACMURDO. Hollywood Theatre.
Wizard Mode
This documentary follows Robert Emilio Gagno, an autistic pinball prodigy, on a quest to become a world champion pinball player at Pinburgh, the biggest pinball tournament in the world, in Pittsburgh. Gagno and his family will attend this screening, whose proceeds go to benefit Portland’s Pinball Outreach Project. A pinball tournament follows at 4 pm. NR. Quarterworld. 1 pm Saturday, Oct. 15.
STILL SHOWING A
American Honey
We first glimpse Star (Sasha Lane), the charismatic protagonist of Andrea Arnold’s (Fish Tank) coming-of-age drama, knee-deep in a dumpster, salvaging a shrinkwrapped chicken in the Texas heat. What follows is a nearly three-hour road epic, a tapestry of booze, cornfields and dysfunctional romance that depicts American young adulthood in 2016 with such perfect and uncanny verisimilitude it sometimes feels like a documentary. R. Fox Tower.
Bad Moms
C Hangovers loom large in the films of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Change-Up, The Hangover). Cue the inexplicably raucous party, supermarket-destruction and montage. R. JAY HORTON. Academy, Bridgeport, Clackamas, Laurelhurst.
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week
A The best reason to see Ron
Howard’s new feature documentary on the Fab Four’s touring years is to witness the highest-quality versions of some exceptionally rare performances. NR. Cinema 21.
The BFG
B- Like all Roald Dahl books, it’s an ecstatic mix of the sentimental and cruel—the story of a young orphan named Sophie abducted by a lovable Big Friendly Giant who catches and releases dreams. PG. Vancouver.
Ben-Hur
B- Even if the third filmic spectacular adapted from the 19th-century best-seller Ben-Hur is unlikely to leave the same cultural sandal print, it’s surely the fastest and most furious. PG-13. Vancouver.
The Birth of a Nation
B Nate Parker’s controversial first film plays a lot like Braveheart set in the antebellum South. R. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Lloyd, Tigard, Vancouver.
Blair Witch
James Donahue ventures to the woods of Burkittsville, Md., to track down his missing sister, Heather, after footage of her surfaces on the internet. Not screened for critics. R. Clackamas, Eastport.
Bridget Jones’s Baby
C The third installment of the Bridget Jones franchise is wearily formulaic both in storyline and characterization. R. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Living Room Theaters.
Café Society
C- The annual Woody Allen production machine has assembled 90 very recognizable minutes here, with
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FAMILY HORROR NIGHT MOVIES
WIZARD MODE 56
Willamette Week OCTOBER 12, 2016 wweek.com