Deep Cuts: What to Watch in Portland's Indie Cinemas Aug. 3-9

16 movies you missed, or miss, are coming back to Portland.

EDITOR'S NOTE: With AP Kryza transitioning his vacation to figure out why the hell his home-state metropolis of Detroit still doesn't have a Robocop statue—and vowing to track down Ronny Cox and make him pay—AP Film Studies continues its summer break.

Your homework is below.

Mike Judge's Idiocracy might be a grim look at our political future, but his classic Office Space—getting the Movies at Dusk Treatment—remains ever in the present. Pix Patisserie. Dusk. Wednesday, Aug. 3.

The John Candy summer classic (debatable!) Summer Rental gets paired with rum & pineapple juice as part of the Mission's series of boozy screenings of overlooked gems (debatable!). Mission Theater. 8:30 pm Wednesday, Aug. 3.

The NW Film Center presents a 25-year retrospective of works by the colorful experimental Seattle filmmaker Jon Benhrens. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Wednesday, Aug. 3.

The John Huston-directed Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall post-war noir classic Key Largo hits the Top Down, which transforms the roof of Hotel DeLuxe into a starlit screening. Considering the whole hotel is modeled in the classic Hollywood mold, it's a perfect fit. And kind of a perfect film. Hotel DeLuxe. 7 pm Thursday, Aug. 4.

Flicks on the Bricks tempts rock eaters to treat the venue as a buffet with The Neverending Story. Pioneer Courthouse Square. Dusk, Friday, Aug. 5.

In Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone goes blow for blow with Dolph Lundgren (seriously, they just take turns punching each other in the title bout), slugging Communism into submission and saving the free world one mumbled plea for unity at a time. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Aug. 5-11.

The Hollywood pays tribute to the recently deceased, long-debated auteur Michael Cimino with the director's seminal The Deer Hunter, a meditation on the toll of Vietnam on a group of Pennsylvania steel-mill workers. Basically, it's a lot like a Springsteen song, but with more Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, Aug. 5-6.

As a followup Better Off Dead, Savage Steve Holland reteamed with John Cusack for One Crazy Summer, the tale of a teen artist and a singer who seek to save a family property from some greedy property developers. The film was recently remade as Portland, OR. Mission Theater. Opens Friday, Aug. 5.

The final film of late French New Wave master Jacques Rivette—who died earlier this year—2009's Around a Small Mountain centers on a man infatuated with a woman traveling with her family's circus. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Aug. 5-7.

In 1964 French master Jean-Luc Godard once again drew on Hollywood's cult of crime cinema with Band of Outsiders, a tale of movie-influenced criminals whose French title, Un Bande Apart, became the moniker preceding the films of Quentin Tarantino… a man who knows a thing or two about being influenced by violent b cinema. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday & Monday, 4:30 pm Saturday, Aug 5-6 & 8.

Nicholas Winding Refn's existential anti-actioner Drive remains the polarizing director's best work, a bloody, patient exercise in cool that might just be the director's masterpiece. Cartopia. 9 pm Sunday, Aug. 7.

In 1990, Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci got all meta with Cat in the Brain, in which the Zombi director stars as… a horror director being stalked by a killer obsessed with the deaths of his movies. There's obscure, and there's this, making it a must-see for fans of international auteur-driven schlock. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Aug. 5-6.

The Princess Bride once again returns to Portland theaters, begging the question of why it ever leaves to begin with. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Aug. 5-11.

The Hollywood's outdoor screening series pedals over to Stub Stewart State Park for a screening of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, an event that includes a bike ride but no basements. LL Stub Stewart State Park. 6 pm Saturday, Aug. 6.

Joan Crawford won her only Academy Award for her breakout role in 1944's nourish melodrama Mildred Pierce, part of a rash of Hollywood films in which strong, independent female characters were simultaneously celebrated and punished for their headstrong ways. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 7.

Dan Halsted of the Hollywood Theatre has labeled Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (more commonly known as Invincible Pole Fighter) perhaps the greatest kung fu movie of all time. You shouldn't need more endorsement than that, but if you do, trust when we say he's absolutely correct. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Aug 9.

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