WW Says Goodbye to Its Longstanding, Local Column

It's the end of the era of AP Film Studies.

Pencils down: Today marks the final edition of AP Film studies.

For the past three years, I've had the pleasure to pen this weekly column, the purpose of which has always been to celebrate what makes Portland's film scene better than pretty much any other city's. That, and to sneak at least two Patrick Swayze references into each column.

When I began covering movies here 10 years ago, I knew there was something special percolating behind the projectors, but it wasn't…great. The Hollywood was still a half-full auditorium for the Merchant-Ivory, with the occasional grindhouse curveball. The Bagdad was a second-run oasis for bad pizza and worse sound, but it existed with the Laurelhurst as a place for broke Portlanders to drink and eat and be entertained as they waited for their DVDs to arrive in the mail (imagine that!). The Clinton… well, the Clinton was still the Clinton, god bless them. But they had a different owner and a bad brewery next to them.

Related: We've officially determined when Old Portland died.

Things have changed. Ninety years in, Hollywood's back to being a grand movie house, packed for everything from kung fu to 70mm classics. The Badgad's first run, but theaters like the Academy, Mission, Kennedy School, and PSU's 5th Avenue Cinema have stepped up with an array of great revivals of classics. The NW Film Center—members of which reportedly misconstrue loving teasing as malicious–has bolstered its programming yearly, catering to lovers of the classics, art film and experimental alike, all while fostering local artists. Hell, even OMSI—with its big-ass screen—is getting into the movie game, interrupting its regularly scheduled nature docs with old-school sci-fi, kids and concert movies. There's beer, too. There's beer in pretty much every theater.

There has never been a better time to be a movie fan in Portland.

Related: When Quentin Tarantino came to Portland.

But the fact of the matter is, what makes Portland's movie scene so great is you. You the audience that has turned the once-solitary act of moviegoing into a social experience, chucking spoons at Cinema 21 or attending a Q&A with a local filmmaker or showing up week after week for Rocky Horror. You, the programmers who have the audacity to program with your heart, even if your heart tells you to show some fucked-up old movie nobody has heard of. If you screen it, they will come. You, the folks who read this column. Both of you. (Hi mom!)

Our rooftops, cart pods and restaurants are movie theaters. Our trivia nights are cinematically themed. Our video stores are landmarks. Live stage versions of classics (and non-classics) are the norm. Tigard's tiny Joy Cinema has reinvented itself as a cult cinema Joe Bob Briggs would be proud of. Church of Film is the best underground series you've never heard of. Our festivals cater to everybody from snobs to slobs, goths, freaks, musicians and lit nerds. To the perverted and the pious. It's fucking glorious.

Related: Portland's 99 West Drive-In won Best in the U.S.

As a collective city, there's a lot of rumbling about change. But the evolution of our movie scene has made it better. Infinitely better. We have a filmgoing community that has created a place for artists and fans alike, all united in their collective awe when the lights go down, and the projector starts to flicker.

It's up to us to keep it alive. That means hitting up a second-run theater for a revival, even if you have three copies of Roadhouse on your mantle… that throat rip looks better on the big screen. That means hitting festivals and showing programmers you're into what they're presenting . It means supporting what our wealth of theaters—and compared to other cities, our sheer volume of quality screens is staggering. Our city makes being a movie fan easy. And we need to thank the folks who make that happen.

Related: The best beer theater you've never tried.

You haven't seen the last of me in this paper, but the AP Film office is now officially closed. Thank you for reading, even when we disagreed. But more importantly, thanks for your part in making this city a world-class cinema community. If you need me, I'll be in the back of a theater, beer in hand, likely telling somebody to turn off their cell phone. Class is out. Vaya con dios, bruh.

APFilmStudies_2015_KryzaAlso Showing:

Our staggeringly populous celebrity death march recently claimed the great Gene Wilder, whose manic charms and warmly sinister demeanor brightened everything he touched (even Will and Grace). But in most hearts and minds, he will always be the titular confectioner/child murderer of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Bring a box of Kleenex. And some Gobstoppers. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Wednesday and 7 pm Friday, Sept 7 &9.

Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was an eye-opener when it premiered decades ago, a film that's only grown more shocking because it's still as relevant now than it was then. Pix Patisserie. Dusk Wednesday, Sept. 7.

Walter Hill's kaleidoscopic masterpiece of violence and stylized violence The Warriors gets a 35mm revival. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 9-10.

1973's Ryan and Tatum O'Neal-starring Paper Moon basically spawned a whole subgenre of daddy/daughter con artist movies. But none other feature the magic of a sultry Madeline Kahn in her prime. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Sept. 9-15.

Friday Film Club presents 1998's electric, pulsing classic Run Lola Run, a film so packed full of incredible imagery and style that you don't really care that it's kind of dumb, or that you can't get that fucking theme song out of your head. NW Film Center. 5:30 pm Friday, Sept. 9.

The NW Film Center kicks off its Bending the Bard series of Shakespeare with a twist with Akira Kurosawa's Feudal Japan-set take on MacBeth, Throne of Blood (Friday), jazz-fused UK Othello update All Night Long (Saturday). NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. See NWFilm.org for full listings.

NW Film's other compelling new series, Print the Legend, focuses on cinema's contentious relationship with the media and politics. The wide array of classics on display include John Ford oater The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance (Saturday), Billy Wilder's journalistic potboiler Ace in the Hole (Sunday), Renior's The Grand Illusion (Sunday) and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (Monday). NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. See NWFilm.org for full listings.

There are trippy cartoons, and then there's 1973's psychedelic, dystopian Fantastic Planet, a movie in which humans rebel against the gigantic blue overlords who enslave them on their planet. Kind of like The Matrix sequels, except without robots and not shitty. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Sept. 9-15.

Oregon Ballet Theatre takes the stage of the Hollywood as pre-show entertainment before Bob Fosse's autobiographical portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-dickhead classic All That Jazz. Hollywood Theatre. 6:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 10.

Beetlejuice comes to Cartopia to get the wonderful music of Harry Belafonte stuck in your head for weeks to come. Cartopia. 9 pm Sunday, Sept. 11.

Now that the pain of seeing Christoph Waltz utterly wasted as Bond baddie Blofeld in Spectre, it's a good time to go back to 007 classic You Only Live Twice, if only to let Donald Pleasence show you how to play a cat-stroking megalomaniac right. Mission Theater. Opens Monday, Sept. 12.

In honor of Roald Dahl's 100th birthday, the Mission is resurrecting The Witches, a movie that taught kids the valuable skill of not shitting their pants during utterly terrifying films that put their fears front and center. Mission Theater. Opens Monday, Sept. 12.

A group of ass-whomping warriors avenges the destruction of its temple by beating every ass it encounters in the classic Five Shaolin Masters, here presented via an insanely rare 35mm print. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Sept. 13.

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