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New Movies
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Billy Lynn (Joe Alwayn) and the other soldiers of Bravo Squad are brought home from Iraq for a Thanksgiving victory tour, culminating in a halftime show appearance at a football game, after a terrifying battle. Based on Ben Fountain's National Book Award-finalist novel of the same name, director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) contrasts chintzy, flag-waving patriotism with the horror of modern combat. Not screened for critics. R. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport.
Bleed for This
It's Oscar season, and you know what that means: Hollywood's annual movie about boxing. This time it's the story of Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller), the world champion boxer whose career was derailed in the early '90s by a bad car crash. Will he ever fight again? My guess is that at least one montage will be devoted to finding out. Not screened for critics. R. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Vancouver.
Christine
Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) is a young TV broadcaster in 1970s Florida, trying to get out of small-town Sarasota and into a bigger market. As she struggles with depression and a boss (Tracy Letts) who keeps pushing for more sensational news stories, her personal and professional life begin to spiral out of control. Not screened for critics. R. Living Room Theaters, Kiggins.
Edge of Seventeen
B+ The first we see of Nadine are her high-top sneakers booking down a high school hallway. The shot speaks loudly—the hard-charging teenager is going to own this movie, though it'll be a lonely march. We see in flashbacks that she's never fit in, and then her lifelong best friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), begins dating Nadine's conceited older brother (Blake Jenner). She was a curmudgeon already, but this betrayal opens the insult floodgates. As Nadine, Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Pitch Perfect) delivers one winsome tirade after another, often in a standout salty rapport with Woody Harrelson playing her bleary-eyed history teacher. She has a vocabulary of long-winded and existential "FML" synonyms beyond her years, but Steinfeld's performance never sells short simple adolescent growing pains. It's the best combination of well-written ranting and genuine alienation in a high school comedy since Easy A. Though Kelly Fremon Craig's directorial debut doesn't break new ground in the genre, Edge of Seventeen has an admirable grip on the stakes of being this antisocial 17-year-old. It sucks to be the uncool kid in a Hollywood depiction of high school, and it hurts more to realize there could be normal, human reasons for it. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Vancouver.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
C J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga gets a retro makeover in this bland romp from longtime Potter director David Yates. The film begins in 1926, when Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in New York City with an enchanted suitcase packed with strange creatures. He's barely set foot in Manhattan when the beasts make a run for it, smashing and crashing their way through the Big Apple while the harried Newt tries to recapture them with the help of a blundering baker (Dan Fogler) and a magical cop (Katherine Waterston). Their adventures are meant to be spirited and suspenseful, but the cast has no chemistry, and the beast-induced mayhem looks so tacky that Newt's menagerie might as well be a collection of cheap Christmas ornaments. Even the movie's stab at social commentary deflates—a subplot about a tormented orphan (Ezra Miller) being abused by an anti-magic extremist (Samantha Morton) seems to be a metaphor for racism and homophobia, but offers only a superficial sheen of relevance. And though the movie was written by Rowling herself, it lacks the emotional pull that propelled the Potter books and films to the rafters of pop culture. Nothing in Fantastic Beasts rivals Harry's journey from the cupboard under the stairs to the towers of Hogwarts. That brand of wizardry—the truest magic in Rowling's world—has vanished. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Pioneer Place, Roseway, St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, Tigard, Vancouver.
Generation Found
B The half-baked idea that America could ever win a war on drugs is fading away. Generation Found is a documentary focused on alternative means of treating drug abuse in young people in Houston that offers an insightful and hopeful glimpse at successful resources for kids and families struggling with addiction issues. Filmmakers Greg D. Williams and Jeff Reilly's overall tone is inspirational, but they don't shy away from addressing the tragedies associated with narcotics. A father details his son's overdose and his most recent visit to the boy's grave—a powerful reminder that there are real consequences to addiction. The film does not sensationalize, romanticize or politicize drug abuse, though it fails to explore the complicated relationship between race and drug policy reform. The audience is given just a few moments to hear anything about the particular struggles of POC kids grappling with drugs in the inner city. Despite dealing with prevalent and devastating subject matter, Generation Found finds a way to offer a few laughs while expressing all the optimism of the film's tagline: "'Just Say No' was a slogan. This is a revolution." NR. CURTIS COOK. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Monday, Nov. 21.
Kate Plays Christine
C+ Christine Chubbuck, an unremarkable TV newscaster in 1970s Sarasota, Fla., got a lot more interesting the moment she shot herself in the head while on the air. But as the event has faded with time from Sarasota's collective memory, so little else is remembered about Chubbuck that her story is defined by how it ended. This latest from documentary filmmaker Robert Greene follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards, Listen Up Philip) as she prepares to play Chubbuck in a never-to-be-made biopic (not to be confused with Antonio Campos' Chubbuck biopic Christine, also showing this week). With the close-ups, dark colors and sparse, ominous string soundtrack of a psychological thriller, the basic tension is that Sheil's envelopment in the role affects her psychologically, so much that she can't go through with it. While meant to venerate Sheil's artistic empathy, this ultimately feels whiny. Sheil stresses in interviews that she doesn't want to "romanticize" or "fetishize" the complex reality of suicide. Sadly, since Kate Plays Christine necessarily focuses more on Sheil's character work than on Chubbuck's life (or suicide in general), the film does just that. By trying to be both a documentary and a biopic, the film fails to be either, and its central dual characters fall flat. NR. ISABEL ZACHARIAH. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 22.
The Love Witch
Presented in 35 mm, the new movie by cult director Anna Biller (Viva, A Visit From the Incubus) follows Elaine, a young, modern-day witch who uses magic and potions to seduce men. But what happens when one of her spells works too well? Not screened for critics. NR. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters.
Loving
A- 2016's post-election social apocalypse summons an inviting atmosphere for an optimistic period piece like Jeff Nichols' Loving. As a filmmaker, Nichols is known to rotate between manufacturing Southern family dramas (Mud) and supernatural indies (Midnight Special). This time, he tackles a film set within a familiar geography, but with a newfound foreignness. Namely, this is Nichols' first historical drama, bolstered by the true story of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred Loving (Ruth Negga), the interracial couple who challenged U.S. miscegenation laws all the way to the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. In contrast with the stressed, verbose Loving legacy, Loving itself emits slow, relaxed scenes that rely on touch rather than dialogue to illustrate the Lovings' palpable tenderness. In fact, the gravity of their relationship relies on the senses, whether Richard extends his hand over Mildred's during a slow midday car ride, or is pried out of bed and violently shackled by police. Ultimately, Loving provides a timeline for the social evolution that would enshrine love, however blind, into law. Nichols' true success is, in contrast with this rampant political change, in how he captures the unwavering love between Richard and Mildred like the rare tree that doesn't shed its leaves during winter. PG-13. JACK RUSHALL. Living Room Theaters.
Monumental: Skiing Our National Parks
Powder magazine's first feature film, made in cooperation with REI, is both a solemn ode to the graceful, ancient mountains of America's national parks, and a solemn ode to all the sick-ass motherfuckin' tricks you can do on two skis off of said mountains. A Q&A follows with featured athletes and filmmakers. NR. Laurelhurst Theater. 7 pm Wednesday, Nov. 16.
Panoramas
Screening as part of the Portland Latin American Film Festival, this new film from Rodrigo Guardiola follows Mexican alt-rock act Zoé on a two-year international tour. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Hollywood Theatre. 6:45 pm Thursday, Nov. 17.
Old Movies
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Charles Crichton's award-winning final movie (co-written with Monty Python's John Cleese) follows an Anglo-American gang of diamond thieves (Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin) who double- and triple-cross each other to steal the loot from a massive jewel heist. Laurelhurst Theater. Nov. 18-23.
Big Night (1996)
The Mission celebrates the 20th anniversary of Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's 1950s period piece about two Italian immigrant brothers—the cringingly named Primo and Secondo—trying to save their restaurant as they should, with a classic six-course Italian feast culminating in a gigantic timpano, courtesy of the Zeus Cafe's Warren Pinkston. Tickets ($110) include dinner and wine. Mission Theater. 6:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 17.
Mamay (2003)
Church of Film is back at it, keeping things extra weird with a new series exploring the oft-overlooked world of Soviet and post-Soviet cinema. This week's offering is Ukrainian director Oles Sanin's Romeo and Juliet-style love story, but with Cossacks and Tartars replacing Capulets and Montagues on the steppes of medieval Ukraine. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, Nov. 16.
The Silent Partner (1978)
The Hollywood screens a 35 mm print of Daryl Duke's rare Canadian heist flick as part of its Grindhouse Film Festival. When bank teller Miles Cullen (Elliot Gould) learns that his bank is going to be robbed, he hatches a plan to make a profit while pinning the blame on the robber. But his plan goes sideways when the psychopathic stickup man (Christopher Plummer) gets wise to Miles' scheme. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Nov. 22.
Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962)
With cameos from Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy, Agnès Varda's existentialist tale of a young woman waiting for the results of a medical test is something of a who's who of French New Wave cinema. Varda's breakthough was one of the first New Wave films to tackle the movement through a woman's perspective. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 3:30 pm Friday, Nov. 18.
Also Playing:
5th Avenue Cinema: We Won't Grow Old Together (1972), Nov. 18-21. Academy Theater: The City of Lost Children (1995), Nov. 18-24. Hollywood Theatre: Addams Family Values (1993), 9:30 pm Thursday, Nov 17; Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Nov. 18-20. Mission Theater: Hook (1991), Nov. 16-21; Jumanji (1995), Nov. 16-22. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium: Rue Mallet-Stevens (1986), Hôtel Monterey (1972), Trois Strophes Sur le Nom de Sacher (1989), 7:30 pm Friday, Nov. 18; Saute Ma Ville (1965), Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), 7 pm Saturday, Nov. 19; The Commissar (1966), 4:30 pm Sunday, Nov 20; The Anonymous People (2013), 7:30 pm Sunday, Nov. 20.
Willamette Week