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All These Sleepless Nights
It's really difficult to tell Michal Marczak's film is a documentary. This is a good thing. All These Sleepless Nights centers on the hedonistic trials of two Polish early-20-somethings—think Kids or Less Than Zero in Warsaw, with a unique edge in all the fuccboi antics. Heartless breakups are muffled by techno-electronica dance parties parading in the background, and clever narrations full of unnecessary, cigarette-inspired metaphors are not at all improvised. Main character Krzys is too real to be scripted. Ultimately, the flick has enough color and swerve that you stop asking questions. R. JACK RUSHALL. Fox Tower. Critic's Rating: 3/4 stars.
America Is Waiting
Remember the J20 protests of the Trump inauguration and that photo of all of the photographers taking the picture of that one trash can someone set on fire? Well, Seattle director Georg Koszulinski traveled to Washington, D.C., to capture the protest in a new hourlong doc, hopefully with a little more nuance than the trash photographers did. NR. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 4:30 pm Saturday, May 6.
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
Before broaching the life of city planning warrior Jane Jacobs, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City takes a helicopter tour of the world's skylines. The visual message is clear: Cities are among humanity's most incredible, unsolvable creations. This documentary's task is just as towering. How do you relay the recent history of places where half the planet's population lives? Urban renewal titan Robert Moses versus urban activist Jacobs is a compelling microcosm, and the doc's middle chronicles their squaring off in 1950s New York City. Jacobs fought tooth and nail for urban spaces to be revitalized and imagined around human interaction, while Moses played a calloused God, bulldozing his way into creating modern ghettos. Outside this conflict, however, the film's focus sprawls like an unchecked suburb, scratching the surface of topics from institutional racism to gentrification to community organizing to the birth of a white-collar economy. It's nearly impossible to balance giving CliffsNotes on these massive societal forces while mining for drama in a 70-year-old battle over Washington Square Park. Either Ken Burns needed to make this film over the course of 12 hours, or it needed to call the Hudson and East rivers its borders. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21. Critic's Rating: 2/4 stars.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Something strange happens at the midpoint of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, James Gunn's latest entry in the increasingly cosmic Marvel Cinematic Universe. It isn't the sight of Kurt Russell surfing a space egg through an intergalactic dogfight and waving casually at smartass hero Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) amid a hail of lasers. And it isn't the sequence in which a blue space pirate (Michael Rooker), a psychopathic talking raccoon, and a murder-happy sentient sapling mow down scores of bad guys with a magic, whistle-controlled arrow to the tune of "Come a Little Bit Closer." It's that all this psychedelic weirdness, rapid-fire quipping, visual humor, and casual violence suddenly seems…normal. When the first Guardians debuted, its irreverent, hilarious, bizarro tone came out of nowhere, making audiences fall in love with Marvel's D-list heroes at the confluence of Star Wars, The Ice Pirates and Buckaroo Banzai. Three years later, it's comfort food. That's not a slight, either. Gunn and Marvel are so successful at world building that the sight of burly wrestler Dave Bautista hacking his way out of the stomach of a giant octopus monster as ELO blares is the norm. Vol. 2 isn't the jolt that the first one was, but between all the action and its surprisingly poignant finale, it's a welcome addition. We'd follow this band of charismatic assholes anywhere at this point. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Moreland, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Roseway, St. Johns Twin, Tigard, Vancouver. Critic's Rating: 3/4 stars.
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
An unsuccessful New York power broker (Richard Gere) gets in over his head and is lured into a geopolitical drama by a charismatic Israeli politician (Lior Ashkenazi). Review to come next week. R. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.4 pm Sunday, May 7.
River Restoration Northwest: Stories of Our Watershed 2017
Rivers, lakes and streams, oh my! Nonprofit River Restoration Northwest hosts a collection of shorts celebrating the Pacific Northwest's bodies of water, with some filmmakers in attendance. NR. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Wednesday, May 3.
Short Stories/Short Films
Boathouse Microcinema hosts a collection of new narrative shorts from Portland filmmakers. Dawn Jones Redstone's Sista' in the Brotherhood follows a black tradeswoman who must choose between making a stand or keeping her job when she faces workplace discrimination, while Lara Jean Gallagher's American Gladiators explores sibling rivalries. These two and more new shorts, with directors in attendance. Boathouse Microcinema, 7:30 pm Wednesday, May 3.
Steve Roggenbuck at Boathouse Microcinema
Tucson internet poet and video and meme artist Steve Roggenbuck has been profiled by The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR and The Atlantic, and he's coming to a tiny concrete bunker in the middle of a trainyard near you to both screen his work and perform live. Boathouse Microcinema, 7:30 pm Friday, May 5.
Kids these days: always texting, always vaping, always making short films tackling the heady subject of The 14th Amendment: Transforming American Democracy. The smartest, best children win prizes. Hollywood Theatre. 6:30 pm Thursday, May 4.