Jeremiah Tower Was The Celebrity Chef That Wasn't. The Last Magnificent Reviewed

A new biopic about a forgotten celebrity, and other new films reviewed.

Jeremiah Tower (Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent)

An Evening with Kathy Kasic

The Northwest Film Center screens a collection of shorts from Montana-based nature documentarian Kathy Kasic. This program works with natural light and its interaction with sculptures installed around an 11,500 acre "art ranch." And you thought cow ranchin' was tough. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium, 7 pm, Wednesday, May 31.

Baywatch

There are, literally, tens of millions of reasons for filmgoers to loathe Baywatch. Borne from a marketing strategy beyond cynical, the blithely-exploitative, fundamentally-pointless exercise in brand cross-pollination represents a massive investment in studio resources wasted upon characters and situations of keening artificiality. That said, given stars so far from lifelike, why not double down on a heightened sheen of unreal? Dwayne Johnson, forever miscast in vehicles built to human dimensions, finally has room to stretch. His Mitch Buchannon emerges as fully realized portrait of the sort of man to view crimefighting as natural extension of lifeguard duty, while his bravura baby-room fight scene takes unprecedented advantage of a physicality both absurd and terrifying. Playing a Ryan Lochte-a-like disgraced Olympian forced onto the squad as community service, Zac Efron highlights the mordant fragility fueling a toxic dickishness preyed upon by real estate developer/meth impresario/comic opera femme fatale Priyanka Chopra. As techie chubster caught between The Rock and hardbodies, Jon Bass retains some shred of dignity through interminable trapped-penis gag. To be sure, Baywatch embraces its bro leanings unashamedly, and, save for a few halfhearted feints toward the fourth wall, offers up a seemingly-sincere tribute to its TV forebears that, if objectively bonkers, feels weirdly sweet when set against 22 Jump Street-styled meta ironies. A little self-awareness is a dangerous thing. R. JAY HORTON. Critic's Rating: 3/4 starsBridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

I think I read the first three of these books when I was a kid. Review to come next week. PG. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Lloyd, Tigard.

I, Daniel Blake

An "I" precedes the name Daniel Blake in Ken Loach's (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) 2016 Palme d'Or-winning film because its protagonist will eventually be driven to testimony. But Daniel doesn't start out an evangelist for the English commoner, and neither does the film. Played as a grouch with a heart by comedian Dave Johns, we follow Daniel through a welfare system's circles of hell in the former industrial hub of Newcastle. A recent heart attack prevents the widowed carpenter from working, but the state rules he can't collect unemployment if he's not seeking a job. It's a bureaucratic conundrum worthy of Kafka or Heller, minus the main character's psychological participation in the absurdity. Daniel is just some poor bloke exasperated by this red-tape tragedy. He finds a kindred spirit in the penniless single mother Katie (Hayley Squires) and her two young children. He can help the family mend their dilapidated home; their company is something to live for; none of them can get ahead. "We all need the wind at our back every now and again, don't we?" Daniel consoles Katie at a particularly low moment. You'd be hardpressed to find a more sobering portrayal of a losing streak taking over a life. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Critic's Rating: 3/4 stars. Living Room Theaters.

Icaros, A Vision

A woman journeys to the Peruvian Amazon for an ayahuasca ceremony and bonds with a young indigenous shaman who is losing his eyesight. If you have any buddies that listen to Joe Rogan's podcast, definitely tell them about this film. NR. Clinton St Theater.

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

Before Bobby Flay, before the Food Network, before Lucky Peach, before anyone had ever lined up for Salt and Straw, and before Guy Fieri had even thought about running for mayor of Flavor Town, there was Jeremiah Tower, America's original rock star chef. If the name doesn't ring a bell, well, that's kinda the point of this delightful Anthony Bourdain-produced documentary, which endeavors to finally give the trailblazing chef his dues. Tower—a charming but prickly dandy who honed his palate for fine French cuisine during a privileged but Dickensianly miserable childhood—should be best known as the culinary talent behind Berkeley's proto-locavorian Chez Panisse in the 1970s and his own influential restaurant Stars in San Francisco in the '80s. But the eatery mysteriously closed in the late '90s and Tower disappeared before his name could be immortalized via gossipy Eater posts and Instagram hashtags. The film attempts to wring some drama out of Stars' abrupt end with an ultimately unsatisfying "whodunnit?" plotline, but it needn't have—its real revelation is in discovering this coulda-been-Gordon-Ramsay and his restaurants in their heyday, thanks to a surprisingly ample collection of archival footage and the colorful anecdotes of Bourdain, Wolfgang Puck, Martha Stewart, Ruth Reichl, and others. R. RUTH BROWN. Kiggins, Cinema 21.

Reconstructing Identity: A Shorts Program

As part of their Constructing Identity: Black Cinema Then and Now program, the Film Center screens a collection of shorts from black filmmakers who have reprocessed archival footage from entertainment outlets. Films include Ina Archer's 2002 Hattie McDaniel: Or a Credit to the Motion Picture Industry, which works with the acceptance speeches made my Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to receive an Academy Award. Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium, 7 pm, Friday, June 2.

Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot stars as Wonder Woman in the DC character's origin story about an Amazon warrior who gets embroiled in World War II. A bunch of nerds are, unsurprisingly, already super pissed off about this movie. Review to come next week. PG-13. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, Tigard, Vancouver.

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