Brew Views: Spring Breakers

Disney gone wild.

Brew Views The words “spring break” are repeated so often in Spring Breakers that the phrase takes on a mantralike quality. Still best known for writing Kids and directing Gummo, backwater auteur Harmony K ... More

May 15, 2013 12:01 am by MICHAEL NORDINE

Brew Views: The Long Goodbye

Marlowe for the Me generation.

Brew Views For its second tribute to film noir, Return to Noirville, Cinema 21 celebrates the genre’s apex with eight classics, but it also hops a few decades forward with a trio of neo-noirs. Top among th ... More

May 8, 2013 12:01 am by REBECCA JACOBSON

Brew Views: Upstream Color

This little swine of mine.

Brew Views Pigs figure heavily in Upstream Color. In addition to a scene of a woman cuddling with a piglet, writer-director Shane Carruth’s sophomore feature also includes swine being bagged for an unple ... More

May 1, 2013 12:01 am by REBECCA JACOBSON

Brew Views: Star Trek TV at Holocene

Wyatt Warp and the Yellow-Bellied Spandex.

Brew Views In the JJ-fied Star Trek of today, it’s easy to look upon the pitifully low-budgeted original series and giggle. The episode “Spectre of the Gun,” Gene Roddenberry’s 1968 nod to the cowboy W ... More

Apr 24, 2013 12:01 am by MITCH LILLIE

Brew Views: The Silent Partner

Canadian caper.

Brew Views Just how über ’70s is Daryl Duke’s The Silent Partner? Elliot Gould (check) stars as Miles, a milquetoast bank teller and budding lothario (check) who inadvertently provokes the murderous rag ... More

Apr 17, 2013 12:01 am by MARSHALL WALKER LEE

Brew Views: Warm Bodies

Brains with heart.

Brew Views “Don’t be creepy, don’t be creepy, don’t be creepy,” the lovesick zombie in Warm Bodies begs himself as he stares, slack-jawed, at the very blond, very alive object of his affection. He� ... More

Apr 10, 2013 12:01 am by KELLY CLARKE

Brew Views: Beer and Movie Fest

Beer me.

Brew Views Some things are just better with a beer or six. Take, for example, the sight of a shirtless Patrick Swayze ripping out a dude’s throat. Or a gigantic bug sucking out a man’s brain with what ap ... More

Apr 3, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Brew Views: Batman

A brighter bat.

Brew Views In a post-Dark Knight world, it seems laughable that Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman—with its Prince soundtrack, delightfully hammy Jack Nicholson performance and lack of horribly disfiguring facial ... More

Mar 27, 2013 12:01 am by RUTH BROWN

Brew Views: The Dead Zone

When missiles fly.

Brew Views Like The Shining, The Dead Zone is proof that films are much better off using Stephen King’s ideas as a template rather than treating them as gospel. Make no mistake, 1983’s The Dead Zone is ... More

Mar 20, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Brew Views: They Live

Bum fights and Rowdy Roddy.

Brew Views Sure, some movies are brilliantly subversive and ahead of their time. But how many Orwellian fantasies about a world subjugated by alien advertising feature the longest bum fight ever committed ... More

Mar 13, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Ghosts in the Darkness

A Portland paranormal detective searches for gold on SyFy’s Ghost Mine.

DVD & TV We believe what we want to believe, especially in the world of the paranormal. Some will argue that something that goes bump in the night is a restless spirit. Others, like your carpenter, insist ... More

Jan 16, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Red Riding Hoodie

Grimm goes into the woods to catch a predator.

DVD & TV What can you divine about a television series from its pilot? Probably about as much as you can learn by looking at footprints in a muddy crime scene and determining the killer wore Timberlands. But ... More

Oct 26, 2011 12:01 am by AARON MESH

Down The Tube

They say it’s the Golden Age of TV. It will be if you stop watching crap.

DVD & TV I’ve got a confession to make: I don’t watch nearly as much TV as I should. I say “should” because when someone is being paid to write about television, there’s an expect ... More

Nov 19, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

The 2008 Olympics

The Chinese have certainly learned marketing.

DVD & TV An entertainment-industry trade paper recently ran a story with maybe the most depressing lead you could hope to find: “Sure, Michael Phelps has racked up more medals than any other Olympian in ... More

Aug 20, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Shooting The Messenger

The Marines of Generation Kill don’t need no stinking sermons.

DVD & TV Generation Kill only makes sense if you’ve seen The Wire, but not quite for the reasons you’d expect. The Wire has now joined that short list of television shows whose titles are shorthand ... More

Jul 30, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Turning Japanese

Game show imports are a study in orientalism.

DVD & TV The premise for ABC’s Wipeout is pretty simple: Hearty Americans of slightly above-average looks and strength compete in an escalatingly dumb series of physical competitions designed to make the ... More

Jul 9, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Band Of Fathers

Why is John Adams next in the hearts of his countrymen? He’s on TV.

DVD & TV John Adams, which stars Paul Giamatti as a very grumpy Founding Father, is the kind of miniseries HBO excels at making, a sweeping historical epic that boasts an all-star cast, solid credentials on th ... More

Apr 2, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Drawn and Quartered

The predictable failure of Quarterlife.

DVD & TV NBC’s Quarterlife, a sitcom about those crazy kids and their blogs, has been booted from the network after just one episode and relegated to sister network Bravo. The explanation is a pretty sim ... More

Mar 5, 2008 12:00 am by Dan Carlson

The Long and Winding Road Rules

DVD & TV I am now too old to get away with regularly watching MTV, which makes The Real World/Road Rules Challenge perfect for me. Let me explain. As did most people my age, I grew up not only watching MTV bu ... More

Jan 30, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Strike One

Stewart and Colbert return—but it’s just not the same.

DVD & TV Watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do their shows in the midst of the Writers Guild strike is probably one of the most surreal viewing experiences I’ve ever had. And I don’t mean sur ... More

Jan 16, 2008 12:00 am by Daniel Carlson

Trekking Nowhere Fast

Where’s JJ when you need him?

Movie Reviews & Stories JJ Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness has gotten great reviews. Already released in Australia, Mexico and other countries, the movie’s U.S. release was delayed because of a competing opening of T ... More

May 15, 2013 12:01 am by MITCH LILLIE

Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival

James Franco, porn stars and hate crimes.

Movie Reviews & Stories For the seventh year, the Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival—the only one of its kind in the country—returns for a weekend of gender-bending, boundary-breaking and cross-dressing, with a ... More

May 15, 2013 12:01 am by WW Staff

The Iceman

A true-crime nightmare that’s completely cold.

Movie Reviews & Stories Michael Shannon—whose hot streak of late includes 2011’s best (and most overlooked) performance in Take Shelter—has steadily built a catalog that dips into a huge swath of roles, from heroes ... More

May 15, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Pretty, Dumb

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby remakes the ’20s for the tweens.

Movie Reviews & Stories Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby begins, appropriately enough, with decoration—a gold-filigreed frame that accordions outward in 3-D before suddenly cutting to a swimmy shot of ... More

May 8, 2013 12:01 am by MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Midnight’s Children

Tiptoeing into the mystic.

Movie Reviews & Stories I never thought I’d say this, but perhaps Salman Rushdie isn’t giving himself enough credit. In adapting his 1981 Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children, he works with director Deepa Mehta ... More

May 8, 2013 12:01 am by SAUNDRA SORENSON

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Serving up a fiery tale but packing little heat.

Movie Reviews & Stories Heading into The Reluctant Fundamentalist, you can’t help but admire director Mira Nair’s nerve. After suffering a setback like 2009’s Amelia—a dull biopic about Earhart—many filmmakers ... More

May 8, 2013 12:01 am by CURTIS WOLOSCHUK

Man in the Can

Marvel kills it with the terrifically entertaining Iron Man 3.

Movie Reviews & Stories The modern superhero trilogy has a very specific arc. There’s the origin story, in which an everyman stumbles into great power. In round two, the world turns on said hero as he faces greater t ... More

May 1, 2013 12:01 am by AP KRYZA

Lovecraft on the Tabletop

How to scare the father of Doom.

Movie Reviews & Stories Game designer Sandy Petersen isn’t afraid of anything. Well, almost anything. “The revelation that things are not as they seem—that’s scary to me,” says Petersen, the guest of honor ... More

May 1, 2013 12:01 am by MITCH LILLIE

Gimme the Loot

Love and spray paint in the Bronx.

Movie Reviews & Stories There is something crushingly genuine about Gimme the Loot. In part, it’s the playful simplicity of the plot: Two Bronx teens try to rise to graffiti infamy by tagging a giant plastic apple that ... More

May 1, 2013 12:01 am by EMILY JENSEN

Girl Twirling

Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder is more mystifying than mind-blowing.

Movie Reviews & Stories Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life overflowed with voice-over narration. His new film is practically an audiobook. Actually, “audiobook” is misleading: That would suggest To the Wonder’s ... More

Apr 24, 2013 12:01 am by REBECCA JACOBSON

Not Dark Yet

But PIFF’s Getting There.

Screen This is the way the world cinema showcase ends: not with a whimper, but with mutilated clowns and schoolgirls with robotic claws. The Portland International Film Festival doesn’t let its foot off ... More

Feb 23, 2011 06:37 pm by WW MOVIE STAFF

PIFF Rolls East

Ghost monkeys, a killer tire and other Portland International Film Festival treats.

Screen Gephyrophobia: the fear of crossing bridges. This malady has longed plagued the eastside cinephile during the Portland International Film Festival. But not this year. In its second week, PIFF jumps ... More

Feb 16, 2011 05:44 pm by WW MOVIE STAFF

Follow That BAM

Beer and Movie is for real.

Screen My first favorite movie was Follow That Bird. It starred my favorite actors at the time—a 6-foot, yellow-feathered puppet named Big Bird and his cohorts Oscar the Grouch and Mr. Snuffleupagus—p ... More

Feb 16, 2011 06:50 pm by AARON MESH

PIFF Gets Spiffy

All aboard the new and improved Portland International Film Festival.

Screen There’s no mistaking it: Like any good regional importer looking to tap into economic recovery, the 34th annual Portland International Film Festival is diversifying. For the first time, PIFF is exp ... More

Feb 8, 2011 06:05 pm by WW MOVIE STAFF

The Eagle

Exterminate the Brits.

Screen Rome’s lost Legio IX Hispana, maybe massacred in Britain around 117 A.D., is suddenly a hot commodity: The Eagle is the second movie in six months about the legion’s shrouded fate, following Neil Marshall’s viscera-spattered Centurion ... More

Feb 8, 2011 06:20 pm by AARON MESH

Meet Me In Senegal

The Cascade Festival of African Films expands our cinematic horizons.

Screen Africa is not a continent terrifically well known for its cinema: The money isn’t really there, and many of its countries are constantly in violent flux. But that very instability and unfamiliarit ... More

Feb 1, 2011 06:18 pm by MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Rage vs. Lance Bangs

Portland filmmaking may induce vomiting.

Screen Rage 45 [ONE NIGHT ONLY] With eye-popping cinematography and a searing score, Rage ranks among the most richly produced local films in recent memory, but also among the most disappointing. Early on, ... More

Feb 1, 2011 06:23 pm by WW Film Staff

My Dog Tulip

Teeny little super cartoon.

Screen A burst of jazz announces the place as 1950s London, where elderly author J.R. Ackerley begins typing a memoir. From his cozy apartment, ... More

Jan 19, 2011 12:00 am by ALISTAIR ROCKOFF

Crispin Glover

His body of work is a Wonderland.

Screen Crispin Glover may be popularly known for playing inarticulate (or completely silent) characters, but he has a lot to say. He returns to Portland this week with his two movies, What Is It? (which star ... More

Jan 19, 2011 12:00 am by AARON MESH

Hail, Hail, Portlandia!

Fellow assholes: Let’s talk about that Carrie Brownstein show, shall we?

Screen After months of breathlessly anticipating the chance to watch Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen’s comedy series Portlandia, it is suddenly difficult to find a place where people ... More

Jan 19, 2011 12:00 am by WW Culture Staff
 

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