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OPENING THIS WEEK
Goodnight Mommy
Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy?
C Although vestigial remnants of the once proud tradition of political cartooning are still hanging on in op-ed pages across the country, American cartoons have become as toothless and compromised as, well, American newspapers. But in nations less inured to the hamstrung practicalities of a commodified free press, the form remains a vital weapon of free speech. This French documentary introduces a dozen different cartoonists in as many countries, but first-time director Stéphanie Valloatto and producer Radu Mihăileanu don't leave much room for appreciation or context amid the tales of persecution. While the artistry of cartooning might speak for itself, the politics cannot. Released one year before January's Charlie Hebdo murders, the film's dearth of religious perspectives is regrettably understandable, but it begs for a broader portrait. Given the breadth of the cartoonists' targets—from Putin to Hugo Chavez—including background on the subjects they satirize would have helped the film. Surely not every picture is exactly as it seems. NR. JAY HORTON. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Sunday, Oct. 4.
Coming Home
B A Chinese political prisoner (Chen Daoming) returns home after the end of the Cultural Revolution only to find his wife (Gong Li) has suffered a traumatic brain injury and doesn't recognize him. He tries every trick he can think of to jog her memory, including reading thousands of letters he wrote from prison that were never delivered. Coming Home is beautiful, but ultimately feels disjointed. The first third is about Chen trying to escape prison and get back to his family, and it's intense. The middle focuses on loving tricks, and that part's light and airy. Then the final third is beautifully sad as the two settle into a life together. All three parts are good but together don't quite meld into a coherent movie. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Fox Tower.
Finders Keepers
A When Shannon Whisnant found John Wood's mummified foot in the meat smoker he bought at a North Carolina storage unit sale, news outlets were quick to jump on the story with smirking, exploitative coverage. The stereotype of the backwards, toothless rural Appalachian white dude is inexplicably still fair game for the entertainment industry. This new example, from filmmakers J. Clay Tweel and Bryan Carberry, chronicles the custody battle over the mummified foot and the media circus that ensued. We watch both the media and Whisnant and Wood themselves fan the flames of controversy: In one of the most macabre scenes, Wood sits on a German late-night talk show with his own mummified foot on his lap, wearing a wide-eyed, drug-induced smile. But Finders Keepers acknowledges and then thankfully moves past the low-hanging gut-busters in this story, delving deep into the humanity—not just the media caricatures—at the center of this controversy. Themes of death, addiction and longing for fame weave seamlessly through the film, and what was once funny and lighthearted becomes heart-wrenching and beautiful. This is what documentary filmmaking should be. R. ZACH MIDDLETON. Hollywood, Kiggins.
Goodnight Mommy
B+ There's a twist at the cold heart of German directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz's Goodnight Mommy that most viewers will probably see coming, but that doesn't kill any of the tension in this deeply troubling horror show. While the deliberate pace and grim content might be off-putting to some, fans of buildup will be held in a vise grip until the gut-wrenching finale. Set in an isolated lake house, the film centers on twin brothers Lukas and Elias, whose mother (Susanne Wuest) comes home from facial reconstruction surgery with a head wrapped in bandages and a newfound malevolence toward her sons. As the film progresses, the boys decide the woman isn't their mother at all and resort to increasingly desperate measures to discover the truth. The setup is simple, but it's riddled with morbid pleasures—seething claustrophobia, sharp shifts in perspective and Wuest's malicious performance. You may see the twist coming early, but it's the turns Goodnight Mommy takes to get there—delving into body horror, psychological terror, creepy-kid tropes, and the looming threat of violence—that set it in a ghastly class all its own. R. AP KRYZA. Cinema 21.
H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
Anyone who grew up with any sort of nerdy proclivities inevitably went through an H.P. Lovecraft phase, and Portland is especially full of people who are still kindling the flame. Although the Anglophile died in obscurity and poverty in the mid-1930s, Lovecraft is now seen as the grandfather of sci-fi horror and one of the more darkly influential writers of the 20th century. In its 20th year, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival celebrates him with three days of film, readings, live theater and a prayer breakfast to the dread god Cthulhu. Featuring more than 50 independent short films adapting or inspired by Lovecraft's psychedelic horror canon, the Hollywood will also host author talks, idea-pitching panels and vendors selling things like Cthulhu-inspired jewelry. Friday is our pick for the three-day fest, screening the regional premiere of Raul Garcia's Extraordinary Tales. an animated collection of Edgar Allan Poe's stories that was Christopher Lee's final film before his passing earlier this year. WALKER MACMURDO. Hollywood Theatre. Oct. 2-4. $20-$65.
Queer Film Festival
Once you've finished watching the last of the decent options in Netflix's gay and lesbian category, it can be difficult to find movies about the queer community, decent or otherwise. Luckily for Portlanders, the Portland Queer Film Festival has fought the good fight for the better part of two decades by screening queer documentaries, features and shorts from around the world. Features this year include Eisenstein in Guanajuato, a "deliriously profane biopic" about visionary Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, and In the Turn, a documentary about the life of Crystal, a 10-year-old Canadian transgender girl. Cinema 21. Oct. 2-8. Opening night $15, general admission $10. pdxqueerfilm.com.
The Salt of the Earth
B Sebastião Salgado's still photos are more alive than most moving pictures. The UNICEF goodwill ambassador homed in on Indian coffee harvesters and Brazilian gold miners, and now The Salt of the Earth follows the economist-turned-photographer to Africa. His equally beautiful and disturbing photographs do their job on the big screen, holding a not-too-sentimental magnifying glass to the massive scope of our social and ecological responsibility. NR. KATHRYN PEIFER. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 1 .
Sicario
A How do you like your tension? Relentless? Then you're in luck, my friend, because Sicario is like a broken elevator; it never lets up. OK, that joke doesn't work, but the crime thriller starring Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) does. She's a talented FBI agent specially recruited into a task force fighting a brutal (and questionably legal) war against Mexican drug cartels. She spends the whole movie confused and on edge while taking orders from the mysterious Benicio Del Toro (Snatch), who manages to act without ever fully opening his eyes or mouth. As the real mission of the task force slowly takes shape, so do beautiful sweeping helicopter shots of the border zone and heartbreaking vignettes of all the people affected by drug war. It's a powerful film even if you never have anybody to root for. R. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, For Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
We Come as Friends
C The road to South Sudan was paved with good intentions. Oil companies from China and the United States, Christian missionaries from Texas, and politicians of all stripes played their part in pushing forward the 2011 referendum that forged a separate nation. Hubert Sauper, the Oscar-nominated documentarian behind 2004's Tanzania exposé Darwin's Nightmare, spent years chatting up all these parties for his feature We Come as Friends. To help evade travel restrictions and charm his way through armed checkpoints, Sauper constructed an ultralight aircraft—this allows for stunning aerial photography but also makes it seem like an alien visitor is telling the disjointed story. Even if you presume this detached perspective is supposed to indicate the patrician disregard or dilettante tragi-tourism that surrounds this issue, glossing over foreign atrocities, ulterior motives and implicit racism can't erase that exploitation, however artfully done. The film is beautifully shot, but with filmmakers like this, who needs enemies? NR. JAY HORTON. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.
Wildlike
A- Frank Hall Green doesn't care if his directorial debut, Wildlike, isn't cool, edgy, or cynical enough for you—"we're making the product we want to make," he says. Wildlike's plot (about "the redemptive power of friendship") follows 14-year-old Mackenzie (Ella Purnell) as she flees family troubles and moves in with her uncle in Juneau, Alaska. But when her uncle's attention turns predatory, Ellen runs away again, fleeing this time through Alaska's interior, where she meets middle-aged widower Bart (Bruce Greenwood). While it might sound like the tired makings of a horror flick, instead Bart steps into a protector role and helps Mackenzie escape her troubles, and Green flaunts his artist's eye with beautifully framed shots. By giving attention to space, light, time and silence, Green gives the audience a break from the workaday, dad-friendly plot. Alaska's titanic mountains and ancient bays provide appropriate scale for the nuanced and engrossing performances by Purnell and Greenwood. Make no mistake, this is an eminently watchable and gorgeously shot film. NR. ZACH MIDDLETON. Clinton Street Theater.
STILL SHOWING
Amy
A Even if you followed Amy Winehouse's career, it's hard to keep from crossing your fingers for a different ending while watching the tabloids tear her from public grace. R. LAUREN TERRY. Academy, Laurelhurst.
Ant-Man
B+ Ant-Man is a largely self-contained, breezy, hilarious and gorgeous heist film that manages a feat few recent superhero films do: It stands up well on its own. If it were a comic book, it wouldn't be the kind you put in a Mylar bag. It'd be one that you read with greasy fingers and childlike relish. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Eastport, Clackamas, Evergreen, Wilsonville.
Best of Enemies
A This doc centers on the debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley during the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions and plunges viewers into the frothy political climate of protests against militarized police in a decade when people were fighting for freedom of body and opinion. R. LAUREN TERRY. Laurelhurst.
Fantastic Four
D While neither Avengers: Age of Ultron nor Ant-Man were total failures, they were, at least, fun. Fantastic Four is decidedly not fun and—with the exception of largely decent casting and some genuinely compelling flashbacks—a total failure. PG-13. CASEY JARMAN. Avalon, Mt. Hood, Vancouver, Valley.
The Gift
C The Gift is that rare mass-marketed psychological thriller that's less concerned with scares than nuanced interiority. It's as ominous, thoughtful and ultimately meaningless as any of the elaborate gifts left at the sparkling new home of Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall). Following his dream job, the couple leaves Chicago for Simon's hometown of Los Angeles, where a chance encounter with a forgotten schoolmate leads "Gordo the Weirdo" (writer-director Joel Edgerton) to aggressive efforts at rekindling a friendship Simon insists never existed. R. JAY HORTON. Academy, Eastport, Laurelhurst, City Center, Fox Tower, Valley.
Grandma
C+ Like a feminist companion piece to last year's Bill Murray feature St. Vincent, Paul Weitz's Grandma tells the tale of Elle (Lily Tomlin), who takes her neglected granddaughter (Julia Garner) under her wing when the teenager comes asking for money for an abortion. An out-of-work poet and widow who just broke up with her young girlfriend (Judy Greer), Elle sees the situation as a chance to bond with her entitled granddaughter. So she takes the girl on a journey through L.A., visiting people from her past to raise funds for the procedure. Tomlin is great as the wise but stubborn Elle, doling out f-bombs and sagelike lessons in equal measure, but despite flashes of genuine emotion, Grandma eventually buckles under its heavy-handedness. It would have made a great play. Instead, it's an all right movie with a fantastic central performance. R. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Hollywood, City Center, Division, Fox Tower, Movies on TV, Tigard.
Hitman: Agent 47
D- According to the extensive voice-over (accompanied by some third-rate CGI, which plays a larger role in the film than most characters) that begins the movie, the Hitman program was a government experiment to create super-soldiers, super-strong and devoid of human emotions like fear and love. Based on the film, its makers seem like graduates of this program since they don't understand human emotion. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Vancouver, Valley.
Hotel Transylvania 2
Adam Sandler's hotel is a flourishing tourist destination for humankind in this follow-up to the 2012 non-sucky kid flick. But when his half-human grandson is waxing a little too normcore, Drac decides the kid needs monster training. PG. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
Inside Out
A Pretty much everybody in the theater was sobbing at some point during Inside Out. It's sad. Crushingly, relentlessly sad. And absolutely brilliant from writer-director Pete Docter, (Up). It's about young Riley, who has to move across the country for her dad's job, and the tiny people in her head who represent her emotions. PG. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, CineMagic, Empirical, Living Room Theaters, Oak Grove, Vancouver.
The Intern
B+ Nancy Meyers' latest film successfully tells a funny, intergenerational story without relying on health scare or a youthful makeover for Ben (Robert De Niro). As an active widower and retiree in need of something to keep himself busy, Ben applies to a senior internship program at "About the Fit," a Topshop-like online clothing site founded by the dedicated Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Besides taking place in a squeaky-clean, caucasian version of Brooklyn, this movie doesn't shy away from the less-glamorous details of being a female CEO in a society that is still playing catch-up, at one point showing condescending glances from Jules' fellow mothers at her daughter's school. De Niro does a terrific job embodying the amused patience his generation must adopt to survive in a millennial's world. He wears a suit every day out of habit, but his unquestioning admiration of Jules' tenacity is a refreshingly modern concept, serving as a reminder that the timeless art of being a gentleman begins with respect. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Living Room Theaters, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division Street, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
B+ If you walked out of Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation and thought, "I can't wait to see another spy thriller with too much punctuation based on a '60s TV show," then fear not. The film feels a lot like writer-director Guy Ritchie's amazing heist flick Snatch: innovative action sequences, unflappable characters and lots of jazzy flute riffs. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Eastport, Laurelhurst, Mt. Hood, Movies on TV, Valley.
Meet the Patels
B- Ravi Patel has American dreams of finding his soulmate in a moment of serendipity, but he also has Indian parents who want to find him an appropriate Indian bride. In this romantic-comedy-documentary, Ravi shows his foray into the world of arranged dating, and we get a look into the Indian-American experience. Through home videos and animated depictions, this real-life dating show brings us around the world on Ravi's arranged dates with prospective matches, bringing up the challenge all first generations face when resolving the pressure the preserve their family's culture. Yet after learning how names, castes and hometowns align in a perfect pair, Ravi's journey for an American happy ending is eclipsed by the fascinating intricacies of Indian matchmaking. PG. LAUREN TERRY. Fox Tower.
Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation
A None of this film's merits is unique to the Tom Cruise-led series, but they add up to something that's top-of-class for the genre. It's not sappy. It's a tight action movie focused on talented people working together for the good (or harm? You have no idea!) of the world. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Avalon, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Oak Grove, Evergreen, Tigard, Sandy.
Mistress America
B- Greta Gerwig's newest collaboration with director Noah Baumbach has depreciated every day since I saw it. It's a buddy movie about two intolerably self-centered women in New York. One is introverted college student Tracy (Lola Kirke from Gone Girl), who cares exclusively about getting published in a campus literary magazine and mumbling. The other is social butterfly Brooke (Gerwig from Frances Ha), who seems like Jenna from 30 Rock without the success. While the quasi-intellectual banter is fun, I just can't get too excited about whether or not two people I do not like are going to fulfill their terrible dreams. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Living Room Theaters.
Pawn Sacrifice
B Pawn Sacrifice chronicles legendary American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) through his rise from poor Jewish kid in Brooklyn to international chess superstar in the 1960s, culminating in his victory over Soviet Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) in the 1972 world championship in Reykjavik, Iceland. Ostensibly a film about chess, the pawns in Pawn Sacrifice act more as props in a film primarily about the declining mental state of Fischer, whose meteoric rise in the world of international chess belied his mental descent into intense paranoia and anti-Semitism. Maguire is excellent as the infamously difficult Fischer, gliding between the public braggadocio of an elite athlete and the clomping, angry and detached obsessiveness of someone whose degenerating mental health was largely glossed over for fear of spoiling his skill. With all these pieces in play, director Edward Zwick plays a smooth game. PG-13. WALKER MACMURDO. Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.
The Perfect Guy
David M. Rosenthal gives us the newest attempt at psychological thrillers about men who turn out to be—mother of all surprises—imperfect. We'll probably choose between the JLo renditions, Enough and The Boy Next Door, and save our money for Mace. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.
Phoenix
A Since its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival last summer, the nominations keep coming for this concise, moving neo-noir set in postwar Germany. Nelly (Nina Hoss) has just returned from a concentration camp, her face disfigured beyond recognition. "I no longer exist," she says after seeing her unfamiliar reflection, but we're hooked into her twisted search for what remains of her sense of self. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cinema 21, Laurelhurst.
Shaun the Sheep Movie
A- In a vibrant return to traditional clay animation, Shaun the Sheep Movie tells a fresh story with the familiar painstaking imagery that makes Aardman Studios the "English Pixar." PG. LAUREN TERRY. Academy, Eastport, Laurelhurst, Mt. Hood, Oak Grove, Joy, Valley.
Sleeping With Other People
C Remember the first person you slept with? You're still holding a torch for them, right? No? Then you aren't Jake (Jason Sudeikis). After a hot and steamy night with Lainey (Alison Brie) on the roof of a Columbia dorm, he reconnects with her 12 years later at a support group for people with sex addictions. He's now a serial cheater, while she keeps sabotaging relationships by sleeping with her gyno (Adam Scott). So they decide to use each other as a test case: Can they hang out with someone without trying to bonk them? Almost. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Fox Tower.
Stonewall
C It's safe to say Roland Emmerich's drama about the Stonewall riots, a major turning point in the gay rights movement, had good intentions. Sadly, he doesn't quite achieve them: The dialogue is clunky, the main character (played by Jeremy Irvine) is wooden and does a terrible job of covering his British accent, and the pacing is stop-start. More importantly, the historic roles of trans people and people of color are minimized in favor of a fictional, grass-fed white boy from the Midwest. Those things are all true. However, I didn't focus on these (admittedly grave) objections at the moment, because I was crying too much. The story of Irvine's character living on the streets after getting kicked out of the house for being gay highlights a very serious problem (approximately 40 percent of homeless youths today are LGBTQ), and even a problematic movie might encourage many who had never heard of Stonewall to learn more. R. ALEX FALCONE. Living Room Theaters, Bridgeport, City Center.
Straight Outta Compton
C Telling the greatest story in the history of popular music wasn't going to be easy. Especially since it attempts to follow three main story lines, as Dre, Cube and Eazy-E all get major play, with DJ Yella and MC Ren rightly relegated to bit-player status. And even more especially since it's co-produced by the star subjects, who all want to manage their own images and follow their own arcs. It's a fairly faithful telling of the story, but it's not the movie N.W.A. deserved. R. MARTIN CIZMAR. Eastport, Clackamas, Hollywood, Oak Grove,Fox Tower, Movies on TV.
Time Out of Mind
A- I was ready to dismiss this portrait of homelessness as Oscar-baiting trash, but Oren Moverman's understated film about a father's struggle with mental illness avoids your typical narrative trickery. No revelatory ups or downs, just a fragmented Richard Gere searching for the words. Gere's George waits in one of many offices, unable to obtain welfare benefits due to personal weakness and systemic bureaucracy alike. His lone pal, played by the captivating Ben Vereen, rattles on about love and family, but rather than offering his own insight, George can only stare into the distance. The hidden camera never cuts away from George, always leering, allowing him not a moment's privacy, and you're forced to fill the void in his eyes with some level of empathy. This demands a lot from the viewer, and while the appeal may not prove universal, I'll be damned if you don't feel a thing or two. NR. ERIC MILLMAN. Living Room Theaters.
Trainwreck
C Amy Schumer is the absolute tops, but Trainwreck isn't worth the ticket price. Amy Schumer stars as Amy, a version of herself as a magazine writer instead of a comedy writer. R. ALEX FALCONE. CineMagic, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower.
Vacation
D+ You can look forward to the same opening tune of Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road," but this spin on 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation replaces the original's irreverent, campy charm with puke scenes and punch lines that rely on the comedic value of a child saying "vagina" as Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms), all grown up, tries to refresh his relationship with his wife (Christina Applegate) and kids by re-creating his family's road trip to Walley World. R. LAUREN TERRY. Avalon, Vancouver, Valley.
The Visit
B- M. Night Shyamalamadingdong has lost the luster of his early career, so it's no surprise he's making little $5 million found-footage horror movies. But this entry into cheap-shaky horror movies doesn't add much to the genre. The Visit is told from the points of view of an unbelievably precocious 15-year-old who's making a documentary about her first trip to meet her estranged grandparents, and her 12-year-old brother, whose rapping is so bad it makes me want bad things to happen to him much faster than they do. The movie is packed full of jump scares and gross-outs (vomit, poop, old people naked) and a cast of people you've probably never heard of. The film's got some tense scenes, but the humor, even though it's unintentional, makes it hard to stay in the moment. "Little kid, will you climb into the oven please?" We'll give it to M. Night, he does make us feel trapped in an uncomfortable spot. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
A Walk in the Woods
B+ Based on Bill Bryson's novel, this film shows Robert Redford as Bryson, embarking on a hike of the Appalachian Trail, joined by an estranged friend from his youth, Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte). The pair of older men, unfit for the strenuous length of the trail, meet skeptical glances from their perky, young fellow hikers and wheeze as troops of Boy Scouts trot past. At their age, even crossing the slick rocks of a minor stream amps up the tension along the way. Nolte is bloated and gravelly as ever, but as morbidly amusing as his physical comedy comes off, the screenplay sets up honest, candid conversations between two men coming to grips with their mortality. Director Ken Kwapis mixes in stunning shots of the pristine forests and seemingly mile-deep ravines, so awe-inspiring that, like Bryson and Katz, one is reminded that the need for validation is not at all the meaning of life. R. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Tigard, Wilsonville.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOF2LIAp9bw
Willamette Week
