What to Watch This Week: The Black Woodstock, an Epic L.A. Car Chase and Jessie Spano on the Pole

The best old movies to check out this week.

You've choked down about a carton of Marlboros worth of wildfire smoke this week, so it's time to find a cool, dark escape from the outdoors. Catch an old favorite movie or watch something you've had on your list for a while now. Here are some of the best flicks revived across Portland screens right now.

Troop Beverly Hills (1989)

Badges in camping and fire-making are for suckers. Why rough it when you can earn patches for shopping like a diva and appraising diamonds? Shelly Long becomes the leader of her daughter's Wilderness Girls group (the Girl Scouts did not approve use of their name) and gives her fashionistas-in-training the survival skills needed for life in Beverly Hills. Comedians perform pre-show. Hollywood Theatre, Aug. 24.

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

Director William Friedkin tops his French Connection car chase in his long-awaited return to the cop genre with this movie. A Secret Service agent becomes obsessed with avenging his partner's death at the hands of an extra-creepy Willem Dafoe. The path to justice is never easy—this one veers into oncoming freeway traffic. NW Film Center, Aug. 25.

The Last Starfighter (1984)

Every kid who plugged quarters into arcade games in the '80s desperately hoped one would be a ticket to outer space as in this flick. After beating Starfighter, a teenager is recruited by an alien to join an elite legion of pilots. He's their best shot at saving hundreds of worlds—including Earth. OMSI, Aug. 24 and 26.

Wattstax (1973)

Seven years after the devastating anti-police riots in Watts, the legendary Memphis record label Stax organized a benefit concert with a stellar lineup of performers. Fortunately, somebody was there with a camera and turned that extensive footage into this documentary. NW Film Center, Aug. 27.

Showgirls (1995)

If you always wanted Saved by the Bell's Jessie Spano to ditch her straight-laced, studious persona and rebel by twirling around a pole, then Showgirls is the beyond-Bayside trajectory of your dreams. Elizabeth Berkley plays a drifter who lands a job at a seedy Vegas strip joint and soon begins to work her way to the top of the showgirl scene. Mission Theater, Aug. 27.

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