A few things happening this week, movie-wise:
Beer and Movie fest
BAM is bringing some top-notch sci-fi/fantasy movies to the Academy Theater this week, Feb 18-24. The program includes:
GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)
EVIL DEAD 2 (1987)
THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982)
THEY LIVE (1988)
THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)
and the much-worse-than-you-remember THE NEVERENDING STORY (1984).
For the full schedule, go to bamfestpdx.com.
PIFF After Dark:
Dan Halsted of the Grindhouse Film Festival is bringing four films to the Hollywood for PIFF After Dark:
RUBBER - this Friday, Feb 18, at 11.30pm - about a rolling tire on a murderous rampage. Word is it's kinda arty.
OUTRAGE - Saturday, Feb 19 - the latest by the great Japanese action director Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine; Fireworks)
MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD - Friday, Feb 25 - a Japanese splatterfest about teenage girls whose latent mutant genes become active when they turn 16, causing them to grow weapons from sometimes inconvenient places and go on a bloody, bloody rampage against anti-mutant bigots. Probably goes without saying that this won't be everybody's cup of tea, but I am very excited about it.
REVENANT - Saturday, Feb 26 - a vampire zombie war picture, directed by D. Kerry Prior; a Q&A with the director will follow the screening.
For trailers and more details, visit piffafterdark.blogspot.com or nwfilm.org.
Reviews of PIFF movies (check nwfilm.org for an updated schedule)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Showing 9pm Friday, Feb 18, at Cinemagic.
Directed by Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who apparently lets Westerners call him "Joe." (His previous works include Blissfully Yours and Tropical Maladies.)
This is one of those rare films you want to protect from being seen by the wrong audience. A lot of people will hate it, or sleep through it, or find it frustrating. Not much happens. It's more of a meditation than a story; insofar as there's a narrative arc, it concerns the last few days in the life (and/or maybe the first part of the afterlife) of Boonmee, a man dying of kidney failure. Spectres of his past and possibly also of local myths and legends, or maybe some spooky primal forces, wander in and out of his surroundings. There are ghost monkeys, catfish-on-princess love scenes, a lot of kidney draining, and not much in the way of what you might call "action," but there's a thoroughly charming humor and warmth in the way the characters engage with each other. Visually the film looks flat and intentionally artless; you spend a fair amount of time looking at unbeautiful tangles of jungle, and many indoor scenes are blandly fluorescent. One effect this has is that, once these ordinary images have lulled your eyes into a state of calm, your ears take over. The use of natural sound in this film works all kinds of magic. It makes every leaf in that boring-looking jungle vibrate with fear and foreboding and the sense of something crucial happening, maybe right in front of you and maybe just in the surrounding air. Though its static quality will no doubt frustrate some, the film is entrancing. A
Poetry
Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 2:30 PM (Whitsell); Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 6:30 PM (Broadway)
DIRECTOR: Lee Chang-dong - SOUTH KOREA (Oasis, Secret Sunshine)
Winner of the Best Screenplay prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Similar to last year's critical fave (and one of my top 10) Mother, but more meandering, less tightly structured and less visually stunning. (Which isn't to say this isn't a beautiful film; it is.) The story follows a woman on the verge of dementia who is raising her grandson, a horrible little snot who turns out to be part of a gang of teens guilty of raping a classmate. It sounds grim and is, but there are moments of light, most of which come in the form of the lead actress's lovely smile - and one really endearing, slightly pervy, poetry-loving cop. B+
The Housemaid
Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 8:15 PM (Broadway); Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 8:45 PM (Cinemagic)
DIRECTOR: Im Sang-soo - SOUTH KOREA
This remake of a '60s film of the same title combines a not-that-scathing social commentary about the brutal unfeelingness of the haves toward the have-nots with a not-that-erotic erotic thriller. But the last two scenes are so crazy and beautiful that they make the whole thing worthwhile. C
Double Hour
DIRECTOR: Giuseppe Capotondi - ITALY
Filippo Timi (Vincere), the Italian Javier Bardem, stars in a two-twists-a-minute suspense film about speed-dating. Tense and easy to watch, but ends up a little too much like that episode of Dallas where it turned out the whole season was Pamela's dream. C+