FAMILY PICTURES presents THE BLACK STALLION

This is definitely a last-minute posting on my part, since the film being highlighted plays today at 2pm.  But, as I mentioned a while back, Carroll Ballard's 1979 adaptation of The Black Stallion was one of my favorite films as a kid.  And it's a movie that still stands up when viewing it with adult eyes; the storm sequence at the beginning is thrilling and more a little bit frightening (but in a good, not gonna make anyone under the age of five begin weeping, kinda way). 

Very highly recommended.

The Black Stallion plays today (6/2) at the Hollywood Theatre at 2pm.  More info available here.


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THE COLOR WHEEL: IT'S GOING ON MY CHUCKLE LIST

The Color Wheel may very well be the biggest comedy surprise of the year.   But what's most surprising about it is that it works at all.  "Range-y" might be a word plucked straight from celebrity-host critiques of reality television contestants but it perfectly applies to many aspects of The Color Wheel; from the cinematography to the acting, the individual components of the film veer from brilliant to just kind of awkwardly composed at times.  Yet, the things that do work here work really well.

It mostly boils down to the chemistry between the two leads, actor/director/co-writer Alex Ross Perry and his co-writer/co-star Carlen Altman.  They play a brother (Colin) and sister (JR) who feebly attempt to set aside the strained nature of their relationship long enough for him to help her move out of her professor's apartment following a failed and probably inadvisable romance.  The cease fire doesn't last for long.  JR soon begins gleefully skewering Colin's effectively platonic relationship with his girlfriend, while Colin takes every opportunity to point out how unwanted JR is within their family.

The tension surrounding their back and forth squabbling is nearly ceaseless.  It's also incredibly funny.  As an actor, Perry appears intent on stuffing as many words into a sentence as humanly possible.  This would be annoying in most cases.  But, as Colin, his never-ending, half-mumbled diatribes offer insight into a character who, outside of his family circle, probably doesn't get listened to all that often; thus, the urgent need to cram all his thoughts into as compact a space as possible.  Real people might not express themselves as Colin does but Perry's performance still registers as true.

Altman's take on JR is no less exposed.  Her dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist are far out of reach; from her social awkwardness to juvenile way she carries herself, no one is going to hire JR to read the news or anything else.  It's not difficult to gather that the end of her bad relationship with the professor is just par for the course.  With her brother at her side, she forms one-half of a duo of misfits whose intelligence and talent goes wholly unappreciated by those surrounding them.

Every year I have people asking me about what new films I think are funny.  My answer is usually that "comedy recommendations are hard," followed by a very short list of movies that I found humorous.  With The Color Wheel, I've got another title to add to my chuckle list for 2012.  This film has all the makings of a new cult comedy classic.  It's a little rough around the edges but glides by on both charm and the crackling wit of the dialogue.  And Perry and Altman display a mighty rapport here that makes them incredibly fun to watch.  Surprisingly few films have as much going for them as The Color Wheel.

The Color Wheel screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Friday, June 1st at 7pm & 9pm, Saturday, June 2nd at 5pm, 7pm & 9pm, and Sunday June 3rd at 4:30pm.  More info available here.


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LAST CHANTS FOR A SLOW DANCE (DEAD END): FIXIN' TO DIE

Right up front, it should be understood that Jon Jost's 1977 deconstruction of the road movie, Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Dead End), nudges the viewer to abandon the need to know where the story is heading for most of the film.  Sure, there are familiar signposts and very subtle hints at genre conventions; at times, it appears as if we might be moving into territory once mined by Monte Hellman, but Jost isn't as interested in sustaining an existentially-flavored narrative or tone as much as he is in offering up a character piece that doesn't rely on the safety of a three-act structure.  Produced for only $2000, Slow Chants is a film like no other, a reminder that cinema doesn't always have to embrace the all-too-common formalism of the mainstream to successfully relay a story.

Jost introduces us to Tom (Tom Blair), a man on the road with the expressed goal of finding employment.  Except, he's really not looking for a job.  He complains about his wife (Jessica St. John), his kids ("I never wanted kids") and his duty to them, never once acknowledging that there might have been choices that lead him to this reality.  Although the journey is necessitated by his familial responsibilities, Tom mostly uses it to free himself of them, drifting aimlessly away from the orbit of those that need him the most, expressing only disdain for them when he can be troubled to acknowledge their existence at all.

There's an episodic quality to the situations that Tom wanders through, whether it be time spent drinking at a bar, a conversation with a hitchhiker, or an encounter with a man on the side of the road.  Jost stitches these moments together with stubbornly static, visual compositions (of the road, an abandoned storefront, clouds, etc.) and sustained fades to black, pulling the audience into a disjointed fugue that reflects the protagonist's lost meanderings through an undefined landscape.  At times, it's easy to forget the few details we've gleaned thus far, as Jost invites us to watch as Tom flips through a stack of postcards in real time, for instance.

All of which sounds like a recipe for a film lacking meaning; an assessment that couldn't be further from the truth.  The last scene of the film; the one that comes after the film's most shocking (and, yet, still emotionally numbed) sequence, provokes one to reassess the entire piece based on what we've just witnessed.  It plays out as a clear-eyed, glorious end to an otherwise elliptical portrait of a sociopath.

Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Dead End) plays at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Thursday, May 31st at 7pm.  Jost's Parable (2008) follows at 9pm.  Additional information on the screening available here.

On Sunday, June 3rd, two more films by Jost, The Long Shadow (La Lunga Ombra) and Images of a Lost City will screen at 6:30pm and 8:15pm, respectively.  More info available here.

Jon Jost will be in attendance for all four screenings.  He's also leading a workshop on digital production on June 2nd and 3rd.


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SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION @ THE HOLLYWOOD THEATRE

Paul Newman's film adaptation of Ken Kesey's great Northwestern logging strike tale, Sometimes a Great Notion, returns to the Hollywood Theatre this weekend for a limited, 4-day run.  Starring Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick, it's a chance to see a rarely screened, regionally-filmed classic; the only known 35mm print in existence will light up the big screen at the Hollywood.  Given how tossed off the dvd version of this title is (it's been relegated to the made-to-order, dv-r "Universal Vault Series"), you practically owe it to yourself to check this out this weekend.

Sometimes a Great Notion plays at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, June 1st through Monday, June 4th.  More info available here.

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GRINDHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL presents SQUIRM

Portland's own Grindhouse Film Festival slams into high gear tonight with yet another rarely screened, B-horror gem at the Hollywood Theatre.  This month's selection is none other than the 1976 worms gone wild spectacle known as Squirm.  Directed by Jeff Lieberman of Blue Sunshine fame (or is it infamy?), the film finally answers the question of what it would take to get earthworms on board for eating human flesh; the answer...why electricity, of course.

Here's what the Grindhouse fest press release says is in store for tonight's audience:
Squirm (1976) When a violent storm rocks a small community, a series of power lines are knocked to the ground, sending high voltage electricity deep into the earth. The surge of power hits tens of thousands of earthworms, sending them into a flesh-eating frenzy! A young couple and a detective try to save the town, but not before angry screaming worms start infesting houses, spilling out of facets, and burrowing into people’s skin. If the thought of drowning in a sea of worms makes your skin crawl, then this is the movie for you. 
35mm 70′s horror trailers before the movie!

Squirm plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, May 29th at 7:30pm.  More info available here.

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EFF PORTLAND WINDS DOWN WITH CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA & MORE

EFF Portland is already nearing the end of its first year's run.  If you still haven't made it out to this year's festival, there's still plenty of stuff to see.  This evening, there's a two-part presentation of shorts going under the name The Upper Crust (part one's at 6pm, here's a link to part two, which begins at 8pm) and more (live performances, a premiere of work by Evan Meaney at 3pm, etc.).

Tomorrow night marks the official end of the festival.  And the good folks at EFF Portland have put together two enticing events to bring it all to a close.  Sunday afternoon at 1pm, the Clinton Street Theater hosts The Dill Pickle Club's latest installment in their ongoing lecture series, A Place Called Home: Lectures on Filmmaking in Portland.  For this month's edition, the D.P.C.'s rounded up local filmmakers Jim Blashfield, Brooke Jacobson and Matt McCormick (a piece on his most recent film was recently featured on the blog here) to talk about their craft and its relationship to place.

The official festival closing spot is occupied by the Portland premiere of Vanessa Renwick's  Charismatic Megafauna at the Hollywood Theatre.  Via e-mail, Renwick communicated that Charismatic Megafauna is the third piece she's made on the topic of wolf reintroduction (this installation piece being one of the others), part of a twelve year process of making a larger work on the topic.  The event will feature a live score performed by Lori Goldston, Jessika Kenney, Dylan Carlson and Greg Campbell.

Here's a snippet from the press release:
Portland Oregon-based radical documentary film maker Vanessa Renwick places 16mm film footage from her own teenage life in inner city Chicago, living with a wolf dog with stunning video documentation shot by biologists reintroducing wolves into the western USA in the late 90’s. We watch the wolf dog scavenging in the gutters of Chicago, and we watch humans performing the act known perversely as “wildlife management” on wolves.


The evening will also feature a rare screening of Renwick’s “Mighty Tacoma.”

Sound and Vision & EFF Portland present Charismatic Megafauna on Sunday, May 27th at the Hollywood Theatre.  More info on the program available here.  More info EFF Portland's showcases, tickets, venues and special events available here.


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THE FILMS OF STUDIO GHIBLI: POM POKO

Let's be honest here:  Pom Poko is one of the weirder selections in the Studio Ghibli portfolio.  It doesn't get nearly as much love in Ghibli fan circles as some of their higher profile releases like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke do, but there's a lot about this less celebrated film worth recommending.  The action centers around a group of raccoons (okay, anime nerds, tanuki) whose natural living space is being infringed upon by ongoing human settlements.  So, basically, we've got an environmentally-themed kid's movie about urban sprawl.

Doesn't sound very strange to you?  What if I told you that these particular raccoons are shape-shifters, able to take on any form that they wish?  Furthermore, the male raccoons use their distinctly masculine, um, "pouch" in a likewise magical manner, inflating it at will or having it appear as a rug, etc.  One would be hard-pressed to point out an example of an animated product from the West containing such frank, anatomical depictions.  In Pom Poko, there's little hoopla associated with the choice to portray the characters this way; they're male, so, of course, they're packin' heat.  The movie doesn't get bogged down by this, so we won't either...

The far more interesting thing about Pom Poko is how it handles the raccoon population's attempts to address their shared problem.  They start in a fairly common place, trading violence for the violence being wrought against them and their homes.  Soon enough, though, the group becomes divided in opinion about how to proceed, many feeling uncomfortable about the dire consequences that their actions have had on individual humans.  In a sense, what director Isao Takahata's story is showing us is the birth of a politically-charged, activist movement, one that just happens to be made up of raccoons.

It's interesting to see such adult concepts as group process and consensus being tested out in a children's entertainment, but maybe that says more about the utterly banal films being released for kids by Hollywood nowadays.  If anything, Pom Poko respects the intelligence of children; sure, it's plenty silly at times, offering up more than one raccoon party involving folk songs about roadkill, but there's also more than a few losses stacked up by the end of the film, making the resolution of the film nothing if not bittersweet. 

Pom Poko is an odd duck of a film, no doubt.  Though, if you've somehow neglected seeing it, this final week of the NW Film Center's Studio Ghibli retrospective offers the perfect opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past.  As well as a chance to ponder the fate of raccoons, I suppose.

Pom Poko screens as a part of the retrospective series, Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli.  More info about the Studio Ghibli series here.
It plays at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Friday, May 25th at 7pm and Sunday, May 27th at 2pm.


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