Karl Lind'sIn the Can Productions and Grand Detour have joined together to present Cine Spree at the Clinton Street Theater, a full day of screenings, discussions, and low-key mingling surrounding the topic of experimental film. Kicking off on Sunday at 1p.m., the day's business begins with a Salon-style conversation on the state of experimental filmmaking and exhibition in PDX; I'll be around to help out with this part of the event, which is free to the public, so be sure to stop in, participate, and, above all, say "howdy."
After 3p.m., the complimentary portion of the day concludes, but that's when the booze, food, and films begin flowing. $15 gets you a slice of it all, but note that there are also options available for foregoing the refreshments and just enjoying the films, including the Oregon premiere of Pip Choderov's documentary Free Radicals.
Keep in mind, the Portland 2012 Cine Spree is being billed as day one of The Clinton Street's Experimental Mini Fest. Day two goes down on Monday, November, 26th.
Cine Spree happens at the Clinton Street Theater on Sunday, November 25th.Full details available here.
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A long line of very young girls in bathing suits winds in and around the backstage of a theater. As the camera weaves through the queue each girl notices it, reflexively smiling or pivoting towards it and adopting a less natural pose than prior to their awareness of being captured by its lens. Thus begins Girl Model, the new documentary by David Redmon (Mardi Gras: Made in China) and Ashley Sabin (Intimidad), about the recruitment, exploitation, and, in many cases, abandonment of underage Siberian girls by unscrupulous modeling agencies seeking to sate the Japanese market's hunger for images of budding femininity.
Watching that opening, one is reminded of a cattle sale or the 4H tent at a state fair, as each girl lands the stage to be judged by former model Ashley Arbaugh and her fellow modeling scouts. Arbaugh becomes our guide through this world. She's a complex character, still suffering from the memories of her own journey through the meat grinder that is this trade, while continuing, despite her qualms, to supply the industry with young flesh to photograph. At this particular audition, Arbaugh ends up picking up 13-year old Nadya Vall for a contract on the Japanese market.
Like many of these girls, Nadya comes from an extremely poor family. We get to see how little she has at home and how the promise of riches from a successful modeling career could mean a lot to both her and her family. Even if she isn't able to find work, Nadya's agency is required by immigration to guarantee her at least two modeling jobs and a lump sum. But, once she arrives in Japan, it's an entirely different picture. She bunks with another model her age in a dreary, box-sized apartment, leaving each day to audition for gigs she can't book. Instead of working, we learn that Nadya and her roommate's debts to the agency are growing, promoting the already niggling feeling that these girls have been sold into some form of slavery.
Girl Model is an anguishing, anxiety-inducing view of an unethical and, for all intents and purposes, unregulated trade dealing in human flesh. As a product of this system, Arbaugh becomes both the victim and unlikely villain of this story, as whatever sympathy the viewer harbors for her eventually fades away after being exposed to her callous statements and complicit behaviors. Though she provides much insight into the psychic damage that can be wrought on young girls in the industry, she strikes a pose not unlike Cruella De Vil during much of the film. To a certain extent, the conflicts exhibited within Arbaugh paint an ugly picture of what Nadya and others like her might expect to become at the end of their journeys.
Directors Redmon and Sabin have crafted a disturbing look at a reality worth confronting, even if it enrages one's sensibilities as it engages with its subject. It would be a stretch to laud Girl Model as a pleasure to behold, but it does pull the viewer into spaces rarely explored, evoking questions and concerns, which is all you really can ask of a socially minded doc.
Recommended viewing.
Girl Model opens at the IFC Center in NYC on Friday, September 5th. It will play locally at the Clinton Street Theater beginning November 30th. More info available here. Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
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Those looking to check out the work of solid, locally-based filmmakers have two strong options this evening. Brian Lindstrom's (director of Finding Normal and the much anticipated Alien Boy) latest documentary Writing Myself will have its local premiere at Cinema 21. The film is Lindstrom's exploration of Portland's own Playwrite Inc., an organization that helps "underserved-youth" create works for the stage.
The official synopsis goes something like this:
“Writing Myself” is the newest full-length documentary by filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, taking a peek into a 2-week PlayWrite workshop and showing the transformation of 8 students into performed playwrights.
Also screening tonight at the NW Film Center is Alison Grayson'sThe Love of Beer. Grayson's documentary takes a look at the local brewing explosion, spending much of its time with women who are carving out a place for themselves in the overwhelmingly male world of meticulously-crafted beer.
The film's website describes the doc as being:
...a feature length documentary celebrating the women in the Pacific NW beer industry. Produced by Lingering Illocutions and created by Alison Grayson, The Love of Beer stars Bend Brewing’s Tonya Cornett and Saraveza’s Sarah Pederson and featuresTeri Fahrendorf, Lisa Morrison, Gayle Goschie, Amy Welch.
Writing Myself screens
at Cinema 21 on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm. More info available here. The film screens again at the Clinton Street Theater on Friday, June 15th at 7pm. More info on that screening here.
The Love of Beer screens
at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art
Museum) on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm. More info available here.
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Meanwhile, 5th Avenue Cinema is hosting an event dubbed Visuals: A Community Film Festival on Fri. the 4th, featuring works by locals. Below is a preview from The New Debutantes, directed by Jarratt Taylor:
And, of course, there's this lil' super hero movie opening all over God's green earth this weekend, too. Looks like I'll be joining the masses by heading out to the 99W Drive-in to catch it tonight:
Until next time...
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For some, poker is a metaphor for life, embodying all the excitement, tension and danger that can be found in the real world. Those who read the game as such will likely be entertained by All In: The Poker Movie, a documentary that locates its purpose in detailing the rise and fall of the worldwide poker boom of the past few decades.
If, like me, you're unable to even recall the last time you've sat down for a hand of cards, much less watched an entire tournament on television, you might enjoy some of All In but, after a while, as the film shifts to something resembling political advocacy, there's not a lot left to cling onto for the casual viewer. To be clear, All In is a film made for poker obsessives by poker obsessives.
Which isn't to say that there aren't some interesting anecdotes on display in All In. Among them: the tale of early world champion Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston, the extreme love that poker insiders hold for John Dahl's 1998 film Rounders (Dahl, star Matt Damon and screenwriter Brian Koppelman are interviewed), and the remarkable 2003 rise of Chris Moneymaker from online gambler to world champion.
Director Douglas Tirola makes a strong case for why we should care about those individual threads, each based in the lives of people and what inspires them. But a less convincing argument is forged when discussing the government clampdown on online poker, aligning the suppression of a lucrative industry with restrictions on personal freedom; it's a line of reasoning that comes off as a bit of a stretch, especially in light of Tirola's decision to not sugarcoat the addictive nature and risks of the recreational sport being profiled.
All in all, this is a documentary for a specialized audience made up almost entirely of poker enthusiasts. It's a film that works best when dealing with the history of the game and investigating the lives of its individual subjects. Whenever it strays from that path, it sheds much of its accessibility for the average viewer, preaching to the choir and losing the congregation in the process.
All In: The Poker Movie plays through Thurs., April 12th at the Clinton Street Theater. More info available here.
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Hey folks, we here at The Rain Falls Down on Portlandtown just figured out that a lot of people are excited about this thing called Facebook. We're not positive but we think it might be a bar located deep in cyberspace. At any rate, the blog now has its own Facebook page, located here. Drop on by anytime for updates on postings, ridiculous conversations, etc.
Here's a quick rundown of some film related events going down this weekend in PDX:
--day four of POWFest is happening right now at the Hollywood Theatre. Our brief coverage of the Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival can be accessed right here.
--PSU's student run 5th Avenue Cinema is featuring the Czech New Wave classic Daisies (1966) for another two days.
--The Clinton Street Theater is hosting Orgasm Inc., a new documentary about the pharmaceutical companies' push to create a female-centric version of Viagra.
Those are but a few of the options available for adventurous cinema geeks in Portland this weekend. Remember to find us on Facebook and to keep a lookout for future updates. Bye for now...
