THE REAL ROCKY: The Bleeder Gets His Due

Several years ago, the documentary filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig came to PDX to promote The Devil and Daniel Johnston, for which he'd recently won best director at Sundance.  I had asked him what he was working on next during the post-screening Q&A.  Feuerzeig's face lit up as he proudly filled us in on his upcoming project: a documentary about Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner, one of the few men who went toe to toe with Muhammad Ali, knocking the heavyweight champ down during their remarkable 15-round bout.  Now, over five years later, Feuerzeig's project has finally seen the light of day with this past Tuesday night's premiere of The Real Rocky on ESPN.

Like Feuerzeig, Wepner's not exactly a household name to the uninitiated but this tale is a fascinating one, even for non-boxing fans.  In addition to his defining moment in the ring with Ali, he was purportedly the inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone's Academy-award winning Rocky franchise, something which the piece spends a lot of time substantiating via archival footage and much anecdotal evidence.  The reason for all the effort proving that link: Chuck never saw a dime of the billions of dollars raked in by the 1976 classic or its many sequels.  To that end, The Real Rocky chronicles Wepner's many ups and downs, including his lawsuit against Stallone for the use of his life story.

The entire film can be viewed in four parts on YouTube now.  Jump on it, 'cause you never know how long this will last before ESPN asks for its removal.  And this is really must-see stuff, folks...even if you actively dislike boxing.  It's a human story, humanely told by a real talent.

And, yeah, that is André the Giant in that last clip.  Are you curious now?


Those interested in seeing more of Feuerzeig's work should check out The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King and The Dude; a short film about Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski.

The Dude can be streamed HERE.

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Me & Cinema Project...we go waaaayy back

Okay, it turns out I lied...sorta.  I'd said in my earlier post today that I'd seen my first Cinema Project presentation back in 2008.  Not at all true.  Having mentioned Janie Geiser in that previous entry, I began thinking about a TBA (Portland's annual Time-Based Art festival) presentation of her work that I'd seen not long after returning to Oregon from Berkeley.  Turns out that event was co-curated by Cinema Project & PICA.  So a correction is in order.  Me and Cinema Project...we go waaaayy back...to 2004.

Here's a link to the promotional page for The Emotional Lives of Inanimate Objects, Ms. Geiser's career-long retrospective program from '04.  She was in attendance at the event and what she had to say was greatly inspiring to my own process, even though my work shares little in common with hers.

And here's a couple samples of that work:

Remember, Cinema Project still needs help making their programming and operational budget for this and next season.  Anyone interested in kicking in some much needed funds should head here immediately.  These folks do great work and only have 8 days remaining in their online funding campaign.  With Kickstarter campaigns, it's all or nothing, so help out if you can!


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Cinema Project needs a boost from YOU!

Local non-profit Cinema Project is nearing the final week of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign that will help keep them operational all the way through next season.  As PDX's shining star of experimental and art film exhibition, the organization is absolutely worthy of your support.

My own first encounter with Cinema Project dates back to 2008 when they were able to secure the scarcely seen short films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a screening at the Whitsell Auditorium.  Other notable past presentations have included Jonas Mekas' mind-blowingly epic cinematic diary Walden, the most recent work by experimental puppet theater and film director Janie Geiser and far too many other rare gems to recount here.

An excerpt from Walden (1969) by Jonas Mekas:

An excerpt from Worldly Desires (2005) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul:

Even a quick perusal of this season's schedule reveals that Cinema Project's programming is unlike anything else on offer in Portland.  We're extremely fortunate to have these folks kicking around our town, especially when one considers how few organizations like this are available on the national scene.

Here's a link to their Kickstarter page, complete with a budgetary breakdown of what operations the funds will cover.  And as of this writing, they've got about 8 days left to raise just under $2K.  As with most Kickstarter campaigns, there are "prizes" associated with the various levels of support.  Lend them a hand, if you can.  And don't forget to check out one of their upcoming screenings...the next one's on October 11th at 6p.m.


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The Rain Falls Down on Portlandtown: Now More Facebook-y Than Ever

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.

 --the NW Film Center continues with its The Films of Charlie Chaplin and Classic French Crime Films series.  This evening's features at the Whitsell Auditorium include Chaplin's City Lights (1931) at 7pm and The Sicilian Clan (1969) with Jean Gabin and Alain Delon.

--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...

 
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Exceptional films from years past

I've spent a lot of time this week writing about the films that are about to play at this year's Portland International Film Fest.  Here's a short list of some of the best films I've caught at the annual fest (mind you, I've only been living in PDX for about 6 years now):

The Bothersome Man dir. Jens Lien from Norway:

Silent Light dir. Carlos Reygadas from Mexico:

Lights in the Dusk dir. Aki Kaurismäki from Finland:

The Edge of Heaven dir. Fatih Akin from Germany:

The Visitor dir. Thomas McCarthy from the United States:

Taxidermia dir. György Pálfi from Hungary:

Shotgun Stories dir. Jeff Nichols from the United States:

Afghan Muscles dir. Andreas Dalsgaard from Denmark:

Red Road dir. Andrea Arnold from England:

Fish Tank dir. Andrea Arnold from England:

Chronicle of an Escape dir. Adrián Caetano from Argentina:

Forever dir. Heddy Honigmann from the Netherlands:

ALIEN BOY needs your help

Alien Boy: The Death & Life of James Chasse is the new film by Portland documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom.  Brian's been at the doc game for quite some time now and maybe you've heard of or seen his last full-length project, Finding Normal:

According to the official website for the film, Alien Boy examines how:

In September 2006 James Chasse was tackled by three law officers on a downtown street corner before a dozen eyewitnesses. James was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime.

The officers beat him, kicked him, broke 17 ribs and his shoulder. They used a Taser on him repeatedly. He screamed for mercy.
The officers thought James was a drug dealer, a homeless person, a non-person, a ghost. They were wrong. James was a poet, a musician, he had a family which loved him, friends, neighbors, dreams and hopes. He was an artist; a small, shy, gentle person. And he was a person with schizophrenia.

James was sent by paramedics to jail. Jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him.

A grand jury refused to indict those officers. The City and County refused to terminate or discipline them.

Alien Boy is a feature length documentary film about the life and death of James Chasse. 


A massive amount of local PDX media coverage of the story and its continued fallout can be found here.

BUT...on to the main point of this post:  Alien Boy is in the post-production stage of its existence at this moment.  In order for the filmmakers to be able to present this important story to an audience, they need to raise additional funding for post.  Lindstrom and company have decided to take their need directly to the people via Kickstarter, the popular fundraising website that's being used for the crowd financing of so many creative projects lately.

At the moment of this posting, Alien Boy has received pledges for almost a third of it's post-production funding via this Kickstarter campaign.  More info about the film and how you can join the 70+ backers of the project via a financial donation of anywhere between $1 and $5000 (or more) can be found on the Alien Boy Kickstarter page.

More links:
The official website for the film.
The Alien Boy production blog.
Alien Boy's Facebook page.

What's in a name?

Just in case anyone's wondering, the name of the blog is inspired by two things:

First off, there's the old folk song "Portland Town" by Derroll Adams:

Here's a beautiful cover of the song by Jeremy Barnes' (formerly of Neutral Milk Hotel) band, A Hawk and a Handsaw:

Secondly, I've had the simple rhyme "The Rain Shits Down on Portlandtown" drifting through my mind for past many winters spent in PDX.  Been saving it as the title for a song (so don't steal it, folks) but haven't got around to writing that ditty yet.  For some reason, when naming the blog, I decided that while it was the perfect name for a tune, it might be a tad too crass as a blog name--thus, the slight change.  Ah, my personal aesthetics...sometimes they're a mystery even to me.

So, there you have it.  The long way 'round how we (the royal we, obviously) arrived at the name.  Hopefully, it's not too boring a tale.  And, seriously, check out the A Hawk and a Handsaw clip...it's gorgeous!

Grand Detour and Reverse Town

This past Tuesday night (1/25), PDX' own experimental film and video exhibition group Grand Detour presented a series of shorts produced by the filmmakers of Reverse Town at the Hollywood Theater.

Reverse Town is a six-member collective of film geeks who all met while gathering skills at the NW Film Center School of Film.

The Grand Detour program consisted of eight short films, including:
Positive dir. by Liz Lewis (trailer)
Bobby Beats by Liz Lewis (full film link)
Death Walker dir. by Daniel Klockenkemper (full film link)
Rougarou dir. by Michael Roberson (full film link)
and additional work by Brian Lancaster, Mario Garza and Ian Geronimo.

Cinema Project & NW Film Center present EMPTY QUARTER

Cinema Project and the NW Film Center are banding together this coming Friday, January 28th at 7pm to present a special screening of the new 16mm film by directors Alain Letourneau and Pam Minty.  Empty Quarter is, as the film's promotional website describes it:

"...about the region of Southeast Oregon, an area populated by ranching and farming communities, in Lake, Harney, and Malheur counties. The region is roughly one-third of Oregon’s landmass yet holds less than 2% of the state’s population.

Southeast Oregon, though familiar by name is a foreign place, particularly to those who reside in urban environments. It is a landscape in the making, constantly undergoing change, being re-worked. It is a highly politicized landscape, evoking differing opinions concerning resource management and land use. It is also a landscape that is, despite some beliefs, rich with diversity, as seen by the presence of East Indian families, Japanese families, ancestors of Basque sheep herders, home to the Paiute tribes people, and to Latinos who have come to help work the land.

Empty Quarter borrows from earlier forms of documentary. Rather than subscribe to a modern form of documentary replete with talking heads and B-roll images, Empty Quarter presents stark portraits, waiting to be explored and digested by the viewer. Their meaning can be felt in the slow process of accumulation and measured response. Through a series of stationary shots, recording open landscapes and activities of local residents, Empty Quarter reflects on the character of the region. Natural areas are viewed among images of industry, various labor processes, resource management and recreation. Voices of local residents describe the history of pioneer settlement, social life of rural communities, and the struggles of small town economies."

Empty Quarter screens at the Whitsell Auditorium at 7pm this coming Friday night (1/28).  The Whitsell Auditorium is located at 1219 SW Park Ave.  Portland, OR 97205

Portland ❤ film & February is a great month for film in PDX

Hello and welcome to The Rain Falls Down on Portlandtown, a multi-topic blog focusing mainly on cinema but also on art, life and more in the little big city that is PDX, Oregon.

I've been toying with the idea of blogging for about a year now, mostly due to wanting an outlet for writing about film.  This February, I'll be working the door at one of the six screening venues for the 34th annual Portland International Film Festival (PIFF).  The gig translates, for me, as access to press screenings, etc. and it seemed like the perfect excuse/opportunity to force myself into (blogging) action.  No time like the present, eh?

The full festival schedule won't be announced until February 1st.  However, the following films have been confirmed by various local media outlets such as The Oregonian, Willamette Week and The Portland Mercury:

Certified Copy dir. Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, Close-Up)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives dir. Apichatapong Weerasethakul (Syndromes and a Century, Tropical Malady)
Some Days Are Better Than Others dir. Matt McCormick (The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal)
When We Leave dir. Feo Aladag
Honey dir. Semih Kaplanoglu
How to Die in Oregon dir. Peter Richardson (Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon)
Son of Babylon dir. Mohamed Al Daradji (Dreams)
Outrage dir. "Beat" Takeshi Kitano (Fireworks, Sonatine)
Potiche dir. Francois Ozon (Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Swimming Pool)
In a Better World dir. Susanne Bier (After the Wedding, Brothers)
The Revenant dir. D. Kerry Prior (Roadkill)
The Princess of Montpensier dir. Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon, The Clockmaker)
Of Gods and Men dir. Xavier Beauvois (Le Petit Lieutenant)
Cold Weather dir. Aaron Katz
Flamenco, Flamenco dir. Carlos Saura (Tango, Carmen)
Mutant Girls Squad dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura (Suicide Club) and Noburu Iguchi (The Machine Girl)
Passione dir. John Turturro (Romance & Cigarettes) 
Rubber dir. Quentin Dupieux

The festival begins on the 10th and comes to a close on the 27th of February.  I'll be sure to post again as soon as the official schedule appears online.  Plus, I'll spend some time talking about films as I see them.  Thanks for taking the time to peruse this post.  Press screenings begin on Monday, so keep an eye out for updates.  And, who knows, I might find something else to blather on about before then...