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. Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page. Subscribe to the blog's feed here.
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.
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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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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Tomorrow night's event includes seven of Trainor's idiosyncratic films. For more on the program, here's the Cinema Project press release:
Since the harmony of nature is actually based on an unhappy system of things destroying other things, I am continually struck and amused by nature documentaries' almost compulsive tendency to try to comfort us instead of leaving us stranded in existential horror, where we belong. —Jim Trainor
As part of the first-ever Experimental Film Festival Portland, Grand Detour and Cinema Project are pleased to present Chicago filmmaker Jim Trainor. Trainor's strange animation takes the traditional set-up of science and anthropological films and turns it on its head, giving the power of narration to the animals and the headhunters themselves. "I killed my identical twin sister, " a hyena confesses in Harmony. "I killed my sister. But then since I am only an animal, I kept looking for her everywhere." In Magic Kingdom, live-action shots of animals in the zoo are interspersed with the ever-present animated dots that act as tender representations of the pulse of living beings. Working almost exclusively on 16mm, Trainor often starts out simply with Sharpie and white paper. Perfection is not the point, instead the films purposefully quiver, underlining the subject matter's dark humor.
And here's the lineup of films:
The Presentation Theme [2008, 16mm, b&w, sound, 14min.] The Bats [1998, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.] The Moschops pt. I [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.] The Moschops pt. II [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.] The Skulls and the Skulls and the Bones and the Bones [2003, video, color, sound, 13 min.] Harmony [2005, 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.] The Magic Kingdom [2002, 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.]
Cinema Project & EFF Portland present The Animals and Their Limitations on Thursday, May 24th.More info on the program available here. More info EFF Portland's showcases, tickets, venues and special events available here.
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I've been really excited about the emergence of EFF Portland ever since the first murmurings about it began popping up in my Facebook feed. There's been a hollow space in the Portland's film festival circuit ever since the PDX Film Festival quietly exited the scene. So, the idea of a new experimental fest coming to the rescue was more than welcome. And from the films that I've seen thus far, the first edition of EFF Portland is a well-curated, diverse, and exciting mix of classically and bleeding edge experimental films, pushing the boundaries of the cinematic experience.
I'll be writing a bit more later in the week about a special event or two at EFF Portland but, for now, here are a few recommended films to catch:
New Hippie Future (dir. Dalibor Barić), screening as part of the "Mycology" presentation on Thurs., May 24th at 9pm:
A kaleidoscopic experience of constantly shifting images and textures, set to a driving Krautrockesque soundtrack. A beautiful piece; you'll want to see it again as soon as it's over.
Chris Freeman presents: A Scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 3X09, "The Vengeance Factor"(dir. Chris Freeman), screening as part of the "Near Side" presentation on Fri., May 25th at 8:45pm:
Freeman moves the context of a piece of pop culture into an entirely different place. Humor and insight coexist here; it questions as much as it amuses.
Jazzy Birds (dir. Jeremy Rourke), screeningas part of the "Eruption" presentation on Wed., May 23rd at 7pm:
A sweet blending of stop-motion involving cutouts, illustrations, superimposed imagery, etc., all set to a lovely little song that shares the title of the film.
Wrestling With My Father (dir. Charles Fairbanks), screening as a part of the "Upper Crust, part two" presentationon Sat., May 26th at 8pm:
Fairbanks' camera observes his father at a wrestling match. It's such a flimsy idea that it shouldn't really work but, somehow, a hypnotic effect is forged.
Dark Enough (dir. Jeanne Liotta), screening as a part of the "Magma Flow" presentation on Sat., May 26th at 1pm:
I've been a big fan of Liotta's work, ever since screening her Observando El Cielo in a film class a few years back. This piece is based in an experiment with text and image, working in collaboration with the poet Lisa Gill.
EFF Portland runs through Sunday, May 27th.More info on showcases, tickets, venues and special events available here.
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You're either in or out with the films of Bobcat Goldthwait. The 1980s comedian/actor turned auteur has written and directed four of 'em so far, all of which have hinged on a solidly profane premise meant to shock audiences into laughter.
There's the one about the girl who once performed oral sex on a dog (Sleeping Dogs Lie, surprisingly sweet given the underlying device at play), the one where a man's son dies from auto-erotic asphyxiation (World's Greatest Dad), and, my personal favorite, Bobcat's alcoholic clown movie, Shakes the Clown, which opens with a child urinating on the actor's face in a bathroom. In short, Goldthwait has a tendency to rely on outrageous scenarios more than plot to drive his work behind the camera, a characteristic which hasn't shifted at all with his latest release, God Bless America.
What we have here, folks, is a comedy about a pair of serial killers, an older man, Frank (Joel Murray), and a teenage girl, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who go on a killing spree to protest the downward trajectory of American culture. Frank's divorced, living next to a pair of white trash douchebags, and has been both recently laid off and diagnosed with a brain tumor. Disgusted by the endless amount of human degradation on display on reality television and tabloid journalism, he decides to kill himself. When that doesn't work out, Frank figures; why not turn the gun on those causing his frustration?
God Bless America is a savage and darkly funny screed against the dumbing-down of American life. It shares a lot in common with Mike Judge's 1996 dystopian comedy Idiocracy, both films imagine (or is it perceive) a continually regressing state of popular discourse, turning the nation into an upside-down world where idiocy is applauded by the masses.
It's not difficult to hear Goldthwait's voice behind any place in the film where Frank begins to rant against what he identifies as the problems of this world; the character serves primarily as a mouthpiece for Goldthwait's assaults against Hollywood, conservatives, and whatever else pisses him off. At times, it feels like outtakes from one of Goldthwait's standup routines with a lil' gun play added into the mix. If you're a fan of the comic's caustic ravings, those moments are thrilling.
Unfortunately, the film does feel a little padded at times. The killings become repetitious and the targets begin to blend together, if only for their patent obviousness. The violence never approaches the mind-numbing depths of films like Kick-Ass or 300; Goldthwait's too smart to sink that low, but it does keep the film from completely fulfilling the promise of its setup. So it's not a perfect film, but it's quite watchable. And, if you can get down with the basic idea, really funny.
God Bless America begins its run at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, May 18th.More info available here.
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The 6th Annual QDoc (Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival) invades McMenamins Kennedy School Theater beginning tonight (5/17) and running through this coming Sunday evening (5/20). Packing eleven screenings (many with special guests in attendance) into the four day schedule, there are some really wonderful films on offer here. Here's a rundown of the ones I was able to catch:
Wish Me Away (dir. Bobbie Birleffi & Beverly Kopf):
The story of one woman's coming out. The major difference between her experience and that of countless others is that she's Chely Wright, the famed Nashville singer who in 2010 became country music's first star to out herself. The film follows Chely in the anxious days leading up to her very public announcement on The Today Show.
Along the way, we're given access to Chely as she meets with her spiritual counselor, publisher (there's a tell-all autobiography in the mix), family and fellow musicians.
Wish Me Away is the opening night selection at QDoc. It screens on Thursday, May 17th at 7pm. Chely Wright will be in attendance at the screening.
A moving portrait of Vito Russo that encompasses all sides of his activism: as a researcher/archivist of gay experience in cinema via his landmark tome The Celluloid Closet, as a host for the groundbreaking NYC-based television show Our Time, and as a founder of GLAAD and ACT UP. This is a rare opportunity for Portland crowds to see this theatrically before it has its broadcast premiere on HBO in July. Vito is highly recommended viewing. One of the better documentaries I've seen in 2012.
Vito is the closing film for QDoc. It screens on Sunday, May 20th at 7pm.
Director Jeffrey Schwarz will be in attendance at the screening.
Girl or Boy, My Sex is Not My Gender screens at QDoc on Friday, May 18th at 6:45pm.
One of its subjects, Lynnee Breedlove (of Tribe 8 fame), will be in attendance at the screening.
Love Free or Die (dir. Macky Alston):
This is my pick for the must-see film at QDoc. Macky Alston (Questioning Faith, Family Name) focuses his lens on Gene Robinson, the priest who made international headlines for being the first openly gay, partnered person consecrated as a bishop by the Episcopal Church in the U.S.
The documentary tracks Robinson as he suffers pressure from without over the splintering effects that his ordination have had on the domestic church and its relationship within the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Yeah, it's scheduled for 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday. That's not an excuse; don't miss it.
Love Free or Die screens at QDoc on Sunday, May 20th at 4pm.
Director Macky Alston will be in attendance at the screening.
The 6th annual QDoc (Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival) begins this Thursday, May 17th at McMenamins Kennedy School Theater. More info about the festival can be found here.
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