Now Playing
Hi movie pals, the We Hate Movies guys were kind enough to sit down for an interview with me. We Hate Movies is a comedy podcast that makes fun of movies of all stripes (not just bad ones)! They’re coming to Portland next month—tickets here—to record an episode on The Goonies. My interview with them will come out next Wednesday as a special edition. If they sell out their early show they’ll do a special late show. Rumor has it that if I help them sell out they will pull me onto the stage like Courtney Cox in “Dancing in the Dark.”
Pick of the Week:
Fangs (1981). Directed by Mohammed Shebl. Starring Hassn Abd RabooTarek Sharara Mohammed Shebl.
Playing at the Clinton on Oct. 30th from Church of Film—it’s the bonkers Egyptian tribute to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Two lovers seek shelter from a storm at Dracula’s castle. Wackiness ensures. A guaranteed great time at the movies.
Also Playing:
The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Directed by Jacques Demy. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, George Chakiris.
Playing at Cinema 21 on Oct. 26th. This is the arthouse perennial and Demy classic musical comedy. Its about two young French girls who leave their sleepy seaside town for romance and adventure. Demy is one of the pillars of the French New Wave and this is one of his most lasting, and delightful films. It’s got famous dance sequences! Gene Kelly is in it! I was a young PA on the set! Zut alors!
This Week:
At 5th Avenue Cinema: Pan’s Labyrinth plays this weekend. I haven’t thought about this movie in a long time but all of Guillermo del Toro’s movies are fun to watch in theaters. You know this one—it’s the spooky fairy tale with the eyeball monster and a girl trying to escape a labyrinth. Go watch The Devil’s Backbone if you like this—it’s a similar monster movie about the Spanish Civil War and is great.
At the Academy this week:
City of the Living Dead opens for a run. Lucio Fulci is an Italian director who made a bunch of horror/zombie movies in the late 70s/early 80s with amazing soundtracks. The movies are fun but I find myself listening to them more than watching. Expect gore and sleaze of the time period.
The Dark Crystal opens for a run. This is the famous Jim Henson special effects fantasy film extravaganza. People love this movie and those crazy little muppets—it plays all the time. When will Rerun Theater play Farscape? It’s got peeing muppets! Is it because no one in Portland likes or remembers it?
The original Halloween opens for a run. Possibly the best American slasher? Great soundtrack. Peak Carpenter.
Hocus Pocus opens for a run. Boy, the city of Portland loves this movie. This feels like one of those films that’s always playing. I do not think it holds up.
At Cinema 21 this week:
Revenge plays on Oct. 25th and 26th. Coralie Fargeat’s debut! If you liked The Substance you should go see this. It’s a feminist revenge movie.
The Fall continues by popular demand! Lee Pace is a handsome stuntman who goes on a fantastic journey of sorts! One critic (me) says that it’s a real visual feast.
Cinemagic has a bunch of new movies playing that I know nothing about but you should know!
At the Clinton—it’s Halloween week so it’s mostly Rocky Horror if you are so inclined. They are also playing:
Betty Boop’s Halloween Party on Oct. 26th with a bunch of neat Halloween-themed Fleischer cartoons.
At the Hollywood this week:
Pumpkinhead plays on Oct. 26th. Wyrd War brings us special effects wizard Stan Winston's directorial debut about a demon called forth for revenge. I would suspect that he has a pumpkin for a head but you can never be too sure!
Pulp Fiction plays on Oct. 27th.
Psychotronic Halloween plays on Oct. 27th with another neat showcase of 16mm oddities to terrify and delight.
RRR plays again on Oct. 28th if you want a break from the horror movies. Fun to see with an audience!
Ghostbusters plays on Oct. 30th. This movie is fine. I truly do not get my generation’s obsession with it. Bill Murray didn’t even want to make it! A ghost gives a man a blowjob in this!
At Kiggins Theatre:
Nosferatu plays on the 28th and 29th. It’s the silent film synced with some Radiohead music that’s been going around. It sounds neat and I’m not a big Radiohead guy—the lead singer’s a creep!
The Liberty Theatre has some rep programming this week:
Blazing Saddles opens for a run. It’s played a bunch around Portland this year for it’s 50th anniversary. It’s a perfect comedy. The traditional 50th wedding anniversary gift is gold so buy some tickets and give it BOX OFFICE GOLD!
The Thin Man plays on Oct. 27th. Nick and Nora are living the dream drinking and solving mysteries. A perfect TCM afternoon movie.
At OMSI their Animation Film Festival runs through mid-November! Lots of neat things here with the Wallace and Gromit movie being a highlight for me (Also, there is a new Wallace and Gromit movie coming out and the terrible people at Netflix are, of course, not giving it a theatrical release because they are terrible). Lots of neat anime as well!
Here’s what’s spitting out of the Tomorrow Theater algorithm this week:
Ghost plays on Oct. 26th. I guess Demi Moore is in the zeitgeist so let’s play some of her films. I haven’t seen this in over a decade so I don’t know if it holds up. However, I have made pottery with a ghost before and that scene is very unrealistic. Anyway, Demi Moore’s husband or boyfriend died and now she must communicate with him through psychic Whoopi Goldberg, who won an Oscar for this.
Please Baby Please plays on Oct. 26th. I love how the Night of 1,000 series at the Tomorrow Theater just translates to two random films. This is a campy and queer, highly stylized musical comedy about gender fluidity and greasers that came out a couple of years ago that got a lot of tepid reviews. MUBI was really pushing it on their streaming service (and I suspect has some kind of hand in here). Demi Moore doesn’t have a huge role in this. Maybe a movie she stared in would have been a good choice for a series named after her? Like another iconic role of hers? GI Jane? Striptease?
House plays on Oct. 31st. This is the iconic Japanese horror comedy that plays all the time and is fun. I think it’s a little too silly for me. It’s a haunted house movie where a guy gets turned into a pile of bananas and a piano eats a person. Someone has to play this around Halloween and the Tomorrow Theater drew the straw this year.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005). Directed by Cristi Puiu. Starring Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminița Gheorghiu.
Romanian films had a real moment in the early 2000s. There was a nonprofit theater I worked at that played a bunch of them, and a certain board member would always joke about how they were box office poison. He’s probably dead now but these movies will live on forever!
I’m not an expert but I’ve seen a bunch of Romanian films from this time period, and most of Cristi Puiu’s films. They are long, and may not have much action in them, but they’re all terrific and showcase stories that American films don’t. This is one of my favorite movies. Like if you put a gun to my head (please don’t do that) and ask me to name some of my favorite movies this would be on the list.
Mr. Lazarescu is going to die. He’s a cranky old man who’s having a health episode. However, he lives in a country that had been ravaged by a dictator so basic services are failing. It takes a while for the ambulance driver to get to his house, and when she does every hospital turns them away for various reasons (the equipment is broken, the hospital is too full, etc) so they embark on an odyssey to find a hospital that will take this mean old bastard in.
Who could imagine what it’s like to live in a country with its infrastructure that’s falling apart and basic services not working. WHO COULD EVEN IMAGINE.
This movie is the bleakest of comedies—it’s about how society is failing us and systems are crushing us. There aren’t jokes in this, really, but it’s from the point of view of a society that thrives in gallows humor. Ceaușescu killed about 60,000 Romanians. If you make it through that you’re not going to make Duck Soup. But I assure you it’s funny, provocative, and surprising. Streaming and rentable in the usual places and on Youtube.
The tip jar is open. Let’s hope I don’t need to call an ambulance anytime soon from all of my HOT TAKES….
…sorry.