Pick of the Week:
Ganja and Hess (1973). Directed by Bill Gunn. Starring Marlene Clark, Duane Jones.
Playing at the Clinton on Oct. 20th for free. This is the arthouse vampire movie that has been called “the most important Black produced film since Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.” It’s an incredibly stylish and moving vampire film about an anthropologist who gets turned. The vampire metaphor is used to dissect the Black experience in America (and the world) in a variety of ways. Spike Lee remade it as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Go rent this if you can’t make it!
Also Playing:
The Bloody Lady (1980). Directed by Viktor Kubal. Starring Jela Lukesová.
Playing at the Hollywood this weekend. It’s a famous Czechoslovakian animated film about Bloody Lady Bathory, so if you want another bloody movie about a lady seeking eternal youth you should all go see this! The animation is great. Also, bathing in blood doesn’t work, you need a portrait of yourself hidden away in your attic that absorbs all of your bad vibes like I have. Why I don’t look a day over 57.
This Week:
Spirit of Evil is playing on October 23rd from Church of Film. This “was the first horror film ever made in the Soviet Union, and for a long time the only one. Based on a Nikolai Gogol’s Ukrainian.” There are demons and witches and crooked priests and that’s enough for me!
At 5th Avenue Cinema: Stalker plays this weekend. It’s Andrei Tarkovsky’s beautiful sci-fi classic about a man guiding people through areas of a city where the laws of physics don’t apply. Go see this!
At Cinemagic:
The Linguini Incident plays on Oct. 18th in which David Bowie plans to rob the very restaurant he works at. I missed it at the Hollywood earlier this year so glad it’s playing again!
Videodrome plays this week. This movie plays all the time but it is a goddamned masterpiece about a man who loves his media. Cronenberg’s best.
Julia Ducournau’s Titane plays this week. She directed Raw (which played last week). I’ve heard this movie is intense so look it up if you’re squeamish about body horror or might be triggered by some of the content. It’s about a woman who survives a car trash and has an erotic obsession with cars (but not the movie Cars).
Street Trash plays this week. Ah, the 80s horror comedy(ish) film about melting hobos.
At the Academy this week:
Trick R Treat opens for a run. It’s an anthology of horror shorts with Brian Cox, you know, from Deadwood, Manhunter, and other stuff.
Possession opens for a run. Once again, the last time I tried to go see this movie I had a panic attack and severed a tendon so I will never buy a ticket to this. Our pal Ebert said, “To watch Possession again is to realize that it remains one of the most grueling, powerful, and overwhelmingly intense cinematic experiences that you are likely to have in your lifetime”
The Exorcist plays this week. You know, Linda Blair spits pea soup everywhere. Nothing gets out pea soup.
At Cinema 21 this week:
The Fall plays on the 18th and 19th. Lee Pace is a handsome stuntman from old Hollywood and he goes on a magical journey across space and time. He will not, however, make house calls.
Out of the Past plays on the 19th. Tough guy Robert Mitchum runs afoul of mobster Kirk Douglas.
Nosferatu plays on Oct. 19th. It’s the silent film, which is great and a real visual treat, one critic says (me). They wanted to make an adaptation of Dracula but old Bram wouldn’t give them the rights so they said fuck it and made their own creepy vampire. This has a Radiohead score, which I am less excited about but I’m not a big Radiohead guy.
At the Clinton this week:
GuignolFest plays not once but twice on the 19th. It’s Portland’s horror shorts festival!
It Follows plays on Oct. 21st. It’s the stylish artsy fartsy horror movie where people are stalked by a sex monster. I thought it was ok but some people loved it!
Midsommar plays on Oct. 22nd with an improvised score from limanjaya. I’m not a fan of this director but I liked this one better than Hereditary. I feel like those two films all the time. The improvised score is a nice change of pace.
Eclipse plays on Oct. 24th. Not for me but don’t let me stop you from having a good time.
At the Hollywood this week:
Night of the Creeps plays on Oct. 18th. Tom Aktins is one of the great sweaty 80s horror actors. Its about zombies attacking a bunch of college students. It’s silly and fun.
Beetlejuice plays on Oct. 19th and 20th to test your childhood love of this film. Does it hold up? Find out!
Carrie continues to dump blood on her haters on Oct. 19th.
Avenida Beira-Mar plays on Oct. 20th as part of the Portland Latin American Film Festival. “Rebeca is a shy 13-year old girl. She has just moved with her mother to an isolated neighborhood in a small town, near Rio de Janeiro.”
Spaces of Exception plays on Oct. 20th. It’s “a documentary resulting from the long-term multimedia project “The Native and the Refugee," profiling the American Indian reservation in the United States alongside the Palestinian refugee camp in the Middle East.”
Hereditary plays on Oct. 20th. I still think this movie stinks lots of people liked it!
The Brady Bunch movie plays on Oct. 21st for some Gen-X nostalgia.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home plays on Oct. 21st. Double dumb-ass on you if you don’t go see this! The Trek boys (and women) have to go back in time to save the whales to save the future. What horrors will the 1980s force upon them? Punks? San Fransisco? Nuclear vessels?
Pieces plays on Oct. 22nd. It’s about a chainsaw wielding murderer who kills scantily clad women (and men). It’s considered giallo adjacent and a forerunner of American slashers. It’s fine if you want some nudity and gore. I will be at home watching Star Trek IV again. My Fango days are done.
The Hellmouth reopens with a couple of Buffy episodes for re-rerun theater on Oct. 24th. They will be screening what sounds like the season 2 finale and the silent episode “Hush”! Xander is the worst in all of them.
Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird plays on Oct. 23rd thanks to the Portland Latin American Film Festival. “This is the story of two immigrant outsiders, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (At the Drive-in / The Mars Volta), and their desire to create their own place in the world.” I could never get into either of those bands but I don’t care for music myself.
Scary Movie plays on Oct. 24th. They used to pump out these parody movies like nothing else. Enjoy some of the Wayans Brothers and the stars of yesteryear.
At Kiggins Theatre:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre restoration continues to attack everyone this week. We gotta stop this Leatherface guy!
At OMSI this week you can watch Death Becomes Her on the 22nd and 23rd with 6 - 10 food items and 3 -5 of them being of substantial size or quantity with a menu curated by expert chefs. What an odd way to described a meal. Did AI or an alien write this?
The Portland Film Festival plays this weekend! Check out the line up and see something that sounds interesting! It might be a new favorite. You can watch at home or in the theater. I will bring you some stale french fries for the full McMenamins’s experience.
The Tomorrow Theater continues to do what they do:
The Prestige plays on Oct. 19th with a magic show beforehand. This is one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen and maybe my favorite Christopher Nolan movie. Bowie as Tesla! A very convoluted plot. I often recite Michael Caine’s opening monologue.
Almost Famous playing on Oct. 20th with…postcard art beforehand. I don’t remember postcards being prominent in this film. Is the main character constantly mailing to his mother postcards?
Tommy plays on Oct. 20th in a bid of corporate synergy with PAM’s 60s rock whatever show. Tina Turner and Elton John’s scenes are great. The movie is a Ken Russell film so it’s something if you’ve never seen it.
Violet Hex brings us BINGO with Adams Family Values on Oct. 24th. Violet Hex is a dynamic performer and this a guaranteed nice time. What else are you going to do on a Thursday night? Read a book?
Staff picks is on vacation this week. Too much life stuff folks! Sorry! If you want to watch a cursed movie I recommend you throw on You’ve Got Mail. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan at their most unlikeable. The movie is absolutely deranged and like a Vulcan returning to his homeland to spawn, I feel the need to watch at least once a year. Someday I’ll do a live screening of this at the worst bar in Portland and have a contest to see who can recite Tom Hank’s Starbucks complaint word for word. The tip jar is open, and thank you to everyone who tips and especially anyone who told me my dumb jokes made you laugh!
Hey, your dumb jokes made me laugh!