Hi movie pals! The Hollywood Theater won our best popcorn poll—watch the crowning ceremony here.
Pick of the Week:
Burden of Dreams (1982) Directed by Les Blank. Starring Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale.
Oh me oh my. There is a restoration of this opening at Cinema 21. If you have never seen it, this is about the disastrous making of Fitzcarraldo—the movie about a rubber baron in Peru who wants to open up an opera house. This is one of my favorite documentaries and my favorite movie about movies.
For the last decade or so, mostly thanks to Paul F. Tompkins, people love to do Werner Herzog impressions. It’s easy and fun! I am opening up a Werner Herzog impression contest. Send me an audio file or video (or tag me in a social media post or whatever!) of you doing a Herzog impression. I’ll post them and we can vote on the best one. The winner will get a copy of Burden of Dreams or his autobiography Every Man for Himself and God Against All. Email me at watchthispdx@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter!
Also Playing:
Beyond Good and Evil (1977). Direct by Liliana Cavani. Starring Dominique Sanda, Robert Powell, Erland Josephson.
A movie long on my watchlist, playing on Sept. 25th from Church of Film. This is about Nietzsche and his lover Lou Andreas-Salomé, and his pal Paul Rée having an affair together. Also, Nietzsche is going mad from syphilis and an opium addiction. Cavani is a terrific director and The Night Porter is great. Go see this!
This Week:
I am not a horror guy but I love Fabio Frizzi’s Zombie. It’s got a zombie and a shark fighting each other and has my favorite movie soundtrack. Wyrd World is bringing it back to the Hollywood on Sept. 21 with Fabio performing the music! Also on Sept. 20th The Beyond! If you are a sucker for synth music like I am you will love this.
At the Academy this week:
Nothing But a Man opens for a run. An important/notable American film from the 60s about a Black man trying to survive in a racist small town. Yaphet Kotto is in it! It had a difficult distribution history and has not been widely seen outside of TCM and arthouse circles. You should go see it so more theaters play movies like this!
The late great Hannibal Lecter returns in Silence of the Lambs, which opens this week. The movie is good but he’ll never be my Lecter.
First Blood returns to Portland theaters this week. It’s a more anti-establishment movie than you might remember, he’s a Vietnam vet fighting crooked law enforcement.
LGBTQIA+ icon the Babadook comes back to town. Hide your top hats!
Because you all can’t get enough of the Twilight movies: New Moon and The Other One refuse to leave town. Someone call Blade!
At Cinema 21 this week:
Cheers! plays on Sept. 20th. It’s a documentary about strippers in Portland and “A portion of your ticket sales benefit the Oregon Sex Workers Committee, an Oregon-based non-profit that advocates for sex workers through policy change, education events, and decriminalization efforts. Learn more at https://oregonswc.org.”
Koo-bricks’s Lolita plays on Sept. 21st. I don’t think it’s as good as the book but the movie is fine! Nabokov wrote pieces of it in Ashland! I have the annotated edition and one of my take aways is there’s a part of the book where Humbert mistakes a moth for a butterfly and Nabokov thinks this is very funny.
At the Clinton this week:
Revolutions Per Movie records on Sept. 23rd! Buy your ticket now! Read my interview with Chris! I’ll be there! There will be music, special prizes, and fun!
A couple of locally made films play at the Clinton on Sept. 24th! Houndsville is “an absurdist parable of debauchery, hard-boiled crime and good old fashioned puppy lovin’.” The Foreground “following the deterioration of a struggling film project, its unmoored director, Ty, embarks on a trip to visit old acquaintances and get a change of scenery.”
Sorry to remind you that it’s an election year and local elections matter. There’s a candidates forum on Sept. 26th. If you can, please go. We are facing an entirely new system of government for our city and there’s a real opportunity to transform Portland.
At the Hollywood this week:
It’s a Stephen King double feature on Sept. 22nd with The Dead Zone and The Green Mile. The Dead Zone is the Cronenberg directed film about a guy who can see the future and has to stop a crooked politician. The Green Mile has an amazing Michael Clarke Duncan performance and was a perennial TBS movie. Both great lazy Sunday energy.
Saved! plays on Sept. 23rd. The classic millennial comedy about a Christian high school girl trying to “save” her gay boyfriend.
It’s a rare print alert as Vice Squad plays on Sept. 24th. A sleazy yet fun movie about a businesswoman turned prostitute turned criminal informant. Once this print is shown it’s back into the Disney Vault, possibly forever.
Los Frikis plays on Sept. 25th as part of the Portland Latin American Film Festival. It’s “a powerful coming-of-age story set in early 1990s Cuba, centering around 18-year-old Gustavo (Eros de la Puente) who idolizes his older brother Paco (Héctor Medina) and his punk "Frikis" bandmates.”
Exterminate! Two episodes of Battlestar Galactica play on Sept. 26th—one from the original from the 70s show and one from the 2000s.
At the Tomorrow Theater:
Rushmore plays on Sept. 21st. Simon and Garfunkel impersonators will be in attendance to discuss the movie.
Bring it On plays on Sept. 22nd. The audience will compete against the winning cheer squad from the 2023 NW Cheer Fest.
The Portland Dance Film Festival starts on Sept. 26th. “Portland Dance Film Fest showcases the art form of dance film, featuring a diverse range of films that use movement to tell stories. PDFF endeavors to foster the appreciation and creation of dance film in Portland and to connect us all more to the language of our bodies.” This one sounds neat!
My Cousin Vinny (1992). Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Starring Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei.
As the fall arrives inviting the seasonal depression in to combine with my life depression it create the perfect condition where I can’t leave the house. I find myself drawn to movies I have loved my whole life for sustenance.
My mother brought me to see My Cousin Vinny at a theater when I was kid. Did I want to see this movie because I liked Joe Pesci from Home Alone or was I just a fan of courtroom dramas or was it Marisa Tomei’s fabulous outfits? The reason is lost in the sands of time.
This is a perfect movie. There is no wasted time and it is full of character moments. Even the oaf at the bar gets some nice scenes. The plot is simple, Ralph Macchio (the Karate Kid himself) and his pal (Rachel’s fiancé from Friends) are driving from New York to UCLA for law school. They want to see America. They stop in a small town to buy some tuna and get falsely accused of murder. Enter, Ralph Macchio’s cousin Vinny who is freshly out of law school to defend them and, of course, he wins.
Yes, the joy is in seeing stereotypical New Yawkers deal with small town yokels. They learn about grits and mud but, more importantly, they deal the harshest lesson of all—that big city types are correct. The movie is really about how fast taking, smart New Yorkers are right and good and smarter than the folks on the turnip truck.
One could also call it My Hot Fiancé. Marisa Tomei deserved the Oscar for making this relationship believable. She is forever a star and we are lucky to have seen her in this world.
Joe Pesci recored an album in character a few years after this. I don’t know why and he won’t say why.
Streaming on Criterion, elsewhere, and forever in my heart.
I also watched Godard’s La Chinoise but I’m still thinking about it!
The tip jar is open, if you are so inclined. Thank you to everyone who has tipped, but especially to whoever does today!
At what point do shorts become pants?