Program Notes

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Program Notes

One Week: September 12 - 18

Premiere (2003, 107 minutes)

In his first movie in 15 years, Bob Dylan returns to the screen in a film that Liz Braun of JAM! MOVIES calls, "A fabulously self-conscious effort that is very big fun to watch." Dylan plays Jack Fate, a legendary singer giving a benefit concert for wounded counterrevolutionaries in a slum-infested city where the country's dictator is dying. Dylan being Dylan, he has gathered a great number of artists to help him make the movie. The cast includes Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Steven Bauer, Bruce Dern, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, and Mickey Rourke, and is co-written and directed by sit-com helmer Larry Charles. MASKED and ANONYMOUS possesses such creative audacity, such a flow of ideas and provoking observations, transported by a barrage of wit, performance, and, of course, song, that you are bound to emerge from this singular film feeling both challenged and satisfied. Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that it is a "strange and convoluted film that is as rewarding as a Dylan song, and just as perplexing," while George Varga of the San Diego Union-Tribune notes that it is "a simultaneously serious and satirical film that should delight longtime Bob Dylan fans and mystify nearly everyone else." By the way, the screenwriting credits, Sergei Petrov and Rene Fontaine who are really Bob Dylan and Larry Charles using pseudonyms.

One Week: September 19 - 25

Premiere (2002, 92 minutes)

Sorry, Bruce Campbell's Apperance Has Been Canceled.

Bruce Campbell plays Elvis in what David Hunter of the Hollywood Reporter calls a "zinger-filled crowd-pleaser that open-minded Elvis fans … will have fun with." Adapting a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, writer-director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) has fashioned an hilarious hybrid horror film that finds Elvis Presley still alive in his late 60s but confined to a rest home in Mud Creek, Texas, and about to do battle with a "soul-sucking" mummy. In flashbacks and voice-overs, Elvis recounts how he longed to escape the fame that unmade him and changed places with an impersonator, with the option of returning. Among voice-over ruminations about not knowing his daughter, wondering if Priscilla would still love him if she knew he was alive, and obsessing over his deteriorating physical condition, Elvis observes the lumbering, not-very-scary cowboy-duds-wearing title creature Bubba Ho-tep (Bob Ivey) enter the rest home at night and consume souls in a very nasty way. "It irritates and saddens me that Martin Lawrence's latest vehicle can explode obnoxiously into 2,500 screens while something of BUBBA HO-TEP's clearly evident quality may end up languishing on a shelf somewhere," complained Scott Weinberg, at efiilmcritic.com, while Donald J. Levit, of ReelTalk says that "Whimsicalness, irony, and gentle good humor carry the day." Meanwhile, Erik Childress of Efilmcritic.com writes that BUBBA HO-TEP "is a wonderful film with a bravura lead performance by Bruce Campbell that doesn't deserve to leave the building until everyone is aware of it." For Michael B. Scrutchin, of Flipside Movie Emporium, BUBBA HO-TEP "combines sharp comedy, old-fashioned monster movie atmospherics, and genuine heart to create a film that's not merely about kicking undead ass, but also about dealing with regret and, ultimately, finding redemption."

One Week: September 26 - October 2

Premiere (2003, 94 minutes)

Mike Judge & Don Hertzfeldt in person 9/26!

THE ANIMATION SHOW is an international collection of the world's best short animated films, programmed by co-producers Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. THE ANIMATION SHOW has set itself the goal of, once a year, bringing animated shorts into more theaters than any other program in American history. The first year's lineup includes several international Academy Award nominees, rare material from Disney, never before seen animation from Hertzfeldt and Judge, and many other surprises. Among the films in the program are "The Cathedral," a 2002 Oscar nominee from Poland; an excerpt from Disney's 1957 educational film "Mars and Beyond"; the Swiss "La course a l'abime" ("The Ride to the Abyss"), from 1992; Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected," from 2000, an Oscar nominee; "Early Animation by Mike Judge"; "Mt. Head," a Japanese Oscar nominee from 2002; Bill Plympton's "Parking" (2003); "Fifty Percent Gray" (2001), an Oscar nominee from Ireland; "The Rocks" (2001), a stop motion Oscar nominee; "Strange Invaders" (2001) from Canada and an Oscar nominee; and the claymation "Ident" (1989) from England, and also an Oscar nominee. Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt will appear in person on Friday, September 26th to introduce the collection. For details about the selection of shorts, please visit www.ANIMATIONSHOW.com.

One Week: October 3 - 9

Premiere (2002, 92 minutes)

The times aren't a-changing, they are repeating themselves. The country hasn't been as divided about politics since the days of Vietnam and the '60s. Then, a group calling itself the Weathermen (after a Bob Dylan song) a collection of well-off white youths, broke away from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in order to form a violent revolutionary movement – what today we would call terrorists. In this documentary, Sam Green and Bill Siegel tell the remarkable story of the Weather Underground and of radical politics at its best and most disastrous. Scott Von Doviak of CultureVulture.net calls this a "first-rate documentary … a riveting historical document and a sobering and timely look at the dark side of political activism." Green and Siegel blend present-day interviews with many of the participants with extraordinary archival footage to create a portrait of startling immediacy. Green and Siegel also include multiple points of view, from an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the group to a member of the nonviolent Students for a Democratic Society, who decries the Weathermen’s methods. Internet reviewer Steve Rhodes dubs THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND. A "mesmerizing documentary that shows the dangers involved when groups resort to violence as a way to advance their political aims.

Ten Days: October 10 - 19

Ten days!

When it made its debut seven years ago, The Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival quickly became one of the premiere arts events of in the city. This year, the Festival offers over 30 programs and over 65 films from around the world. Documentaries such as Brother Outsider, Venus Boyz, Radical Harmonies, Ruthie & Connie, and the controversial The Gift present a rich diversity of stories that frame our community. Comedies such as DIE MOMMY DIE, GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS, 9 Dead Gay Guys, and Laughing Matters will make you laugh until your sides hurt. This year's Festival also features a wide variety of dramas from all over the world including My Life on Ice, You’ll Get Over It, Suddenly, PARTY MONSTER, Gasoline, and Blue Gate Crossing. In addition, we are presenting two pioneering, narrative-driven, men's 70’s erotica, El Paso Wrecking Corp. and L.A. Tool & Die. Director Joe Gage is scheduled to attend. Tickets and passes are on sale now. Visit www.sensoryperceptions.org for tickets and the most up-to-date information.

One Night: October 20

Benefit for New Avenues for Youth (2003, 55 minutes)

CIRQUE FOR LIFE recounts the inspiring story of a group of young adults from around the world who gather in Canada for three weeks of training before staging a live circus performance. All the kids are participants in a unique program of circus workshops run jointly by the Cirque du Soleil and Jeunesse du Monde. Through the project, which is known as Cirque du Monde, they are turning their lives around and finding new ways to believe in themselves. This is an exclusive screening for Cirque Club members. Join Cirque Club for free: www.cirquedusoleil.com .

Three Days: October 21 - 23

New Print! (1974, 131 minutes)

"Tilting toward tragedy." That was the headline of Andrew Sarris's Village Voice review of CHINATOWN back when it was first released. Sarris's point at the time was that director Roman Polanski was the kind of filmmaker who took material and edged it away from conventional Hollywood expectations towards a grander and more ambitious tone of darkness. The disputes between Polanski and CHINATOWN's screenwriter Robert Towne are famous and fully recounted in such books as Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskin's history of '70s cinema. Towne thought that Polanski had ruined his bittersweet screenplay. Still, what remains is one of the most clever mystery stories ever put on film, one in which the political climate is just as important as the sexually charged world of Los Angeles, haut et bas, that J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) explores, and in which at the end you realize that the noblest character in the film is the one you only see for a short sequence at the start. Though it only won for best original screenplay CHINATOWN ended up with 11 Oscar nominations, including one for John Alonzo's cinematography, which Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times says "evokes the L.A. you can glimpse in the backgrounds of old movies, where the sun beats down on streets that are too wide, and buildings seem more defiant than proud." Jessica Winter, writing in the Village Voice, noted that CHINATOWN was one of the early films to consolidate Jack Nicholson's standing as a mega star, when his style "hadn't yet calcified into 'Shtickolson,' and in 1974 a director, a screenwriter, and a producer (Robert Evans, who for once deserves a few of the plaudits he's apportioned himself) could decide to beat a genre senseless and then dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy." TV Guide's Movie Guide calls CHINATOWN "not only one of the greatest detective films, but one of the most perfectly constructed of all films."

One Week: October 24 - 30

Premiere (2003, 98 minutes)

A curiously New York phenomenon, Club Kids were young men (and a few women) who patronized all night discos often dressed in theme designed costumes, a colorful gang of hedonists riding the cusp of ecstasy culture in late 20th century Manhattan. PARTY MONSTER tells of the rise and fall of just one of those club kids, Michael Alig, played by former child star Macaulay Culkin, returning to the screen for the first time in 10 years. Alig was "discovered" by a drag queen named James St. James (Seth Green), and in real life St. James went on to write the book, Disco Bloodbath, that Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's movie is based on. Alig soon became the pied piper for the '80s New York club scene until his reign ended with a cold-blooded murder that he even bragged about committing on television. Bailey and Barbato are already familiar with this material: they made a previous 1998 documentary about the case. Internet reviewer Peter Hartlaub notes about PARTY MONSTER that "throughout the carnage, Culkin and Green are game for anything in the script, which includes conversations with a giant rat, serial drug use, and chats with a cross-dressing Marilyn Manson." Jamie Russell of the BBC calls the digitally shot PARTY MONSTER a film that comes "wearing its trash credentials on its sleeve," and Erik Childress of Efilmcritic.com notes that "viewers will be a bit unnerved at first to watch Culkin and Green playing such flamboyant characters. It’s the kind of performance that can derail into self-parody at the blink of an eye, but it manages to work because neither of them blinks. Whether they seem to be poking fun at these guys or not, as the film progresses it’s a credit to both of them that Michael and James become more than just mere caricatures. Green especially knows how far to turn this guy’s dial. When he’s happy, confused or doped up, Seth has a firm grasp of James and such an outgoing personality should be proud to see him dominating every frame he’s in." PARTY MONSTER boasts an impressive supporting cast including Dylan McDermott, Chloe Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne, and Marilyn Manson. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly concludes that if PARTY MONSTER's "gay glam underworld now looks like a trivial bubble of decadence, its poison-pill exhibitionism, as captured by Bailey and Barbato, is as colorfully malevolent as the razory extremes of punk".

One Week: October 31 - November 6

Premiere (2002, 117 minutes)

Director Olivier Assayas continues to keep viewers off balance. After Irma Vep, an homage to silent serials, Les Destinées, with Emmanuelle Béart, about a man who runs a porcelain factory, and Late August, Early September, a coming of age story with Virginie Ledoyen, now comes DEMONLOVER, a conspiracy thriller that concerns a series of contract negotiations and double-crossings between two rival companies battling for control of a revolutionary 3-D manga perfected by a Japanese animé studio. The film stars Connie Nielsen (The Hunted) as an executive who orchestrates the deal between the companies only to realize that she has been used as a pawn in a high-stakes game of cyber-espionage when a series of seedy, underground porn sites are revealed to have ties to the project. Chloe Sevigny is her sheepish assistant, who plays video games in the nude. Gina Gershon also stars as an executive for a dodgy American internet company that specializes in porn sites, and which sponsors the titular Demonlover, a hardcore live S&M site like something out of Videodrome. Ed Gonzalez in Slant magazine calls DEMONLOVER "ambitious," adding that as a "feminist primer, the film is brilliant … the latter half is an insane celebration of female power over the manmade image." Internet reviewer Harvey S. Karten calls the film "as intriguing and mysterious as David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. This clever work is loaded with ironies and paradoxes and is saturated by bold, primary colors and punctuated by an electronic score by Sonic Youth." And Internet reviewer Richard Scheib adds that "Assayas gives DEMONLOVER the coolly detached grip of a dark thriller, the sort of which has proven a rarity over the last few years."

One Week: November 7 - 13

Premiere (2003, 79 minutes)

Evie (Jack Plotnick) is an aging B-list actress who drinks like a fish and will have sex with any man she can get her hands on. Her roommate, Coco (Clinton Leupp), bears the brunt of Evie's verbal abuse, but she is oblivious. She only wants to have a baby, and to reconnect with the handsome doctor who performed her abortion so many years ago. Their lives are disrupted when Varla (Jeffery Roberson) gets off the bus from the Midwest, seeking stardom. She somehow comes to live with Evie and Coco, and Evie is instantly jealous of her potential success. Catty conniving commences from there. Evie is the aging former star trying to reclaim her place in the sun. Varla is the young up-and-comer working on her first big break. And Coco has been around almost as long as Evie, but still manages to be the closest thing to a voice of reason. Internet reviewer Eric D. Snider notes that "The cartoon-colorful sets are a visual treat, and match the film's attitude."

One Week: November 14 - 20

Premiere (2001, 108 minutes)

Where does commitment to art end and collaboration with an evil empire begin? That's the moral question at issue in István Szabó's adaptation of Ronald Harwood's play about the post World War II confrontation between a world famous symphony conductor and the American officer assigned to interrogate him. Essentially a two-character play, which Harwood himself adapted to the screen, the film pits Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgard) against Maj. Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel). Furtwängler, was the extraordinary conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, who, unlike scores of other German artists at the time, chose not to emigrate when Hitler took power in 1933. Furtwängler never joined the Nazi party, and in many ways he went against its policies. But by conducting in Germany and Austria throughout Hitler's reign, he lent the Third Reich his considerable prestige and allowed himself to become fodder for its finely tuned propaganda machine. The film takes place as the American military government prepares to subject Furtwängler to elaborate denazification proceedings. The plot focuses on the pretrial investigation and interrogation of Furtwängler by Arnold. Jeremy Eichler of the New York Times calls TAKING SIDES "a case study in the messy meeting of art and ideology" that will "inspire some viewers toward a first-time reckoning with those freighted moral questions." Internet reviewer Avril Carruthers writes that TAKING SIDES "is a rich experience of the divergent motivations of art and materiality … The point that the forces of justice can be just as oppressive and humanly weak as that which they seek to punish, is well made." Anthony Lane in the New Yorker praises Skarsgard's performance as Furtwängler, in which the actor "delivers a fine, unsparing study of nobility laid low – or, at any rate, forced to admit that it has stooped and soiled itself in the halls of the ignoble." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly agrees, noting that Skarsgard locates "the proud, the shamed, the arrogant, and the naïve in a great artist brought low."

One Week: November 21 - 27

Revival (1935, 96 minutes)

How many people can fit into Otis B. Driftwood's state room? That's one of the many important questions that this hilarious Marx Brothers' comedy answers. Pauline Kael notes that in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA "two beautifully stuffed American targets – grand opera and high society – are left dismantled, flapping like scarecrows" as the film, produced for MGM by Irving Thalberg, recounts how Groucho, Harpo, and Chico attempt to thwart an evil opera impresario. Ben Stephens of CULTUREVULTURE.NET calls it a "fascinating and hilarious exercise in organized chaos," while Bob Bloom of the Lafayette Journal and Courier dubs it a "classic Marx Bros. comedy, funny from start to finish. The stateroom scene alone is priceless. The brothers at the top of their game."

One Week: November 21 - 27

Premiere (2002, 82 minutes)

If you enjoyed Dogtown and Z-Boys, STOKED: THE RISE AND FALL OF GATOR picks up where the previous film leaves off. Directed by Helen Stickler, it tells the story of just one famous skateboarder, Mark "Gator" Rogowski. The biggest name in skateboarding two decades ago, Rogowski rode his way to fame as a teen and then made every wrong decision imaginable, ending up in prison for 31 years on a murder conviction. Gator was a trailblazer with good looks and a bold skating style, but he took his bad-boy image seriously, resulting in a series of violent outbursts and other erratic behavior. When Gator's high-flying vertical moves temporarily went out of style in favor of street skating, his ego couldn't adjust. When Stickler wants to illustrate her point about Gator's inability to street skate, she has home video of him failing miserably, slamming his board down in disgust after he botches several easy tricks. Ed Halter of the Village Voice notes, "Rogowski's true-crime tale has its own inherently lurid appeal, but Stickler's rendering goes beyond the Court TV norm. She interviews marketers, company heads, and fellow skaters to illustrate the broader processes of how a self-created youth subculture capitulates to the commercial mainstream." Internet reviewer Peter Hartlaub writes that this "well-crafted documentary still manages to succeed where Gator failed. While telling the story of skateboarding's biggest embarrassment, STOKED explains to the non-skating public why the sport matters … STOKED excels as both a tragedy and a celebration of skateboarding." Stephen Holden of the New York Times observes that the "clips of Mr. Rogowski in his glory days, when he pushed the boundaries of vertical skateboarding to daredevil extremes of balletic audacity, are thrilling demonstrations of youthful bravado and agility." Scott Tobias of the Onion AV Club calls STOKED "an absorbing and meticulous piece of reportage."

One Week: November 28 - December 4

Revival (1951, 101 minutes)

Two exquisitely shod feet brush against each other in a train compartment, and an intricate web of pairings and doublings commences. That's how Guy Haines (Farley Granger), the successful tennis pro trying to get out of a horrible marriage so he can wed a senator's daughter, meets Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), the psychopathic scion of a wealthy D.C. family. Director Alfred Hitchcock, in a script by Raymond Chandler adapted from a Patricia Highsmith novel, orchestrates a subtle visual buffet of criss-crossings and doublings as he charts the course of a scheme that Bruno hatches to have the two men "trade murders": Bruno will kill Guy's troublesome wife if Guy will in turn eliminate Bruno's hated father. Robin Wood, who wrote what remains the single best survey of Hitchcock's films, writes that in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN the "characteristic Hitchcockian moral tone is felt in all its disturbing complexity." Paul Duncan, in his recent Taschen book on Hitchcock, adds that "Guy is far from pure in his thoughts and actions and so his relationship with Bruno is more complicit than not." Raymond Durgnat in his challenging volume on Hitchcock concludes, "in every detail of story-telling technique, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is a model of its kind."

One Week: November 28 - 4

Premiere (2002, 85 minutes)

Tilda Swinton, one of the most interesting actresses in world cinema (and recently in Portland making a film), rarely picks movies on the basis of marketability or star-making potential. It's the theme or the issues, what the actress once called the "conversation" that they offer that provides the lure. TEKNOLUST is Swinton's second collaboration with San Francisco filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson (the first was Conceiving Ada), and in this film, which also stars Jeremy Davies, Karen Black, James Urbaniak, and Josh Kornbluth, Swinton appears as four different characters in a contemporary sci-fi fantasy. She plays Rosetta Stone, a frumpy San Francisco biogeneticist, as well as three robots, or self-replicating automatons (SRAs), that Rosetta breeds by downloading her own DNA. Leeson even includes a dance routine featuring all three Swinton clones, bouncing about in yellow kimonos and shaping their arms into DNA patterns. "Sci-fi has rarely been so playful," writes Edward Guthmann, of the San Francisco Chronicle. Jeffrey M. Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner calls TEKNOLUST an "oddball, biotech Rocky Horror Picture Show for the intellectual set … Swinton gives a marvelous performance, giving each of her four personas a singular life force consisting of strengths and weaknesses. She's the female equivalent of Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers." Shooting in high-definition video, Hershman gives the film a combination high-tech and low-budget look, which works perfectly for its intellectual B-movie personality. Ed Gonzalez of Slant magazine says that TEKNOLUST "ponders all sorts of postmodern, feminist issues. In bridging the gap between the film's living world and its artificial one, Hershman calls attention to cyber-genetic advancements and American writer William Gibson's theory of consensual illusions. If anything, see it for Karen Black, who camps up a storm as a fringe feminist conspiracy theorist named Dirty Dick."

One Week: December 5 - 11

Premiere (2003, 90 minutes)

Angela Arden (Charles Busch, the film's screenwriter) used to be a world famous diva, the queen of Hollywood, the woman every man wanted. Then she lost her ability to hit the high notes and fell quickly from fame. Her husband Sol (Philip Baker Hall) is a washed up producer. Her daughter (Natasha Lyonne) has a distinctly suspect relationship with her father, and her son (Stark Sands) is a rampant boy-toy … for boys. So when Angela’s affair with an out-of-work TV actor (Jason Priestley) is discovered, Sol decides to clamp down on her lifestyle – no singing, no allowance and no way out… except maybe with an arsenic-laced suppository! DIE MOMMIE DIE! is campy, bitchy glam comedy. Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter calls it "diva worship done more tastefully than John Waters, more adroitly than 8 Women but less flamboyantly than RuPaul." Jeffrey Wells of MoviePoopShoot.com praises "the soap-opera dialogue, stuffed with lurid Tinseltown cliches … agreeably florid and self-mocking." Matthew Kenney of BrightLights.com notes that "the cast is game and offers some laugh out loud funny bits." Oz of Hollywood Bitchslap.com assures the reader that "this is one hell of a good movie," adding that "Busch is outstanding, seemingly able to extract laughs from a change in vocal tone or a raised eyebrow."

Sorry, no notes for this film.

One Week: December 12 - 18

Revival (1953, 94 minutes)

Released originally in the U.S. as GRISBI, this revival of Jacques Becker's Venice Film Festival award winning poetic French noir almost defines the genre. Jean Gabin stars as a racketeer known by the Runyonesque nickname of Max the Liar. Seeking out the finer things in life, Max intends to pull one last job and retire. After stealing 50 million francs in gold bars from the Orly Airport, he has a crisis of conscience when his best friend (René Dary) is kidnapped and held for a huge ransom. Somehow, Max manages to turn the tables on the abductors, but his dreams of a life of ease explode in his face. Then up-and-coming leading lady Jeanne Moreau plays a pivotal role as the femme fatale who leads Dary into the hands of his kidnappers. Writer and director Becker is a lot like Jean-Pierre Melville, a filmmaker who specialized in ritualized crime films (Becker's last film, Le Trou, played in a previous Cinema 21 schedule). Internet reviewer Dennis Schwartz calls GRISBI "A masterfully done noir … What distinguishes GRISBI over most other noir films is the grace it has and its ability to take its time and do a real character study of what Max is like." Jon Strickland of the L.A. Weekly calls GRISBI a "meditation on what we are left with when life has let us down, played out in the haunted eyes of Jean Gabin," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times deems it a "wonderful treasure from the seemingly inexhaustible cornucopia of crackling French crime dramas."