Program Notes

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Program Notes

One Week: October 1 - 7

Premiere (2004, 99 minutes)

Official Site IMDB Entry

It's 2032, and Batou (the voice of Akio Ôtsuka) a detective for the anti-terrorist police unit Public Security Section 9, is investigating the case of a female robot – one created solely for sexual pleasure – who slaughtered her owner. Batou himself is a living cyborg. His body, his arms, and his legs are man-made. What remains of his former human self are traces of a brain and the memories of a woman. In an era when the boundary between humans and machines has become infinitely vague, human beings have forgotten what they are. That is the set up for this animated film that carries on from 1995's ghost in the shell, about a female detective who inhabits and then loses her artificial body. This one is about her former colleague. Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer suggests that the first ghost in the shell has "spawned a sequel just as heady and even more visually exquisite and rich." Once again written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, ghost in the shell 2: Innocence is a film composed of what A. O. Scott in the New York Times called "plaintive, often stunningly beautiful anime." Tasha Robinson of the Onion AV Club notes that Innocence features "a spectacular blend of traditional animation and heavily textured, layered CGI, as well as a serious, intellectual bent," while J. Hoberman of the Village Voice concludes that GHOST is "more visually spectacular than its precursor … the best anime I've ever seen. "

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One Week: October 8 - 14

Premiere (2003, 93 minutes)

It's unlikely that you will see a film this year as controversial, as divisive, and as passionately defended as actor-director Vincent Gallo's THE BROWN BUNNY. Not known for disarming critics, Gallo has pushed and prodded and poked them – and the viewing public – to take him seriously as an artist, and the response has often sent him into defensive tirades. Yet despite the film's heretofore low reputation after its Cannes and Toronto film festival screenings, it has since garnered high praise, including this from an original detractor, Roger Ebert, who now writes in the Chicago Sun Times that the "film's form and purpose now emerge from the miasma of the original cut, and are quietly, sadly, effective." THE BROWN BUNNY stars Gallo as Bud Clay, a professional motorcycle racer who, after losing a race on the East Coast, drives back home across country, slowly absorbing the American landscape and having various poignant encounters along the way. Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post Intelligencer notes that, "for all its notoriety, THE BROWN BUNNY is an honorable and often enticing piece of personal filmmaking." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times deems it an "often beautiful-looking film," while Glenn Lovell of the San Jose Mercury News finds it "Hypnotic and unforgettable." Former Oregonian reviewer Kim Morgan states on her blog <http://sunsetgun.typepad.com/> that THE BROWN BUNNY "is a meditation on grief, loneliness, women and the obsession of a man swirling in a quagmire of self doubt and anger," adding that the film is "a beautiful portrait of All American misery." The Cinema 21 invites the public to make up its own mind.

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One Week: October 8 - 14

New Print! (1954, 108 minutes)

Now enjoying its 50th anniversary, On the Waterfront did for Marlon Brando what East of Eden did for James Dean. The character of Terry Malloy made Brando accessible to the general public; everyone could identify with him. In Molly Haskell's delightful phrase, Brando's Malloy "enables us to experience inarticulateness as poetry." Elia Kazan's film tells the story of a failed boxer now eking out a living on the New Jersey docks thanks to the patronage of union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and Terry's own brother Charley (Rod Steiger). But when Malloy is tricked into helping set up a dissenting dockworker to be killed, Terry begins to have doubts about his life — doubts that are given urgency when he falls for the dead man's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint). The great scene in On the Waterfront comes when Malloy leans back in the secluded rear seat of an impossibly roomy cab, and as the streetlights and car headlights dance across his face, he confronts his brother, who has just pulled a gun on him in an effort to compel his younger sibling not to testify against their boss. Instead of recoiling in fear, Malloy looks sad, and embarks on one of the cinema's great speeches, lamenting the downward trajectory of his career and gently complaining that his older, smarter brother hadn't protected him — "I coulda been a contender," he insists, mourning his failed boxing career. But there are other great moments as well, such as the fabled scene with the glove (improvised in rehearsal and then added to the film), and anything to do with the gang of galooks surrounding Johnny Friendly. And then there is the stirring speech that Malden makes in the belly of a ship, a righteous call to action that still rankles critics of the film and former associates of Kazan's who decry some of his private actions.

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One Week: October 15 - 21

Dig!

Premiere (2004, 105 minutes)

When the American Northwestern music scene was finally getting away from Grunge, a revival of 1960s psychedelic rock emerged that stripped pop music down to the essentials. Two bands that would develop from the neo-psychedelic revival were San Francisco’s Brian Jonestown Massacre and Portland’s the Dandy Warhols. Portlanders of a certain age will remember Warhols founder Courtney Taylor from the early days of this band and a previous group called Beauty Stab. Jonestown and the Warhols brought a refreshingly gritty sound to psychedelic rock by adding a punk rock aesthetic. Though both were respected, the Dandy Warhols were more commercially successful. Ondi Timoner's documentary, seven years in the making, charts the rise and fall and rise and fall of a tense friendship between Taylor and Jonestown's self-destructive founder Anton Newcombe. Steven Flores of Epinions.com asserts that "DiG! is a fascinating documentary," while A. O. Scott of the New York Times makes note of the fact that filmmaker Timoner's labors "results in one of those heaven-sent narratives, like Hoop Dreams or Startup.com, in which the contingency and chaos of events coalesce into a resonant and satisfying story." John Nesbit, of CultureDose.com says of this film, which won the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for documentaries, that it is "a striking original chronicle." Chris Parry of EfilmCritic.com writes that DiG! is "a must-see for anyone interested in the music scene, anyone not interested in the music scene, and anyone in the music scene."

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Ten Days: October 22 - 31

As is the case every year, the Eighth Annual Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (PLGFF) brings you the finest in Lesbian, Gay, Bi, and Trans filmmaking covering a diverse array of subjects, issues, and interests to the community. With 30 programs and dozens of films from all over the world, there's something to everyone's taste: marriage equality documentaries such as Freedom To Marry and A Time To Ride; riveting dramas like Walk on Water, Clara's Summer, and Brother to Brother; comedies such as Goldfish Memory, Eating Out, and Slutty Slummer; and steamy and romantic films including The Road To Love, Inescapable, and Sugar. And to close it all out, we have a special Halloween Homo Horror Fest on Halloween Day! The Homo Horror Fest features four programs: The Nomi Song, a doc about the colorful new wave star Klaus Nomi; Horror Shorts; Make A Wish, a lesbian take on slasher films; and Hellbent, a sexy, fun, gay horror film billed as the first gay slasher flick. In addition, this year we have several filmmakers, artists, and activists attending the festival. So get your passes and tickets now!

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Four Days: November 1 - 4

Premiere (2003, 105 minutes)

Dean Seagrave (David Sutcliffe), a graphic novelist with writer’s block, has been abandoned by his sex-bomb Argentine lover Pablo (Antonio Sabato, Jr.). Unable to work or sleep, Dean books a flight Buenos Aires, to track down Pablo. But things prove more difficult than he anticipated. In addition to the language barrier, Dean gradually discovers that practically everyone he encounters – from Pablo’s domineering mother (Sonia Braga) to the beautiful café owner Sofia (Celina Font), all the way to a guy he picks up in a bookstore (Leonardo Brzezicki) – are not what they seem. The second film by David Moreton (Edge of Seventeen), Testosterone is a film that Phil Hall of Film Threat.com notes stars a "brilliantly campy Sonia Braga, refreshingly earthy Jennifer Coolidge, and to-die-for gorgeous Celina Font." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times calls TESTOSTERONE a "confident, shrewd comedy, at once sexy and gleefully nasty."

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One Week: November 5 - 11

Premiere (2003, 88 minutes)

Jonathan Caouette's spellbinding debut TARNATION re-imagines the whole idea of what a documentary can be. Caouette has been documenting his life since he was 11 years old. With TARNATION, he weaves a whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family torn apart by dysfunction and reunited through the power of love. TARNATION is a raw and sensual display of self-destruction and rebirth that announces the arrival of an exceptional new cinematic visionary. "A kaleidoscopic found-art project that looks to redefine the nature of documentary filmmaking," writes Ed Gonzalez, of Slant Magazine. Jason Alexander of Toronto's Eye Weekly notes that, "though the frantically assembled footage is frequently harrowing and often absurd – we get a tantalizing glimpse of Caouette's high school musical, which the precocious teen based on Blue Velvet – Tarnation is also a testament to love's power to endure amid horrific circumstances." Tarnation is produced by Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell.

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One Week: November 12 - 18

Premiere (2003, 80 minutes)

Calling his new movie an "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test on Tofu," award-winning documentary director Ron Mann (Grass, Twist) joins actor-activist Woody Harrelson as he pilots a hemp-fuelled bus on an eco-consciousness raising incursion down the beautiful Pacific Coast. Go Further is "a crowd pleaser in its purest form,"

writes David Nusair of ReelFilmReviews.com. Jim Slotek of Jam! Movies.com judges it "a needed dose of levity for the eco-movement." Go Further "generates laughs while teaching valuable lessons about how we can all, in small but significant ways, make the choice to 'leave a light footprint' on our imperiled planet Earth," concludes Tim Merrill of FilmThreat.com, and Peter Howell of the Toronto Star finds it to be a "message film that makes entertaining diversions out of environmental didacticism." It's an "agreeably goofy road movie of a documentary" to Michael Rechtshaffen of the Hollywood Reporter.

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One Week: November 19 - 25

Premiere (2004, 102 minutes)

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) has not slept for a year. His every waking minute has become an unremitting nightmare of confusion, paranoia, guilt, anxiety, and terror – each of which is part of an escalating series of clues that will lead to the source of his mysterious affliction in Brad Anderson's inventive psychological thriller that also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michael Ironside. "The Machinist manages to forge something fresh and unique while clearly showcasing some affection for the film noirs and the twilight zones that came before … A fractured puzzle of a film that continually toys with our expectations, yet never lets us see its entire hand until Anderson wants us to," writes Scott Weinberg of Efilmcritic.com, while JoBlo's Movie Emporium.com heralded it as "one of the better movies that I've seen so far this year."

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One Week: November 26 - December 2

Premiere (2004, 103 minutes)

One night, for one time only, a concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City brought together some of the greatest performers in the history of Blues music, including B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Tyler, and Macy Gray. This concert film by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) captures the emotional spontaneity that only live performances of the Blues can. Interviews with B. B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Chris Thomas King, Dr. John, Jimmie Vaughn, Honeyboy Edwards, Ruth Brown, Shemekai Copeland, Solomon Burke, Steve Jordan, and Vernon Reid. Phil Hall of Film Threat.com notes that lightning in a bottle has "memorable blues performances," while Donald J. Levit of ReeltalkMovieReviews.com calls the film "a superior documentary – one that celebrates the joy of soulful musicians without resorting to distracting gimmicks."

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One Week: December 3-9

Premiere (2003, 110 minutes)

Starting with The Ramone's origins in Forest Hills, Queens, Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields's documentary END OF THE CENTURY: THE STORY OF THE RAMONES gives the fascinating background of an eccentric group of individuals who came together as the most influential punk band in history, New York City renegades who made their mark in the mid-1970s with counterculture lyrics and underground performances at rundown joints like CBGB on the Bowery. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. But it is the insider look at the blue-collar upbringing of the band members, and their desire to be part of Manhattan's burgeoning hard-rock scene, that is most endearing. In candid interviews, Dee Dee Ramone talks about the group's total lack of sophistication in its earliest days. Going to see contemporary acts like the New York Dolls and Iggy and the Stooges, the Ramones quickly created their own sound. They made their debut with an extremely loud sound, furiously fast and short songs, and lots of drama such as blatant on-stage arguments. Stars such as Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, comment on the Ramones' subsequent rise to punk stardom, with wild stories about sex, drugs, chaos, and tragedy. Walter V. Addiego of the San Francisco Chronicle notes that END OF THE CENTURY "details the group's raucous history with humor and a minimum of hero worship." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly says that thanks to the film, "It's hard not to feel that the Ramones, who never had a hit record, were the greatest band in 50 years to be stonewalled out of success."

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One Week: December 10 - 16

Premiere (2003, 115 minutes)

Film buffs might recall being curious about – and not seeing – a Tarantino knock off from 1999 called Boondock Saints. Based on an original screenplay, and starring Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus as two brothers setting out to rid Boston of its criminal leaders, and Willem Dafoe as a gay FBI agent in pursuit of them, the film was barely released and can now be picking on DVD at stores like Borders for peanuts. Boondock Saints was the dream project of Troy Duffy, a 20ish bartender who somehow convinced Miramax head Harvey Weinstein to finance his film for almost a million dollars. Though Weinstein even bought the bar Duffy worked in and gave it to the burgeoning writer-director, Duffy so irritated and outraged everyone who came in contact with him, including Weinstein, that the Miramax chief eventually dropped the movie, which eventually found distribution through another company, opening in only five theaters in the United States. The directors of this documentary, Mark Brian Smith and Tony Montana, were hired by Duffy to chronicle his rise to fame, but as with another intended making of doc, Lost in La Mancha, the duo got something else entirely. Instead of catching a rising star they witnessed an unrepentant Duffy crash and burn. Ecritic.com calls OVERNIGHT "a wickedly entertaining documentary," while IOFilms.com's Gator MacReady suggested that "for a look at how full of shit and moronic the movie industry is, forget any self-referential satire like The Player, or State And Main. Watch this. And be horrified."

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One Week: December 17 - 22

Restoration (1980/2004, 153 minutes)

In 1941, a young writer and journalist recently transplanted to Hollywood named Samuel Fuller enlisted in the army, ending up in the American First Infantry Division a few days after Pearl Harbor. As he wrote later in his posthumously published autobiography A Third Face, "My novel, the scripts I was doing in Hollywood, my plans to try directing – all of it – suddenly seemed unimportant." A major section of A Third Face is given over to Fuller's wartime experiences. But his autobiography isn't the first time Fuller, the cult director of Pickup on South Street and Forty Guns, dealt with his memories of WWII. Before the book, he had a dream project, a screenplay long in gestation that finally came to the screen in 1980. In it, Fuller follows the exploits of a squad in the Big Red One, which storms North Africa, Normandy, and finally one of the concentration camps, all under the stoic leadership of an unnamed Sergeant (Lee Marvin). Fuller's stand-in is Private Zab (Robert Carradine), a cigar-chomping writer whom nobody believes wrote some of the books issued in a special paperback format to the troops. Other members of the Big Red One include Mark Hamill, and Bobby Di Ciccio. Unfortunately, when the film was first released, there were budgetary problems and 50 minutes were cut. That's right, almost an hour deleted from Fuller's lovingly rendered masterpiece. Now, under the supervision of Time movie reviewer Richard Schickel, THE BIG RED ONE is restored, its reconstruction based on Sam Fuller's original shooting script. Kent Jones noted in Film Comment, "If you want the full measure of the experience of war, THE BIG RED ONE is the movie." Fuller himself perhaps best summed up the movie when he said, "Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death...In a word, emotion."

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