Program Notes

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Program Notes

Two Weeks: July 1 -14

Premiere (2005, 92 minutes)

A man sets his hand on fire in order to make a day with his kids memorable. Two neighborhood teens debate whether to lose their virginity to a neighborhood letch. A little girl is already collecting appliances for her future dowry. A video-performance artist develops an obsessive crush on a shoe salesman. And a little boy becomes prey to a chat room stalker. These are among the memorable scenes and characters in Miranda July's debut feature, a big winner at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. July is a former Portland-based video artist who gained an international reputation with her monologues first staged through PICA. Taking place over the course of several weeks in Los Angles (though Portland residents will enjoy references to M&F and Burnside), Me and You and Everyone We Know offers touching snapshots of various interesting characters whose lives intersect: July's video artist, whose day job is chauffeuring the elderly, John Hawkes's shoe salesman coping with divorce and raising two sons, and various other kids and adults, among them an arts administrator who may be July's take on a prominent Portlander. In a film that Daniel Wible of Film Threat called "a real treasure," they all come together in unexpected ways. Annlee Ellingson of Boxoffice detects that Me and You and Everyone We Know "is characterized by an ensemble of rich and delicious characters and witty, unexpected dialogue," while Variety's Scott Foundas finds that the film "brings a fresh perspective to age-old human dilemmas: the longing of children to become adults, the yearning of adults to recapture the innocence of youth, and the difficulty of finding true love at age 7 or 70." Critic Emanuel Levy found it to be "the most original, charming, and visionary film at Sundance this year," while Lisa Schwartzbaum of EW deemed it "the best drama I saw at Sundance." A. O. Scott of the New York Times wrote simply, " I like it very much, and I hope you will, too."

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One Week: July 15 - 21

Premiere (2005, 80 minutes)

They emerge from the water in March, walk 70 miles to solid ground, and then mate, raising their offspring amid the worst weather the South Pole can throw at them. Then, when spring comes in August, they return to the relatively warm waters they love, only to embark on the same ritual a few months later. They are Emperor penguins and they are the subject of French documentarian Luc Jacquet's lovely documentary, a co-production of National Geographic and Warner's new independent film company. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, March of the Penguins charts the life cycles of these fascinating creatures while at the same time casting a limpid eye on the cruel caprices of nature and the sheer haphazardness of survival. Jeremy Matthews of Film Threat found March a film that "goes beyond a nature movie with excellent photography and the determination of the animals it documents." Lisa Schwartzbaum of EW says that MARCH "inspires awe for the animals under consideration." Joe Leydon of Variety found it both "harrowing" and "heartwarming," while Internet reviewer Donald Levit notes that "the process and mere fact of species survival is majestic."

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One Week: July 22 - 28

Premiere (2005, 97 minutes)

A world famous blonde rock star is depressed. He wanders through several landscapes and into different situations but finds no relief, no answer, no solace for his mental ills. And at the end of the day Blake (Michael Pitt), rich and talented yet disaffected, heroin addicted, kills himself. Is his act a solution or a tragedy? Portland based director Gus Van Sant makes no statement, he merely observes. Very much in the spirit of his recent films Gerry and Elephant, Last Days employs long tracking shots and lengthy takes to embed the protagonist, a version of Kurt Cobain, in his environment, severing as much as possible the distance between character and viewer. Internet reviewer Boyd Van Hoeij, calls Last Days "one of the best and most unsettling films of the year," while Sheri Linden of Boxoffice writes that it is "one of the most honest, hyperbole-free big-screen depictions of heroin addiction." Lucas Haas, Kim Gordon, Ricky Jay, and Asia Argento (her jokey comments about Van Sant on her audio track to the DVD of Scarlet Diva notwithstanding) also star in this film that Leslie Felperin of Variety deems "a breathtaking film of haunting beauty but also quasi-religious imagery."

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One Week: July 29 - August 4

Premiere (2004, 137 minutes)

One of the consequences of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, was the children of GI's by their Vietnamese wives and lovers. For years those women who were involved with Americans were social outcasts, treated as collaborators while their children, even when living with grandparents, endured taunts and abuse. THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (co-produced by Terrence Malick) is the story of one such love child, Binh (Damien Nguyen), forced from his village at 17, going to Saigon to find his mother, then trying to escape to America with his much younger half brother, Tam (Dang Quoc Thinh Tran), in 1990. The film lingers on the rigors of the voyage: the sampan, the Malaysian detention camps, the illegal refugee ship, and the underground economy with near slavery in New York City. It finally opens up when Binh leaves New York for Houston to find his father. Nick Nolte also stars in this film directed by Hans Petter Moland. Emanuel Levy finds that The Beautiful Country is "an emotionally compelling tale, while Harvey Karten judges it a "fresh face on the topic" of immigration, and Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter finds the film "compelling".

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One Week: August 5 - 11

Premiere (2003, 107 minutes)

Ingmar Bergman just won't quit. He has "retired" several times now already, but those stories in his head still want to come out. The lasted work by the 86-year-old director is this sequel to Scenes From a Marriage, again starring Liv Ullmann as Marianne and Erland Josephson as Johan. Calling it an "epilogue" to Scenes, Bergman presents his tale in 10 short chapters, opening with a prologue in which Marianne, sitting at a desk strewn with old photographs, addresses the camera and introduces the story of her impulsive visit to Johan, whom she hasn't seen in 30 years. It's not a bucolic walk down memory lane. For Stephen Holden of the New York Times, "you feel the crushing weight of time pressing in around them. These solemn, world-weary characters rummaging through the past are still possessed by their nagging inner demons." For Boyd Van Hoeji, Saraband is "one of the best films (perhaps even the best film) released in theatres this year," while for Phil Hall of Film Threat it is "an extraordinary movie." Gunnar Rehlin of Variety deems the film "fascinating viewing, with Bergman regulars Josephson and Ullmann encoring their roles and in top form," and Harvey Karten judges Saraband to be a "wrenching story of family pain."

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Starts August 5

Premiere (2003, 104 minutes)

Peaceful, rustic Berkeley is a charming fishing community where life is sweet and the people friendly. But all that changes in this film by The Spierig Brothers, when Rene (Felicity Mason), after losing her childhood farm to the bank, decides to head for the big city. An avalanche of meteorites racing through the sky and bombarding the town, bringing an otherworldly infection, make departing much more difficult. The dead are revived and Rene is caught in a nightmare of zombie hungry for human flesh. Rene manages to find safety in a small isolated farm house owned by the town loony, Marion (Mungo McKay). There she is joins four other desperate survivors and together they battle their way through a plague of walking dead, only to discover that there is more going on than just a zombie infection. Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News says that "everything about this film is exceptional," while Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons deems it, "the best zombie movie since Night of the Living Dead." Jason Alexander of Eye Weekly notes that Undead's "copious gore, goofball shtick and antipodean accents all recall Peter Jackson's classic Dead Alive. But the Spierig Brothers' horror comedy has some twists of its own and a fine pair of heroes in beauty-queen Mason and stoic action-man McKay." For more information visit www.undeadmovie.com

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One Week: August 12 - 18

Premiere (2004, 87 minutes)

This latest film by Francois Ozon (8 Women, Swimming Pool) opens with an attractive 40ish couple (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Stephane Freiss) signing divorce papers, and then heading off to a hotel room for a farewell dalliance. The film then sets off in a different direction, moving, in reverse order, through four further episodes: a dinner party, their child's birth, their wedding night, and the first spark of romance between them at an Italian seaside resort. "Ozon's drama is compellingly acted and rich in visual ideas," according to David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor, and Owen Gleiberman of EW finds that Ozon "stages each scene assuredly, with a fluid sense of motive and desire." A. O. Scott of the New York Times praises Ozon's "mastery of emotional shorthand," and Dennis Lim of the Village Voice calls 5x2 a "deceptively placid and subtly unpredictable drama [even] a radical film."

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One Week: August 23 - 29

Restored (1946, 93 minutes)

Poet and surrealist Jean Cocteau's (1889-1963) brilliant fantasia (La Belle et la bete in the original language), one of the most re-made stories in the history of cinema from the silent era to Disney, comes back to us in a brand new restored 35mm print. The story is simple. A half-ruined merchant lives in the country with his son Ludovic and his three daughters. Two of the daughters, Felicie and Adelaide, are real shrews, selfish, pretentious, evil. They exploit the third daughter, Belle, as a servant. One day, the merchant get lost in the forest and enters a strange castle. He picks up a rose for Beauty, what makes the castle's owner appear. He is a monster, half-human (body) and half-beast (paws, head), and he has magic powers. He sentences the merchant to death, unless one of his daughters replaces him. Beauty sacrifices herself for her father and go to the castle. She will discover that the Beast is not so wild and inhuman than it looks. Robert Ebert of the Chicago Sun - Times, calls it "one of the most magical of all films" and notes "how appealing Jean Marais is as the Beast, and how shallow and superficial he seems as the pompadoured prince." Viewers, he writes, "will find a film that may involve them much more deeply than the Disney cartoon, because it is not just a jolly comic musical but deals, as all fairy tales do, with what we truly dread and desire. Brighter and more curious children will be able to enjoy it very much, I suspect, although if they return as adults they may be amazed by how much more is there."

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One Week: August 19 - 25

METROPOLIS

(2001, 107 minutes)

Not to be confused with Fritz Lang's silent distopian film, this Japanese anime was directed by Taro Rin and written by the anime legend Katsuhiro Otomo, who directed Akira and wrote Roujin-Z. But METROPOLIS does use Lang's film as a springboard into a surprisingly thoughtful, ceaselessly exciting sci-fi story about a plot to use humanoids to take over a city. Based on the comic by Osamu Tezuka, the film concerns the romance between the half-human Tima and Kenichi, a detective's nephew. J. Hoberman in the Village Voice rates the film highly: "METROPOLIS is A.I. without tears. In a juxtaposition worthy of Kubrick, Rin scores a world-ending explosion to Ray Charles's plaintive ode to psychological programming, 'I Can't Stop Loving You.'" Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times calls METROPOLIS simply, "one of the best animated films I have ever seen," adding that "the city in this movie is not simply a backdrop or a location, but one of those movie places that colonize our memory."

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One Week: August 26 - September 1

Premiere (2005, 89 minutes)

It's the dirtiest joke ever conceived, worded, and told by human beings. And it's like a secret handshake among stand up comedians, the insider's most inside information, a symbol of having arrived and a harsh measure of your real ability as a comic. And now everyone will know the joke, thanks to Paul Provenza's hilarious documentary, which tracks its history and the great comics who have told it. Among the wealth of comedians who talk about or tell the famous joke are Gilbert Gottfried and Bob Saget (widely considered the two best tellers of the tale), along with Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Shelley Berman, George Carlin, Phyllis Diller, Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Izzard, Paul Krassner, Bill Maher, Don Rickles, Chris Rock, Rita Rudner, Sarah Silverman, The Smothers Brothers, Jon Stewart, the South Park boys, Penn and Teller, Larry Storch, Rip Taylor, Scott 'Carrot Top' Thompson, Fred Willard, Steven Wright, and 75 more. Internet reviewer David Cornelius calls The Aristocrats "perhaps the finest tribute to the art form I have ever seen," while Nicholas Schager of Slant calls it "side-splittingly hilarious." EW profiled the films as " uproariously foulmouthed " while Internet reviewer Scott Weinberg says that is "probably the most astute and insightful look at professional comedy that I've ever seen. And dear sweet lord is it funny!" Be prepared for one of the most unique cinematic experiences of your life. And hey! Don't reveal the ending!

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One Week: September 2 - 8

Premiere (2004, 129 minutes)

Forming the resolution to a loose trilogy that also includes his earlier Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-Wai's latest effort takes the viewer into the future but from the viewpoint of the past. It reintroduces us to Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), the writer from Mood for Love, who has since become a science fiction pulpster. Imagining the significant year 2046 from his struggle for existence and love in the 1960s, he finds that an affair he is having with one woman (Zhang Ziyi) is compromised by his memories of another (Gong Li). Stephen Teo, in his new book on Kar-Wai, writes that 2046 "is a time odyssey," while Peter Brunette in his new book on Kar-Wai says that the film contains "moments of sublime beauty." Ed Gonzalez of Slant calls 2046 "gorgeous through and through," while Glenn Kenny of Premiere magazine finds 2046 "a movie of utter wonder and ravishment … 2046 is a movie to live in."

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Starts September 9

Premiere (2003, 83 minutes)

With Searching for The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, director Andrew Douglas takes the viewer on a captivating and compelling musical road trip through the Southern United States. Douglas's film follows "Alt" country star Jim White from churches to prisons, from truckstops to biker bars and coalmines on a journey that takes him through a world of the marginalized and the poor who have yet managed to forge a homemade culture. White has roadside encounters with other musical mavericks, including The Handsome Family, 16 Horsepower, David Johansen, banjo player Lee Sexton, and novelist Harry Crews. Mark Kermode of the Guardian praises the "haunting musical numbers from Johnny Dowd, Lee Sexton and even a rockabilly mountain priest [which] effectively conjure up the sound of a landscape where death and religion are omnipresent, and God and the Devil walk hand in hand." Internet review Gabriel Shanks says that Searching for The Wrong-Eyed Jesus has "hands down, the best film music of 2004."

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Coming in September

Premiere (2004, 150 minutes)

Nora (Emmanuelle Devos), a single mother and art gallery owner, is watching her father die. Into the same hospital comes Ismael (Mathieu Amalric), her flamboyant ex-husband, who is committed to the psych ward by his worried sister. Parallel storylines tell the current state of affairs of these two ex-lovers and the surprising avenues their lives take: while Nora tries to care for her terminally ill father, a trapped Ismael, who happens to be a brilliant musician, plots his escape. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times muses that Kings and Queen "begins as such a straightforward portrait of ordinary life that it's unsettling to find layer after layer of reality peeled away." J. Hoberman of the Village Voice calls it as "a movie of large gestures and outsize performances"; "thrillingly unpredictable," chimes in Nathan Lee of Film Comment. Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle finds the film "delectable and it keeps you eager to see what's served next," while Robert Keser of Bright Lights finds Kings and Queen an "exhilarating adventure in story-telling."

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Coming in September

Premiere (2004, 89 minutes)

Two inner-city teenagers Lila (Vahina Giocante) and Chimo (Mohammed Khouas) engage in an obsessive, innocent flirtation in this film from Lebanese-born, American-trained French filmmaker Ziad Doueiri. Lila lives with her superstitious aunt in a rundown, mostly Arab neighborhood in Marseille; the 19-year-old Chimo lives with his mother and spends most of his time with his unemployed pals. However, one of Chimo's teachers has offered to sponsor him for a writing scholarship, so he starts to keep notebook, filling it with the story of his romance with Lila. According to A. O. Scott of the New York Times, Doueiri, who used to work with Tarantino, gives the film "a mood that is at once breathlessly romantic and cannily down to earth." Ed Gonzalez of Slant praises Lila "heart-stopping tour-de-force, an extended love scene between Lila and Chimo on a bicycle. Set to Air's beautiful 'Run,' this sequence is an ethereal and innocent vision of sexual awakening and initiation, where every act between the two lowers is delicately and willfully negotiated." Internet reviewer Harvey Karten finds that Lila's "intriguing story is universal."

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One Week: September 23 - 29

Premiere (2004, 105 minutes)

She's a deceptively shy and insecure salesgirl. But, as acted by Monica Cervera, she turns out to be a fiercely determined, sexually insatiable, all-seeing Medusa in this latest film from Alex de la Iglesia (The Day of the Beast). Cervera plays Lourdes, a homely clerk who more or less blackmails a womanizer, who is also a clothing salesman in the same department store, to marry her. When he finds her insatiable demands a nightmare he attempts to come up with the perfect murder. The Alternative Film Guide calls El Crimen Perfecto a "gritty satire on our perverted social and personal values," while Twitch.com calls it "a gorgeous film to look at, shot and cut with pizzazz and filled with pitch-perfect characters and performances."

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