AltWeeklies Wire
Alex Holdridge on the Perils of Shoestring-Budget Filmmakingnew
The Midnight Kiss director explains the dark place where indie filmmaking meets Starbucks.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
08-27-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Woody Allen's European Sex Romp is a Shocking Triumphnew
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a breezy triumph for Allen, not so much a return to form as a discovery of new perspective. It's the delight of an old jester discovering that his best material -- youth, and its illusions -- is inexhaustible.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
08-13-2008 |
Reviews
'Tropic Thunder': When Satire Goes Badnew
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Tom Cruise all play parodies of recognizable Hollywood types—the lunkhead, the coke fiend and the unscrupulous executive—but who exactly is Tom Cruise in the position to lampoon? This is a satire of movie-industry excess constructed by the very people made fat and happy by that industry.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
08-13-2008 |
Reviews
Johnny Richey Makes Change with Bootleg Barack T-shirtsnew
Obama may be battling attacks by Sen. John McCain calling him an empty celebrity, but he’s unquestionably a star in one sense: He moves product.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
08-06-2008 |
Fashion
J. Gary Mitchell's Puppets Fight Pedophilianew
Mitchell, a soft-spoken 70-year-old with a dapper white mustache, has been directing and producing short educational movies for three decades, creating characters who warn against smoking and drinking. But his specialty since 1985's What Tadoo is gently informing children about sexual abuse.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
07-23-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Holy Bummer, Batmannew
Why so serious? Maybe because Heath Ledger's dead.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
07-16-2008 |
Reviews
New Doc on Hunter S. Thompson Examines His Bond with Richard Nixonnew
It was part of the American genius for polarization that Thompson saw Nixon as his doppelganger, his mirror. Nixon was his dark shadow. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
07-02-2008 |
Reviews
Rectum? Will Smith Damn Near Killed 'Emnew
I had hoped that Hancock would be a departure, that it might restore some of Smith's Fresh Prince swagger, but instead it's the most explicit demonstration yet of the wallowing that has drained a superstar of his powers.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
07-02-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Bigger, Strong, Faster* Struggles with Its Cheating Heartnew
Director Christopher Bell isn't just a regular, curious guy: He's one of three brothers who have all tried steroids, and he's the only one who isn't still taking them.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
06-18-2008 |
Reviews
M. Night Shyamalan's Latest Twist?new
Once a wunderkind of suspense manipulation -- infamous for his third-act twists but watched for every adroit set piece that came before -- M. Night Shyamalan has recoiled from the disaster of Lady in the Water by making his first lazy movie, a picture that grinds from one obligatory shock to another.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
06-11-2008 |
Reviews
'Speed Racer' is So Shallow It's Scarynew
There are no hidden depths in a cartoon originally translated from the Japanese as Mach GoGoGo. And, to their credit, directors Andy and Larry Wachowski have not tried to find any.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
05-07-2008 |
Reviews
Does Werner Herzog Take Werner Herzog Seriously Anymore?new
Encounters at the End of the World is principally a collection of Herzog's Antarctic vacation pictures; the movie feels like an episode of Travels with Rick Steves if the show were hosted by a perpetually gloomy German.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
05-01-2008 |
Reviews
Black Preachers Struggle in White Citynew
While African-American ministers in Portland rise to defend Rev. Jeremiah Wright's statements as both theologically accurate and needed tonics to America's history of racial oppression, their unanimity disguises a much more local question they say confronts their churches now: How do they make their voices heard in America's whitest city?
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
04-23-2008 |
Religion
Forgetting, but Apparently Not Forgiving, Sarah Marshallnew
Apatow's created another sex comedy with another director-for-hire (Nicholas Stoller), and it takes the attitude that sex is a wholesome and laudable activity for every person to enjoy -- unless that person is your ex, in which case she must be punished.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
04-16-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Mark David Chapman Falls Victim to Character Assassinationnew
J.P. Schaefer's direction is ultimately a prime example of how cinema has been degraded since the glory days of Scorsese.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
04-09-2008 |
Reviews
