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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 2006)
OCTOBER 6. 2006 JU film Boynton Beach Club This romantic comedy by director Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan) about a group of seniors living at a retirement community in Florida (sensibly portrayed by a great cast includ ing Dyan Cannon, Sally Kellerman, Joseph Bologna and Len Cariou) shows us that falling in love can happen at any age and that life doesn’t end at retirement. 1 am glad that there are some movies being produced with seasoned actors in them instead of more generic-looking teenagers! B —Yvonne R Behrens The Departed Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs takes a while to get cooking, and the ending is gimmicky. But for the most part this is an electrifying tale of cops, spies and gangsters, with all the stylized violence and visual pizzazz we've come to expect from the direc tor of Gixulfellas and Paging Bull. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson are fine in the leading roles, but Vera Farmiga (Down to the Bone) steals the show as a psychiatrist who juggles relationships with Leo and Matt. B + —Stephen Blair Flyboys 1 am always skeptical when 1 see another war movie. Fortunately, they are getting better. Tony Bill (Must Love Dogs) directed this film inspired by the real Lafayette Escadrille squadron—38 Americans who went to France during World War I to volun teer in the fight against Germany. These young men, who came from all over the United States with different upbringings and different motives to join, were idealistic and naive but were later credited with stopping the Germans’ advance into France early in the war. The brilliant cast includes James Franco and Jean Reno, and the flight and combat scenes are very believable. B —YPB Gabrielle This French drama by director Patrice Chereau (Queen Margot) is a beautiful adaptation of Robert Conrad’s dark short story “The Return.” Even if you've never read it, you will enjoy this movie about a bourgeois couple (brilliantly portrayed by Isabelle Huppert and Pascal Greggory) who seem to have everything until it all falls apart when the husband comes home one night to find his wife plans to leave him. When she changes her mind, the devas tating psychological and emotional pain of the characters unfolds. Great cinematography by Eric Gautier (The Motorcycle Diaries). Opens Oct. 13 at Hollywood Theatre. A —YPB The Guardian If you are a fan of good action movies, this new drama by director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) will not disappoint. The action scenes and special effects are great, and the chemistry between Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher interestingly enough works. They portray members of a Coast Guard team, each with his own agenda in dealing with personal issues while deciding who to save on res cue missions and how to live with it. The Guardian also pays respect to the Coast Guard and its work, so be sure to stay for the closing credits B + —YPB Johnny Knoxville cranks up the homoeroticism in Jackass: Number Two. An Inconvenient Truth If you weren’t on the Al Gore bandwagon already, you will be after seeing this important documentary about global warming. The Man Who Should Be President makes an airtight case for climate change at a time when the White House still has its head buried in the sands of the Middle East instead of confronting this looming crisis. The film ends on a hopeful note, however, with Gore laying out a simple strategy to reverse the trend within our lifetime. Can’t wait to hear his Oscar acceptance speech. A- —Jim Radzista Jackass: Number Two Are Johnny Knoxville and his band of merry pranksters complete idiots or sicko geniuses? You be the judge as you watch them ride on rockets, make a beard out of pubic hair, probe their penises into snake cages and funnel beer up their assholes. A few stunts are so disgusting they’re almost unwatchable. Otherwise, this carnival freak show is a real hoot, and the gang’s boundless, demented glee is conta gious. John Waters—the ultimate arbiter of bad taste—officiates a magic act involving a midget named Wee Man and a really, really fat woman. A- —SB The Last King of Scotland Forest Whitaker hands in a brilliantly terrifying performance as charming, monstrous dictator Idi Amin in this fictionalized history of his reign of terror in 1970s Uganda. As Nicolas Carrigan, egon Camera Amin’s young Scottish doctor and adviser, James McAvoy’s adorable naivete rapidly becomes infuri ating, but the consequences of his rose-colored view of Amin and the beauty of Uganda are still excessive and shocking. Director Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September) dispenses with subtlety, seducing the viewer with the beauty of the country and its people through Carrigan’s eyes, then slamming down a shockingly gory display of the destruction of innocence. Not for the timid. B + —Jemiah Jefferson The Marine Words can barely describe how awful this film is, so let’s just say there’s a special room tn hell reserved for the idiots who spent more money making this “film”—about a disgraced Marine who returns home to save his kidnapped wife from diamond thieves—than most people will make in a lifetime of hard work. Between “acting” by steroid-ugly wrestlers that could be rivaled by a 3-year-old, and an unbelievable explosion every 12 minutes, this is an abomination in every way. Opens Oct. 13. F- —Andy Mangels My Life with Dracula The Saturn Awards—which are given out by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films—was the life’s dream of Donald A. Reed, who was considered the world’s authority on Count Dracula. While today only genre fans keep up with the Satums, they were televised in the '70s Veterinary Hospital SERVING THE GREATER NORTH PORTLAND —YPB Open Season The latest “funky CGI animals voiced by famous actors” film is this creation about a trained bear who is set free in the wild and has to return to his trainer with the help of an outcast one-homed deer. Intermittently amusing—mostly with the Scottish squirrels and a scene where the bear learns that there are no toilets in the woods—this still felt too long at 99 minutes. Wait for the DVD. C —AM The U.S. vs. John Lennon David Leaf and John Scheinfeld directed this absorbing documentary about the U.S. govern ment’s sleazy attempts to deport John Lennon in the early 1970s because he charismatically rallied peaceniks against the Vietnam War. The film’s insistence on sanctifying the egomaniacal Beatle is annoying, but there’s no denying his epic role in the protest movement. Featuring interviews with Yoko Ono, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Gore Vidal, Walter Cronkite and G. Gordon Liddy. B + -SB © On a first name basis with you and your car. Everything Photographic North Portland and everybody from Fritz Lang (M) to Elsa Lancaster (Frankenstein’s Bride) to Ray Bradbury showed up. This interesting, entertaining docu mentary about Reed’s last days includes film clips from black-and-white horror movies like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. You might feel like watching those classics afterward—they are timeless! 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