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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2007)
FEBRUARY JUStjQUt.g? film Backstage French actress/director Emmanuelle Bercot’s drama stars Emmanuelle Seigner as pop diva Lauren Waks, who takes in adoring groupie Lucie (a very believable Isild Le Besco) and makes her part of her entourage. With that, she pulls the totally obsessed fan into her search for love and happiness, with Lucie trying to fix Lauren’s dysfunctional life by developing a self-destructive plan to bring her back together with her ex boyfriend. Unfortunately, the film seems a little long. Opens Feb. 23 at Hollywixxl Theatre C + —Yvonne P. Behrens Breaking and Entering After proving his talent as a screenwriter and director with The English Patient, Anthony Minghella racked up rave reviews and Oscar nomi nations for a pair of ambitious but thoroughly mediocre films (The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain). It’s hard to believe that the charade will continue with Breaking and Entering, a dull and remote character study that robs its viewers of two hours and squanders the considerable talents of Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn. Law plays a Lindon architect who has an affair with the Bosnian mother (Binoche) of a teenage boy who burgled his offices. C —Stephen Blair Bridge to Terabithia Based on the children’s novel by Katherine Paterson, this movie by director Gabor Csupo (Rugrats Go Wild) tells the story of Jess, whose goal is to outrun everybody in his school, until he loses to his new next-door neighbor—a girl named Leslie. Despite their differences, they become friends and create a magic kingdom in the woods called Terabithia. But one morning a tragic accident befalls Leslie, and Jess has to deal with the grief and anger in the aftermath. The film has great visual effects, and both child actors are wonderful. This is a movie for the whole family; read the book if you haven’t yet! A- —YPB Dreaming by the Numbers Amsterdam resident Anna Bucchetti goes back to her native Italy to direct this quirky black-and- white documentary about Naples residents who rely on dreams and premonitions when they play games of chance. We meet a lottery player who tries to determine the numerologjtal significance of his dream about a cockroach, and a woman with eatingout eatingout Mafia ties who mourns the death of her grandson. The funniest sequences feature a bawdy trans sexual who runs an illegal bingo parlor in her apartment, freely flinging insults at her female patrons. Screens Feb. 17, 18 and 22 at the Portland International Film Festival; for details visit www.nwfilm.org.. B —SB The Guatemalan Handshake Like a kinder, gentler Gummo, this strange, lyri cal film explores the life of those left behind by society without being dark and exploitational. At first glance the story takes place in a small Midwestern town of carnivals and demolition derbies, but its citizens are the sort of people who only exist in the minds of hipster filmmakers. Everything about The Guatemalan Handshake puzzles. What does the tit la have to do with any thing? Why is the main character, Donald Turnupseed (Will Oldham), named after the guy involved in the 1955 car crash that killed James Dean? It’s a wonderfully quirky and original indie flick but somehow adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Opens Feb. 17 at Hollywcxxl Theatre. B —Tony le Tigre i Hannibal Rising Remember how disappointed you were with the Star Wars prequels, especially Hayden Christensen’s wimpy Darth Vader? Here’s another iconic villain given the requisite “sympathetic” makeover prequel, as we learn how Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter came to be. It’s a poor stew of Nazis, revenge, bad French accents, samurai swords and improbable coincidences. Were he real, Lecter would surely tor ment the filmmakers in some Grand Guignol style, probably forcing them to watch Hannibal Rising over and over until they ate their own livers...with no added fava beans or chianti. D —Andy Mangels The Host If you only see one movie this year about a huge river monster that comes on land to devour people, make it this thrilling and inventive import from South Korea. A cheeky critique of American environmental policies, it shows how the ferocious mutant owes its life to a U.S. Army base that dumped dusty bottles of formaldehyde down the drain. Director Jooh-ho Bong strikes a perfect balance between scares and laughs, drawing inspiration from legitimate horror classics like Alien and schlocky B movies like eatingout eatingout esfc pasta’ B'S et fe 503-247-1066 The Blob. Screens Feb. 17 and 19 at the Portland | Music and Lyrics International Film Festival; for details visit Marc Lawrence (Two Weeks Notice) wrote and www.nwfilm.org.' A directed this teen-skewing romantic comedy about ’ —SB an ’80s pop star (Hugh Grant) who gets a chance at a comeback when a Britney Spears clone (newcom The Messengers er Haley Bennett) asks him to write a duet for them. When a family moves into an abandoned house The only drawback: He has never written lyrics to in the country, evil spirits begin to wreak havoc. a song, so he hires an offbeat younger woman (Drew But what secret is hiding in...the sunflowers? Call Barrymore) to help him out. While 1 am a sucker for it The Farm-ityville Horror— this fright flick has chick flicks and always think Barrymore is charming, Grant is now really too old for this kind of role. B - nothing to do with its generic title and contains few scares other than the standard animal-jumping- —YPB out-at-you trope. Not poorly acted nor poorly shot, Short Cuts III: Made in Portland The Messengers is just boring enough to induce The 30th Portland International Film Festival catatonia. C + —AM includes four programs of short films, including nine entries from local filmmakers. One of the highlights The Method is “Scaredycat,” a 13-minute documentary by gay This Spanish film starts off as a biting satire of director Andrew Blubaugh (“Hello, Thanks”). One corporate greed, then inexplicably morphs into a night in September 2004, a gang of five men screwball comedy that isn’t particularly funny. attacked Blubaugh as he crossed the Steel Bridge. While an anti-glohalization protest rages in the Although impaired by fear, some racial prejudice and streets of Madrid, five men and two women match a lifelong bout with obsessive-compulsive disorder, wits in a series of mind games that determine who he contacted his assailants in jail to try to make gets a job. The acting is solid, and the crafty sense of the situation. Even with the expert input of cinematography makes the most of the drab office a local lawyer and a Portland State University setting. It’s a shame that director Marcelo Pineyro psychology professor, some of the findings are a little abandons the menacing tone of the first hour for simplistic. Still, the skillful combination of inter a silly and heavy-handed conclusion. Screens views, dramatic re-enactments and animated Feb. 19 and 22 at the Portland International Film sequences makes for compelling viewing. Screens Festival; for details visit www.nwfilm.org. B- Feb. 18; for details visit www.nwfilm.org. B + • —SB © —SB eatingout p$TA BA/V g 8338 n .• Lom BaRd Jude Law's considerable talents are squandered in Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering (5n N- Mississippi Aye*cO<n (5°3) 28PASTA . pastaba^C° eatingout eatingout eatingout eatingout
