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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2007)
_______________________________________________________________________________________MAY 18, 2007 justout.41 film Away from Her Canadian actress Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter) makes her directing debut with this heartbreaking adaptation of a short story by Alice Munro. Still radiant at 65, Julie Christie plays an Alzheimer’s patient who, to her husband’s dismay, develops an intimate hind with a man at her resi dential care facility. Some of the opening scenes feel choppy, but Polley finds her rhythm and admirably avoids the disease movie cliches that a lesser talent would undoubtedly heap on this mate rial. Gordon Pinsent, Olympic Dukakis and Michael Murphy round out the cast. A- —Stephen Blair Burnt Chocolate Water Portland filmmaker Jeff Grinta really doesn’t like coffee, and his documentary is a 90-minute quest for a cup of the “foul brew” gcxxl enough to change his mind. He drives through seven coffee shacks and 17 Starbucks, visits expert brewers and self-roasters, and even tries a cup of civet coffee—a bizarre luxury, being coffee beans extracted from the poop of Indonesian civet cats, then exported for $200 a pound to insane coffee addicts who claim the par tially digested beans are less bitter. Grinta interviews a good selection of coffee lovers, coffee haters, addic tion counselors and industry insiders, but the ques tion remains why, in the words of one of his subjects, “you’re so interested in something you’re not inter ested in.” Opens May 18 at Hollywood Theatre. B —Tony LeTigre Georgia Rule This movie was not at all what 1 expected. Lindsay Lohan, who will probably be judged as simply playing herself, leads a stellar cast playing Rachel, a rebellious teenager who is shipped off by her mother (Felicity Huffman) to her grandmother (Jane Fonda) to learn discipline. She turns the Mormon town of Hull upside down, and just when you think you know where the film is going, it will surprise you. Director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) does a wonderful job in dealing with the extremely sensitive issue of sexual abuse, the fine line that separates the truth from lies and the unbreakable bond of motherhood. This R-rated film is definitely not your regular nice chick flick! A- —Yvonne P. Behrens The Great Communist Bank Robbery This fascinating film documents Reconstruction, an hourlong black-and-white film about a robbery at Bucharest’s Romanian National Bank in 1959. During this time of Stalinism, the crime rate was extremely low, so it shcx>k everybody when the robbery occurred. Even more strange, the Lei currency could only be spent in Romania. The state police searched the whole country, arrested six people they declared to be guilty and forced the pris oners to play themselves in a film that reconstructed the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, which was filmed live, they were sentenced to death and executed. A month later, the film Reconstruction was released and became a sensation throughout the country. Today the robbery remains unsolved, and director Alexandru Solomon does an incredible job in interweaving archival footage from Reconstruction with modern-day interviews of wit nesses. Opens May 19 at Hollywood Theatre A- —YPB The Iceberg This is a quirky, charming indie comedy from Cillian Murphy (left, with Padraic Delaney) smartly picked the award-winning The Wind That Belgium about a restaurant owner, Fiona, who acci Shakes the Barley instead of the execrable sequel 28 Weeks Later. dentally locks herself in the walk-in freezer overnight. Somehow this accident triggers a midlife crisis that and craft to her carefully researched portrayal of Anyone who thinks it’s better than 28 Days Later ate leads her to forsake her Mr. Bean-like husband and a high-functioning autistic woman, but die real pow too many paint chips as a child. The original film family for a deaf-mute ursine sailor named René with erhouse performance of the film belongs to Alan broke new ground for the zombie genre, which a tiny sloop called “Le Titanique.” Appealing to the Rickman, whose character’s perfectly delivered seemed to have nowhere left to go but self-parody; eye, with lots of cobalt blue, fire-engine red and icy sarcasm masks a vast well of loneliness, gradually it was intelligently apocalyptic and even a little sexy. white, and suffused with souffle-light, slapstick wit. broken down by Weaver’s childlike, matter-of-fact, 28 Weeks Later’s hip soundtrack and occasional Lucy Tulugarjuk, in her supporting role as a radiant obsessive-compulsive joie de vivre. While some moments of artful restraint—a restaurant poster that ly cheerful Inuit Eskimo, is adorable. Now playing at details strain credibility, the emotional impact is says, “Our pizzas are always delivered on time!” or Living Room Theaters. B genuine. Snow Cake is a thinking person’s tearjerker. a huge stadium of empty, blood-red chairs, months —TL Opens May 18 at Hollywood Theatre. A- after the entire population of England has been —Jemiah Jefferson decimated by the “rage virus”—are ultimately squan Shrek the Third Few film franchises are as successful at blending comedy, music and messages as the Shrek films do. In this outing, Shrek searches for the young kind heir to the throne, while the scheming Prince Charming rounds up an army of villains to take over. Better than Shrek 2, this film has less product placement, a wide variety of new characters and returning favorites along with some fantastic set pieces with Puss in Boots and Donkey, a nightmare full of babies and a fairy tale high school not far removed from reality. Excellent fun for everyone. A + —Andy Mangels Snow Cake An exceptionally effective and moving indie with a wealth of star power, Snow Cake explores themes of grief, guilt, alienation and strange friend ship—and only occasionally veers into Very Special Episode territory. Sigourney Weaver brings nuance dered on a senseless, bnital and stupid film. C- —TL Spider-Man 3 The third time is not the charm for writer/ director Sam Raimi, who spins so many plot webs that you can barely tell who’s fighting whom by the final reel. Thanks to a $258 million budget, the special effects are eye-popping, and there’s a smat tering of standout performances from James Franco, Rosemary Harris and Bruce Campbell. But tossing three villains into the mix has a curiously dampen ing effect on the action, and Peter Parker’s journey to the “dark side” is too goofy to be even remotely menacing, plus his stuttering romance with Mary Jane climbs to new heights of insipidness. B- —SB 28 Weeks Later Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris wisely refused to have anything to do with this execrable sequel to the film that made them international stars in 2003. The Wind That Shakes the Barley It’s 1920, rural Ireland. Damien (Cillian Murphy, the fabulous drag queen from Breakfast with Pluto) is a med student visiting his Irish village from London. His brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) is a guerrilla fighter battling Britain’s famously vicious Black and Tan squads. When the B&T’s commit atrocities on some “filthy Irish”—Damien and Eddy's friends and neighbors—the brothers are sucked into a series of events that eventually pit them against each other. Ken Loach’s 2006 film won the top award at Cannes last year, and for good reason. Beautifully acted and stunningly shot, this meticulously realistic historical drama resonates as an unmistakable allegory of the Iraq disaster. Opens May 25 at Hollywood Theatre. 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