Portland movies: still lousy
By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:25pm
I'll write the story just as I read it in the Oregonian:
Portland has been the setting for so many stinker movies over the years — Men of Honor or Body of Evidence, anyone? — that we're long overdue for a film to come along and break what feels like a civic curse.
We just may have it with Untraceable, a thriller starring Diane Lane as an FBI agent on the hunt for a serial killer who uses the Internet ...
That's where my mind trailed off. "A serial killer who uses the Internet ..." Nope, it's gonna stink, too.
Criminy. Can't they make one decent movie in this town?
6 comments so far
1 Jan 23 '08 1:59pm:
Jarrett replied:
"They were filming Untraceable when Scout worked on the bridges. She accidentally turned down one of the overnight shifts when they were doing most of their filming. She totally could've watched Diane Lane's car break down on the Broadway over and over and over under artificial rain. And taken bitchin' pictures.
I'll see the movie just because I want to see that little diner again. That diner rocked and should be real and still there and have free wifi.
Incidentally, I normally don't regard horror movies as worth seeing (a notable difference between my taste and Doug's, I've noticed), but this one does kinda maybe look like it might be perhaps sorta good. But I dunno for sure. Whenever a movie uses the Internet it's always wrong and stupid and fake and cringe-worthy. I think it started with The Net. Curse you, Sandra Bullock and your pi-clicking ways!"
2 Jan 23 '08 9:00pm:
Jarrett replied:
"I meant to add (without having read the article) that The Zero Effect is so good it doesn't matter that all the other Portland-shot movies aren't very. That's a movie to hang your city-wide hat on, right there. Excellent excellence."
3 Jan 23 '08 10:31pm:
tODD replied:
"Ah, I'd forgotten about Zero Effect! This is probably because I saw it just after I arrived in Portland, and as such I didn't recognize any of the locations.
Though, didn't they turn Crown Point observatory into a planetarium or something (why I remember that and not, say, how a planetarium fits into the plot, who can say)?"
4 Jan 24 '08 1:28am:
doug replied:
"I'm disappointed that they didn't mention the fantastically silly and wonderful Mr. Brooks. Now THAT is a fun Portland movie. Oh, and Paranoid Park.
I used to hate horror movies. It wasn't til I saw Night of the Living Dead and Kill, Baby ... Kill! that I started to come around. Then Rosemary's Baby finished the trick.
Untraceable looks like crap to me, though - I like my horror supernatural or force-of-nature violent, not stupid sadistic traps, and certainly not involving the Internet - but now that I know it's set in PDX I just might have to see it. Also, I know a person who works for the company who did the poster with the shiny reflective bit. "
5 Feb 01 '08 6:23pm:
Jarrett replied:
"I must watch Mr Brooks. I keep forgetting to Netflix it.
Since we're adding Van Sant movies, how 'bout Elephant. The exteriors (at least) were shot here (can't remember if the interiors were: I was new to PDX then and haven't seen it since). And how 'bout Drugstore Cowboy (a movie I don't like much)?
Regardless: Paranoid Park's good? We're going to show it at C21 and I'm excited to see it. Is it another of his string of outrageously pretentious (which isn't to say worthless) flicks, or has he returned to normal-er storytelling? (Is there a half-a-minute-long shot of a bush in this one, too?)
Oh, man! I just remembered the greatest PDX-shot movie of all time! Ice Cube's family romp, Are We There Yet? (In pellicola veritas!)
Me You and Everyone We Knew - er, Know - was filmed in LA, but may as well have been shot here, since it mentions loads of PDX places.
Short Circuit, also (I wrote 'too' just then, but reading it aloud was misleading in a homonym sort of way...), according to Google. (No disassemble!) Five Easy Pieces? Really? Bandits!
(I should read the article to see if any of these were mentioned....)"
6 Feb 02 '08 12:23pm:
doug replied:
"I just saw BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON the other night night, which is shot in and around PDX, although the only thing that gives it away is the prominent use of Johnny B's, a.k.a. "that coffeehouse at Hawthorne and 11th or so that's never open". It's ... uneven, but has awesome bits.
Jarrett, I expect you might hate MR. BROOKS, but I have a huge soft spot for it. Just go in expecting massive helpings of ridonkulousness. If at any point you find yourself going "but THAT doesn't make sense", you are in the wrong mood to watch the film.
PARANOID PARK is much more story-driven than GERRY/ELEPHANT/LAST DAYS; though it certainly absorbs things from that thrill-ogy, it's not part of it by any stretch. I really liked it, although I found its use of music a bit weird. "