BY JOVE!

NOW IN THEATERS...

Jupiter Ascending, the latest from Andy and Lana Wachowski, opens this week, and hey, I ended up liking it. 

The Portland International Film Festival is also kicking off its 2013 run. Give a look at their schedule. 

As part of the Oregonian's team coverage, I reviewed:

* Corn Island from Georgia

* Life in a Fishbowl from Iceland [review to be published Tuesday]

* The Tribe from the Ukraine

Ones I've seen but did not review, but that I recommend, are The Japanese Dog, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Marie's Story, and The Clouds of Sils Maria.

I do not recommend Underdog.

More reviews from the festival next week!

Current Soundtrack: Luke Haines, Adventures in Dementia: A Micro Opera

HANG ON TO YOURSELF

NOW IN THEATERS...

It's an Academy Awards bonanza.

* Animated and Live-Action Shorts: Catch all the nominated short films in a limited program.

* Leviathan, the Russian entry in the Best Foreign Language category shows why it's a front runner.

* Still Alice earned Julianne Moore a Best Actress nod, but offers little else worth noting.

Portlanders also might head out to see the French animated film The King and the Mockingbird, newly restored after a long journey that started in the 1950s. Or you might settle in for the challenge of Lars von Trier's Dogville.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* The Bride Wore Black, Francois Truffaut's tribute to Hitchcock, featuring Jeanne Moreau as a woman bent on revenge. Now on Blu-ray.

* Port of Flowers/The Living Magoroku, the first two films of Japanese director Keisuke Kinoshita, as included in Criterion's Eclipse 41: Kinoshita and World War II.

MISSED IT...

Links I didn't post last week.

* Sit Stay Ride: The Story of America's Sidecar Dogs: a documentary with a self-explanatory title. Available digitally.

* Two music documentaries: one about Portland's the Prids, the other about the San Diego music scene of the 1980s/90s.

Current Soundtrack: The Beatles, Live at the BBC

SHOULD'VE KEPT MY EYES SHUT

NOW IN THEATERS...

* 3 Days to Kill. Wow, some people are really eager to be contenders for worst movie of 2014 and are getting started early.

* Sweet Dreams, an inspiring documentary about Rwandan women bringing ice cream to their scarred nation. 

* Visitors, the latest exercise in self-important pretension from the guy who gave us The Qatsi Trilogy. 

Also, Portlanders, you can go see:

* Sophie's Choice with film critic and Meryl Streepexpert Karina Longworth in attendance.

*  "Animals Moving the Sound of Drums and Other Movies by Jonathan Schwartz"

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* The Crimson Kimono, a 1959 punch-up from Samuel Fuller

* The Fantastic Mr. Fox, revisiting Wes Anderson's animated film now that there is a new Criterion edition

* Foreign Correspondent, an early American thriller from Hitchcock pitches in for the war effort

* Gasland Part II, continuing the Oscar-nominated political documentary

* Titus, Julie Taymor's extravagant take on one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays

Amber Heard contemplating firing her agent for 3 Days to Kill.

Amber Heard contemplating firing her agent for 3 Days to Kill.

Current Sountrack: The Beautiful South, Miaow

OFF AT THE NEXT EXIT

I didn't catch any of the big release films this week, but if you're in or around Portland, there are a couple of small-run engagements worth noting.

Tonight and Sunday afternoon, the NW Film Center is showing Fire in the Blood, a documentary about the patent obstacles keeping low-cost AIDS meds out of Africa.

Saturday night, they have a Woody Allen classic: Broadway Danny Rose.

And finally, Tuesday, head over to the Clinton for a bloody comedy from the Netherlands, Black Out.

BlackOut.jpg

Current Soundtrack: Beady Eye, BE

SAD BEAUTIFUL TRAGIC

Time for my weekly round-up of movies I've reviewed over the previous seven days. Beginning with...

NOW IN THEATERS 

*  Before Midnight , the latest in the ongoing relationship series is its deepest and most emotionally fraught, and quite easily the best. Once again starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, directed by Richard Linklater.

* Man of Steel , is neither worth loving or hating. It's boring and fun and long and loud and dazzling and doltish all at the same time.  

* And for the Oregonian this week: French animation gets arty in The Painting;   Disney's Pete's Dragon flies back to the big screen; and a life re-examined in Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal. 

WATCH IT AT HOME 

*  First Family , a tepid 1980 White House satire from writer/director Buck Henry and star Bob Newhart that lacks any political bite.

* Happy People: A Year in the Taiga , Werner Herzog's refashioning of a longer documentary looking at the life of fur trappers in Siberia.

* A Night to Remember , a screwball mystery with Loretta Young, released in 1942.

 Current Soundtrack: Yasiin Bey - Preservation, The REcstatic