Eugene Weekly

Ava DuVernay’s Selma starts off so calmly that, despite what history promises, it’s a shock when the first moment of violence arrives. Four little girls walk down the stairs of a church. You know what this means. But what happens next occurs in a flash, a moment never explained.  What’s to explain? They’re there, and then they’re gone. It’s like the bottom drops out of the world. At that point, a man in my theater began to cry and I’m not sure he stopped.  Continue reading →

At the heart of most Hollywood films, from The Wizard of Oz to World War Z, is some perceived threat to the domestic tranquility of the nuclear family. Whether it’s a tsunami, invading aliens or a stampeding horde of zombies, the danger that rattles our cinematic daydreams is the impending chaos of social disintegration, and it typically befalls an unlikely hero (usually dad, sometimes mom) to suddenly acquire a spine and ward off the forces of evil. Continue reading →

Tim Burton’s Big Eyes falls firmly into the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up camp, which seems appropriate for a director best known for making all kinds of wonderful things up. Continue reading →

Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is a story in which many of us can find a hook that reaches out and sinks into our skin, whether it’s the delicately imploding marriage, the rage, the grief, the attempts to find a way out of oneself, the knowledge that you’ve lost your way or the satisfaction that comes from letting go.  Continue reading →

Editor's note: EW was informed by Bijou Art Cinemas after the paper went to press Tuesday that The Interview will start screening at Bijou Art Cinemas (492 E. 13th Ave.) 10:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 25. City Lights Cinemas in Florence has informed EW that they will begin screening The Interview noon Thursday, Dec. 25.   Continue reading →

Who — or, rather, what — is the Babadook? And why is it that, once you let the Babadook in, you can never get rid of it? First and foremost, The Babadook is an Australian horror film by writer-director Jennifer Kent, a former actor who apprenticed with Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier during the making of his 2003 film Dogville before going on to make her own short film, Monster, upon which The Babadook is based. Continue reading →

You might think while watching James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything that the people who made this movie have never been in a bar. There are several pub scenes, each lit in a filmy sort of blue probably meant to evoke the smoky drinking establishments of a previous era. Instead, it suggests the faux-night of a B movie.  It’s indicative of much of the film: excellent actors, ever-so-English settings and something just not quite right. Continue reading →

Nightcrawler begins as a sleek, beautifully filmed portrait of desperation in uncertain times. Under Los Angeles’ flickering lights, people are desperate to keep their jobs, or to find jobs, and a degree of dubiousness is par for the course. Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a small-time thief, stealing scrap metal for cash, when he stumbles onto a new career: At a crime scene, there’s a man with a camera, gathering footage for local news. Inspired, Bloom buys his own gear and hires an “intern,” Rick (Riz Ahmed). Continue reading →

Mockingjay, on first read, wasn’t my favorite book in the Hunger Games series — not by a long shot. A long trudge to a deadly battle, it was initially memorable for all the time Katniss seemed to spend crying in a closet, worrying about Peeta Mellark, who was captured at the end of Catching Fire’s Quarter Quell. I didn’t want crying Katniss; I wanted victorious Katniss, angry Katniss, a Katniss who would lead the rebellion against the Capital. Continue reading →

As Terence Fletcher, longtime character actor J.K. Simmons fuses bits of the roles he’s best known for — the warmth of Juno’s dad (Juno), the shoutiness of Peter Parker’s boss (Spider-Man) — into one glorious wreck of a man. Fletcher is the tyrannical leader of the best jazz band in the finest music school in the country: He shouts, he intimidates and he humiliates, and he does it all with the firm belief that his students (disappointingly, they’re all male) will benefit from it. There is no “good job” with him. Continue reading →