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Is it just me, or is the Eugene theater scene undergoing something of an ascendance these days? Is there a minor renaissance of the dramatic arts going on in our midst? Could it be that, along with the hip, new vitality of our downtown, pushing out decades of apocalyptic slouch and economic zombification, this city is also experiencing a similar surge in creative endeavors and the venues that host them? Continue reading
Having just watched Jonathan Glazer’s latest movie, Under the Skin, I’m now thoroughly convinced that we have entered a post-human age — an era of catastrophic reckoning in which humanity, threatened with inevitable extinction, will figure less and less as the engineer of its own destiny. Continue reading
This year, Cinema Pacific packs quite an international punch, with a focus on films from Chile and Taiwan and a slew of interactive events, EW spoke to Festival Director Richard Herskowitz to find out what not to miss. Here are some of the highlights: Chile’s Crackerjack Playwright Continue reading
Remember when Jude Law was pretty? Go back and watch Existenz, or A.I. or Gattaca, when he was often blonde and proper, and always a little bit cold. Then watch Dom Hemingway, in which he is, in so many ways, the opposite: earthy and sweaty and living it up. His hair sweeps back from a sharply pointed hairline, dyed dark brown and never clean; he’s carrying just enough extra weight (by movie-star standards) that his clothes bunch and puff in the wrong places, like real-person clothes. Continue reading
A very involved thesis could be written about the deluge of prickly issues raised in Nymphomaniac Vol. I & II, Lars von Trier’s four-hour, two-film epic about sexual discovery and degradation. Continue reading
“Sol Seed is so much more than a band. It’s kind of a way of life,” says Sky Guasco, didgeridoo player and percussionist for the popular Eugene-based group. Since Sol Seed won EW’s Next Big Thing in August 2013, the group’s been busy: “We quit our day jobs and became full-time musicians,” Guasco says. “We started touring full-time every other month. On the off-months we were recording.” Continue reading
If you’re a little wary of Lars von Trier — never sure whether you’re going to take him seriously and get laughed at, or laugh at him and find you should’ve taken him seriously — you are hardly alone. His last film, Melancholia, was surprising for not offending or pushing buttons; instead, it left me crushed and dazed. Continue reading
Whenever Hollywood, in its infinite predictability, deigns to treat the subject of advanced middle-age, it does so in such broad terms as to skirt impropriety, if not outright offense. Basically, old people in mainstream movies are played either for comic yuks, as infantilized, sexed-up geriatric assholes, or as infantilized, de-sexualized pill-popping matrons who serve as mere placeholders in some grander drama. In neither instance is age depicted as a specific human condition of adulthood, a moment in life’s journey. Continue reading
For her full-length directorial debut, 34-year-old Jenée LaMarque has made a coming-of-age film that is emotionally vulnerable, philosophically queasy, artistically imperfect and, in its own odd way, uncomfortably beautiful. It would be easy to pick on The Pretty One, the story of Laurel (Zoe Kazan), a twin who, after a car accident, assumes her dead sister’s identity: The movie is, by turns, obvious and obtuse, silly and sincere, shocking and sappy. Continue reading
Dallas Buyers Club Dallas Buyers Club focuses on Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), a homophobic leer of a man who, in 1985, was diagnosed with AIDS. McConaughey throws himself into this role of bigot-turned-crusader with gusto and skill, but it is Jared Leto, as Woodroof’s transgender partner, who walks away with the heart of the film. — Molly Templeton Continue reading