We've got issues.
As a nod to our age of narcissism, EW is celebrating this year’s Oscars by seeing what they have to do with us. In true Hollywood fashion, we used the most fitting methodology — Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, ahem, Separation (although you will find Kevin Bacon in the chart) — to trace each Best Picture nominee back to Oregon. We left Portland and Portlanders out of the mix because that would be, well, too easy. Continue reading
Bold = who we think will win * = who we think should win Best Film * American Hustle Captain Phillips Dallas Buyers Club Gravity Her Nebraska Philomena 12 Years a Slave The Wolf of Wall Street Best Actor Christian Bale Bruce Dern * Leonardo DiCaprio Chiwetel Ejiofor Matthew McConaughey Continue reading
Director James Ivory (Howards End, The Remains of the Day) grew up in Klamath Falls and graduated from the UO. Ivory is half of film company Merchant Ivory Productions, whose movies have received six Oscars. Director and screenplay writer Brad Bird, who graduated from Corvallis High School, nabbed Best Animated Feature Academy Awards for his films The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Continue reading
Bijou Art Cinemas 1. Philomena 2. Blue Jasmine 3. Nebraska 4. Enough Said 5. Chasing Ice 6. Inside Llewyn Davis 7. 20 Feet From Stardom 8. Quartet 9. Much Ado About Nothing 10. Amour Continue reading
Happy families are all alike, but every fucked-up family is fucked-up in its own way. Continue reading
Though only three of them are actually dark, this year’s crop of Oscar-nominated live-action shorts (now playing at Bijou Metro feels disproportionately heavy. There’s one bit of likable fluff (the Finnish “Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?”) involving a flustered family in a morning rush; there’s also a bit of humor in Mark Gill’s “The Voorman Problem,” which stars Martin Freeman as a doctor asked to examine a prisoner who claims he’s a god. Continue reading
The Great Beauty is a glorious jumble, which is fitting for a movie that’s about life, the universe and everything (to borrow a very useful phrase from Douglas Adams) — and a little bit about nothing at the same time. Plot-wise, there’s not much to it: After turning 65, novelist-turned-journalist Jep (Toni Servillo) has a bit of an existential crisis about his shiny, glamorous life. Sort of. Continue reading
Spike Jonze’s Her takes place in a clearly futuristic Los Angeles, a spotless, sparse playground for disconnected souls, filmed as a place that is perpetually sunny and disconcertingly sad. Through this shiny, metal-and-glass metropolis march hundreds of humans having the sort of disconcerting earbud conversations we’re becoming accustomed to now. These folks aren’t talking to a friend on the other side of the country, though; they’re talking to their operating systems. Continue reading
From his early career until now, director Martin Scorsese has been documenting the dark and devious side of The American Dream, where success achieved in bad faith leads to spectacular crashes and spiritual bankruptcy. Scorsese is obsessed with the Cinderella story in reverse, where the magic slipper shatters into killing shards of glass. Continue reading
Of all the things to appreciate about the new Coen brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis, I’m hung up on the color and the light. These days, it’s easy to give your photos a retro feel; just open Instagram and let the magic happen. It’s not so easy to make your entire film evoke the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, right down to the cars, the streets and the color of Dylan’s jacket, which is echoed by the bag schlepped around by Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac). Continue reading