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Homegrown: Phoenix, Oregon Rises Like a Well-Made Pizza Crust
It’s not Hollywood, but it’s so Oregon, which is even better, right? No car chases, nobody dies, and no guns. How awesome! Phoenix, Oregon is a fun, low-key “Zen-of-making-pizza-pies” kind of movie with an unusual shoot-out of the bowling kind. This 108-minute flick about hope was produced by Gary and

Pride on the Silver Screen: Three Smart and Emotional Documentaries
The Times of Harvey Milk There is an interview somewhere in the middle of The Times of Harvey Milk with a union man. In today’s politically-correct world he would be a Neanderthal, and using language and prejudices no longer permissible in polite society. He unabashedly admits his bias against gay
This Place: The Oregon Coast is a Place Like No Other
Do you love the Oregon Coast? Those who know its wild and rugged edges would have a hard time saying “no”, and they’ll appreciate the short film This Place, which quietly and gently attempts to capture the natural and cultural beauty of the Oregon Coast. I say “attempts” because as

We’ve Lived in Those Apartments: Local Short Film Loose Ends Really Takes You Back
We’ve lived in those apartments. We’ve looked directly into the faces of those mountains. The thing about local film in a relatively small area is that recognizability and nostalgia get bonus points. Loose Ends sets the (familiar) scene with friends-turned-drug-peddling-colleagues Logan and Adam as the growing distance between their lifestyles

Suffragette’s Disappointing Battle: Never Has Women’s Suffrage Been So Boring
In a tense moment in Suffragette, famed women’s rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) bellows, “We don’t want to be lawbreakers; we want to be lawmakers!” to the cheers of women below. It’s one of approximately 30 highly quotable lines peppered throughout the film, providing more than enough fodder for
Shit Sand-witch: Diesel’s Out of Gas in The Last Witch Hunter
I wasn’t expecting so many CG insects. The Last Witch Hunter is jam-packed with them—swarms of computer-drawn bugs, armies of pixelated creepy crawlies, plagues’ and pestilences’ worth of digital flies and beetles and ticks and moths. I finished watching Vin Diesel’s new fantasy action flick less than an hour ago,

Oregon’s Legendary Pinot Noir Wine History
OPB’s wine documentary shows where our wine came from Full disclosure: I drank a hard cider while watching this documentary, not wine. Blasphemous, I know, but I learned my lesson, as I was craving the good stuff by the end. The “Oregon Wine: Grapes of Place” was first shown on
Trainwreck: Not An Actual Trainwreck
It’s Not a Schumer! By Megan Burbank – @meganireneb Here’s fun drinking game to play while watching, oh, ANY romantic comedy: Take a sip whenever you see (1) a girl reporter in the big city, who, despite working in print media, you never see actually working (or, okay, crying because
The Sad Story of a Girl Named ‘Amy’
Amy Winehouse Documentary Hits Theaters July 9 by Marjorie Skinner – @MJSkinner800 From a distance, it’s hard to tell how much celebrity suffering is theater. Asif Kapadia’s shattering documentary Amy certainly qualifies as theater in its own right, piecing together great amounts of archival, never-before-seen video footage of late musician
Review: Aloha – White Like Me
Aloha: Another Movie About a Sad White Guy At this point, you know what you’re getting with a Cameron Crowe movie: a sad white guy trying to find himself, a series of on-the-nose music cues, and a bunch of great actors who don’t get much to do. Crowe’s made some