Oregon based media and communications consultant Mark Sanchez is on the fifth or sixth step of his recovery program from his career as a television news reporter. And that’s the way it is. Mark has been an Oregonian since the Reagan administration and shows no signs of leaving. He lives in Portland — a city that is famous for its transit system, its rain, its independent film community and, lately, for the TV series Portlandia, which Mark notes is about half-true, but to protect confidential sources he won’t say which half.
The Smackdown Since a lot of romantic comedies have a wedding somewhere in the film, the reasoning must go, why not have an entire movie about them? From “The Wedding Singer” to “Wedding Crashers” to […]
The Smackdown Few events test character like a crisis close to home. A pair of recent low-key films (both now being mailed to Academy members around Hollywood) address the issue of family members succumbing to […]
The Smackdown Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but parody sits you on the whoopee cushion. That prospect faces any movie taking itself too seriously. Film biographies routinely serve up large doses of […]
The Smackdown Hand it to filmmaker Tim Burton for audacity. It’s career-defining / career-threatening to revamp an acknowledged masterwork like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This operatic tale of bloody revenge earned […]
The Smackdown Blood is thicker than water means, of course, that family counts more than anything else. Here are a couple of movies where the blood is also bloodier. From Cain and Abel to Michael and […]
The Smackdown Audiences love gangsters on film. They appeared as early as 1912 in D.W. Griffith’s Musketeers of Pig Alley. Little Caesar, Public Enemy and Scarface set the tone in the early 1930s for generations of […]
The Smackdown Strong stories well told often paint a nuanced picture of the human landscape where the events unfold. Mystic River (2003) rolled out a disturbing tale of murder, betrayal and moral ambiguity with images […]
The Smackdown Revenge in the movies has plenty of fans, not many champions. It’s not a motivation that ennobles. Still, it satisfies many audiences when “you done me wrong” has lethal consequences. Dirty Harry (1971), […]
October 10 Birthday Greetings As the English writer and gay icon Quentin Crisp once remarked, "If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style." By that standard, Ed D. Wood, Junior achieved Hollywood […]
The Smackdown Many actors will tell you in order of preference working continuously tops the list, closely followed by portraying quirky, obsessed characters. Billy Bob Thornton knows how to pick ’em: Sling Blade, Monster’s Ball, […]