Catching up with recent "Cort and Fatboy" podcasts:
• Friday, Feb. 18: we talked about Liam Neeson's "Unknown," my webcomics miniseries "The Sabretooth Vampire," that beautiful "Dead Island" trailer, Shane Black directing "Iron Man 3," and that Robocop statue. Plus: "Live acoustic auto-tune remixing!"
• Friday, Feb. 25: We rage against the ridiculous "snowpocalypse" fearmongering of Portland-area newscasters. I'm increasingly impolite about the Oscars. Fatboy is interviewed about "Geek: Remixed." And I quickly review "Drive Angry" and "The Revenant."
So I opened Twitter for like a second tonight, and my office was suddenly flooded with 140-character jokes about fancy outfits, skit lengths, Kirk Douglas, assorted faux pas, and Melissa Leo's ambition. Clearly it was time to live-tweet the Oscars. Or at least to live-tweet the Oscars I've always wanted to see. My alternate-universe contributions after the jump.
My contribution to The Oregonian's team coverage of PIFF Week 3....
"The Revenant" has been scoring early raves on the genre-festival circuit, and with good reason -- it may announce a cool new voice in horror-comedy in writer/director/effects-whiz Kerry Prior.
Prior's story -- which is played for lower-key laughs that an overt comedy like "Shaun of the Dead" -- concerns a soldier (David Anders) killed in Iraq who inexplicably resurrects, hangs out with his amoral stoner best friend (Chris Wylde) and decides to use his newfound thirst for blood to fight crime, with horribly mixed results.
The story's a little shaggy (at least on the "Revenant" workprint, which is what I saw) -- subplots involving Bart's girlfriend and resurrected criminals get inconsistent attention in the film's second half, and without going into detail, the ending sort of feels like it's from another movie entirely. But the film still scores -- and scores big -- on Anders and Wylde's considerable foul-mouthed buddy chemistry, Prior's sharp eye and deadpan humor, and some truly inventive splatter gags (including one awesomely crass bit involving a disembodied head that's too good to spoil).
Prior will be on hand for a Q&A after the film's "PIFF After Dark" screening at Cinema 21 on Saturday, Feb. 26. I can't wait to hear him talk about the soon-to-be-infamous severed-head bit. _____
B; United States; 110 min. (11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26 at Cinema 21)
My contribution to The Oregonian's team coverage of PIFF, Week 2....
Stellan Skarsgård wears a cloud over his head better than just about any living actor. He's perfectly cast in "A Somewhat Gentle Man" as Ulrik, a sad-sack just off a 12-year prison stint who wanders out of the clink and glumly tries to re-integrate into civilian life. Various micromanaging characters with agendas try to bat him around -- including a two-bit crime boss, a type-A mechanic, and a hot-to-trot flophouse landlady -- while Ulrik tries to forge new relationships with his estranged family and a surly secretary.
Director Hans Petter Moland has crafted a low-key, sporadically violent dramedy in which the "laughs" lie in discomfort and tone and structure rather than any overt jokes (and Moland stages the most stunningly awkward sex scenes I've seen in a movie since "MacGruber"). The film's real draw is Skarsgård's restrained performance, and the fantastic small moments when Ulrik's stoic face cracks during fleeting moments of fatherly joy. _____
B; Norway; 108 min. (showing at 2:15 p.m. on Feb. 21, Broadway; 6 p.m. on Feb. 22, Broadway; and 6 p.m. on Feb. 23, Broadway)
Among other things, Dan talked about his special "PIFF After Dark" programming for the Portland International Film Festival (programming that includes the crazy-looking horror oddity "Rubber," trailered above). He talked about his new gig programming movies for the Hollywood Theatre. And he talked about what it's like to find a massive treasure trove of vintage kung-fu movies under an abandoned movie theater.
