As someone who’s been involved with BendFilm since its inaugural year, I’m definitely not the person to look to for a completely unbiased look at the festival. There have been films I’ve acted in, written and screened at the fest, and I’ve met some of my cinematic heroes smoking cigarettes in Tin Pan Alley. All […]
Film
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Lost and Found
“Searching” looks for new ways to tell a story
David Kim’s 16-year-old daughter Margot is missing. She’s a good student who takes piano lessons, helps her classmates study and has a seemingly open relationship with her father, who’s still reeling from the death of his wife. David doesn’t talk to Margot about her departed mother; instead filling their time chatting about the latest episode […]
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Streaming Killed the Video Star
A new doc muses over “The Last Blockbuster”
Bend is famous for so many different and random things; not just our majestic lakes, snow-capped mountains or miles of trails, and not even limited to our beer, coffee and…a lot more beer. We’re now newly famous for having the last Blockbuster Video in the country, nay, the entire world! Something you could find three […]
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Flight of the Butterfly
The new remake of Papillon offers little
We know Hollywood is basically bankrupt when it comes to genuinely original ideas and telling a story that hasn’t already proven to turn a profit…even a minor one. Every year critics and audiences alike complain about the staggering number of remakes, reboots, sequels, re-imaginings, rebootquels and se-boots. But here they are anyway. Entertain us. I’ll […]
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Re-Birth of a Nation
Spike Lee throws down against the Klan
There are few filmmakers with such a mastery of tone, structure and storytelling as Spike Lee. His visual style and technical adventurousness are his hallmarks—but he never lets that style overwhelm the story he’s telling, even when he goes full bananas in films such as “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” and “Chi-Raq.” Since Lee came […]
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Miles to Go
Wahlberg is still set on being a true American hero
I think most can agree that Mark Wahlberg is a dick. Ignoring his apparently bottomless need to recreate American tragedies, he’s obviously the guy who kicked sand in your face at the beach. This is a man who told Men’s Journal in 2012 that he probably could have stopped one of the 9/11 planes from hitting […]
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Big Screen Creepypasta
The skinny on Slender Man
Making a movie about Slender Man in 2018 is akin to making a biopic about the creators of the Macarena. The time has passed. Don’t get me wrong—filmmakers can still get a ton of mileage from one of the first internet urban legends, but some of the true stories that emerged from the legend are […]
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May the Source Be With You
Public humiliation, ’50s housewives and countless riddlesIn Pod We Trust:Bingeworthy:
Here we are, living though another sweltering hot week while we wait for the sweet release of air conditioning to take us away on its centrally cooled wings. With MoviePass changing its service from unlimited movies to only three movies a month, it’s financially understandable to be a little discriminating when it comes to theatrical […]
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Collective Childhoods
Middle school will always be the same
If I make something half as beautiful as Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” during the course of my life, I will die a satisfied man. Making a coming-of-age movie can be such a gutsy proposition because of our individualized middle school and high school experiences. “Lady Bird” was such a successful movie because it found the […]
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Modern Propaganda
When “Fake News” disguises itself as documentary
It’s somewhat exhausting living in a time in which “Fake News” has become a rallying cry. When it first became a meme, it seemed like a genuinely important distinction to make for people who’ve spent most of their lives swallowing everything the “media” was dishing out. Not only does everyone want to believe the stuff […]
