Sliding Into OMSI

Bill Plympton is coming to OMSI to preview his upcoming film, Slide, at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology.

BY ERIC ASH

Since 2002, the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology has highlighted independent film worldwide. Once an international event visiting cities across four continents, the festival ultimately made Portland its permanent home by 2022.

PFCAT returns this August at OMSI, with events at the museum’s Empirical Theater, as well as the Kendall Planetarium, from Thursday through Sunday, Aug. 3-6. And on Friday, Aug. 4, the Empirical Theater will play host to Oregon animator Bill Plympton, with a retrospective of his works and clips from his upcoming feature, Slide, plus Q&A and autograph sessions.

In his field, Plympton is an international treasure. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, called him “the god of animation,” though in a 2012 interview at Australia’s Gold Coast Film Festival, Plympton humorously asserts that Groening was drunk at the time.

Fittingly for a friend of Groening’s, Plympton’s portfolio includes a Simpsons couch gag in the style of his own Oscar-nominated 1987 short Your Face. He also animated “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Don’t Download This Song” music video, which was nominated for an Annie. Many of Plympton’s animations, short and long form alike, are distinctly quirky and surreal, consistently using colored pencils for texture.

Plympton was born in Portland in 1946, and raised on a farm in Oregon City. “It was a gentleman’s farm…my father was a banker at Oregon Savings Bank,” he tells WW, adding, “It was closer to Estacada. There were a lot of logging trucks that came by at all hours.”

Plympton’s rural childhood is something he has in common with fellow animator Don Bluth, who grew up on a dairy farm in Payson, Utah. Like Bluth, Plympton was greatly influenced by early animated Walt Disney films; his first exposure to animation was seeing Disney’s Sleeping Beauty at age 13. Plympton also cites visual influences in Tex Avery, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and Jacques Tati, whose 1958 film Mon Oncle made Plympton’s 2008 Criterion Collection Top 10.

Growing up in the rural stretches of Clackamas County helped shape Slide. Plympton describes the film as being about a logging town, where “there’s a lot of lumberjacks, fishermen, and fog…and corruption. A mystical Clint Eastwood-type cowboy gets rid of the bad guys with his music.”

The music of Slide Guitar (the cowboy’s name) takes after the old country musicians Plympton’s father liked, such as Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Patsy Cline. “I played a lot of slide guitar when I was younger, when I moved to New York,” he says.

Animation can be a time-intensive labor of love, and Slide is no exception. “I did every drawing on this film,” Plympton says. “It’s about 40,000 drawings. It’s pretty rare, but for me, it was a joy. It took me seven years. COVID made it difficult to finance.” For that financing, Plympton turned to Kickstarter. As of May 10, 2023, 593 backers had pledged a total of $84,145, slightly above the campaign’s goal of $77,800.

Earlier this year, Slide was a “feature film contrechamp” (literally “reverse shot,” figuratively “out of competition”) official selection at the Annecy Festival in France. Also present at Annecy this year was Guillermo del Toro, whose Oscar-winning stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio was partly produced at ShadowMachine in Portland, as well as del Toro’s own studio in Guadalajara.

The success of Pinocchio has raised hopes that more animated films made outside Hollywood can prosper.

“I am happy that they do have a category [at the Oscars] for animated features,” Plympton says. “Slide has a shot, thanks to Guillermo, to get noticed at the Academy.” He anticipates Slide will be completed by September of this year.

Plympton adds, “If Mel Brooks became a cartoonist, and Clint Eastwood too, and they made a film together, it’d be something like Slide.” Who could resist that pitch?

SEE IT: Bill Plympton will attend the 2023 Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology at OMSI’s Empirical Theater, 1945 SE Water Ave., Suite 100, 503-797-4000, omsi. edu. 8 pm Friday, Aug. 4. $25.

Talk To Me

Talk to Me is the scariest horror movie of 2023. Walking the fine line between referential and redundant—good horror filmmakers employ motifs, but bad horror filmmakers rely on them—twin-brother duo Danny and Michael Philippou stun in their directorial debut, delivering a gripping (pun intended) plot driven by starmaking performances. Sophie Wilde shines as Mia, a grieving teenage girl reeling from her mother’s passing two years earlier. Then, a paranormal party trick lifts the veil between the living and the dead—and teens recklessly abuse it for entertainment purposes (shocking!). In some ways, Talk to Me is a natural evolution beyond the Ouija board, the deadest horse of all horror tropes. In others, it’s an existential exploration that leads to a genre-defining question: Can new rules be made and/or old ones broken? Either way, there are moments when the movie makes the theater feel like a vacuum, sucking you into a vortex of heart-racing, chest-clutching, jaw-dropping terror. It’s the enthralling kind of horror that you can’t look away from. R. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge.

AFIRE

In the tradition of his many compromised romances (Phoenix, Transit, Undine), writer-director Christian Petzold explores connections missed, made and retroactively illuminated during a novelist’s work-cation on the Baltic Sea in Afire In black denim and gray New Balances, Leon (Thomas Schubert) is practically in uniform as someone who hates the beach. He’s destined to miss out, but the audience doesn’t. Petzold lets us enjoy Leon’s companions—his friend Felix (Langston Uibel), their unexpected housemate Nadja (Paula Beer), and a local lifeguard (Enno Trebs)—and Germany’s north coast. All the while, Leon frets over his manuscript, and a forest fire rages in the distance. Dreamy yet frustrated, blunt yet forgiving, Afire holds space for modern life’s many scales—a creative’s navel-gazing, less selfish characters’ acceptance of provincial life, existential dread. Reveling in Nadja’s beauty, intelligence and generosity (she’s always making goulash), Petzold keeps challenging the audience with Leon’s shaky grip on protagonist status. Often, this sour lump is the last character whose vantage point you’d want in this film, but that’s all part of Petzold’s ever-fascinating “both/and” filmmaking. People will still take meaningful vacations as the world burns; a bad writer can tell a good story; and Nadja will offer Leon a welcoming smile because they’ve shared a deeply imperfect moment. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

Oppenheimer

At the start of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, raindrops fall; at the end, fire rages. You’ll feel it burn long after the end credits roll. Nolan has made violent movies before, but Oppenheimer is not just about physical devastation. It submerges you in the violence of a guilt-ravaged soul, leaving you feeling unsettled and unclean. With agitated charisma and vulnerability, Cillian Murphy embodies J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist whose mind birthed the atomic bomb. When we first meet him, he’s a curly-haired lad staring at a puddle, but he swiftly evolves into an excitable visionary leading a cadre of scientists into the deserts of New Mexico, where they will ultimately build and test a plutonium device (referred to as “the gadget”) on July 16, 1945. What saves the film from becoming a connect-the-dots biopic is Nolan’s ingenious chronicle of the post-World War II rivalry between Oppenheimer and Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). The more Oppenheimer fights to put “the nuclear genie back in the bottle,” the more Strauss seethes and schemes, thrusting the movie into a maze of double-crosses that echo the exhilarating games of perception in Nolan’s 2001 breakout hit Memento Of course, the thrill can’t (and shouldn’t) last. As many as 226,000 people were killed when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they haunt the film like ghosts—especially when Oppenheimer imagines a charred corpse beneath his foot. A man dreamed; people died. All a work of art can do is evoke their absence.

R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Cinemagic, Clackamas, Division, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One.

BARBIE

Once upon a time, Barbie dolls liberated all women from tyranny. The end… at least according to the first few minutes of Barbie, a sleek and satirical fantasia from director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women). Set in the utopian kingdom of Barbieland, the movie dramatizes the existential crises of the winkingly named Stereotypical Barbie. She’s played by Margot Robbie, who was last seen battling a rattlesnake in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and her misadventures in Barbie are hardly less bizarre. Plagued by flat feet, cellulite and fears of death, Barbie seeks the source of her ailments in the real world, bringing along a beamingly inadequate Ken (Ryan Gosling) with catastrophic consequences: Awed by images of Bill Clinton and Ronald

Reagan, Ken becomes a crusading men’s rights activist, leading a revolt against the government of Barbieland and instituting bros-first martial law. And they say originality is dead! With its absurdist wit, glitzy musical numbers, and earnest ruminations on whether matriarchy and patriarchy can coexist, Barbie is easily one of the most brazen movies released by a major studio. Yes, its tidy ending betrays its anarchic spirit—after insisting that empowerment can’t be neatly packaged in a doll box, the film seems to say, “No, wait! It can!”—but it would be churlish to deny the charm of Gerwig’s buoyant creation. In an age when genuine cinematic joy is rare, we’re all lucky to be passengers in Barbie’s hot-pink plastic convertible. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad, Cinema 21, Clackamas, Eastport, Empirical, Fox Tower, Joy Cinema, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, Studio One, Wunderland Milwaukie.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA

TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM

Part of what makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles unique among other franchises is its malleability. Reinvention is as much a part of the Turtles’ DNA as glowing green ooze and a love of pizza—and in the case of Mutant Mayhem the recipe is a blend of family dynamics, grandiose sci-fi and heartfelt comedy. For the first time in franchise history, the Heroes in a Half-Shell are actually voiced by teenagers: Leonardo (Nicholas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), Donatello (Micah Abbey) and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) goof around and clown on each other like any other kids, and their interactions make for the movie’s strongest moments, comedically and emotionally. Things get mighty chaotic in the back half when we’re introduced to the megalomaniacal Superfly (Ice Cube) and his cadre of mutant henchmen (voiced by several recognizable names pulled from producer-writer Seth Rogen’s contact list), but it all fits with the movie’s eager, excited vibe. There’s a love for the boundless possibilities of the TMNT world and a desire to bring as much of it to life as possible, all through the filter of a wonky, hand-drawn aesthetic that makes for some spectacular creature designs and doesn’t skimp on the martial-arts action. The quest for a perfect TMNT film remains incomplete, but Mutant Mayhem is nonetheless a fine effort: a stylish, fast-paced, eminently fun take on the material that updates the Turtles for the modern world without losing the oddball charm that has made them fixtures of pop culture since 1984. Cowabunga, dudes! PG. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lake Theater, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Plaza.

Theater Camp

In Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s hysterical mockumentary Theater Camp, self-delusion drives youth theater camp AdirondACTS and the lives of its eccentric campers. After the camp’s founder, Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), falls into a coma, devoted counselors Rebecca-Diane (Gordon) and Amos (Ben Platt) return to AdirondACTS to put on a biographical musical about their matriarchal founder— while crypto-bro Troy Rubinsky (Jimmy Tatro) flounders as he attempts to keep the camp afloat in his mother’s absence. Written by Gordon, Lieberman, Platt and Noah Galvin (who plays a stage manager), the screenplay delivers sharp deadpan humor as it satirizes theater kids’ notorious self-seriousness (children in a seemingly furtive drug deal negotiate for “throat coat” tea bags and Amos calls a child using a tear stick onstage “Lance Armstrong for actors”). The actors’ egos contrast with the camp’s financial ruin and the counselors’ stale individual careers; self-delusion becomes power in surviving a profession based on attention and rejection. Most scenes were improvised with rough outlines, a method that causes the story to wander, but highlights the actors’ craft and chemistry. It’s all captured with swift camera work that drenches the audience in summer camp nostalgia, a sweet blur seemingly over just as it began. PG-13. ROSE WONG. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Fox Tower, Living Room.

Haunted Mansion

Loath as Disney would be to admit it, Haunted Mansion pulls from the same playbook as its failed 2003 attempt to turn the titular theme park ride into a blockbuster: Once again, the studio has created a horror comedy that leans heavily on spook-house kitsch and self-aware snark. So what’s different this time? A slightly better script and a postmodern approach to the story, courtesy of director Justin Simien (Dear White People). Instead of an ordinary family facing the 999 specters that haunt Gracey Manor, the film assembles a ragtag team of discount ghostbusters to stop the haunt— namely a washed-up scientist (LaKeith Stanfield), a fast-talking priest (Owen Wilson), a sassy medium (Tiffany Haddish), and an excitable historian (Danny DeVito), plus the house’s current owner (Rosario Dawson) and her adolescent son (Chase W. Dillon, the surprise MVP of the cast). The actors have fun riffing on the material, but the jokes are hit or miss and the scares are (understandably) toned down to remain kid-friendly. There’s an ongoing theme of not wallowing in grief that adds a welcome weight to the story, but it’s diluted by every character having their own miniarc and a mystery investigation that has a few too many steps. Fans of the Magic Kingdom ride and kids with a taste for the macabre will likely find something to enjoy in Haunted Mansion, but for most everyone else it’s a passable but skippable trip to the other side. PG-13. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Division, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Plaza, Wunderland Milwaukie.

ACROSS

1. Anti-apartheid org.

4. Originated

9. Fabric (which is underneath the grid, in this puzzle)

14. Fan noise?

15. Concert venue

16. Repeated cry in the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop"

17. Goal of some start-ups

18. Poker player's wear, maybe

20. "Rubber Capital of the World"

22. Pad kee mao cuisine

23. "Cats" monogram

24. Stoller's musical partner

26. Stir-fry vegetable

29. "Make love" follower

31. Diner shout

33. Graphic often including insets of AK and HI

35. Dog of Hagar the Horrible

36. "The X-Files" sightings

39. Armadillo feature

42. "Me and Bobby McGee" writer Kristofferson

43. Maroon 5's "___ Like Jagger"

45. "Werewolves of London" singer Warren

47. Install beforehand, as software

50. Philosophy of oneness

53. Inert gaseous element

55. Delay

57. Caltech degs.

58. Just ___ (minimal amount)

60. "I Will Be" singer Lewis

61. Uncaging (also, kinda the opposite of what this puzzle is)

65. Spheroid

66. "Buy U a Drank" rapper

67. Chopin composition

68. 1970s Cambodian leader Lon ___

69. To this point

70. Royal ___ (butter cookie brand with those reusable blue tins)

71. "What'd I tell ya?"

Down

1. Helvetica alternative

2. Laptop item (which should go underneath the circled answer in the same column)

3. Dance design, informally

4. It may be presented first

5. "It's the end of an ___!"

6. Columbia Sportswear president Boyle who starred in their "One Tough Mother" ads

7. Goth necklace designs

8. 1998 Olympics city

9. One-third of a three-step

10. Primus singer/bassist Claypool

11. Someone who gathers and sells shellfish

12. Reference books that can expand your vocabulary, quaintly

13. Garden equipment

19. One of two guards in a classic logic problem, e.g.

21. With a not-too-bright approach

25. Interstate access inspiring you to purge all bunkum and nonsense from your life—not just in relation to health issues, but everything. It's a favorable time to find out what's genuinely good and true for you. Do the necessary research and investigation.

27. Law enforcement orgs.

©2023 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Emotions are not inconvenient distractions from reason and logic. They are key to the rigorous functioning of our rational minds. Neurologist Antonio Damasio proved this conclusively in his book *Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain*. The French philosopher's famous formula—"I think, therefore I am"—offers an inadequate suggestion about how our intelligence works best. This is always true, but it will be especially crucial for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks. Here's your mantra, courtesy of another French philosopher, Blaise Pascal: "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know."

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The famous Taurus TV star Jay Leno once did a good deed for me. I was driving my Honda Accord on a freeway in Los Angeles when he drove up beside me in his classic Lamborghini. Using hand signals, he conveyed to me the fact that my trunk was open, and stuff was flying out. I waved in a gesture of thanks and pulled over onto the shoulder. I found that two books and a sweater were missing, but my laptop and briefcase remained. Hooray for Jay! In that spirit, Taurus, and in accordance with current astrological omens, I invite you to go out of your way to help and support strangers and friends alike. I believe it will lead to unexpected benefits.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "I’m amazed that anyone gets along!" marvels self-help author Sark. She says it's astonishing that love ever works at all, given our "idiosyncrasies, unconscious projections, re-stimulations from the past, and the relationship history of our partners." I share her wonderment. On the other hand, I am optimistic about your chances to cultivate interesting intimacy during the coming months. From an astrological perspective, you are primed to be extra wise and lucky about togetherness. If you send out a big welcome for the lessons of affection, collaboration, and synergy, those lessons will come in abundance.

28. Whittling tool

30. N.C. capital, for short

32. Quart divs.

34. 1990 Literature Nobelist Octavio ___

36. Diamond expert

37. How serious players play

38. Wear out, as a welcome

40. President pro ___

41. Acronym popularized by Rachael Ray

44. Absorb, with "up"

46. Like the eyebrows in a 2014 viral video

48. "Pictures ___ Exhibition" (Mussorgsky work)

49. Completely avoided

51. Finite units of energy during the day, in a coping mechanism theory

52. Randall ___, creator of XKCD

54. '90s treaty acronym

56. Postpone indefinitely (or where you'd see what this puzzle represents)

57. This one, in Spain

59. Brown, in Bordeaux

62. 50-50, for instance

63. 1099-___ (bank tax form)

64. Mag staffers

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "Did you learn how to think or how to believe?" When my friend Amelie was nine years old, her father teased her with this query upon her return home from a day at school. It was a pivotal moment in her life. She began to develop an eagerness to question all she was told and taught. She cultivated a rebellious curiosity that kept her in a chronic state of delighted fascination. Being bored became virtually impossible. The whole world was her classroom. Can you guess her sign? Gemini! I invite you to make her your role model in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the coming weeks, I advise you not to wear garments like a transparent Gianfranco Ferre black mesh shirt with a faux-tiger fur vest and a coral-snake jacket that shimmers with bright harlequin hues. Why? Because you will have most success by being downto-earth, straightforward, and in service to the fundamentals. I’m not implying you should be demure and reserved, however. On the contrary: I hope you will be bold and vivid as you present yourself with simple grace and lucid authenticity.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 1811, Leo scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776–1856) formulated a previously unknown principle about the properties of molecules. Unfortunately, his revolutionary idea wasn't acknowledged and implemented until 1911, 100 years later. Today his well-proven theory is called Avogadro's law. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Leo, you will experience your equivalent of his 1911 event in the coming months. You will receive your proper due. Your potential contributions will no longer be mere potential. Congratulations in advance!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Israeli poet Yona Wallach mourned the fact that her soul felt far too big for her, as if she were always wearing the clothes of a giant on her small body. I suspect you may be experiencing a comparable feeling right now, Virgo. If so, what can you do about it? The solution is NOT to shrink your soul. Instead, I hope you will expand your sense of who you are so your soul fits better. How might you do that? Here’s a suggestion to get you started: Spend time summoning memories from throughout your past. Watch the story of your life unfurl like a movie.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Nineteenth-century Libran physician James Salisbury had strong ideas about the proper ingredients of a healthy diet. Vegetables were toxic, he believed. He created Salisbury steak, a dish made of ground beef and onions, and advised everyone to eat it three times a day. Best to wash it down with copious amounts of hot water and coffee, he said. I bring his kooky ideas to your attention in hopes of

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Please don’t make any of the following statements in the next three weeks: 1. “I took a shower with my clothes on.” 2. “I prefer to work on solving a trivial little problem rather than an interesting dilemma that means a lot to me.” 3. “I regard melancholy as a noble emotion that inspires my best work.” On the other hand, Sagittarius, I invite you to make declarations like the following: 1. “I will not run away from the prospect of greater intimacy— even if it’s scary to get closer to a person I care for.” 2. “I will have fun exploring the possibilities of achieving more liberty and justice for myself.”

3. “I will seek to learn interesting new truths about life from people who are unlike me.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Champions of the capitalist faith celebrate the fact that we consumers have over 100,000 brand names we can purchase. They say it’s proof of our marvelous freedom of choice. Here’s how I respond to their cheerleading: Yeah, I guess we should be glad we have the privilege of deciding which of 50 kinds of shampoo is best for us. But I also want to suggest that the profusion of these relatively inconsequential options may distract us from the fact that certain of our other choices are more limited. In the coming weeks, Capricorn, I invite you to ruminate about how you can expand your array of more important choices.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): My best friend in college was an Aquarius, as is my favorite cousin. Two ex-girlfriends are Aquarians, and so was my dad. The talented singer with whom I sang duets for years was an Aquarius. So I have intimate knowledge of the Aquarian nature. And in honor of your unbirthday—the time halfway between your last birthday and your next—I will tell you what I love most about you. No human is totally comfortable with change, but you are more so than others. To my delight, you are inclined to ignore the rule books and think differently. Is anyone better than you at coordinating your energies with a group's? I don’t think so. And you’re eager to see the big picture, which means you’re less likely to get distracted by minor imperfections and transitory frustrations. Finally, you have a knack for seeing patterns that others find hard to discern. I adore you!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Is the first sip always the best? Do you inevitably draw the most vivid enjoyment from the initial swig of coffee or beer? Similarly, are the first few bites of food the most delectable, and after that your taste buds get diminishing returns? Maybe these descriptions are often accurate, but I believe they will be less so for you in the coming weeks. There's a good chance that flavors will be best later in the drink or the meal. And that is a good metaphor for other activities, as well. The further you go into every experience, the greater the pleasure and satisfaction will be—and the more interesting the learning.

Homework: Make up a fantastic story about your future self, then go make it happen. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com