oregon Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Man Commits Suicide While Watching 'Watchmen'
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy », Newsstand »
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In the latest of what feels like a flurry of unfortunate movie theater incidents, a 24-year-old man in Eugene, Oregon shot himself in the head while taking in a late-night Watchmen screening at a Regal Cinemas. According to a story over KMTR.com -- which was passed to us by Cinematical reader Ian G. -- it was about halfway through the film when theatergoers heard a "popping" noise, and it was shortly after that when the man was discovered in the back of the theater with a gunshot wound to the head. The closest audience member was two rows away, and there were about ten folks total in attendance.
Currently there's no word on why the man chose to bring a gun to the screening of Watchmen and decide to shoot himself halfway through. Was it a completely random decision on his part? Did it have anything to do with the film itself, which spends most of its time dealing with a potential nuclear war? Did a particular shot or scene prove too much for the man, or were his suicidal issues completely separate from the film itself? If any of these questions are answered at a later date, we'll update this post. In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.
With shootings inside movie theaters becoming more frequent, should metal detectors be added to all theaters or is that taking it too far?
Oregon Invaded by ... Bruce Campbell!
Filed under: Comedy », Horror », Casting », Fandom », Comic/Superhero/Geek »
Portland's own Shawn Levy is a really cool guy. We once spent about ten minutes shooting the (frozen) breeze prior to a Sundance screening, and I've been sure to keep up with his reviews and his movie blog ever since.Anyway, it looks like film critic Shawn Levy (who, just so you know, is NOT the Shawn Levy who directed Just Married, Cheaper By the Dozen and The Pink Panther -- although it would be funny it they were the same guy) has now graduated to Scoopmaster Extraordinaire. In this Oregonian blog, Levy makes mention of three independent film productions that have chosen the lovely state of Oregon as their home base: The movie version of John Krakauer's Into the Wild (which Sean Penn is directing), Robert Benton's romantic drama Feast of Love, and ...
Are you ready for it?
Bruce Campbell is directing and starring as himself in a horror/comedy called My Name is Bruce. Synopsis: "A comic fantasy film about Campbell's being continually mistaken for Ash, the droll vanquisher of demons he played in the Evil Dead films. When a small town in Southern Oregon is besieged by some sort of monster, the locals call on Campbell to rescue them." Cool!
Sounds like a truly geek-friendly premise, which means I'll probably dig it a lot. Here's hoping it's more like Bruce's recent books (this one and this one) and less like Bruce's recent movies (this one and this one). Interestingly enough, My Name is Bruce was written not by Campbell, but by Mark Verheiden, who's known in genre circles for being a pretty darn solid writer. (He's done comic books, movies and TV shows, with his most notable titles being The Mask, Timecop, Smallville and Battlestar Galactica.)
Oregon Gets an Animation Studio
Filed under: Animation », Tech Stuff », Newsstand »
If you're an aspiring animator, you might want to start looking at real estate in Oregon., becausePhil Knight's new animation company, Laika Entertainment, is about to expand. Knight plans to build a 30-acre campus in Tualatin, Oregon, not too far from his Nike headquarters. With the new complex and studio will come more openings for talented animators to work on Laika's first two films, Coraline (based on Neil Gaiman's book, pictured) and Jack and Ben's Animated Adventure. Right now Laika is centered in Portland with less than 200 employees, but they plan on hiring about 400 more by the time the campus opens in 2008.
Although Knight hasn't always been the most admirable man in business (see Michael Moore's The Big One), I am excited about his move into movie-making. As you can expect from the man who made sneakers one of the most important consumer products of our time, he is taking great care to learn his new business in depth so that he can be just as successful with animated films as he is with high-tops. Of course, the thing I keep thinking is that he could easily do some cross-promotion by producing a sequel to Space Jam. But he's probably smarter than that.
Sundance Review: Clear Cut
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Sundance », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »
The plummeting price of digital cameras and editing software, combined with the death spiral of network news, has resulted in a booming documentary offering over the past couple of Sundances. The public loves the genre, and like a William Gibson novel, it seems like everyone is now recording everything. If there's a conflict, obscure sport, or flamboyant personality you can be sure someone, somewhere, is making it into a documentary, and the result is a crop of boring-to-serviceable documentaries that are occasionally more suited for cable distribution than theatrical.
I thought for sure Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon would fall into the television news documentary category, but was pleasantly surprised that the films excellent pacing and structure made it truly a film--not a Frontline episode.
Clear Cut, tells the story of a timber town in transition: as the blue collar jobs leave, the liberal information workers move in. They bring with them some unwelcome values including what locals perceive as a pro-environment, pro-gay, and ...
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
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Interracial Harmony: 'Ninja Assassin' vs. 'Blind Side'
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