Feel like someone's been playing Patriot Games with you?

For three years out of four — and in certain elections, four out of four — November is a drab, disappointing month dripping promises of dank coldness for months to come. Our various ancestors have, of course, gifted us with a multitude of holidays to aid us in enduring the winter season. But no one can argue that this election has been much of a holiday, nor that it filled us with bonny good cheer. The rosy cheeks? Lingering palm prints from the slaps of get-out-the-vote Mafia. The decorative accoutrements littering your porch? The detritus of months of charms and black magic invective for and against candidates and issues. The streets bustling with commercial activity? Lotus-eaters seeking sweet, sweet oblivion while gazing at mechanical turkeys and blinking lights.

For many of us, this election did damage not just to our lifestyles but indeed, to our very souls. What many of us don’t realize, however, is that the cinema can play an important role in both post-election recovery and the systematic depletion to zero of our banking account before Ramakwaanukkahmastice — which we might as well embrace as a goal. I’ve incorporated the health benefits of theater into a special recovery plan for Alliance readers suffering from Post-Election Lingering Trauma Disorder (PELT’D).

Here’s my soothing cinematic mind and beauty regimen:

1. See at least two wholesome films in a theater (for exercise). See suggestions elsewhere in this page.
2. Rent a number of films that have absolutely nothing to do with politics (detox). Be strict with yourself! Free Willy does not qualify, nor does Open Water…
3. Eat wisely while watching your home rentals. My suggestions include cranberries, sweet potatoes, nut breads, green bean casserole, Jello mold, marshmallow salad, bridge mix, whipped cream, cookies and fudge, grog and nog, turkey gravy and butter. These health-conscious alternatives will help you feel better in no time.
4. And lastly, indulge yourself from time to time by spending wild and unconscionable sums of money on frivolous gifts for family and friends. Why not take the whole clan out to the movies for some group therapy? Actions like this will contribute to long-term well-being by granting you a sense of having done enough lately by both country and family to last a lifetime.

Happy recovery!
Ramona DeNies
Film Editor

Planning dinner and a movie with a lovely lefty? Each month The Portland Alliance film page offers a date-ready line-up guaranteed to stir hearts and minds — at the very least. Go Further (2003) Nov. 12-18, Showtimes TBA (503-223-4515) Cinema 21 • 616 NW 21st Avenue Hemp and buses: two things spell love throughout the world. Calling his new movie an “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test on Tofu,” award-winning documentary director Ron Mann (Grass, Twist) joins actor-activist Woody Harrelson as he pilots a hemp-fuelled bus on an eco-consciousness raising incursion down our beautiful Pacific Coast. Stirrings in your belly? McMenamin’s Blue Moon Tavern and Grill is two blocks south at 432 NW 21st Avenue. McMenamin’s — excellent bar food, scotch and beer. The kind of place where Woody Harrelson would take a pit stop if he were, say, driving a hemp-fuelled bus down the Pacific Coast.

Do you have comments about the reviews on this page? Is there a movie you think we should be reviewing? Let us know by writing to The Portland Alliance, 2807 SE Stark St., Portland, OR 97214 or e-mailing to mazza@theportlandalliance.org.

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE
(U.S. 2004)
(Showing Multiple Locations)
South Park creator Trey Parker has taken politicized themes of terror vs. freedom, American cultural illiteracy, world policing and unilateralism — themes practically begging for parody or spoofing — and created a Jerry Bruckheimer action vehicle with marionettes. Ballsy? Yes. Creative? Yes. Amusing? Yes. Wonderful? No. With such rich loamy source material feeding Parker’s undeniably fertile wit, it is inexplicable that the film should provoke giggles instead of belly laughs and occasional glazing instead of riveted attention. The problem? Parker and fellow South Park writer Pam Brady seem more interested in highlighting the Himalayan clichés of their ironically inadequate Bruckheimer plot development than focusing on actual satire. And let’s admit that the appeal in watching marionettes vomit or attempt martial arts is time-sensitive.
That said, Team America offers much to love. Parker’s Middle Eastern “terrorists” speak a nonsense language reflective of what popular U.S. culture hears and inhabit a country called Dirkadirkastan. Team America, clad in sparkly flightsuits, blast out of secret headquarters in Mount Rushmore only to blow up the Sphinx, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre in their generally bungled pursuit of terrorists. The Team’s leader Spotswoode reprimands the aptly-named central computer for dishing out faulty data: “Bad Intelligence. Very bad Intelligence.” And behind it all are Kim Jong-Il and his unwitting tools Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, and other “peace-loving” actor-activists.
Inevitably everything turns up roses for Team America. Parker’s background, in muckraking rather than pontificating, appears to prevent him from passing overt judgment on his freedom fighters on strings. I would venture to say the medium, however, has never more summed up the message than in Team America: World Police.

THE MOTERCYCLE DIARIES

(Peru 2004)
(Showing Multiple Locations)
The legendary allure of Ernesto “Che” Guevara has inspired both organized social protest and fashion, a revolutionary government and Andy Warhol. For fans of Che, added allure comes in the pretty face of actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who portrays a youthful Che on his formative South American tour with friend Alberto Granado in The Motorcycle Diaries. The film, based on Che’s own diaries, offers us a portrait of an earnest young man fleshing out his and his society’s place in the world, set amidst stunning backdrops and colorful encounters. And who would not be uplifted by the sight of Machu Picchu, or sobered by the injustice afforded to Peruvian lepers? We understand that Che, the middle-class Argentinean medical student is beginning the process of evolving into the pan-regional revolutionary we know him for. But Brazilian Director Walter Salles (Central Station) commits a crime in not once allowing his Che to display shades of the burgeoning idealogue within. Che’s martyrdom, which rests on his romantic death, pretty speeches, vaunted privations and absolutist views, has always been dangerously simplistic, and Salles does not add depth to this view in reverently positioning an increasingly Christ-like Che amidst the breathtaking cordillera of the Andes. As reviewer Bob Strauss of the Los Angeles Daily News writes, “The Motorcycle Diaries is a film about the sowing of revolution designed for the approval of bourgeois gentlefolk — for the very type of person that Che, once one himself, would not think twice about putting a bullet into.”

What Does Marriage Mean?
Two exciting new films explore the ever-evolving landscape of family. Both films debut Nov. 12 at the Hollywood Theater. Contact the theater’s hotline for showtimes: 503-281-4215.

MY MOTHER LIKES WOMEN
(Spain 2004)
This Spanish film in the screwball style of Pedro Almodóvar tells the story of three modern sisters whose lives are thrown into upheaval by their mother Sofia’s new — female — lover. The sisters channel their unanticipated hostility into convincing themselves the new bella is fleecing their mother — a renowned pianist — and mount a “frenzied” rescue op.

TYING THE KNOT
(2004)
A bank robber’s gun ends the life of a female cop, whose wife of 13 years is subsequently denied all pension benefits. A male rancher’s husband of 22 years dies and his long-estranged relatives attempt to seize their possessions. This documentary explores the tragic limitations of current marriage law while providing his

torical context from the Middle Ages to gay hippies storming Manhattan’s Marriage Bureau in 1971. Look for recent Portland footage of town hall marriage ceremonies.

Catch the final showing of the Northwest Film Center’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival:

WHAT THE EYE DOESN'T SEE
(Peru 2004)
This film has a touch of Puccini about it in its lyrical suffusion of tragedy, wit, and survival into the lives of its characters. Set in the final tumultuous days of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency, the context is historically — and painfully — real, though the six interweaving stories of its characters are fictional. Director Francisco J. Lombardi paints a riveting and complex picture of the ripple effect of high-level corruption throughout a nation. Omnipresent television sets broadcast actual historical coverage of the scandal caused by the release of hidden camera tapes of presidential advisor Vladimir Montesino blackmailing high-level Peruvian government officials. Sweet or rapacious, rich or poor, Lombardi’s characters all become personally soiled as their government’s dirty laundry is publicly aired. This film not only provides rare historical insight into a darkly compelling— and recent — period of Peruvian politics, but it makes the true impact of corruption unforgettably real to viewers. On par with Argentina’s celebrated The Official Story. In Spanish with English subtitles. (Guild Theater, 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4)