Portland at the Movies

"Total Reality" is a bottom-shelf cocktail made from the discarded parts of a SyFy channel movie, Back to the Future, Terminator, and clown makeup. Written, produced, and directed by the same guy who did last month's movie (the bonkers "Fatal Revenge"), "Total Reality" has some great parts (the space battles looked good; the lead actress was great!), but in the end, it feels like a slapdash and in...

"Fatal Revenge" is a wonderfully terrible action/taekwando/b-movie wonder filmed in 1989 in Portland. Never released in the US (for good reason), we tracked down a copy in German, and it was well worth the effort. The film also features Portland writer/author David Walker (find his fantastic comics and novels here) , who gave us lots of behind-the-scenes info about this gloriously terrible romp th...

"Breaking In," a 1989 filmed-in-Portland movie starring Burt Reynolds, is technically about robbery, but in reality it's just a complete mystery. Siskel & Ebert loved it. So did "Rolling Stone." And it currently has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All of which is completely befuddling, considering that this is a movie in which nothing happens, the characters don't learn or grow, and there is...

Ah, the early 1990s: when foster children roamed free, Michael Jackson still inspired us, and a whale named Keiko swam into our collective consciousness and became a temporary resident of the Northwest (before we kicked him out to sea and he died, but that's a different story). Join us as we dive deep into 1993's "Free Willy," a surprising amount of which was filmed in Portland proper, as well as...

Is it possible to write a movie whose dialogue consists solely of ham-fisted doctor puns? Is it necessary to film an entire movie in a tiny park in unincorporated SW Portland even though it mostly takes place indoors, and Oregon is never even mentioned or seen? Why does this movie even exist? Join us as we demand answers from the 1992 horror/slasher film "Dr. Giggles," the first movie production o...

What do you get when you mix 3 respected Oscar winners and one of the most beautiful cities in America? In the case of "The Hunted," sadly, you get crap. But boy was the crap fun to talk about! Join us as we discuss this 2003 made-in-Portland movie, starring two main characters who hate to talk, emote, or follow the rules of actual time. Come for the stick smelling, stay for the smelting! Enjoy! T...

Portland at the Movies is a hilarious new podcast that takes an in-depth look at some of the questionable movies made in and around Portland (think How Did This Get Made with movies filmed in Portland). Our first episode centers on the made-for-TV Disney Channel movie Halloweentown, filmed in St. Helens, Oregon. Join us for a funny look at a deeply confusing Halloween classic, where we discuss eve...