Oregon Movies, A to Z

Portland’s film scene requires a guide. The Oregonian provides three of them, Shawn Levy, Kristi Turnquist and Stan Hall. Stan Hall’s beat is oddball cinema. He writes about stuff that is new, strange, different or an acquired taste. This week he writes about five MIMBY - Made In My Back Yard - films now screening in Portland theaters

LOCAL WORKS GALORE
Various films, times and locations.

Most weeks (particularly this one), under-the-radar local filmmakers exhibit the results of their sweat and maxed-out credit cards. Movies are always being made in these parts, and the people who make them would love for you to come see for yourself.

Honor veterans on Memorial Day by seeing Eric G. Stacey’s drama “Purple Mind” (3 p.m. Monday, Hollywood Theatre; landfallprods.com), about an Iraq War vet’s (Will Shepherd) wrenching, dangerous struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Premiering the same weekend as “The Hangover Part II,” “John Gets Wasted” (7 p.m. Saturday, Hollywood Theatre) is the former’s low-budget, no-star, made-in-Portland, distant cousin. It’s about the wild adventures of John, a just-laid-off office drone who goes on an epic bender to forget his shame.

Prolific Bob Moricz, whose scabrous video productions carry on the lurid underground moviemaking legacy of Andy Milligan and the Kuchar brothers, presents “I Am Ugly and I Want to Die So …” (8 p.m. Tuesday, Recess Gallery, 1127 S.W. 10th Ave.), his parody of autobiographical filmmaking; freakish, wrong and weirdly compelling stuff.

Sean Parker and Austin Hillebrecht’s comedy “Coup de Cinema” (7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Fifth Avenue Cinema, 510 S.W. Hall St.) has an amusing concept: The crew of a lousy-movie production secretly goes behind the back of the pompous, dim director in an attempt to make something that’s actually worth watching.

“Forge” (7 p.m. Wednesday, Hollywood Theatre; theforgeproject.com) is a slick, high-concept thriller about a man who gets mixed up with bad folks and a scary new technology while trying to save his scientist brother from going mad.