From The Dill Pickle Club:

A Place Called Home is a monthly presentation series examining the history of filmmaking in Portland. Held at roving venues on last Sundays at 1PM, lectures aim to orient recent transplants and residents to the city’s rich lineage of film and how it informs our sense of place.

On Sunday, Dec 4, at 7:30 PM, filmmaker/film writer/film historian David Walker comes to the Hollywood Theatre to present an evening devoted to B movies made in Oregon.

A long time friend and colleague of Oregon Movies, A to Z, it was David who expressed concern when I first began my chronological tour of Oregon film history, warning me that I would have to watch Homer and Eddie, starring Whoopi Goldberg, and Brain Smasher, starring Andrew Dice Clay. I have yet to see either of those films – I expect David may show clips from them at this event.

Oregon’s rich film history encompasses wonderful A list directors (James Ivory, Gus Van Sant, Brad Bird), up and coming young Turks (James Westby, Aaron Katz, Chel White), world class animators (Bill Plympton, Matt Groening, Mark Gustafson), a burgeoning documentary scene (James Longley, Peter D. Richardson, Brian Lindstrom) — all these achievements in one cinematically fertile state. What David will address in this evening at the Hollywood is none of the above. This is the night to come learn about the movies made in Oregon that are terrible, tasteless, jaw droppingly unambitious and/or just plain bad.

David’s particular interest lies in the history of Portland indies, so it is possible this evening will lean towards indie B films made here by PDXers.

Here’s the info:

Made in Oregon Presents: A Retrospective of PDX B-Movies

Hosted by David Walker

Sunday, December 4th at 7:30pm  I  Tickets $7

When most people think of independent films produced in Portland, they think of movies like Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy and James Westby’s Film Geek. But what about Tom Shaw, “the Ed Wood of Portland,” and his film The Courier of Death? What aboutRockaday Richie and the Queen of the Hop, the first locally produced feature film to get international, theatrical distribution? What about Fatal Revenge, Unhinged, Brainsmasher, Iron Heartand all the other long-forgotten B-movies made in Portland? Join local critic, historian, and filmmaker David Walker as he hosts a one-night-only showcase of films made in Portland, but seldom seen by the public. It will be an informative and entertaining night of both art and schlock, as Walker presents a collection of trailers, clips and personal commentary highlighting the Best and Worst of PDX B-Movies.

Pittsburgh has George Romero, Baltimore has John Waters, and Boulder has the memory of Stan Brakhage.

Portland has Gus Van Sant, Bill Plympton, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Jon Raymond, Aaron Katz, Chel White, Jacob & Arnold Pander, James Westby, Jim Blashfield, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestley, Matt McCormick, Rose Bond, Vanessa Renwick and Will Vinton.

Ever wonder why?

For cities wishing to replicate Portland’s densely populated cinematic scene, here’s a handy “how to” guide.

1.  Start early.

As soon as people were making films in New York and Fort Lee, they were making them in Portland. Portland’s first film studio, American Lifeograph, opened in 1910. That’s the same year movies came to Hollywood.

2. Have a show business friendly mayor.

During the 16 year tenure of theater-owner-turned-mayor George Baker, downtown Portland was wall to wall theaters. John Gilbert, Clark Gable, William Powell, Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette are some of the actors who jumpstarted their acting careers on the Portland stage, some of them in Baker’s own stock company. It was Baker who renamed Seventh Avenue “Broadway”.

3. Support innovation.

Oregon’s oldest source of print media, The Oregonian, responded to the puzzling new medium of radio by setting up a station right in the Oregonian Tower. Radio later served as an Early Warning System to identify the talent of Portlanders Mel Blanc, Suzanne Burce (renamed Jane Powell by MGM) and Johnnie Ray.

4. Grow your own film processing lab.

After WWII, Portland inventor Frank Hood went to work for a brand new electronics firm named Tektronix. He set up his own home lab to process films he made for them, after losing patience with the delays of sending film to LA. Eventually, he went into business as Teknifilm Lab. For decades, independent filmmaking in Portland was supported by Hood’s lax attitude toward payment schedules.

5. Provide a home for an exiled Hollywood film scholar.

Andries Deinum came to Portland during the blacklist. His vision of film as a mode of social discourse laid the groundwork for PSU’s Center For The Moving Image, housed in Lincoln Hall. Jim Blashfield, Bill Plympton, and Matt Groening were among the faithful attendees of the Center’s influential screening series, run by the Portland State Film Committee.

6. Provide a day job for the guy who wants to mentor the guy who wants to revive the archaic art form of stop motion animation.

Homer Groening led a dual life – ad man by day and experimental filmmaker by night. He had a family, a home, and his own business doing what he loved – and he did it all without leaving Portland. Aspiring filmmaker Will Vinton paid attention, and followed suit. His career, like Groening’s, would encompass both television commercials and art house films, but on a much larger scale.

7. Work with, not against, a pair of cinema addled students who want to start a regional film center.

When the National Endowment for the Arts decided to seed regional filmmaking, they went looking for the right person to submit a grant for a film center in Portland. They were pointed to Brooke Jacobson and Bob Summers, members of the Portland State Film Committee. Brooke and Bob wrote the grant, Portland Art Museum acted as fiscal sponsor, and the Northwest Film Center went into business. This year marks its 40th anniversary.

8. Work with, not against, a visionary film preservationist who wants to create a moving image archive.

Lew Cook was trained as a newsreel photographer by the first generation of Portland filmmakers. His stop motion film, The Little Baker, made circa 1925, proved prophetic when it came to Portland’s future claim to cinema history. He and Thomas Vaughn conceived Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive, and Cook personally trained the preservationist, Michele Kribs, who currently presides over it.

To re-cap: by the end of the 1970’s, Portland had a film program at Portland State University, a film archive at Oregon Historical Society, and a regional film festival (now the NWFF) located at Portland Art Museum. That nucleus of film creativity on the park blocks was balanced by a film processing lab, an emerging animation studio, and a warehouse waiting to be filled with  filmmakers’ offices over in northwest Portland. No one entity owned the scene – the infrastructure and the support system served all comers.

The following timeline concentrates on factors which contributed to a culture where independent filmmakers supported each other in Portland. It does not address the important role played by Hollywood productions shooting in Oregon. The symbiotic role of Hollywood and the Indies in Portland is embodied in the career of Gus Van Sant who slips and slides with ease between these two worlds.

A timeline:

American Lifeograph founded 1910

Lewis Moomaw makes The Chechacos 1924

Lew Cook makes The Little Baker c1925

PGE makes It Can Be Done c1936

Tektronix founded 1946

Frank Hood founds Teknifilm Lab, early 1950’s

Andries Deinum arrives 1957

Homer Groening starts his own ad agency 1958

Center For The Moving Image founded 1965

Bob Summers and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Film Center 197o

Tim Smith and Matt Groening make Drugs: Killers or Dillers 1972

Brooke Jacobson founds Northwest Media Project 1974

Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner make Closed Mondays 1974

Don Zavin makes Fast Break 1977

Penny Allen makes Property 1979

Rose Bond makes Gaia’s Dream 1982

Gus Van Sant makes Mala Noche 1985

Bill Plympton makes Your Face 1987

Matt Groening makes The Simpsons 1987

Jim Blashfield makes Leave Me Alone 1988

Joan Gratz makes Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase 1992

Gus Van Sant makes Good Will Hunting 1997.

Miranda July makes The Amateurist 1998

Chris Eyre makes Smoke Signals 1998

Will Vinton makes The PJ’s 1999

Travis Knight makes Coraline 2009

Jon Raymond writes & Neil Kopp produces Meek’s Cutoff 2010, one of five Oregon films at Sundance in 2011.

This post is dedicated to Portland filmmaker/film writer David Walker, who inspired it by raising the question “how rare is regional filmmaking, anyway?”

Lazlo Kovacs makes himself at home in the Pacific Northwest by improvising a regionally appropriate camera mount inside a production vehicle for Five Easy Pieces. Taken in Eugene, this photo is by cameraman Ron Vidor.

Q: What are you doing, Anne?

A:  My goal is to write about Oregon film history, film by film. Oregon Movies A to Z has been up, in some fashion, since October 2008.

Q: That’s not what it looks like! You’re writing about all kinds of stuff.

A: I also write – not comprehensively at all – about current film events. I go back and blog about older films when I discover one I missed when I was going through that particular year. But chronological progress is still taking place, if you look for it. The forward thrust of my walk through film history is there in the blog, although it is obscured with distractions and digressions.

Right now I am moving through 1993, an unusual, and unusually trying, year. I was warned about it by the panel of fellow critics who spoke at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival in 2009. They were openly skeptical of my ability to maintain interest in Oregon film, which to them meant films shot in Oregon. I dismissed their concern – I knew they were not factoring in the great films Oregon filmmakers (and actors and writers) had made outside the state boundaries. It was only when David Walker specifically mentioned “1993″ and they all turned, with one motion, David Walker, Shawn Levy, Ted Mahar and Aaron Mesh, to look at me, that I began to have some grasp of what I would have to endure.

I thought my film loving peers were underestimating me when they expressed concern over my headlong flight into a wall of deeply unenjoyable cinema.

But they were right. It took weeks to recover from seeing The Temp (1993), and the one two punch of The Temp followed by Body Of Evidence (1993) nearly caused me to give up movies all together.

A: So how do you identify an Oregon film?

Q: Here’s the rules. I am creating a chronological record of Oregon film history. I define “Oregon film” to include films made in Oregon, and also to include films featuring the work of Oregon artists – directors, actors, writers, you name it – regardless of their location. I try to pair each film with a companion post, either about the director or about the Oregon artist who caused the film to qualify as an Oregon film.

A rule of thumb: I write this history chronologically. Right now I am still in 1993.

Another rule of thumb: I use the year IMDB lists as the year of the film. Oregon Film Commission lists the films by the year of shooting. I list them by year of release.

Handy Guide to Nomenclature:

I denominate as Oregon films all films which qualify under the expanded definition detailed above.

I denominate as an Oregon director an artist who was born/born and raised/raised in Oregon or one who has made Oregon his/her home as an adult.

I denominate as Oregon filmmakers directors who came here to make films. My logic:  how can we call One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest an Oregon film, and not call Milos Forman an Oregon filmmaker? So, in the spirit of inclusion, on Oregon Movies, A to Z, he is one.

But he isn’t an Oregon director.

This distinction is useful because Oregon does happen to have produced an unusual number of internationally recognized directors.

Q: How do  you choose which films to write about?

A: Its true. I can’t write about all Oregon films. I choose the films I write about based on the following criteria.

1. Availability

2. Fame, of the film itself or of one of its principals

3. Whether I feel like it

This year, the third Oregon Movies, A to Z has been in existence, saw a tremendous rise in the numbers and the visibility of Oregon film. An almost freakish number of Oregon filmmakers came to national attention, pretty much all at the same time. Eight at Sundance, one at New Directors, one at Tribecca, one at Anthology Film Archives, two picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope. Then there was Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia, which she co-produced. That’s in addition to Gus Van Sant at Cannes with Restless, Bill Plympton making the Oscar short list with The Cow Who Wanted To Be A Hamburger, and Chris Eyre’s A Year At Mooring.

In the contest for best reviews this year, there is a running tie between Cold Weather and Meek’s Cutoff, with Cold Weather slightly ahead. Meek’s Cutoff fans are dazed by the unexpected nature of the film they saw, while Cold Weather’s fans applaud Aaron Katz’ ability to integrate a recognizable genre and still maintain his distinctive style.

Throughout all of this, I remained focused on writing primarily about Oregon film history, not Oregon’s wildly prolific current scene. The current explosion, of course, has everything to do with the past. Gus Van Sant was not born under a cinematic cabbage. Neither was Aaron Katz, Matt McCormick, James Westby or Vanessa Renwick.

Q: What is ahead for Oregon Movies, A to Z?

A: That giant sucking sound you heard last year was Oregon Movies, A to Z being pressed into service to cover the news of film premieres, film awards, breaking news of Oregon directors going into production. Nature abhors a vaccum! I post about current events because it fills a need, and allows me to link to previous posts which illuminate a connection to Oregon film history.

Q: So if you don’t always like these movies you’re watching, and writing about, why are you doing this?

3.  I am making sense, slowly but surely, of one of the great mysteries of life in Oregon, namely, what do we do here which has helped us create such wonderful directors?

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Thank you, Katherine Wilson, for the behind the scenes shot of Lazlo Kovacs preparing to shoot more of Five Easy Pieces.

We all have pondered the question. Now David Walker answers it.

In this collection of irreverent and informative essays and profiles, Walker examines the cinematic phenomenon of the Disposable Brotha—the black characters that get bumped off in genre movies. Along the way he profiles some of the greatest Disposable Brothas and Sistas of all time, the films in which they die, and even those lucky few who escape with their lives.

Available in time for Christmas shopping, and perfect for the cinematic bookworm on your list!

It would be pretty dreary covering all of Oregon’s film fabulousness by myself. So Aaron Mesh and I made a deal – he would cover writing brilliantly about current films playing in theaters. I would cover writing about Oregon connected films either a) too old to be playing in theaters or b) so new they haven’t yet played outside Portland.

The deal worked out beautifully for me, since Mesh consistently performed at a level far above and beyond the call of duty. Think I’m exaggerating?  Association of Alternative Newsweeklies just recognized the value of  Mesh’s work with a nomination for an award which places him alongside J. Hoberman of the Village Voice and Greg Cook of the Boston Phoenix.

Aaron Mesh has been consistently writing more thoughtful, original film criticism than any mid-sized city has reason to expect to find in its largest free weekly paper. The nomination makes a point of this – he was cited for his entire column, Screen Reviews, not for any one specific article.

Aaron Mesh has just been given the highest possible honor by a group of his peers — they are saying that his work is ALWAYS good.

Mesh has been running a marathon, all the while maintaining the wind and speed more usually found in a sprint.  I am sorry to report that he doesn’t locally get much credit for this, possibly since readers of Willamette Week have come to think of  brilliance as the norm,  as the list of Mesh’s predecessors includes David Walker and Kim Morgan.

Congratulations, Aaron!

It began with a bang. Andries Deinum arrived at PSU in 1957 from LA, and co-founded (long distance) the magazine Film Quarterly. He served on its editorial board until his death in 1995.

The following are the children of Andries. All have some Oregon connection: either they were born here, or moved here, or began their careers here before moving away.

Andries has other film addled children (Cinema Project, I’m looking at you!). These are the ones who write.

Sean Axmaker, Videodrone

Jeff Bayer, The Scorecard Review

Jason Bellamy, The Cooler

Nick Bruno, The Rain Falls Down In Portlandtown

Dennis Cozzalio,  Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule

Erin Donovan, Steady Diet Of Film

Travis Ezell, No Time For Love, Mr. Jones!

Ryan Gallagher, The Criterion Cast

Stan Hall, Beyond The Multiplex

D. K. Holm, Cinemonkey

Brian Kellow, Kael: A Life After Dark

Shawn Levy, Mad About Movies

Jon Lewis, Oregon State University

Aaron Mesh, Willamette Week

Marc Mohan, Mohanthropy, Far From Hollyeood

Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun

Gary Morris, Bright Lights Film Journal, Bright Lights After Dark

Kevin J. Olson, Hugo Stiglitz Makes Films

Darleen Ortega, Opinionated Judge

Jamie S. Rich, Criterion Confessions, dvdtalk.com

Anne Richardson, Oregon Movies, A to Z

Bobby “Fatboy” Roberts, Damnit, Bobby, Nerd Puddle

Mike Russell, Culture Pulp

Eric Snider, Cinematical

Dawn Taylor, Cinematical

John Varley, varley.net

David Walker, Bad Azz Mo Fo, Indie Film Journal, The Missing Reel

Bill Warren, pioneering online film critic

Gary Wolcott, Mr. Movie

Kyle Yount, Kaijucast

Oregon filmmaker David Walker joins Oregon animator Bill Plympton (Santa: The Facist Years) in taking  closer look at Santa’s less well known activities. Walker brought Ken Foree to the Rose City to star in Black Santa’s Revenge, which is available both on DVD and as  MP4 digital download.

I hereby claim Black Santa’s Revenge as an Oregon film, on the basis of the director’s status as an Oregonian, as well as his choice to shoot the film here.

David Walker is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, comic book writer, and the creator of the pop culture magazine BadAzz MoFo. For over six years he was the screen editor and lead film critic for Willamette Week, the Pulitzer Prize-winning alternative weekly in Portland, Oregon. During his time at Willamette Week, Walker also created and programmed the Longbaugh Film Festival, an international showcase for independent film. He has contributed to MSN, Giant Robot, Rap Pages, Screenwriter Monthly, DVDTalk, DVD Journal and has worked for HBO, A&E, American Movie Classics, E!, and VH-1. You can find out more about his other projects at the Official BadAzz MoFo website. Bio from Walker’s   www.indiefilmjournal.com.

Writer-director David Walker’s second feature film, Uncle Tom’s Apartment (2009), premieres at the Northwest Film Festival on Nov. 14 at the Whitsell Auditorium in Portland, Oregon at 8:30 PM.

Writer-director David Walker’s second feature film premieres at the Northwest Film Festival on Nov. 14 at the Whitsell Auditorium in Portland, Oregon at 8:30 PM.

Using my powers of precognition, I foresee claiming Uncle Tom’s Apartment as an Oregon film.