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FEAR THE WALKING DEAD Season 1 Finale “The Good Man” Review

In “A Good Man”, we all get the post-apocalypse we deserve, as Fear The Walking Dead draws to a close. All good things must come to an end. Fear The Walking Dead ended up being very good, despite a rocky start and some missteps. Most of these were corrected in FTWD’s conclusion.

First of all, let us address the rotting corpse in the room – the zombies (or “Walkers” or “biters” or “shambling bags of flesh”, choose your sobriquet.) The main criticism I saw leveled at the AMC mini-series was the lack of Walkers, which is a pretty serious allegation for a show with “The Walking Dead” making up ¾ of its title. “The Good Man” makes up for this drought in spades, with wave after wave of rotting flesh, as The Walking Dead‘s universe sees its very first herd. Read More

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‘SCREAM QUEENS’ “Chainsaw” Review

2015 has been a pretty horrorshow year for horror television. Between the high-profile, high-production-value extended Slasher Flick of MTV’s Scream: The Series and Fox’s frankly hilarious horror/comedy Scream Queens, 2015 stands to be remembered as a gold standard year for the format, helping us all to move on from the mostly underwhelming snorefest that was True Detective Season 2 and the uncertainty in our hearts towards Fear The Walking Dead. Read More

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FEAR THE WALKING DEAD ‘Cobalt’ Review

In which difficult choices are made; some “good guys” are not so good; some other “good guys” remain the same; things get smashed; and a mysterious new character is introduced. Things are coming to a head, as Fear The Walking Dead reaches its culmination. We’ve left the rules behind as the morality of this world are becoming a thing of the past; the ensemble is introduced to a new world of brutality. We’ll also find out what our characters are really made of and what the Army is really up to. Read More

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FEAR THE WALKING DEAD “Not Fade Away” Review

The action heats up and starts to boil up on “Not Fade Away”, despite the calm on the surface and a decided dearth of Walkers.

Fear The Walking Dead has been a slow burn, thus far, taking the time to develop characters and establish the tension that ultimately makes it so successful. While many have criticized Fear The Walking Dead for being a “family drama with zombies”, that’s exactly what the creators were going for. It provides a necessary emotional subtext to really feel the onset of Armageddon. Read More

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FEAR THE WALKING DEAD “The Dog” Review

The action’s heating up, as three families in AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead leave this world behind, encroaching further into the iconic ruin of the Walker-infested wasteland.

“Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.” – Werner Herzog

 The most striking moment from an episode full of suspense, melodrama, and exploding heads was a quiet one. Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) and his first family, with another family, the Salazars, in the back of his pick-up, making his way to Madison’s (Kim Dickens) house. As the worried families drive in silence, the sprawling bejewelled nighttime carpet of Los Angeles is plunged into darkness, as the power outage takes hold and spreads.

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Animating The Imagination: The Dark Fantastic Legacy of Wendy Froud

A short line of blackclad fantasy lovers wrapped around the block, waiting for the Mission Theater to open its orange cathedral doors. The sun is shining in Portland’s chic Pearl District. The air is warm and dry. In short, a perfectly idyllic late summer/early fall day in Portland. Read More

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Portland Film Festival Review: ‘DEEP DARK’

Be Careful What You Wish For

or

How Far Would You Go For Art?

Michael Medaglia’s fantasy/horror/comedy mindscrew Deep Dark updates the classic Monkey’s Paw trope, investigating the source and meaning of real art in the meantime. Have you ever experienced writer’s block? Felt like you had something to say, but just couldn’t quite find the words? Have you ever wanted something so bad you can taste it in the back of your throat? Read More

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Portland Film Festival Review: ‘CONGO BEAT THE DRUM’

When most people think of reggae music, they think of Bob Marley; Jamaica; smoking sensamilla; the red, yellow, and green and the Jamaican flag. More informed heads might even think of Jah-on-Earth Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia, or the Lion Of Judah. No matter how into reggae you are, you are not likely to picture two skinny white Israelites from Tel Aviv, the subject matter of Ariel Tagar’s Congo Beat The Drum documentary.

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Portland Film Festival Review: BIRDS OF NEPTUNE

It is the challenge of every young person to find and define their own selves, apart from expectations from society, family, friends, & personal history. This is, unfortunately, exponentially more true for women of all ages, but particularly young women, with everyone having opinions about their bodies, their style, even their mood (you’d be prettier if you smiled more). Birds Of Neptune, director Stephen Richter’s English-language debut after the Portuguese Center Of Gravity, investigates this battle for self-identification, by following two eccentric young sisters, Rachel and Mona, chilling portrayed by Britt Harris and Molly Elizabeth Parker. Read More

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Portland Film Festival Review: GRU-PDX

Sometimes, to really appreciate what you have, you have to view it through someone else’s eyes. GRU-PDX, which opens the third installation of the Portland Film Festival, is filmmaker Daniel Barosa‘s loving glimpse into Portland’s underground music scene, with all of its quirks. In 2013, the atmospheric indie rock duo Quatro Negro flew to Portland, Or. to make a record with The Helio Sequence. While GRU-PDX started out to document the record-making process, it quickly expanded outward to gaze at Portland’s music scene, both over- and under-ground, looking at the way it’s changed in the wake of the “Portlandia”-hype. Read More