As summer officially looms, the season’s usual lineup of sequels, comic book movies, cartoons, and other popcorn fare takes a bit of a breather this week. The new Pixar movie, Elio, hits multiplexes, as does the belated second sequel to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s zombie flick 28 Days Later, which is called 28 Years Later even though it’s only been 23 years since the original. (It also wasn’t screened for local critics.) And, well, that’s about it. So, rather than curse the darkness, we’re lighting a candle this week and spotlighting some of the diverse repertory programming that makes Portland, despite some setbacks, still one of the best cities in the country for cinephiles, with something to catch every day of the week at each one of the city’s top independent cinemas. (The exceptions being PSU’s student-run 5th Avenue Cinema, which is on hiatus for the summer, and SE Portland’s Academy Theater, which seems to have recently paused its repertory programming.) And for homebodies, there are a pair of new Blu-ray sets that explore a fascinating corner of film history. The moral of the story, as ever, is that there’s always something worth watching if you know where to look.

Here’s one possible agenda for a week spent soaking it all up:

Friday 6/20: Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore. As a “sneak peek,” this is actually the opposite of a repertory screening, but I wanted to include something from each of Portland’s arthouses and the only other real options at this venue are Oscar winners Everything Everywhere All at Once (great, but you’ve seen it) and Interstellar (which will be screening in 70mm at the Hollywood Theatre next month, so wait).  Since becoming the youngest person to win a Best Actress Oscar for her work in Children of a Lesser God four decades ago, Matlin has become a regular presence on screen as well as, almost accidentally at first, an advocate for the Deaf community and, it’s safe to say, an icon. This documentary, directed by Deaf actress and filmmaker Shoshannah Stern (who attended Gallaudet University, recently the subject of the film Deaf President Now!), revisits Matlin’s career ups and downs. The latter of those include her accounts of an affair with her Lesser God co-star William Hurt that involved both drug and physical abuse. The former would include her Congressional testimony in favor of the mandatory availability of closed captioning on all television programs, a bit of activism for which all those members of Gen Z, whether Deaf or not, who watch Netflix with ubiquitous subtitles owe her a debt. (Tomorrow Theater)

Saturday 6/21: Sunshine. What better way to commemorate Boyle and Garland’s reunion for 28 Years Later than to take in a previous collaboration, their second after Boyle’s film adapting Garland’s novel The Beach? This 2007 film, which Boyle has recently stated was meant to be the first in a trilogy, follows a space mission in the not-too-distant future to jump-start Earth’s failing sun by flying into it and detonating a “stellar bomb.” The crew, which includes cast members Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, and Rose Byrne, understand it’s a suicide mission, but when they encounter the marooned spaceship that attempted the same mission a few years earlier, things get complicated. Visually stunning and bracingly philosophical, its inherent pessimism didn’t help its box-office returns, but it stands the test of time as a brainy and visceral sci-fi epic. (Cinema 21, also screens Friday 6/20)

Sunday 6/22: Sorry to Bother You: Boots Riley’s 2018 feature directing debut stars LaKeith Stanfield as an Oakland telemarketer who struggles to make sales until he starts using his “white voice.” After that, he zooms up the corporate ladder and becomes privy to all sorts of demented capitalist secrets, while his relationship with his artist girlfriend (Tessa Thompson) becomes complicated. Blending socioeconomic satire with bizarre science-fictional plot twists, Riley made an immediate mark as a filmmaker, paving the way for his even more surreal Amazon Prime series I’m a Virgo. In keeping with the movie’s pro-worker vibes, the screening is on Service Industry Night, which means discounts on tickets and concessions for card-carrying OLCC members. (Hollywood Theatre)

Monday 6/23: Going Down: This 1983 Australian film is receiving its first American theatrical release courtesy of the brand-new company Muscle Distribution. In it, a quartet of hard-partying young women in Sydney go on a 24-hour bender after the plans of one of their number to escape to New York are foiled. As they cartwheel through the city’s punk demimonde, the foursome exudes an authentic, anarchic energy that’s tempered by the film’s realization that they are all, really, still quite young. Based on the memories and experiences of two members of the cast, and marking the feature directing debut of Haydn Keenan, it should appeal to fans of similarly subcultural flicks like Times Square and Smithereens. There’s a poignancy to it, as well, knowing that Vera Plevnik, another of the lead actors, was killed in a car crash at the age of 26 shortly before the movie’s premiere. (Hollywood Theatre)

Tuesday 6/24: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!: For as influential and cult-worshipped as he was, Russ Meyer’s films have been notoriously difficult to get ahold of in recent years. Three jauntily sexy comedies featuring his notoriously big-bosomed leading ladies were released on disc last fall by Severin Films, but most of the rest of his oeuvre remains seemingly out of print on physical media. All of this means that an opportunity to see his most famous (and, oddly, least explicit) work on the big screen in 35mm should not be slept on. It stars Lori Williams, Haji, and the force of nature that is Tura Satana as a trio of go-go dancers who go on a high-speed crime spree in their hot rods through the California desert. With its crisp black-and-white photography (unusual for Meyer), its propulsive, jazzy score, and its all-caps, sensationalistic attitude, it’s the perfect entry point for those new to this most independent of auteurs—as long as you realize that most of his other films are significantly raunchier. (Hollywood Theatre)

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Tuesday 6/24: The Color of Pomegranates: If buxom women karate-chopping hapless hayseeds isn’t your cup of tea, this dreamy 1969 landmark from Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov makes an excellent alternative. Largely banned by Soviet authorities upon its initial release, the film is an oblique, almost abstract tone poem based on the life of the 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova. Devoid of most historical context or explanatory dialogue, it’s a visually stunning piece, especially if seen in its eye-popping 2014 restoration. Also, for what it’s worth, Madonna and Lady Gaga are reportedly big fans. (Clinton Street Theater)

Wednesday 6/25: The Big Heat: Not to be confused with Fritz Lang’s masterful 1953 film noir, this 1988 Hong Kong actioner doesn’t star any of the best-known icons of that genre—no Chow Yun-Fat, no Jet Li, no Tony Leung. But it was co-directed by the now-prolific Johnnie To (Election)—this is his first crime film—and produced by the legendary Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China), both of whom are still going strong, so it’s got some cred. The story centers on a cop who’s about to retire due to hand spasms that prevent him from wielding a gun, but first must travel to Malaysia to avenge the death of a friend. Presented as part of Cinemagic’s monthly Cinema City series. (Cinemagic)

Thursday 6/26: Magnolia: My 20-year-old daughter has, I think and hope, a more sophisticated cinematic palate than, at the very least, I had at her age. She recently accompanied me to a screening of the latest Mission: Impossible film (whose title is too long to be included here), having seen no other entries in the series except the previous one a few days prior. Like a true film addict, she quickly made up for lost time and binged most, if not all, of the others, in the process developing a fascination verging on appreciation for the singular star presence that is Tom Cruise. (That said, she is fully aware that Cruise more than likely knows the true whereabouts and/or fate of Shelly Miscavige.) Unfortunately, she won’t be in town for Cinemagic’s week-long “Tom Cruise Is Actually a Very Good Actor” series, which includes Risky Business, Rain Main, Eyes Wide Shut, and Collateral. I might’ve swapped out Born on the Fourth of July for the last of those, but it’s a good list. The series also includes, as it darn well should, the darkest and most fascinating performance Cruise has put on screen, as Frank T.J. Mackey. Part of the vast ensemble that populates Paul Thomas Anderson’s Altmanesque tapestry of Los Angeles, Mackey is a blatant misogynist and “motivational speaker” whose pedagogy of sexual conquest is called “Seduce and Destroy.” Cruise and Anderson aren’t content for Mackey to be a cartoonish, despicable Lothario, and as bracing as Cruise’s scenes running Mackey’s stage spiel are, the ones where his character confronts his dying father are possibly the pinnacle of his acting career. As for the daughter, now she’s on to the John Wick films, inspired by the release of Ballerina. Kids these days. (Cinemagic, also screens Friday 6/20)

On disc

While indie theaters continue to offer a vibrant panoply of on-screen options, the world of physical media remains the best avenue for digging truly deeply into the unexplored corners of film history. Even with seemingly endless streaming options available, there’s no substitute for a thoughtfully curated, expertly contextualized, and beautifully packaged boxed set of discs to serve as a pro-level intro to some previously incognito genre or period. A pair of recent releases from Eureka Entertainment, the British boutique label that recently expanded its American distribution, demonstrate that truth as it relates to postwar popular German cinema. Following the Nazi regime’s collapse and defeat, the country’s film industry was in shambles. One of the signal moments in its revitalization was the return of director Fritz Lang, the iconic auteur who had fled to America in the late 1930s. Lang was lured back to direct a pair of adventure films set (and shot) in India in the late 1950s, and was then given the opportunity to make a belated sequel to the crime sagas that helped make him famous before his self-imposed exile. The boxed set Mabuse Lives! includes Lang’s 1960 film (his last feature) The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, which rebooted the titular crime boss and deposited him in Cold War Europe, as well as five sequels prompted by that film’s box-office success. While Lang’s film is the best of the lot, they’re all eminently watchable programmers that indulge in the fun, familiar excesses of pulp storytelling. There are blind psychics, flamethrower traps, invisibility machines, and, naturally, death rays, never more so than in The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse (1964).

The films are accompanied by a slew of additional material. Each one gets a thorough introduction from Tim Lucas, the longtime editor of the invaluable magazine Video Watchdog, that puts the films’ inspiration, production, and release into context. To go deeper, film historian, genre specialist, and prolific audio commentator David Kalat contributes his talents to all six titles. Maybe it’s almost decadent to devote so much brainpower and time to these ultimately minor films, but the supplements rarely feel excessive. The whole thing comes, naturally, in a handsome box that also contains a book of essays on the films.

One notable aspect of the series is its adoption of a gadgety, James Bond vibe that brings with it a tinge of Britishness. The relatively abrupt enthusiasm and replication of American pop cultural tropes that occurred in Japan after that country’s defeat feels echoed to some degree not only in the Mabuse films, but even more keenly in another Eureka set, Terror in the Fog: The Wallace Krimi at CCC. That subtitle merits some unpacking, so: “Wallace” refers to uber-prolific British mystery/thriller writer Edgar Wallace, who is credited with (pace Wikipedia) 957 short stories and 170 novels, plus a bunch of other stuff, during his 56-year life. “Krimi” is short for Kriminalfilm, which means crime movie in German. The Mabuse films were Krimi, but these are the Wallace Krimi: films based on, or at least associated with, Edgar Wallace’s work, or at least that of his son Bryan Edgar Wallace, who continued in the family business and capitalized on its brand potential. “CCC,” by the way, is one of several German film studios that adapted Wallace’s work (a legal story unto itself), hence these are the Wallace Krimi at CCC.

They’re less baroque and more gothic than the Mabuse films, often giving 19th century vibes to stories set in contemporary times.  Masked killers stalk fog-shrouded alleys; Asian cultists seek supposedly cursed relics; Jack the Ripper himself terrorizes helpless streetwalkers. Again, the films themselves are entertaining but forgettable, with two moderate exceptions. The earliest film in the set, 1963’s The Curse of the Yellow Snake, offers a complex portrait of the relationship between a white British resident of Hong Kong, his adopted white son (and the film’s manly protagonist), and his half-Chinese son. This unfolds during a Yellow Peril plot about fanatics searching for an idol that could mean the end of the world. The most engaging entry in the set, however, is the generically titled The Monster of London City. (One of the quirks of these German productions is that they retain Wallace’s original British settings, but craft a charmingly, but ignorantly, imagined England). In Monster, another killing spree targeting prostitutes is underway just at the time when a local theater troupe is staging a well-received production based on Jack the Ripper. The lead actor’s performance is so convincing that he becomes the prime suspect in the slayings, and the film has fun moving between levels of reality and make-believe. As with the Mabuse set, the extra content is slick and organized. Lucas again provides great background with his intros, and the commentary tracks are informative, if a bit more inside baseball and repetitive than those on the other set.

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The Krimi films collected here, as the supplements make clear, served as a sort of bridge toward the Italian giallo films that would come to prominence in the 1970s. While not as stylish or envelope-pushing as those efforts would prove, they nonetheless occupy a unique middle ground between the traditional (i.e. British) narrative thriller tradition and the more oneiric, operatic tendencies of Argento, Bava, and their co-conspirators. The degree to which the tone and implicit messaging of these films reflects the times and cultures in which they were made is debatable.  Together, however, these releases fortify the notion that physical media has an important role to play in the continued excavation of film histories, and can still offer pleasure to viewers in the age of streaming. (Both sets available for rental at Movie Madness.)