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The Town That Kept Everything
There’s a version of small-town history where the past gets cleared away to make room for whatever comes next. The Victorian houses come down for ranch-style sprawl. The working waterfront completely disappears, making way for all-new Anywhere USA structures. The old essentially becomes a memory instead of a neighbor. Astoria didn’t really do that. Drive…
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The Women in the Room Where It Happened
There’s a version of the New Hollywood story you’ve probably heard. Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Altman… the movie brats and mavericks who blew up the old studio system and replaced it with something rawer, stranger, more alive. It’s a great story. And for the most part it’s true… again, mostly. But it leaves out something…
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The Grammar Nobody Taught You
Did you know that you speak a secret second language? You absorbed it in darkened living rooms and multiplexes and —if you’re lucky enough— maybe even drive-in back seats. No lessons or textbooks. Just years of watching, until it became instinct. Now you’re a fluent speaker. It’s called cinematic language. And the fact that nobody…
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Nobody Trusts Anybody: What The Thing Knows About Us That We’d Rather It Didn’t
There is a line in John Carpenter’s The Thing that has no business being as relevant as it is in 2025. MacReady, alone, recording into a tape deck like a man dictating his own obituary, says it flat and quiet: “Nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired.” He is describing twelve men in Antarctica. He is…
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The Road to Astoria: Finding North-Coast Inspiration at the Pickford
This past week, I took a trip up the coast to Bellingham, Washington. While the scenery was familiar, my primary destination was a specific cultural landmark: the Pickford Film Center. For those of us in the “small-town cinema” world, the Pickford is a North Star. It is a living, breathing case study in how a dedicated…
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Something Is Happening Up Here
For a long time, the Pacific Northwest had a strange relationship with its own image on screen. Moviemakers would set stories here, featuring rain-soaked streets, Douglas firs, and that flat gray winter light that makes everything look like the establishing shot of a thoughtful independent movie. Then they would go shoot them in Vancouver, B.C.…
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Why Film Festivals Still Matter (Maybe More Than Ever, We’re Sorry to Report)
There’s a persistent myth that movie festivals are for insiders. This idea is for people who already know what a Dardenne brothers tracking shot looks like and can make that face when someone says “mumblecore.” You know the face. It communicates I know what that is and I have feelings about it. This myth is very convenient…
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Lights, Camera, Action! Dive into FILM 1 This Summer
Are you ready to stop just “watching” movies and start truly seeing them? This summer, Clatsop Community College is thrilled to offer FILM 1: Introduction to Cinema, an immersive 8-week journey into the heart of the silver screen. Designed for aspiring filmmakers and casual movie fans alike, this course will help you transform your relationship with the medium. We’ll trade passive viewing…
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