This Week in the Mercury
Monday, November 21, 2011
Fashion / Portland / Film / Music City Baby
Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 4:44 PM
On Friday night I was lucky enough to wind up with a golden ticket into a very small, private preview of a local film coming through the chutes, City Baby. The purpose of the screening was to get feedback, and while first-time director David Morgan kept insisting that the sound had a lot of work yet to be done, it seemed pretty polished. I know at least two people in the audience suggested that they alter the ending scene, so I'm going to leave them room to do that or not, and make any other adjustments before addressing the film in any real critical way, but you might want a heads up that this is on its way:
Cora Benesh (who any habitué of Portland's fashion scene will recognize as a popular model, and who's also appeared in a number of Portland films including James Westby's The Auteur and Rid of Me, and Matt McCormick's Some Days Are Better Than Others) stars as Cloey, the film's central muse. Functioning mainly as a style piece, the film is wall to wall with Portland music and fashion (I believe this was my first experience of showing up to a movie wearing the exact same thing as one of its characters), and it's populated with a number of Portland types—Cloey herself is something of a dilettante funded by her dad, played by Daniel Fucking Baldwin, there are over-payed douchebags from Wieden + Kennedy (hey! The film said it, not me!), dudes in bands (including cameos from Steve Malkmus and Charlie Salas-Humara), and aspiring clothing designers. They all get wasted at the Tube and the river.
Featuring show scenes where Glass Candy and Starfucker play live, the film is fun to watch all the way through, and when it's not too busy being glam, there are some pretty casually hilarious moments thrown in as well as some believable female interactions (I think I'm safe giving at least partial credit to Benesh for this, being that she and Morgan, who are incidentally also a couple, co-wrote the script). When the opening for this is announced, my guess is you will hear plenty about it; it's way to cool-kid not to garner its share of hype (am I the first?). But in the closing months of a really satisfying year for Portland films, knowing this one is on the horizon will tide me over till the new year.
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