Get Your Reps In: Move Back to “New Jack City”

What to see at Portland’s repertory theaters.

New Jack City (1991) (IMDB)
By Chance Solem-Pfeifer

New Jack City (1991)

Influential screenwriter and music journalist Barry Michael Cooper died last month at age 66, and there’s no better way to honor his impact on pop culture than catching his debut movie, New Jack City (1991), on Feb. 6 at Clinton Street Theater. The first of Cooper’s “Harlem Trilogy” (which also includes Sugar Hill and Above the Rim), New Jack City made a street opera of the crack epidemic with an electrically vile Wesley Snipes performance at its center.

Cooper’s script detests the city-conquering gangster Nino Brown (Snipes), but Mario Van Peebles’ camera is in love with him. The result is an indelible villain, memorialized by wild Dutch angles and prodigious overhead cinematography, who invokes a specific brand of American evil. Or, as Cooper’s script puts it (via Brown): “You gotta rob to get rich in the Reagan era.” Clinton, Feb. 6.

Also Playing:

5th Avenue: Downtown ’81 (2000), Feb. 7-9. Academy: Batman (1989), Feb. 5 and 6. Midnight Cowboy (1969), Feb. 5 and 6. Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Feb. 5 and 6. Cinema 21: Phantom of the Paradise (1974) with Paul Williams live, Feb. 7. Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Feb. 8. Mulholland Drive (2001), Feb. 8. Cinemagic: Hellraiser (1987), Feb. 5 and 6. Candyman (1992), Feb. 10. Clinton: Spell (1977), Feb. 5. Keanu (2016), Feb. 7. Support the Girls (2018), Feb. 8. Sherlock Jr. (1924) synced to R.E.M., Feb. 8. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Feb. 8. Blade (1998), Feb. 9. Blade II (2002), Feb. 9. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), Feb. 11. Hollywood: Old Joy (2006), Feb. 6. The Thing From Another World (1951), Feb. 7. Carmen Jones (1954), Feb. 8 and 9. Tokyo Gore Police (2008), Feb. 8. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005), Feb. 9. Maurice (1987), Feb. 10. Fist of the White Lotus (1980), Feb. 11. Tomorrow: Absolute Beginners (1986), Feb. 7. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Feb. 8. The Love Witch (2016), Feb. 8. Fire of Love (2022), Feb. 9. The Painter and the Thief (2020), Feb. 9.

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