Feel Like Feeling Better? We Have Movies.

There’s a question worth asking: why here? Not in a self-deprecating way. We know why we love this town. But from a purely logistical standpoint, why would a studio in Los Angeles, with the entire continental United States at its disposal, keep sending film crews to a small fishing and cannery town at the rainy…

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…

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…