Moon

I just saw Moon [dir. Duncan Park (David Bowie's son!!!!!)]. I WOMDER HOW HE got to be a movie director. Nevertheless, the movie was awesome, partially because I saw it on the Moon, St. John's, Oregon. St. Johns, oh hell..

It is located in North Portland on the tip of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River.

The St. Johns town center

St. Johns is named in honor of settler James John, who laid out the original eight block town site in 1865. He reportedly was a recluse, which inspired the population to address him as "Saint" John. (An alternate version of the story says that he never visited the local brothel, and that's why he was called "Saint" John.) The site eventually became a rival to other Willamette River townsites vying to become the Head of Navigation on the upper Willamette. St. Johns was originally a separate incorporated city, annexed by Portland in 1915.

-Wikipedia
But really, St. Johns is like the moon because it's like its own separate town which has been untainted by something intangible that has tainted everything in the city proper. Like the moon, St. Johns isn't trying too hard to be laid back and welcoming. It's just that. That's not to say the terrain of the moon is especially welcoming, because it's not, as Sam Rockwell proves with his quite astounding multiple performance in Moon.

St. Johns is home to the best Mexican food in Portland: La Tienda Santa Cruz, which is a grocery with a cafeteria style eatery tucked into the back. One bite into any of their burritos and you will instantly realize that they are at least ten times as better as King Burrito, my former favorite Portland Mexican establishment. La Tienda is pretty close to the movie theater where we saw Moon. It is also very close to this bridge:
According to Wikipedia, " In the summer of 1949, 15-year-old high school student Thelma Taylor was abducted and held by her captor, Morris Leland, under the east side of the bridge (which was undeveloped at the time, now the location of Cathedral Park, Portland, Oregon), and was eventually murdered there. The crime shocked the city and her killer was apprehended and put to death."*

Anyways, you drive over that bridge, away from the movie theater, and you're in the industrial section of Portland, more or less the Moon. It's creepy. Portland is very contained, and just outside of it, you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. The northwest is home to a lot of goddamn creeps. Descended from old loggers who never saw people for days, only trees and axes and rain. No wonder they have no people skills.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Johns_Bridge