Day: March 9, 2017

Friday March 10 – Thursday March 16

~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Fire Walk with Me at the Seattle Art Museum

Kicking off a Lynchian spring here in Seattle (SIFF’s retrospective launches in April) is the Seattle Art Museum’s presentation of the prequel to David Lynch’s acclaimed television series Twin Peaks. It’s playing two nights only (Friday and Saturday), the first night with a handful of special guests: Wendy Robie, Gary Hershberger, and Sheryl Lee, who gives one of cinema’s all-time great performances in the film as the doomed Laura Palmer. We talked about it last year on the first ever episode of The Frances Farmer Show, and Ryan’s got a review of it here as well.

Playing This Week:

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review

Central Cinema:

Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) Fri-Weds
Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005) Fri-Weds

Century Federal Way:

The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952) Sun & Weds Only

Grand Cinema:

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007) Sat Only
Cool & Crazy (Knut Erik Jensen, 2001) Mon Only
Sophie and the Rising Sun (Maggie Greenwald) Tues Only
West Side Story (Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins, 1961) Weds Only
I, Claude Monet (Phil Grabsky) Thurs Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

Apprentice (Boo Junfeng) Fri-Thurs
Saturday Secret Matinees: Presented by the Sprocket Society (Various directors & years) Sat Only 16mm
Sword Art Online The Movie – Ordinal Scale (Tomohiko Itō) Sun & Mon Only

Landmark Guild 45th:

A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
Kedi (Ceyda Torun) Fri-Thurs

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Badrinath Ki Dulhania (Shashank Khaitan) Fri-Thurs
The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952) Sun & Weds Only

Northwest Film Forum:

Happy Hour (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi) Part II Friday Only
Festival of (In)appropriation #9 Fri Only Curator in Attendance
3rd Annual Seattle Web Fest Sat Only
Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939) Sun Only 35mm
Mr. Gaga (Tomer Heymann, 2015) Starts Weds
The Challenge (Yuri Ancarani) Thurs & Sat Only

Regal Parkway Plaza:

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
My Ex and Whys (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1992) Fri & Sat Only 35mm Our Review Our Podcast 
Night of the Shooting Stars (The Taviani Brothers, 1982) Thurs Only

SIFF Film Center:

My Life as a Zucchini (Claude Barras) Fri-Sun Only
The Freedom to Marry (Eddie Rosenstein) Sat Only

AMC Southcenter:

Sword Art Online The Movie – Ordinal Scale (Tomohiko Itō) Fri-Thurs
A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs

Sundance Cinemas:

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review

SIFF Uptown:

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Weds Our Review
The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi) Fri-Thurs
Kedi (Ceyda Torun) Fri-Thurs

Varsity Theatre:

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review

In Wide Release:

The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou) Our Review
John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski) Our Review
Split (M. Night Shyamalan) Our Review
Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi) Our Review
Fences (Denzel Washington) Our Review
La La Land (Damien Chazelle) Our Review
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)  Our Review

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)

~ Ryan Swen

fire walk

Considering his cemented status in film culture as one of the great American directors, David Lynch has had a far more divisive, controversial reception from film to film, often for good reason. The cinephiles who mostly know him from his three most popular films Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive (though even Eraserhead doesn’t fit neatly into the “most popular” designation) would likely be shocked to see the fragmentation of Lynch’s oeuvre, a nervy bundle of obsessions, hang-ups, and looming iconography that infects everything from the immensely straightforward (The Straight Story) to the near-abstract (Inland Empire). Speaking as an avowed Lynch fanatic, his movies always conjure an ineffable mix of pity, fear, and absolute awe within, but perhaps no film in his filmography illustrates that more hauntingly than Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

It is difficult to designate one film in such a contentious oeuvre in this manner, but it seems more and more apparent with each passing year that Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is David Lynch’s ultimate film maudit. Infamously, it was booed viciously during its premiere at Cannes, and Quentin Tarantino declared that Lynch had “disappeared so far up his own ass”, a statement echoed by many during its initial release. It had sunk to the bottom of Lynch’s filmography, long regarded as the least of Lynch’s “uncompromised” works (which only leaves out his even more misunderstood adaptation of Dune) until recently, when it underwent a drastic reappraisal and is regarded by a small but vocal contingent as one of the legendary director’s finest works.

[SPOILERS FOR THE TWIN PEAKS SHOW FOLLOW]

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