Friday December 22 – Thursday December 28

Featured Film:

Youth at the Regal Meridian

It’s a Wonderful Life continues this week on 35mm at the Grand Illusion, and one of the year’s finest films, Call Me By Your Name opens this week in limited release, but if, like me, you’re burnt out on end-of-the-year awards contenders and you’ve already seen all the half-dozen Christmas movies that have been rotating from theatre to theatre around town for the past month, then you should check out Feng Xiaogang’s Youth, now playing in its second week exclusively at the Meridian. It’s set in a military arts troupe at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, centering on a pair of performers: a young dancer from unfortunate circumstances who gets bullied by the other women in the group and a generous young man who goes on to active military service. More of a traditional melodrama than other Cultural Revolution stories like Jia Zhangke’s Platform or Jiang Wen’s In the Heat of the Sun, it’s got some impressive performance sequences (stirring patriotic marches and ballet dancers slinging AK-47s) that at its best recalls Amy Sherman-Palladino’s great and much-missed TV series Bunheads.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Along With The Gods: The Two Worlds (Kim Yong-hwa) Fri-Thurs

Central Cinema:

Elf (Jon Favreau, 2003) Fri & Sat Only
Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) Tues & Weds Only Dubbed or Subtitled, Check Listings

Century Federal Way:

Along With The Gods: The Two Worlds (Kim Yong-hwa) Fri-Thurs

Grand Cinema:

Die Hard (John McTeirnan, 1988) Sat Only
Oddball and the Penguins (Stuart McDonald) Tues Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Fri-Thurs 35mm

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Hello (Vikram Kumar) Fri-Thurs
Middle Class Abbayi (Venu Sree Raam) Fri-Thurs
Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs

Regal Meridian:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs
Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984) Sat Only
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Sun Only

AMC Pacific Place:

Youth (Feng Xiaogang) Fri-Thurs

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs
Unexpectedly Yours (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Sun Only

AMC Seattle:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Bleeding Steel (Leo Zhang) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

Rare Exports (Jalmari Helander, 2010) Fri-Sun
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Fri-Sun Sing-Along

Regal Thornton Place:

Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984) Sat Only
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Sun Only

SIFF Uptown:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, 1971) Mon Only

In Wide Release:

The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review
Downsizing (Alexander Payne) Our Review
The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) Our Review
Pitch Perfect 3 (Trish Sie) Our Review
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) Our Review
The Disaster Artist (James Franco) Our Review
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Our Review
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) Our Review