Day: August 30, 2019

Friday August 30 – Thursday September 5

~ Sean Gilman

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Featured Film:

Saaho at Various Multiplexes

Honestly I haven’t seen this Indian action movie yet, but it sounds pretty crazy and it stars Prabhas and is his first film since Baahubali, which is reason enough to watch it. So if you want to prep for the Beacon’s upcoming presentation of both Baahubali movies, this seems like the wise way to go. That’s going to be part of their amazing series of the decade’s best action movies, and I’m sure I’ll be mentioning it again in this space. It’s kicking off this week with some recent Hollywood movies: Mad Max Fury Road and Creed. In other rep releases, the Cinerama has a Stephen King film series. They don’t have the best Stephen King movie, but they do have the second best: check out John Carpenter’s adaptation of Christine if you’ve never seen it. But maybe take the bus to get there.

Playing This Week:

Admiral Theater:

Maiden (Alex Holmes) Fri-Thurs 

AMC Alderwood:

Saaho (Sujeeth) Fri-Thurs Hindi
Don’t Let Go (Jacob Aaron Estes) Fri-Thurs 
Ne Zha (Jiaozi) Fri-Thurs 

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot) Fri-Thurs 

The Beacon Cinema:

The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg) Fri-Thurs 
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (Pamela B. Green) Sat, Sun & Tues Only Our Review
Mad Max Fury Road (George Miller, 2015) Sat & Sun Only 
Nine to Five (Colin Higgins, 1980) Sun & Mon Only 
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) Mon Only 
Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015) Tues-Thurs Only Our Review
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) Weds & Thurs Only 

Central Cinema:

Paprika (Satoshi Kon, 2006) Fri-Weds 
The Land Before Time (Don Bluth, 1988) Fri-Weds 

Cinerama:

Stephen King Film Series Fri-Thurs 

SIFF Egyptian:

Brittany Runs a Marathon (Paul Downs Colaizzo) Fri-Thurs 

Century Federal Way:

Saaho (Sujeeth) Fri-Thurs Tamil or Telugu, Check Listings
Don’t Let Go (Jacob Aaron Estes) Fri-Thurs 
Ishq My Religion (Gurdeep Dhillon) Fri-Thurs 
Surkhi Bindi (Jagdeep Sidhu) Fri-Thurs 
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) Sun & Weds Only 

Grand Cinema:

Luce (Julius Onah) Fri-Thurs 
Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story (Adam Dubin) Sat Only 
The Spy Behind Home Plate (Aviva Kempner) Tues Only 

Grand Illusion Cinema:

Ode to Joy (Jason Winer) Fri-Thurs  
Attack of the Beast Creatures (Michael Stanley, 1985) Fri Only VHS 
The Case of Hana & Alice (Shunji Iwai, 2015) Sat, Sun & Next Sun Only

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Saaho (Sujeeth) Fri-Thurs Hindi, Tamil or Telugu, Check Listings
Mission Mangal (Jagan Shakti) Fri-Thurs 
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) Sun & Weds Only 

Regal Meridian:

Saaho (Sujeeth) Fri-Thurs Hindi
Don’t Let Go (Jacob Aaron Estes) Fri-Thurs 
Mission Mangal (Jagan Shakti) Fri-Thurs 
Love, Antosha (Garret Price) Fri-Thurs 

Northwest Film Forum:

The Mountain (Rick Alverson) Fri-Sun, Tues-Thurs 
Contemporary Experimental Films and Video Art from Germany, Vol. 4 Fri & Sat Only 
What’s Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972) Sun Only 
Art & Mind (Amélie Ravalec) Weds-Thurs & Next Sat Only 

AMC Pacific Place:

Luce (Julius Onah) Fri-Thurs 

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Saaho (Sujeeth) Fri-Thurs Telugu
Luce (Julius Onah) Fri-Thurs 
Mission Mangal (Jagan Shakti) Fri-Thurs 
Hello, Love, Goodbye (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs 

AMC Seattle:

One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang & Lynn Zhang) Fri-Thurs 

AMC Southcenter:

Don’t Let Go (Jacob Aaron Estes) Fri-Thurs 
Killerman (Malik Bader) Fri-Thurs 
Tod@s Caen (Ariel Winograd) Fri-Thurs 
Maiden (Alex Holmes) Fri-Thurs 

Regal Thornton Place:

Ne Zha (Jiaozi) Fri-Thurs 
Luce (Julius Onah) Fri-Thurs 
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) Sun & Weds Only 

SIFF Uptown:

The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent) Fri-Thurs 
Echo in the Canyon (Andrew Slater) Fri-Thurs 

Varsity Theatre:

Itsy Bitsy (Micah Gallo) Fri-Thurs
Santa Girl (Blayne Weaver) Fri-Thurs

In Wide Release:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) Our Review Our Other Review

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (dir. Pamela Green, 2018)

~ Sue Lonac

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Too few people know about the extraordinary woman who arguably created cinema as we know it. With La Fée aux Choux (1896), Alice Guy-Blaché became the first director in history to use film to do something that we now take for granted as the obvious job of the movies: to tell a story. (Some critics and scholars make a case for the Lumière brothers as the inventors of fiction film with the staged prank depicted in their 1895 L’Arroseur Arrosé, but this argument depends entirely on what one believes counts as a “story,” as opposed to an incident or attraction.) To note only that Guy-Blaché was “the world’s first woman director,” then, is to do her somewhat of a disservice, given her other even more remarkable achievements. (She also, for example, was the first director in history to use synchronized sound in film, decades before The Jazz Singer.) Pamela Green’s long-overdue documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is therefore a little safe and cautious in calling Guy-Blaché only “one of” the earliest fiction filmmakers. Even so, Green’s compelling account performs an essential service in at last giving a remarkable and nearly forgotten figure from cinema history the feature-length documentary that she deserves. Be Natural (entitled after the advice Guy-Blaché always gave her actors) is wholly engrossing, and by turns surprising, illuminating, and moving.

Continue reading “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (dir. Pamela Green, 2018)” →