Featured Film:

The Seattle Screen Valentine’s Scene

Nothing really stands out as the must-see Film to Feature this week, but there are a number of romantic options for your Valentine’s Week plans. In repertory: the Ark Lodge has a pair of criminal duos with Bonnie & Clyde and Thelma & Louise, while the Central Cinema has Moonstruck (RIP John Mahoney) and Before Sunrise, and the Grand plays Harold & Maude and Say Anything… (RIP John Mahoney). If you’re tastes are more. . . unconventional, there’s 9 1/2 Weeks at the Grand Illusion and, in wide release, The Shape of Water, Phantom Thread, and Fifty Shades Freed. And if you just want to see something great, there’s Edward Yang’s newly restored classic Taipei Story playing at the Pickford in Bellingham.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs
2018 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
2018 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Bonnie & Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) Fri-Weds
Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991) Fri-Weds

Central Cinema:

Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987) Fri, Sat, Tues & Weds
Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995) Fri, Sat, Tues & Weds

SIFF Egyptian:

Depth Perception (Christopher Murphy & Justin Taylor Smith) Fri-Thurs

Century Federal Way:

Mazinger Z: INFINITY (Junji Shimizu) Sun & Mon Only

Grand Cinema:

Harold & Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971) Sat Only
2018 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
Say Anything… (Cameron Crowe, 1989) Weds Only
Siblings are Forever (Frode Fimland, 2013) Thurs Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

The Insult (Ziad Doueiri) Fri-Thurs
Saturday Secret Matinee: Very Bad Deals Sat Only 16mm
Erased Etchings (Linda Fenstermaker) Tues Only 16mm & Digital
9 1/2 Weeks (Adrian Lyne, 1986) Weds Only

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Chalo (Venky Kudumula) Fri-Thurs
Toliprema (Venky Atluri) Fri-Thurs
Padman (R. Balki) Fri-Thurs
Intelligent (V. V. Vinayak) Fri-Thurs
Gayatri (Madan) Fri-Thurs
Bhaagamathie (G. Ashok) Fri-Thurs
Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs
Mazinger Z: INFINITY (Junji Shimizu) Sun & Mon Only

Regal Meridian:

Padman (R. Balki) Fri-Thurs
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs

Northwest Film Forum:

The Cage Fighter (Jeff Unay) Fri-Thurs Director Q&A Fri & Sat
Infinity Baby (Bob Byington) Fri-Sun Editor Q&A Fri
Children’s Film Festival Seattle 2018 Sat Only
I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore (Caveh Zahedi, 1994) Sat Only

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs
Ang Dalawang Mrs. Reyes (Jun Lana) Fri-Thurs
Bilal: A New Breed of Hero (Ayman Jamal & Khurram Alavi) Fri-Thurs

Pickford Film Center:

Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985) Tues Only
Nanook of the North with In the Land of the War Canoes (Robert Flaherty, 1922 and Edward Curtis, 1913) Sun Only

AMC Seattle:

2018 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
2018 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
2018 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

From The Alphabet to Eraserhead (David Lynch) Fri Only

SIFF Film Center:

Big Sonia (Leah Warshawski & Todd Soliday) Fri-Thurs Q&A Fri & Sat
Elvis, Evergreens, and Umbrellas: 50 Years of Seattle on the Big Screen Sun Only
Love Street (Patrice Leconte, 2002) Weds Only

AMC Southcenter:

La Boda de Valentina (Marco Polo Constandse) Fri-Thurs In Spanish with No Subtitles

SIFF Uptown:

2018 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
2018 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs

Varsity Theatre:

Permission (Brian Crano) Fri-Thurs
Mazinger Z: INFINITY (Junji Shimizu) Sun & Mon Only

In Wide Release:

Fifty Shades Freed (James Foley) Our Review
Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson) Our Review
Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Our Review
The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Serra) Our Review
The Post (Steven Spielberg) Our Review
The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review Our Podcast
The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) Our Review
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) Our Review
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Our Review

Featured Film:

A Brighter Summer Day at the Pickford Film Center

The SIFF Film Center’s Thursday night documentary triple feature of Los Sures, Stations fo the Elevated and Dark Days certainly looks cool, and the Canyon Cinema series being presented by the Grand Illusion and Northwest Film Forum looks to be one of the more exciting experimental film events of the year, but it’s been awhile since we looked at our neighbor to the far north, Bellingham, and their outstanding independent theatre, the Pickford Film Center. And this weekend they’re playing Edward Yang’s monumental A Brighter Summer Day, which we talked about way back on Episode Five of The Frances Farmer Show and which I reviewed at the sadly now-defunct Movie Mezzanine (you can read the review now at The Chinese Cinema. It’s a great movie, of course, and one of the neat things about it is that its running time is longer than the time it probably takes you to drive from Seattle to Bellingham and back again. The Pickford also has Nanook of the North on Sunday, and Yang’s Taipei Story next weekend.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

The Florida Project (Sean Baker) Fri-Weds Our Review Our Other Review
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Fri-Thurs
To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955) Fri-Thurs
The Violent Years (William Morgan, 1956) Thurs Only

Central Cinema:

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) Fri, Sat & Mon
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) Fri-Tues Our Review

Grand Cinema:

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) Sat Only
Django (Etienne Comar) Tues Only
Santa & Andres (Carlos Lechuga) Thurs Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

Vazante (Daniela Thomas) Fri-Thurs
Canyon Cinema 50: Associations (Various) Sat Only 16mm
Saturday Secret Matinee: Very Bad Deals Sat Only 16mm

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Chalo (Venky Kudumula) Fri-Thurs
Humble Politician Nograj (Saad Khan) Fri-Thurs
Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren (Arumuga Kumar) Fri-Thurs
Touch Chesi Chudu (Vikram Sirikonda) Fri-Thurs
Bhaagamathie (G. Ashok) Fri-Thurs
Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs

Regal Meridian:

Til the End of the World (Wu Youyin) Fri-Thurs
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs

Northwest Film Forum:

The Road Movie (Dmitrii Kalashnikov) Fri & Sun Only
Children’s Film Festival Seattle 2018 Fri-Sun
Infinity Baby (Bob Byington) Starts Weds Editor in Attendance
Canyon Cinema 50: Studies in Natural Magic (Various) Thurs Only 16mm
The Cage Fighter (Jeff Unay) Starts Thurs Director Q&A Thurs-Sat

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Padmaavat (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Fri-Thurs
Ang Dalawang Mrs. Reyes (Jun Lana) Fri-Thurs
Bilal: A New Breed of Hero (Ayman Jamal & Khurram Alavi) Fri-Thurs

Pickford Film Center:

A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991) Sat Only Our Podcast Our Review
Nanook of the North with In the Land of the War Canoes (Robert Flaherty, 1922 and Edward Curtis, 1913) Sun Only

AMC Seattle:

In the Fade (Fatih Akin) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

The Magician (Ingmar Bergman, 1958) Thurs Only

SIFF Film Center:

A Ciambra (Jonas Carpignano) Fri-Thurs
Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore) Sat Only
Los Sures, Stations of the Elevated and Dark Days (Diego Echeverria, 1984; Manfred Kirchheimer, 1981; and Marc Singer, 2000) Thurs Only Triple Feature

In Wide Release:

Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson) Our Review
Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Our Review
The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Serra) Our Review
The Post (Steven Spielberg) Our Review
The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review Our Podcast
The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) Our Review
Pitch Perfect 3 (Trish Sie) Our Review
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) Our Review
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Our Review

Featured Film:

The Seventh Seal at the Seattle Art Museum

This winter’s series at SAM is a retrospective on Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, and this week, about halfway through the series, they’re playing his most famous work, in which Death stalks a returning Crusader (Max von Sydow, playing chess) and a family of acrobats. I’ve never really warmed to Bergman, one of my failings as a cinephile, I suppose, but The Seventh Seal was one of the first “art house” movies I ever saw, and it remains a personal favorite. There are other fine films in the series (a lot of people who are not me adore next week’s Wild Strawberries, for example), but if you haven’t seen any Bergman, and you only get to see one, I’d recommend this one, playing Thursday night only.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review
1987: When the Day Comes (Jang Joonhwan) Fri-Thurs

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) Fri-Thurs
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Fri-Thurs
Turbo Kid and Zombiology (Anouk Whissell, François Simard & Yoann-Karl Whissell, 2015 and Alan Lo, 2017) Thurs Only Double Feature

Central Cinema:

Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) Fri-Weds
Dreamgirls (Bill Condon, 2006) Fri-Weds

SIFF Egyptian:

Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki, 1986) Thurs Only

Century Federal Way:

1987: When the Day Comes (Jang Joonhwan) Fri-Thurs

Grand Cinema:

The Road Movie (Dmitrii Kalashnikov) Sat Only
My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) Sat Only Free Screening
The Final Year (Greg Barker) Tues Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

The Final Year (Greg Barker) Fri-Thurs
Saturday Secret Matinee: Swashbuckling Heroes! Sat Only 16mm

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) Fri-Thurs Our Review Dubbed or Subtitled, Check Listings
Agnyaathavaasi – Prince in Exile (Trivikram Srinivas) Fri-Thurs
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (Vignesh Shivan) Fri-Thurs
Rangula Ratnam (B. N. Reddy) Fri-Thurs
Chamak (John Huston, 1948) Sat & Sun Only

Regal Meridian:

Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review

Northwest Film Forum:

Bombshell – The Hedy Lamarr Story (Alexandra Dean) Fri-Sun Our Review
Brown’s Canyon (John Helde) Fri & Sat Only Director & Cast in Attendance
2017 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour Sat Only
Tom of Finland (Dome Karukoski) Sun & Thurs Only

AMC Pacific Place:

A Better Tomorrow 2018 (Ding Sheng) Fri-Thurs
Ex Files 3 (Tian Yusheng) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) Thurs Only

SIFF Film Center:

The Paris Opera (Jean-Stéphane Bron) Fri-Sun Our Review
Awesome I F**kin’ Shot That and Fight For Your Right Revisited Thurs Only

AMC Southcenter:

Condorito: La película (Eduardo Schuldt & Alex Orrelle) Fri-Thurs

In Wide Release:

Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson) Our Review
The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Serra) Our Review
The Post (Steven Spielberg) Our Review
The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review Our Podcast
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

Featured Film:

The Post at the Pacific Place

The weirdest movie month of the year, the time when studios both expand their biggest award-hopefuls and dump their trashiest genre fare, begins this week with the latest from Steven Spielberg, playing exclusively at the Pacific Place. It’s the story of the second newspaper to publish excerpts from Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, the classified history of US involvement in Vietnam, and of the internal conflicts between the Washington Post’s publisher, Meryl Streep’s Katharine Graham and its editor, Tom Hanks. This is the kind of sturdy liberal procedural Spielberg has excelled at in recent years, and while it doesn’t hit the heights of Lincoln and is vastly more self-important than Bridge of Spies, it does work as a stealth reunion of Mr. Show. I reviewed it back in December.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Along With The Gods: The Two Worlds (Kim Yong-hwa) Fri-Thurs

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

The Florida Project (Sean Baker) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review

Central Cinema:

Labyrinth (Jim Henson, 1986) Fri-Mon Sing-along Monday
Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016) Fri-Sun

Century Federal Way:

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

Grand Cinema:

Thelma (Joachim Trier) Sat Only
God’s Own Country (Francis Lee) Tues Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

The Square (Ruben Östlund) Fri-Thurs
Saturday Secret Matinee: Alien Invasion! Sat Only 16mm

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie) Fri-Thurs
Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Velaikkaran (Mohan Raja) Fri-Thurs
Okka Kshanam (VI Anand) Fri-Thurs
Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs

Regal Meridian:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Goldbuster (Sandra Ng) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Hanson and the Beast (Yang Xiao) Fri-Thurs
Hostiles (Scott Cooper) Fri-Thurs Our Review

Northwest Film Forum:

Bugs (Andreas Johnsen) Fri-Sun
Félicité (Alain Gomis) Fri-Sun
Aida’s Secrets (Alan Schwarz & Saul Schwarz) Weds-Sun

AMC Pacific Place:

The Post (Steven Spielberg) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Youth (Feng Xiaogang) Fri-Thurs
Ex Files 3 (Tian Yusheng) Fri-Thurs

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs

AMC Seattle:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

Summer with Monika (Ingmar Bergman, 1953) Thurs Only

SIFF Uptown:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie) Fri-Thurs
Borg vs. McEnroe (Janus Metz) Thurs Only

In Wide Release:

The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review Our Podcast
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

Featured Film:

The Road Warrior at the Grand Cinema

If it felt to you like 2017 was some kind of apocalypse, then have I got the chilling vision of things to come in 2018 for you. George Miller’s second movie about Mad Max comes after the end, with Mel Gibson at his most Australian, a lone driver how helps a community escape from the gasoline bandits that have them circling their big rigs. Leaner, more brutish than Miller’s celebrated Fury Road, you can catch it Saturday night only in Tacoma. Just be careful if you’re driving there and back again.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

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

Central Cinema:

Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) Fri & Sat Only Dubbed or Subtitled, Check Listings

Century Federal Way:

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

Grand Cinema:

The Road Warrior (George Miller, 1981) Sat Only
Song of Granite (Pat Collins) Tues Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

Permanent (Colette Burson) Fri-Thurs
Wayfinding: Films by Pam Minty Tues Only

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Velaikkaran (Mohan Raja) Fri-Thurs
Okka Kshanam (VI Anand) 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
The Liquidator (Xu Jizhou) Fri-Thurs
Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs

Northwest Film Forum:

Bugs (Andreas Johnsen) Weds-Sun
Félicité (Alain Gomis) Thurs-Sun

AMC Pacific Place:

Youth (Feng Xiaogang) Fri-Thurs
Ex Files 3 (Tian Yusheng) Fri-Thurs

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Tiger Zinda Hai (Ali Abbas Zafar) Fri-Thurs

AMC Seattle:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Uptown:

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) Fri-Thurs
Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001) Sun Only

In Wide Release:

The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) Our Review Our Podcast
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

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

Featured Film:

On the Beach at Night Alone at the Northwest Film Forum

Yes, there’s a new Star Wars movie out, and it is great, truly the movie we obsessives have been waiting for, the Reddest corporate franchise movie there’s ever been. There are also two highly anticipated Chinese films opening this week: Feng Xiaogang’s Cultural Revolution-set Youth and Yuen Woo-ping and Tsui Hark’s remake of The Miracle Fighters, The Thousand Faces of Dunjia. But I’ll been writing about both of those at Mubi later this month. No, the Featured Film this week has to be Hong Sangsoo’s On the Beach at Night Alone, the first of his three 2016 movies to be released in Seattle (the other two are scheduled for 2018, by which time Hong will likely have completed another movie or two). Evan wrote about it for us here way back in March, not long after it picked up the Best Actress prize in Berlin (alas, my campaigning did not earn Kim Minhee a Seattle Film Critics Award nomination). His review is much better than my letterboxd response, which for reasons I can’t entirely fathom but which nonetheless still seems to explain the movie to me, contrasts a cosmically expansive passage from the Walt Whitman poem referenced in the film’s title to the self-critiquing and celebratory chorus of Kanye West’s “Runaway”. Anyway, The Last Jedi will be out for awhile, but you can only see On the Beach at Night Alone through Sunday at the Film Forum.

Playing This Week:

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Female Trouble (John Waters, 1974) Thurs Only

Central Cinema:

Elf (Jon Favreau, 2003) Fri-Tues
Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003) Fri-Tues

SIFF Egyptian:

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) Fri-Thurs

Century Federal Way:

Sat Shri Akaal England (Vikram Pradhan) Fri-Thurs
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Sun & Weds Only

Grand Cinema:

The Square (Ruben Östlund) Fri-Thurs
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
Home Alone (Chris Columbus, 1990) Sat Only Free Screening
Rare Exports (Jalmari Helander, 2010) Sat Only
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) Sat Only Our Review
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Mon & Thurs Only
Window Horses (Ann Marie Fleming) Tues Only
Desk Set (Walter Lang, 1957) Weds Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Fri-Thurs 35mm
Elves (Jeffrey Mandel, 1989) Sat Only VHS

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) Fri-Thurs
Love Ni Bhavai (Saandeep Patel) Fri-Thurs
Aruvi (Arun Prabhu) Fri-Thurs
Maayavan (C.V. Kumar) Fri-Thurs
Fukrey Returns (Mrigdeep Singh Lamba) Fri-Thurs
Malli Raava (Gowtam Tinnanuri) Fri-Thurs
It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Sun & Weds Only

Regal Meridian:

The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (Yuen Woo-ping) Fri-Thurs
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
My Friend Dahmer (Marc Meyers) Fri-Thurs
Elf (Jon Favreau, 2003) Sat Only

Northwest Film Forum:

On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sangsoo) Fri-Sun Only Our Review
Porto (Gabe Klinger) Fri-Sun Only 35mm
Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975) Weds Only 35mm
Beggars of Life (William Wellman, 1928) Thurs Only

AMC Pacific Place:

Youth (Feng Xiaogang) Fri-Thurs

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Jane (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs
Fukrey Returns (Mrigdeep Singh Lamba) Fri-Thurs
Unexpectedly Yours (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs

AMC Seattle:

The Florida Project (Sean Baker) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review

SIFF Film Center:

Scrooged (Richard Donner, 1988) Fri-Sun
Die Hard (John McTeirnan, 1988) Fri-Sun
Rare Exports (Jalmari Helander, 2010) Starts Thurs
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Starts Thurs Sing-Along

Regal Thornton Place:

Elf (Jon Favreau, 2003) Sat Only

Varsity Theatre:

The Square (Ruben Östlund) Fri-Thurs

In Wide Release:

The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) 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

Featured Film:

Irma Vep at the Northwest Film Forum

Continuing their miniature festival de Léaud, the Northwest Film Forum this weekend has the new restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Le gai savoir, in which Jean-Pierre Léaud and Juliet Berto discourse on language, meaning and learning. It’s one of the few 1960s Godard features I haven’t seen yet. The film it’s paired with, a 35mm print of Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep, is one of the very best European films of the 1990s. Maggie Cheung plays Maggie Cheung, an actress hired by famous French director Léaud to star in his remake of Louis Feuillade’s silent serial Les vampires. A scathing satire of the state of the French film industry in the ashes of the New Wave, anchored by a brilliant fish out of water performance by Cheung, it’s one of the very best films ever made about making movies. I wrote a bit about it way back in 2011, after we had tried and failed to play it at the Metro.

Playing This Week:

AMC Loews Alderwood:

Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) Fri-Thurs

Central Cinema:

Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) Fri-Tues
Scrooged (Richard Donner, 1988) Fri-Tues

Century Federal Way:

The Swindlers (Jang Chang-won) Fri-Thurs
Sat Shri Akaal England (Vikram Pradhan) Fri-Thurs
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967) Sun & Weds Only

Grand Cinema:

Faces Places (Agnès Varda & JR) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
Blade of the Immortal (Takashi Miike) Sat Only
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Sun Weds & Thurs Only
The King’s Choice (Erik Poppe) Tues Only
Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings (Various) Weds Only Free Screening

Grand Illusion Cinema:

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) Fri-Mon 35mm, Free on Monday
Christmas Evil (Lewis Jackson, 1980) Fri, Sat & Weds
Potamkin (Stephen Broomer) Tues Only 16mm
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969) Thurs Only 35mm

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen) Fri-Thurs
Jawaan (B. V. S. Ravi) Fri-Thurs
Gruham (U. Milind Rau) Fri-Thurs
Fukrey Returns (Mrigdeep Singh Lamba) Fri-Thurs
Malli Raava (Gowtam Tinnanuri) Fri-Thurs
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967) Sun & Weds Only

Regal Meridian:

Daisy Winters (Beth LaMure) Fri-Thurs
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
My Friend Dahmer (Marc Meyers) Fri-Thurs
Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1989) Sat Only

Northwest Film Forum:

Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996) Sat & Sun Only 35mm
La gai savoir (Jean-Luc Godard, 1969) Sat & Sun Only
Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francesco Barilli, 1974) Weds Only
On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sangsoo) Starts Thurs Our Review

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Jane (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs
Fukrey Returns (Mrigdeep Singh Lamba) Fri-Thurs
Unexpectedly Yours (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs

AMC Seattle:

Thelma (Joachim Trier) Fri-Thurs
The Florida Project (Sean Baker) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

Snowpiercer (Bong Joonho, 2013) Fri-Sun Our Podcast
Home Alone (Chris Columbus, 1990) Fri-Sun

Regal Thornton Place:

Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1989) Sat Only

SIFF Uptown:

Jane (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs

Varsity Theatre:

The Square (Ruben Östlund) Fri-Thurs
Tribes of Palos Verdes (Emmett & Brendan Malloy) Fri-Thurs
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967) Weds Only

In Wide Release:

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) Our Review
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Our Review
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) Our Review

Featured Film:

La chinoise at the Northwest Film Forum

If you’re not buried in awards season like I am (yeah, I know, I still haven’t seen Lady Bird) then this is the perfect week to spend some time at the Northwest Film Forum. Not only do they have, on Wednesday and Thursday, two different short film programs by celebrated experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky, with the director himself in attendance, but this weekend they’re playing the recent restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s La chinoise, in which Jean-Pierre Léaud, Julie Berto and Anne Wiazemsky bring Maoism to Paris. One of the last films of Godard’s early period, with one foot in popular cinema and another in serious political thought and activism, it’s a difficult film to get a handle on. The last time I saw it, I was convinced it was a wicked satire on rich kids playing at Leftism, but now I’m not so sure. I should see it again.

Playing This Week:

AMC Loews Alderwood:

Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) Fri-Thurs
The Swindlers (Jang Chang-won) Fri-Thurs

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Fri-Thurs Our Review

Central Cinema:

Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) Fri-Mon
Better Off Dead (Savage Steve Holland, 1985) Fri-Mon

SIFF Egyptian:

The Disaster Artist (James Franco) Fri-Thurs

Century Federal Way:

The Swindlers (Jang Chang-won) Fri-Thurs
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Sun & Weds Only

Grand Cinema:

Novitiate (Margaret Betts) Fri-Thurs
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
Bill Nye: Science Guy (David Alvarado & Jason Sussberg) Fri-Thurs
Tragedy Girls (Tyler MacIntyre) Sat Only
Te Ata (Nathan Frankowski) Tues Only

Grand Illusion Cinema:

Free Lunch Society (Christian Tod) Fri-Thurs
The Nightmare (Akiz) Fri-Thurs

Cinemark Lincoln Square:

Aval (Gruham) (U. Milind Rau) Fri-Thurs In Tamil or Telugu, Check Showtimes
Jawaan (B. V. S. Ravi) Fri-Thurs
Firangi (Rajiv Dhingra) Fri-Thurs
Oxygen (Jyothi Krishna) Fri-Thurs
Mental Madhilo (Vivek Athreya) Fri-Thurs
White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954) Sun & Weds Only

Regal Meridian:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Explosion (Chang Zheng) Fri-Thurs
Daisy Winters (Beth LaMure) Fri-Thurs
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs
My Friend Dahmer (Marc Meyers) Fri-Thurs
A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983) Sat Only

Northwest Film Forum:

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) Fri Only Live Score
La chinoise (jean-Luc Godard, 1967) Sat & Sun Only
Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary (Cori McKenna) Sat Only
Seasonal Songs (Nathaniel Dorsky) Weds & Thurs Only Two Different Programs, 16mm, Director in Attendance
All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972) Weds Only

Regal Parkway Plaza:

Jane (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs
Thiruttu Payale 2 (Susi Ganeshan) Fri-Thurs
Daisy Winters (Beth LaMure) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Art Museum:

Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) Thurs Only

AMC Seattle:

Thelma (Joachim Trier) Fri-Thurs
The Florida Project (Sean Baker) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) Fri-Sun
The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) Fri-Sun
8 Women (François Ozon, 2002) Weds Only

Regal Thornton Place:

A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983) Sat Only
Black Clover (Tatsuya Yoshihara) Weds & Next Sat & Sun Only Subtitled Monday

SIFF Uptown:

Jane (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs
The Neverending Story (Wolfgang Petersen, 1984) Weds Only

Varsity Theatre:

The Square (Ruben Östlund) Fri-Thurs

In Wide Release:

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) Our Review
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) Our Review
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) Our Review