Seattle Screen Scene

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

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

Century Federal Way:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)” →

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)

March 9, 2017May 12, 2017 ~ 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]

Yourself and Yours (Hong Sangsoo, 2016)

March 8, 2017May 23, 2017 ~ Sean Gilman ~ 3 Comments

yourselfandyours_06

Yourself and Yours isn’t the latest film from South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, that would be On the Beach at Night Alone, which premiered a few weeks ago at the Berlin Film Festival (where it picked up a Best Actress award) and which Evan wrote about here last week (Evan has also written here about both Yourself and Yours and its trailer). Yourself and Yours may still come to Seattle Screens, Hong’s Right Now, Wrong Then played here last summer, almost a year after its festival premiere in 2015. It’s probable that if it does, it won’t be until after another new Hong movie plays the Cannes Film Festival, as his Claire’s Camera is rumored to be finished by that time. With a director this prolific (since taking a year off in 2007, Hong has directed thirteen feature films in ten years) it’s easy for a film here or there to get lost in the mix, especially given the lethargic pace at which films today move from the festival circuit to the theatrical art house. The system simply isn’t designed, at present, for a director who releases a new film every nine months. This isn’t unique to Hong (the similarly prolific Johnnie To has had equally haphazard distribution) nor is it unique to the present (take a look sometime at the distribution schedule of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s period). But don’t let these institutional vagaries obscure the fact that Hong is in the midst of one of the great cinematic winning streaks, a frenetic burst of creative energy that comes along only a few times in a generation. And Yourself and Yours, seemingly already forgotten though it premiered just six months ago, epitomizes the greatness of that streak as well as anything.

Continue reading “Yourself and Yours (Hong Sangsoo, 2016)” →

Friday March 3 – Thursday March 9

March 2, 2017March 9, 2017 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Anatahan at the Grand Illusion

Josef von Sternberg’s final film, long unavailable in anything like a proper form in the US, has been newly restored and its playing this week at the Grand Illusion. Based on a true legend about a dozen Japanese sailors who are stranded on a remote island in 1944 and remain there for seven years, where their struggles for dominance and the island’s lone woman (daughter of a plantation owner) play out in lush, lurid dementia. Shot entirely outside the studio system on an artificial jungle set, it’s a harrowing vision of a world gone Sternberg, society reduced to its most basic urges and plays for power, yet twisted just enough to create an uncertain self-awareness of its own artificiality. It doesn’t have a Dietrich, but it might be the great director’s greatest film. We talked about it a few years ago on the Josef von Sternberg episode of They Shot Pictures.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Headshot (Timo Tjahjanto & Kimo Stamboel) Fri-Thurs
The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit) Fri-Thurs

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

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009) Fri-Tues
Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000) Fri, Sat, Mon-Weds

SIFF Egyptian:

The Great Muppet Caper (Jim Henson, 1981) Sun Only Free Admission & Popcorn for Kids

Century Federal Way:

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) Sun & Weds Only

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004) Sat Only
Sweet Bean (Naomi Kawase) Mon Only
Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi) Tues Only
Deconstructing the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper (Scott Freiman) Thurs Only

Anatahan (Josef von Sternberg, 1953) Fri-Thurs Our Podcast
Saturday Secret Matinees: Presented by the Sprocket Society (Various directors & years) Sat Only 16mm

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

Kittu Unnadu Jagratha (Vamsi Krishna) Fri-Thurs
Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai (Keshhav Panneriy) Fri-Thurs
Commando 2 (Deven Bhojani) Fri-Thurs
A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) Sun & Weds Only

The Dazzling Light of Sunset (Salomé Jashi) Fri & Sat Only
Enemy Mine (Wolfgang Petersen, 1985) Fri Only Live Score
XX (Roxanne Benjamin, Sofia Carrillo, Annie Clark, Karyn Kusama, & Jovanka Vuckovic) Fri-Sun
The Road to Nickelsville (Derek McNeill) Sun Only Filmmaker in Attendance
Happy Hour (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi) Weds Only Part One Weds, Part Two Friday

AMC Pacific Place:

A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs

Paramount Theatre:

The Dragon Painter (William Worthington, 1919) Mon Only Live Wurlitzer

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai (Keshhav Panneriy) Fri-Thurs
My Ex and Whys (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs

The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948) Mon Only 35mm Thelma Schoonmaker in Attendance
The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983) Tues Only 35mm Thelma Schoonmaker in Attendance
City of Women (Federico Fellini, 1980) Thurs Only

SIFF Film Center:

The Brand New Testament (Jaco Van Dormael) Fri-Sun Only

The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit) Fri-Thurs
A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs

Continue reading “On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)” →

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:

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) Weds Only

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

On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)

March 1, 2017April 22, 2019 ~ Evan Morgan

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First, what On the Beach at Night Alone is not. And because Hong often, though not always, makes films in pairs that profit from their proximity, let’s take Yourself and Yours as the template from which to trace the variations. Yourself and Yours arguably employed Hong’s loopiest structure in some time: there’s no intradiegetic scaffolding—a la Hill of Freedom—to guide the narrative’s many double helixes and it lacks the log-line neatness of Right Now, Wrong Then, with its rewind-to-be-kind backpedaling. By comparison, this newest work is not a labyrinthine construct. Yes, On the Beach at Night Alone redeploys the bifurcation that defined Hong’s biggest hit, but it hardly counted as innovation when he used it there either; Hong has long displayed an affinity for warped mirror halves. And anyways, the chapters that split On the Beach at Night Alone in two are, if taken at face value, drawn more sharply on geographical and temporal lines than metaphysical or meta-fictional divisions (though more on that later).

In Praise of and Disapproval Towards the 89th Oscars: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016) and The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016)

February 25, 2017February 25, 2017 ~ Ryan Swen ~ 1 Comment

manchester

There is nothing quite like the Oscars in the cinephile community, or even the public consciousness. True, the viewing audience has declined steadily over the past few years, and the small but significant foothold of movies as entertainment has waned more and more in the light of prestige and not-so-prestige television, but the Academy Awards remain a sort of galvanizing force for the film community. To invoke an often touted if shallow comparison, they are the Super Bowl of film, a chance to celebrate the best that the world of cinema has to offer.

Of course, the Oscars rarely if ever feature the best of even Hollywood film, let alone American or world cinema. However, there is always value in seeing what Hollywood chooses to reward and what it chooses (on purpose or accidentally) to ignore. Two of my favorite films of the past year, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea and Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, happen to typify these two extremes in strange and fairly wonderful ways.

Continue reading “In Praise of and Disapproval Towards the 89th Oscars: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016) and The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016)” →

Friday February 24 – Thursday March 2

February 23, 2017March 2, 2017 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Akira at the Central Cinema

If you’re my age, the first anime you ever saw was probably Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 epic Akira. Based on Otomo’s own 1982 manga, it’s the story of a biker kid named Tetsuo who has supernatural powers and rampages around a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo as a variety of forces (his gang leader, the military, a resistance group) try to corral him and stop him from releasing the eponymous psychic who destroyed old Tokyo. Ground-breaking and breath-taking in its animation, it’s also one of the best examples of sci-fi anime’s tendency toward nigh-incomprehensible philosophical abstraction, it’s one of the essential films of the 1980s. The Central Cinema is playing it all week, but you should go on Saturday or Tuesday, when they’re playing it with its original Japanese soundtrack.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit) Fri-Thurs
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review

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

Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) Dubbed: Fri, Mon, Weds; Subtitled: Sat & Tues
Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982) Fri-Weds

Century Federal Way:

Beautiful Manasugalu (Jayatheertha) Fri-Thurs

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
The Lure (Agnieszka Smoczynska) Fri & Sat Only Our Review
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Tues Only
I, Claude Monet (Phil Grabsky) Thurs Only

Dark Night (Tim Sutton) Fri-Thurs
The Zodiac Killer (Tom Hanson, 1971) Fri Only 35mm
Saturday Secret Matinees: Presented by the Sprocket Society (Various directors & years) Sat Only 16mm
Death Warmed Up (David Blyth) Sat Only VHS
Trailer Apocalypse Redux Sun Only 35mm
Alex MacKenzie’s Apparitions Tues Only 16mm + Live Performance

A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Mon, Weds-Thurs
20th Century Women (Mike Mills) Fri-Thurs

A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs
Oscar Nominated Animated and Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
Rangoon (Vishal Bhardwaj) Fri-Thurs
The Ghazi Attack (Sankalp Reddy) Fri-Thurs
Jolly LLB 2 (Subhash Kapoor) Fri-Thurs

Regal Meridian:

Rangoon (Vishal Bhardwaj) Fri-Thurs

Seattle Asian American Film Festival Fri-Sun Full Program
Better Luck Tomorrow (Justin Lin, 2002) Sat Only
The Dazzling Light of Sunset (Salomé Jashi) Starts Thurs

AMC Pacific Place:

A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) Fri-Thurs

Paramount Theatre:

Carmen (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915) Mon Only Live Wurlitzer

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

Padre padrone (The Taviani Brothers, 1977) Thurs Only

SIFF Film Center:

Deconstructing the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper (Scott Freiman) Fri-Sun Only

The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit) Fri-Thurs
The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy) Fri-Thurs
Everybody Loves Somebody (Catalina Aguilar Mastretta) Fri-Thurs

The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit) Fri-Thurs
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review

SIFF Uptown:

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Weds Our Review
Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Tues, Thurs
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Tues, Thurs

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
Arrival (Denis Villeneuve) Our Review

The Lure (Agnieszka Smoczynska, 2015)

February 23, 2017February 24, 2017 ~ Melissa Tamminga

the-lure-club

“What is that fishy smell?”

Agnieszka Smoczynska’s debut feature film functions as a pastiche of “The Little Mermaid,” but it comes to us by way of smoky cabaret clubs of a Warsaw in the 80’s, New Wave synthpop music videos, and the queasy glamour of capitalistic excess. It’s a gritty fairy tale of slyly telepathic sister-mermaids whose siren calls satisfy carnivorous tastes – until one sister falls in love with her prey, and their world and their sisterly bond begins to disintegrate.

It’s more grim Grimm than gentle Hans Christian Andersen: no swift and bloodless magic here, just buzzing grinding surgeon’s tools, human legs and mermaid tails on beds of ice. But the surgeon drunkenly dances and the mermaid sings until her voice wheezes dry, and I remember I always did prefer the intoxicating horror of Grimm to Andersen anyway.

Does it all add up to a fairy tale moral or even a thematically cohesive whole? I’m not sure it does, but it does fully commit to its individual scenes: carnal, sordid, crunchy, or sexy, and like the immersive quality of a vivid dream, its overall sensations linger, far into the waking hours.

mermaid-on-ice

The Lure plays at Grand Cinema on February 24 and 25.

(Note: This review is adapted from my notes on 5/25/16 on Letterboxd.)

Friday February 17 – Thursday February 23

February 16, 2017February 23, 2017 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Noir City at the SIFF Egyptian

Eddie Muller’s annual festival of 35mm film noir returns to the Egyptian this week. This year’s theme is heist movies, and the titles range from John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle to 2015’s Victoria. Muller always puts on a great show, a mix of recognized classics, under-known gems and genuine oddities. Among this year’s lineup, I’ve seen and recommend the following: The Killing, The Ladykillers, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, and Rififi. The ones I haven’t seen that I’d line up for include: Charley Varrick, Cruel Gun Story, Violent Saturday, Straight Time and Blue Collar.

Playing This Week:

AMC Alderwood:

Confidential Assigmment (Kim Sung-hoon) Fri-Thurs
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review

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

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Fri-Weds Our Review
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) Fri-Weds

SIFF Egyptian:

Noir City Film Festival Fri-Weds Full Program

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) Fri-Thurs Our Review Our Other Review
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Sat Only
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971) Sat Only Free
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts (Various) Tues Only
I, Claude Monet (Phil Grabsky) Thurs Only

Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi) Fri-Thurs
The Love Witch (Anna Biller) Sat Only Our Review 35mm
Saturday Secret Matinees: Presented by the Sprocket Society (Various directors & years) Sat Only 16mm
Antarctica: Ice & Sky (Luc Jacquet) Sat, Mon & Tues Only
Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (Annie Sprinkle, 1981) Weds Only
Confessions from the War (Leon Shahabian) Thurs Only Work-in-Progress

Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
20th Century Women (Mike Mills) Fri-Thurs

The Ghazi Attack (Sankalp Reddy) Fri-Thurs
Irada (Aparnaa Singh & Nishant Tripathi) Fri-Thurs
Running Shaadi (Amit Roy) Fri-Thurs
Jolly LLB 2 (Subhash Kapoor) Fri-Thurs

The Son of Joseph (Eugène Green) Fri-Sun Only
The 2017 South Asian International Documentary Festival Sat & Sun Only Full Program
Trends in Latin American Experimental Animation Mon Only Curators in Attendance
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991) Weds & Thurs Only Our Review
UNCODE at the Forum Thurs Only
Seattle Asian American Film Festival Starts Thurs Full Program

AMC Pacific Place:

Cook Up a Storm (Raymond Yip) Fri-Thurs
Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back (Tsui Hark) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Duckweed (Han Han) Fri-Thurs

I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) Fri-Thurs Our Review
Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (Various) Fri-Thurs
My Ex and Whys (Cathy Garcia-Molina) Fri-Thurs
Singam 3 (Hari) Fri-Thurs
Dangal (Nitesh Tiwari) Fri-Thurs

The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970) Thurs Only

Everybody Loves Somebody (Catalina Aguilar Mastretta) Fri-Thurs