Seattle Screen Scene

Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) Fri, Sun-Weds
Slither (James Gnn, 2006) Fri, Sun-Weds

Century Federal Way:

Twenty (Lee Byeong-heon) Fri-Thurs
Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) Sun Only

Cinerama:

The Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1951) Fri-Tues Our Preview
Oklahoma! (Fred Zinnemann, 1955) Sat Only Laser Projection Our Preview

Landmark Crest Cinema Center:

Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Cinema Egyptian:

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen) Fri-Thurs

Grand Cinema:

GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz) Sat & Tues Only
Captain Abu Raed (Amin Matalqa, 2007) Sun Only
TCC Diversity Film Series Short Films Weds Only

Amour fou (Jessica Hausner) Fri-Thurs
Roar (Noel Marshall, 1981/2014) Fri-Sun, Thurs
Planetary (Guy Reid) Sun Only
Excinema (Various) Tues Only Video & 16mm

Dohchay (Sudheer Varma) Fri-Thurs
Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) Sun Only

Majestic Bay Theatre:

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Let’s Get Married (Liu Jiang) Fri-Thurs
Desert Dancer (Richard Raymond) Fri-Thurs

Yakona: Journey Through the Eyes of a River (Paul Collins and Anlo Sepulveda) Fri-Sat Only Live Music, Filmmakers in Attendance

AMC Pacific Place:

Kung Fu Killer (Teddy Chan) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

You’re My Boss (Antoinette Jadaone) Fri-Thurs

Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995) Fri Only
Fandango (Kevin Reynolds, 1985) Sat Only
The House of Mirth (Terrence Davies, 2000) Sun Only
The Hedgehog (Mona Achache, 2009) Sun Only
A Pistol for Ringo (Duccio Tessari, 1965) Mon Only
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) Tues Only
The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004) Weds Only
Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat & Shoja Azari, 2009) Thurs Only

Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) Thurs Only 35mm

The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz) Fri-Sun
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Sun, Weds Our Preview
Mommy (Xavier Dolan) Mon Only
In Country (Mike Attie & Meghan O’Hara) Thurs Only

Deli Man (Erik Anjou) Fri-Thurs
Black Souls (Francesco Munzi) Fri-Thurs
5 to 7 (Victor Levin) Fri-Thurs
Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Continue reading “The Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1951)” →

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Sun-Tues, Thurs Our Preview
GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz) Mon-Thurs
Adult Beginners (Ross Katz) Mon Only Nick Kroll in Attendance
Best of HUMP! Tour 2015 Starts Thurs

The Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1951)

April 24, 2015April 24, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

After the smashing success of 1948’s The Red Shoes, with its lengthy fantasy ballet sequence fusing the stage arts with effects possible only in cinema, the writing-directing-producing team of Michel Powell and Emeric Pressburger wanted to make a truly operatic film. In 1951, they adapted Jacques Offenbach’s mostly-finished fantasy opera The Tale of Hoffman, adapted from three stories by writer ETA Hoffmann. Truly pan-European in concept, it’s an English film adapting a French variation on an Italian art form based on stories from a German author drawing on Central European folk traditions (whose story The Nutcracker is also the basis for the most famous of all Russian ballets). The film is entirely dialogue-free, every line sung in an English adaptation of Offenbach’s score by opera professionals, all pre-recorded with the film edited to match the score (all but two of the actors are dubbed, only star Richard Rounseville and Ann Ayars sing their own parts). Divided in three sections with a frame story, Rounseville plays Hoffmann, who is in love with a ballerina named Stella (Moira Shearer, star of The Red Shoes). During an intermission in her performance, he goes to a bar and gets drunk, telling an assembly of students stories of his three past loves gone wrong. Those stories, about women named Olympia, Giulietta and Antonia, are then dramatized as operettas within the whole.

Friday April 17 – Thursday April 23

April 17, 2015April 24, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Jauja at the Northwest Film Forum

Viggo Mortensen stars in the latest from acclaimed Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso, playing a Danish engineer in 19th Century Patagonia who must set out across the desert in search of his runaway daughter. Inspiring comparisons as diverse as The Searchers, the mystical films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the Insanity Pepper episode of The Simpsons, it was one of the best films of 2014. Our Preview.

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Playing This Week:

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

The Last Starfighter (Nick Castle, 1984) Fri-Tues
Drop Dead Gorgeous (Michael Patrick Jann, 1999) Fri-Tues

Century Federal Way:

Patta Patta Singhan Da Vairy (PVS) (Naresh S. Garg) Fri-Thurs
The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) Sun & Weds Only

Cinerama:

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Sat Only Laser Projection

Landmark Crest Cinema Center:

Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Cinema Egyptian:

The Hunting Ground (Kirby Dick) Fri-Thurs
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975) Sat Midnight Only
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen) Starts Thurs

Grand Cinema:

Annie (John Huston, 1982) Sat Only
The Little Tin Man (Matthew Perkins, 2013) Tues Only
Planetary (Guy Reid) Weds Only
Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory (Michael Rossato-Bennett) Thurs Only

Of Horses and Men (Benedikt Erlingsson) Sat & Sun Only
1971 (Johanna Hamilton) Fri-Thurs
Backcountry (Adam MacDonald) Fri-Thurs

Ex Machina (Alex Garland) Fri-Thurs
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (Dibakar Banerjee) Fri-Thurs
The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) Sun & Weds Only

Majestic Bay Theatre:

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Let’s Get Married (Liu Jiang) Fri-Thurs
Desert Dancer (Richard Raymond) Fri-Thurs
Ex Machina (Alex Garland) Fri-Thurs

Jauja (Lisandro Alonso) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Cheatin’ (Bill Plympton) Fri-Tues
World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt) Sat, Sun & Tues Only Short, plays with Cheatin’
Maria Tallchief (Sandy Osawa) Fri Only Director in attendance
Speaking of Dying Sat Only
Sweet 16 (Millimeter) Sat Only 16mm
North by Pacific Northwest: the Films of Kelly Sears Sun Only
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) Mon Only Live score by Newaxeyes
Horrorism for Beginners, Beginners for Horrorism (Juan David González Monroy & Anja Dornieden) Thurs Only 16mm, Filmmakers in attendance

You’re My Boss (Antoinette Jadaone) Fri-Thurs

Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2003) Fri Only
The Seventh Curse (Lam Ngai Kai, 1986) Fri Only
April Fool’s Day (Fred Walton, 1986) Sat Only
A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1985) Sun Only
Last Life in the Universe (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 2003) Sun Only
Chris Marker Group Mon Only
Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) Tues Only
The Cat (Lam Ngai Kai, 1992) Weds Only
Listen to Me (Douglas Day Stewart, 1989) Thurs Only

Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962) Thurs Only 35mm

The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) Sat Only Cinema Dissection
White God (Zsófia Psotta) Mon-Thurs

Deli Man (Erik Anjou) Fri-Thurs
Desert Dancer (Richard Raymond) Fri-Thurs
Beyond the Reach (Jean-Baptiste Léonetti) Fri-Thurs
5 to 7 (Victor Levin) Fri-Thurs
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) Fri-Thurs
Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Continue reading “Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)” →

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz) Fri-Thurs
White God (Abderrahmane Sissako) Fri-Sun
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako) Mon Only
The Long Night (Tim Matsui, 2012) Weds Only
Wild & Scenic Film Festival Thurs Only

Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)

April 16, 2015April 17, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

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The latest from acclaimed Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso finds him working for the first time with a major international movie-star in a recognizable genre. Viggo Mortensen stars in a Western about a Danish cartographer attached to a military expedition in 19th Century Patagonia. When his 15 year old daughter runs off with a young soldier, he sets off on an increasingly weird quest across the desert wilderness, part Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, part William Blake in Dead Man. Like many so-called Slow Cinema films, the cinematic form that has become the dominant international style for festival films and the better art houses, Jauja is paced deliberately, with long takes and very little camera movement, the characters framed at a distance such that they are dwarfed by both the landscapes and, importantly, the sounds of their environment. It certainly isn’t among the slowest of such films (Pedro Costa’s equally impeccable Horse Money (hopefully coming soon to Seattle Screens?) is even more meditative, among great 2014 films), and seeing it a second time I actually found it quite brisk (it’s possible my speedometer has been miscalibrated after a month watching New Taiwanese Cinema films).

Ned Rifle (Hal Hartley, 2014)

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman ~ 1 Comment

The third film in Hal Hartley’s lunatic epic trilogy about an ex-con with literary delusions and his relations with a garbageman from Queens and his sister opens this week at the SIFF Film Center. Released in 1997, the first film in the trilogy, Henry Fool was, as far as I can tell, Hartley’s most successful release, taking in almost one and a half million dollars at the box office. While his reputation rests on the series of films he made in the early 90s, hallmarks of that decade’s American independent film movement (Trust, The Unbelievable Truth, Amateur, Flirt), his career seems to have sputtered over the last 20 years, with only a couple of features seeing completion. The second film in the trilogy, 2006’s Fay Grim, grossed only 10% of its predecessor, and the new film was funded by Kickstarter. I believe this says more about the state of independent film production distribution and exhibition in the United States than it does about Hartley as a filmmaker.

Continue reading “Ned Rifle (Hal Hartley, 2014)” →

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

April 9, 2015February 16, 2017 ~ Sean Gilman

It’s terrific.

Friday April 10 – Thursday April 16

April 9, 2015April 17, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Ned Rifle at the SIFF Film Center

The latest from veteran independent auteur Hal Hartley is the third in his series about the Grim family and their relation to itinerant author, raconteur, degenerate, terrorist philosopher Henry Fool. Ned Rifle, child of Fool and his wife Fay Grim (Parker Posey), now 18 years old and a committed Christian sets off on a quest to find his father and kill him. He’s joined by a mysterious, brilliant woman played by Aubrey Plaza. Our Preview .

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Playing This Week:

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

The Wrecking Crew (Denny Tedesco, 2008) Fri-Thurs

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) Fri-Tues
Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) Fri-Weds

Cinerama:

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Dancing in Jaffa (Hilla Medalia) Sun Only
Match (Stephen Belber) Tues Only
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Weds Only Our Preview
Selma (Ava DuVernay) Thurs Only

Of Horses and Men (Benedikt Erlingsson) Fri-Thurs

Landmark Guild 45th Theatre:

Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (Dibakar Banerjee) Fri-Thurs
While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) Fri-Thurs

Let’s Get Married (Liu Jiang) Fri-Thurs
How to Fight in Six-Inch Heels (Tran Ham, 2013) Fri-Thurs
’71 (Yann Demange) Fri-Thurs

ByDesign 2015 Festival Fri-Tues
Interiors (Woody Allen, 1978) Sun Only 35mm
100 Years After Birth of a Nation Mon Only
Cheatin’ (Bill Plympton) Weds & Thurs Director in attendance

AMC Pacific Place:

While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) Fri-Thurs

You’re My Boss (Antoinette Jadaone) Fri-Thurs

Demon Queen (Donald Farmer, 1986) Sat Only
Enchanted April (Mike Newell, 1991) Sun Only
Comanche Station (Budd Boetticher, 1960) Mon Only
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) Tues Only
Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) Weds Only
Scared to Death (Christy Cabanne, 1947) Thurs Only

Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958) Thurs Only 35mm

Kill Me Three Times (Kriv Stenders) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Film Center:

Ned Rifle (Hal Hartley) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
The Wrecking Crew (Denny Tedesco, 2008) Fri-Thurs

AMC Southcenter:

While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) Fri-Thurs

While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) Fri-Thurs
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) Fri-Thurs
Seymour: An Introduction (Ethan Hawke) Fri-Thurs
Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Regal Thornton Place:

While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) Fri-Thurs

Continue reading “Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)” →

What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz) Fri-Thurs
The Human Experiment (Don Hardy Jr. & Dana Nachman) Thurs Only

Varsity Theatre:

The Wrecking Crew (Denny Tedesco, 2008) Fri-Thurs

Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)

April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

Abel Ferrara’s adaptation of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story comes to the Grand Illusion in its controversial American release version. Gérard Depardieu is the massive presence in the center (a performance that rivals only Timothy Spall’s in Mr. Turner as the gruntiest of 2014). He’s M. Deveraux, head of an international banking organization and potential future president of France with a prodigious appetite for sex. After an evening of debauchery, which Ferrara shows us in clinical, resolutely unsexy detail for the first 20 minutes or so of the film, Deveraux sexually assaults a hotel maid. He’s caught at the airport and just as exacting detail we follow the process of his arrest, booking and arraignment. The second half of the film, following Deveraux’s release on bail, is almost lyrical, as he and his wife (Jacqueline Bisset) argue over the fallout of what he’s done and what it means for their past and their future. Deveraux, a leftist economist, despite devoting his life to helping the less fortunate, is exposed as no less a Randian egotist than the worst right-wing cartoon: his utterly unshakeable belief in the inviolability of his own self-interest the only guiding principle of his existence. I had expected the film, when I first heard about it, to concern itself with the mystery of the crime itself. A did-he or didn’t-he exploration of the legal system and our attitudes toward powerful men who commit crimes against women. Ferrara, though, ditches all of that. We know he’s guilty right from the beginning, and the film becomes even more darkly political as a result. There’s no balance, no epistemology, no other side of the story: there’s the insular, protected, heedlessly destructive world of the super-rich and powerful (right and left) and everything else is the margin.

Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2003)

April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

This Monday and Tuesday April 6th and 7th, Scarecrow Video will be hosting the final two shows in Seattle’s Hou Hsiao-hsien Retrospective, with free screenings of Goodbye South, Goodbye and Café Lumière, respectively. The first was Hou’s follow-up to Good Men, Good Women, a contemporary minimalist gangster hang out picture with Jack Kao, Lim Giong and Annie Shizuka Inoh that owes as much to the Hong Kong New Wave’s genre experimentations as theories of identity and Taiwanese political history. The second was a tribute to Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. The following is a slightly revised version of something I wrote about a few shots in Café Lumière back in 2012.

Continue reading “Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2003)” →

Friday April 3 – Thursday April 9

April 2, 2015April 9, 2015 ~ Sean Gilman

Featured Film:

Welcome to New York at the Grand Illusion

The controversial R-rated cut of iconoclastic auteur Abel Ferrara’s film “inspired by” the notorious case of Dominque Strauss-Kahn, the internationally-renowned economist and politician who was arrested and indicted on charges of sexual assault in 2011 plays this week at the Grand Illusion. Starring Gérard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset. Our Preview.

Sign up for our newsletter and get the best of Seattle arthouse and repertory programming in your Inbox every Friday morning.

Playing This Week:

Ark Lodge Cinemas:

Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Sat Only Our Preview

Cry-Baby (John Waters, 1990) Fri-Weds
Sleeper (Woody Allen, 1975) Fri-Weds

Century Federal Way:

The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) Sun Only

Cinerama:

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1963) Sat Only Laser Projection

Landmark Crest Cinema Center:

Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore) Fri-Thurs

SIFF Cinema Egyptian:

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Zombeavers (Jordan Rubin) Fri-Sat Midnight

Grand Cinema:

Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) Fri-Thurs
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
’71 (Yann Demange) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Occupy the Farm (Todd Darling) Tues Only

Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Spring (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead) Sun-Tues Only

Landmark Guild 45th Theatre:

Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (Dibakar Banerjee) Fri-Thurs
The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) Sun Only

Let’s Get Married (Liu Jiang) Fri-Thurs
How to Fight in Six-Inch Heels (Tran Ham, 2013) Fri-Thurs
’71 (Yann Demange) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs

Kirkland Parkplace Cinema:

Vernae Fri-Sat Only Live Performance
St. Kilda Album Release Show Thurs Only Live Music

Queen and Country (John Boorman) Fri-Thurs

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs

True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993) Sat Only
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008) Sun Only
Little Darlings (Ronald F. Maxwell, 1980) Sun Only
Over the Edge (Jonathan Kaplan, 1979) Sun Only
Goodbye South, Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1996) Mon Only Series Preview
Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2003) Tues Only Our Preview
Beaver Trilogy (Trent Harris, 2000) Weds Only
That Thing You Do! (Tom Hanks, 1996) Thurs Only

Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Mellville, 1956) Thurs Only 35mm

3 Hearts (Benoît Jacquot) Fri-Thurs

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) Fri-Thurs
Seymour: An Introduction (Ethan Hawke) Fri-Thurs
Effie Gray (Richard Laxton) Fri-Thurs
Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview