JUNE 12, 19, 26
Coming Out All Over: Queer Film Style
In this series copresented by Three Dollar Bill Cinema and Northwest Film Forum, acclaimed Seattle costume designer Mark Mitchell presents annotated screenings of three queer-couture classics: 1922's silent Salome (June 12), 1970's riotous Gore Vidal debasement Myra Breckinridge (June 19), and 1980's Flash Gordon (June 26).
Northwest Film Forum
JUNE 13–19
Lucky Them
In Lucky Them, a thirtysomething music journalist (Toni Collette) is tasked with tracking down a long-lost rock star who vanished in a cloud of mystery, and who happens to be her ex. A moneyed playboy currently identifying as a documentary filmmaker (Thomas Haden Church) tags along as our heroine digs through her past and reckons with the present. Director (and Stranger Genius Award winner) Megan Griffiths's touch shines through in carefully ramshackle music-venue sequences (this is a Seattle movie set in a Seattle you'll very much recognize) and in the performance of Collette, who's given full rein to inhabit every pointy corner of her character. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Northwest Film Forum
JUNE 16–JULY 24
The Best of British Theater, Onscreen
SIFF continues its widely worshipped "Stage to Screen" program, featuring broadcasts of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and the National Theatre's productions of King Lear, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and A Small Family Business.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
JUNE 20
Jersey Boys
Clint Eastwood's big-screen version of the Tony Award–winning musical about the formation of iconic 1960s rock group the Four Seasons.
Wide release
JUNE 20–22
Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen
Created by Hungarian director György Pálfi over three years of editing, Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen is a 90-minute collage that draws moments from more than 450 films—from Chaplin to Avatar—to tell a unified love story. The film is also, to quote Variety, "a rights clearance nightmare," so huge thanks to SIFF for jumping through all the necessary hoops to bring this rare-as-hen's-teeth movie event back to the big screen for an encore engagement. See it now, because you might not get another chance.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
JUNE 20–25
African Queen
Katharine Hepburn is an uptight missionary in a high ruffly collar. Humphrey Bogart is a tough-talkin' riverman with a beard made of dirt. Both of them are on a boat, on the run from the evil Germans in 1914 German East Africa. Can you guess what happens next? If you said "bickering followed by intercourse and sometimes the boat gets a hole in it," then you are correct! (Intercourse not pictured.) This movie is in the DNA of rom-coms and buddy-cop comedies and fish-out-of-water tales and Indiana Jones (he bickers and fights Germans too! Plus, dirt beard!). John Huston directed it. (LINDY WEST)
Central Cinema
JUNE 20–26
The Dance of Reality
The latest brain-bender from Alejandro Jodorowsky, which blends personal history, mythology, and poetry to explore the nature of reality.
Grand Illusion
Manakamana
Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez's ethnographic documentary, set entirely on a cable car that transports pilgrims through the mountains of Nepal toward the Manakamana Temple.
Northwest Film Forum
JUNE 21
You're Looking at Country
An all-lady edition of the country music video series, starring country queens Connie Smith, Loretta Lynn, Melba Montgomery, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, and a slew of "cheerful songs about alcoholism, family feuds, murder, man trouble, and Jesus."
Northwest Film Forum
JUNE 21–JULY 28
SIFF's Recent Raves Series
One-night-only return engagements of compelling contemporary films, including the animated Ernest & Celestine, the photography documentary Finding Vivian Meyer, the dance documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, and Errol Morris's documentary portrait of Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
JUNE 24–JULY 30
The Magnificent Andersons
SIFF hosts a five-week celebration of two contemporary auteurs: Wes Anderson (whose films will screen on Tuesdays) and Paul Thomas Anderson (whose films will screen on Wednesdays).
SIFF Film Center
JUNE 27
A Coffee in Berlin
Writer/director Jan Ole Gerster's feature debut, which swept the 2013 German Film Academy Awards, paints a day in the life of a charming 27-year-old slacker going nowhere fast.
SIFF Film Center
JUNE 27–JULY 3
Evergreen: The Road to Legalization in Washington
Washington State legalized it! But how? Follow the activists, politicians, law-enforcement officials, and travel writer Rick Steves as they battle the opposition to pass Initiative 502 in the 2012 campaign season.
SIFF Film Center
JULY 4
Korengal
Sebastian Junger's new documentary about the war in Afghanistan picks up where the Academy Award–nominated Restrepo left off: the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.
Varsity
Yves Saint Laurent
The "official" biopic of the fashion designer who rose to prominence in the Paris of the 1950s, depicted dramatically but narrated by Saint Laurent's partner of a half century. The Guardian called it "pure corporate self-endorsement, handsomely produced." Whether you mind this will probably be determined by whether you like the brand.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
JULY 7–11
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
Eight classics of Polish cinema, selected by America's greatest living director, digitally restored and newly subtitled.
Northwest Film Forum
JULY 10–AUG 14
For Laughing Out Loud: The Best American Comedy Films
The title is a lie—no series of "Best American Comedies" can exist with out Romy & Michele's High School Reunion—but for a showcase drawing upon films from 1935–1950, it's true enough. On the roster: 1935's screwball comedy Hands Across the Table (July 10), 1936's romantic comedy Theodora Goes Wild (July 17), 1940's screwball classic His Girl Friday (July 30), and 1950's Judy Holliday–powered wonder Born Yesterday (Aug 14).
Seattle Art Museum
JULY 11
Venus in Fur
Roman Polanski makes a movie of David Ives's play about a theater director adapting Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus in Furs for the stage, and the best I can say is: It exists. Actually, there's plenty to admire in Polanski's Fur—most prominently, the fiery lead performance by Emmanuelle Seigner, who comes off showy until you realize what's up. (Also helping: co-lead actor Mathieu Amalric, who bears a compelling resemblance to a young Polanski.) But Polanski has terrible taste in source material. Like his 2011 adaptation of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, Fur is based on a play that derives much of its power and purpose from placing the audience in the same physical space as the performers, leaving them to focus on what most calls their attention. Polanski's camera adds nothing but overemphasis and vanity. It's an exceptionally well-wrought exercise in futility. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Varsity
JULY 11–15
Roman Holiday
A sprightly young Audrey Hepburn and a charming (if slightly wooden), scooter-riding Gregory Peck make an odd pairing in this classic rom-com from 1953. Hepburn won a best actress Oscar for this performance, which was also her first starring role.
Central Cinema
JULY 11–17
The Internet's Own Boy
A documentary about Aaron Swartz, the internet activist and cofounder of Reddit who faced a 35-year prison sentence for illegal downloading before he killed himself.
Northwest Film Forum
JULY 25
Boyhood
Richard Linklater filmed Boyhood in two-week increments over 12 years, tracking a boy's life from ages 6 to 18. It's a great gimmick that could have gotten way too schlocky, but the stellar performances of the cast—Ethan Hawke as the distant dad, Patricia Arquette as the hardworking mom, Ellar Coltrane as the boy at the center of it all—feel collaborative and natural. The entire film matures and deepens along with Coltrane. The ambition behind Boyhood is immense, and that ambition pays off with a gorgeous, moving masterpiece of a film. (PAUL CONSTANT)
Harvard Exit
The Burning Bush
A three-part miniseries created for HBO in 2013 by Polish director Agnieszka Holland, chronicling the true story of a Prague history student who set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1969, and the young female lawyer who defended his family against the communist government.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
A Most Wanted Man
Anton Corbijn directs this adaptation of a novel by John le Carré, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a half-Chechen, half-Russian, brutally tortured immigrant who turns up in Hamburg's Islamic community, laying claim to his father's ill-gotten fortune. But is he who he claims to be?
Wide release
Siddharth
In Richie Mehta's drama, Mahendra lives with his family in a single concrete room in New Delhi. He makes his living as a chain-wallah, walking a route doing zipper repairs. He sends his 12-year-old son Siddharth out of town to work in a factory, but when the boy doesn't return when he is supposed to, the family becomes worried. Mahendra sets out to find his son, uncovering clues that the boy may have been abducted. Inspired by a true story, it is a tale of a father's determination to find his missing son. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Varsity
JULY 31
Twin Peaks/David Lynch Night
SAM dishes up cherry pie and hot coffee for a 35 mm screening of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, David Lynch's notorious "prequel" to the Twin Peaks TV series, featuring a brilliant performance by Sheryl Lee as the doomed Laura Palmer.
Seattle Art Museum
AUG 1
Get On Up
The primary architect of 20th-century pop music and noted woman-beater James Brown gets the biopic treatment. Starring Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Jill Scott, Dan Aykroyd, and Chadwick Boseman as James Brown.
Wide release
Mood Indigo
A cartoonishly rich man meets an equally childlike woman, in a love story set firmly in Imaginationland. Director Michel Gondry has never exactly been one to hold back, but this adaptation of Boris Vian's cult novel Froth on the Daydream finds him throwing out all of the whimsical stops, to delightful and/or devastating effect. The go-for-broke approach yields some lovely, undeniably unique moments, particularly in the darker-toned back half, but the showy effects straining for attention in virtually every frame gets exhausting. (Even Pee-wee's Playhouse had a nonresponsive wall stud or two.) Still, if you thought The Science of Sleep could have gone even further, this may well be your Valhalla. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Varsity
AUG 1–22
Three Dollar Bill Outdoor Cinema
Three Dollar Bill's Friday-night screenings in Cal Anderson Park return. On the roster for this year's "Teenage Dreams" series: the ridiculously rousing cheer squad comedy Bring It On (Aug 1), the charming coming-of-age-via-dance classic Dirty Dancing (Aug 8), cinema's most hilarious Jane Austen adaptation Clueless (Aug 15), and that wonderfully terrible tale of special powers, Caucasian rap, and too many chairs Teen Witch (Aug 22).
Cal Anderson Park
AUG 8
Burkholder
In this Seattle-set drama from Taylor Guterson, the director of Old Goats, an old man named Barry finds himself concerned that Teddy, an even older man who rents a room from him, is rapidly declining into infirmity. The film hinges on Bob Burkholder's moving performance as Teddy, an aspiring photographer who hits on everything that moves because he understands on a fundamental level that he doesn't have much time left. Burkholder isn't an attractive film, and some of the acting is subpar, but its portrait of friendship is beautiful. (PAUL CONSTANT)
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Happy Christmas
The latest from mumblecore auteur Joe Swanberg, starring Anna Kendrick and Lena Dunham.
Varsity
Lucy
La Femme Nikita writer/director Luc Besson directs Scarlett Johansson in this action-thriller about a woman forced by fate to become a merciless warrior.
Wide release
Magic in the Moonlight
Woody Allen's latest is set on the French Riviera in the 1920s, and stars Emma Stone and Colin Firth.
Guild 45th
AUG 15
The Kill Team
Dan Krauss's documentary examines an infantry platoon that intentionally murdered innocent Afghan civilians and brazenly attempted to cover up their crimes.
Varsity
AUG 22
Alive Inside
Social worker Dan Cohen brought iPods into nursing homes and played music for patients with dementia. He found that listening to music from their past awakened memories and brought up old emotions in people, sometimes even transforming patients' behavior. This documentary about Cohen's work includes interviews with neurologist Oliver Sacks and musician Bobby McFerrin.
Varsity
Finding Fela
This is a documentary about Fela Kuti, a Nigerian who in the 1970s introduced the world to a new and wonderful sound called Afrobeat. He also had something like 36 wives and died of a heart condition caused by AIDS in 1997.
Varsity
AUG 29
Life of Crime
In this dark caper comedy, the wife of a corrupt real-estate developer is kidnapped by criminals. Starring Jennifer Aniston and Tim Robbins, and adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard.
Wide release