Paper Circus: Animations by Luca Dipierro
This will be a night that presents to Seattle the art of Luca Dipierro, an Italian-born and Portland-based animator. Huffington Post says his work is "a perfect mix between creepy and charming."
Grand Illusion
Puget Soundtracks: Vox Mod
Tonight, local producer and beat creator Vox Mod inaugurates NWFF's music movies series Puget Soundtrack with a live score to a mystery science-fiction film. Vox Mod, a man who loves science-fiction films, has released five LPs/EPs under his name, is the drummer in the space-rock band Lazer Kitty, and recently collaborated with the rapper RA Scion on Sharper Tool; Bigger Weapon.
Northwest Film Forum
Seattle Design Festival: Design in Short
This yearly festival never fails to be packed with great documentaries about the history, current state, and future of local, national, and international architecture.
SIFF Film Center
Women in Cinema
Our very own Lynn Shelton is a part of this year's Women in Cinema festival. Her film Laggies, which opens on October 24, will be in good company with features from Norway, Germany, and the Philippines. There is also a film, Kelly & Cal, that I plan not to miss, because it stars Juliette Lewis as a punk rocker who has become the saddest thing one can imagine: a suburban housewife.
SIFF Cinema Uptown, SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Jimi: All Is by My Side
Directed by John Ridleyâthe Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slaveâand starring Andre "3000" Benjamin, this not-a-biopic restricts its focus to the months a young Jimi Hendrix spent in London before his explosion into stardom. Instead of a cinematic Wikipedia entry, we get up-close-and-personal scenes of a young artist struggling to find his voice and navigating an ocean of influence. It's all beautifully acted and shot, and, for a "rock movie," exceptionally complex. (David Schmader)
Landmark, theater TBA
This Is Where I Leave You
Jason Bateman finds himself in yet another dysfunctional family. But, to be fair, is there such a thing as a functional family?
Wide Release
The Maze Runner
What is the movie based on? Wikipedia says: "The first book in a young-adult postapocalyptic science-fiction trilogy of the same name by James Dashner." If none of this rings a bell, you may not have a bell in your head.
Wide Release
I Dream of Wires
All I know is that one of this paper's music critics, Dave Segal, really wants to watch this documentary, which is about "the history, demise, and resurgence of the modular synthesizer."
Grand Illusion
Annual Fundraiser: Some Like It Hot
It is one of the funniest movies ever made. It's Billy Wilder at his peak. And the seduction scene on the yacht is pure genius. It's also a film that compares the Mafia to fascism.
Grand Illusion
Tough Love
I hate the very idea of tough love. But I do think the subject matter of this documentary, the child welfare system, is profoundly important. The systems examined are in NYC and the 206 (yes, us). Director Stephanie Wang-Breal and subject Patrick Brown attending.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
The Maltese Falcon
Directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, and based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. This is cinema. This is what we live for. This classic film is a part of SAM's film-noir series Live by Night that runs through December 18.
Seattle Art Museum
Local Sightings Film Festival
I will not lie: A short film I'm in is in this festival, which is a survey of films (shorts, docs, features) made in our cloudy and green region of America.
Northwest Film Forum
20,000 Days on Earth
Directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, this film is about 24 hours in the life of the Australian musician and cult figure Nick Cave. The film is also not a documentary.
Grand Illusion
Annabelle
This horror movie is about an evil doll. But what is evil? It's something that harms us. And why does something want to harm a human? Because we are, after all, made of food. And why does an ugly doll want to harm humans? Is it a predator? Is it hungry? If not, why does it spend so much energy harming humans it's not going to eat? This film makes no sense in the light of the deepest theory we have about life: Darwinism.
Wide Release
Pacific Aggression
This is the second feature film by the local director and 2012 Stranger Genius Award nominee Shaun Scott.
Grand Illusion
SIFF Cinema Egyptian Grand Reopening Celebration
Come and witness the return of Seattle's best cinema house.
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Tacoma Film Festival
You probably already know about SIFF, but did you know that there's another local festival sitting on the other side of summer just waiting for you to watch its movies? It's down in Tacoma, it's one week long, and it's organized by the historic and beautiful Grand Cinema.
Grand Cinema
Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
One of the most important cultural institutions of our city will enter its 19th year with documentaries, features, and shorts that present a well-rounded picture of the past, present, and future of the LGBT community.
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
The Judge
Vera Farmiga is in this film, which also stars that guy from Iron Man.
Wide Release
Seattle Polish Film Festival
Why do you live in a city? So you can have access to art films from places like Poland. You will not find films of this kind on TV. Only a big city can provide them. This festival is also in partnership with Northwest Film Forum, which is running the excellent Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Slither
Halloween is close and it's time for horror films. Slither, which was made in 2006, is about a meteorite that slams into earth and delivers a strange and awful parasite. Part of SIFF's Midnight Adrenaline: Halloween Favorites series.
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Shift Change
This documentary is about the search for modes of organizing business and factory production that are better than the one we are subjected to daily in the capitalist economy: bosses above workers. There are in actuality businesses that are managed without bosses. Such businesses can be found in the United States and Europe. Screening is part of the Beacon Hill Meaningful Movies series.
The Garden House on Beacon Hill
The Book of Life
Christina Applegate contributes her voice to one of the characters in this animation.
Wide Release
I Walked with a Zombie
It's amazing that this classic horror film, directed by the master of B-movies, Jacques Tourneur, was made in the middle of World War II.
Grand Illusion
Stranger Genius Awards
Tonight, five fresh Stranger Genius Award winnersâin five arts categories, chosen by secret ballot by previous Geniuses and The Stranger's arts criticsâare announced live onstage and given $5,000 each in a huge party at the Moore Theatre, with live music by Seattle Rock Orchestra, too. It's Seattle's Only Partyâąâand it's FREE. See you there!
Moore Theatre
Earshot Jazz Films
One of the documentaries, The Case of the Three Sided Dream, in this festival within a festival (Earshot Jazz), is about one of the oddest figures in 20th-century music, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. What's placed into doubt when one listens to his music or sees all of those horns he used to hang around his neck is his status as a human. Was he an alien? Indeed, is that not what makes a genius? Radical alienation? Kirk was also blind.
Northwest Film Forum
Social Justice Film Festival
Now is in its third year, SJFF offers features, short films, and documentaries about social-justice issues. The films come from all over our troubled world.
Northwest Film Forum, University of Washington
French Cinema Now
What this festival examines is the state of cinema not in France alone but in the French-speaking world as a whole.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Laggies
Seattle's most celebrated director, Lynn Shelton, returns with a feature that stars Keira Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz. The rumors about the two having a hot sex scene are ungrounded. And besides, hot sex is not Shelton's thing. Sexual encounters in her previous films are never steamy or satisfying. Her characters are too aware of themselves to let go of their bodies.
Wide Release
The Good Lie
Reese Witherspoon plays a standard American woman who finds herself in the unlikely situation of helping four young refugees from Sudan. This looks like a tree that bears the kind of fruit that the people at the Academy Awards like to eat.
Wide Release
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
The horror. The horror. The horror. It's Halloween season! And the Egyptian is open for business. Part of SIFF's Midnight Adrenaline: Halloween Favorites series.
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Swim Little Fish Swim
Charm appears to be the special ingredient of this pretty little film about a couple and a small apartment in Manhattan.
Northwest Film Forum
Cinema Dissection: Children of Men
Seattle University professor Georg Koszulinski breaks down for you the fourth-best science-fiction film of the '00s. The best is, of course, Sleep Dealer.
SIFF Film Center
N-E-X D-O-C-S
This festival is very important. If you pay attention to it, you will find some of the most innovative documentaries of our times. To miss the festival is often to miss the chance of seeing these films on the big screen.
Northwest Film Forum
The Garden House on Beacon Hill
2336 15th Ave S
Grand Cinema
606 S Fawcett Ave, Tacoma, (253) 593-4474, grandcinema.com
Grand Illusion
1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org
Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave, 267-5380, nwfilmforum.org
Seattle Art Museum
1300 First Ave, 654-3210, seattleartmuseum.org
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
801 E Pine St, 324-9996, siff.net
SIFF Cinema Uptown
511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, siff.net
SIFF Film Center
Seattle Center, 324-9996, siff.net