Quick question: Is Seattle still a movie town? I mean, in one sense, sure. Film production soldiers on in spite of an indifferent-verging-on-hostile state legislature. The Northwest Film Forum has a revitalized approach to event-based programming and continues to program excellent small-gauge independent work from around the world. The Scarecrow Project won a Stranger Genius Award last year. The Egyptian was snatched back from the jaws of oblivion. And if you listen closely, you can hear the reservoirs of the Seattle International Film Festival filling up in preparation for the Immortan Joe–esque deluge of cinema that bathes our city at the end of every spring.
However, it’s interesting to note how the model of SIFF—full access for a limited time to a massive and well-curated banquet of options—has come to exemplify all areas of entertainment consumption (grand-scale music festivals, Spotify, binge TV watching, etc.). It’s also worth considering the ways that Seattle’s self-identification as a moviegoer’s paradise has changed as the triple threat of on-demand culture, the brutal economy of movie theater operation, and the city’s infuriating traffic reality has made the prospect of leaving home to go to the movies more difficult and less necessary than ever…
