This isn't a huge shift in programming for the ol' GI. Our programming strategy is a mix of the traditional, curated approach and also picking up films that Seattle deserves to see that slipped through the cracks, like Beloved Sisters.

Exactly! a little over ten years ago, when I was a mere high school student driving in from Everett to watch foreign films in Seattle, I would watch this sort of perfectly fine middlebrow stuff at the Varsity and the Harvard Exit.

In particular I remember seeing Mostly Martha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Mart…) at the Varsity. I can't believe I remember this movie, because what a forgetable movie!

Wait..why is it so bad that the Varsity is now run by Far Away and not Landmark? What does that have to do with the "shrinking of art-house cinema"? Have we not gotten the Egyptian back, and also added venues via Sundance (the former Uptown) and Northwest Film Forum? I agree with @1&2....this feels like a ginned up theory to allow for a soapbox speech on the closing of Harvard Exit, the tragedy of which needs no such ginning up to nonetheless resonate.

@3: Sundance was previously The Metro, not the Uptown. SIFF's three-screen space in QA was the Uptown.

The Neptune is gone (movie-wise), the Harvard Exit is gone (not including this upcoming SIFF), the Broadway Market is gone. Let's even mention that the UA 150 is gone!