LIMITED RUNS
5 Dolls For an August Moon
Mario Bava's Funhouse, the Grand Illusion's current series in tribute of the Italian auteur, trudges right along with this 1970 mod thriller, made under protest of contractual obligation. With a conventional Ten Little Indians storyline, 5 Dolls begins Bava's slow slope away from his pinnacle. Dubbed in English.
Grand Illusion, Fri-Thurs at 9 pm, no shows on Mon.
Bontoc Eulogy
At the 1904 St. Louis World's fair, 1,100 Filipino tribal natives (including the filmmakers grandfather) were callously transported from their homeland in the pursuit of anthropological study--and used as elements of a Philippine village exhibition. Bontoc Eulogy combines archival footage and replicated scenes to compose a portrait of forgotten history.
911 Media Arts Center, Wed at 7 pm.
Bootleg Sunday Night
In the spirit of the Secret Film Festival, Consolidated Works screens a secret show that for some legal, financial, or moral reason, is otherwise unavailable for viewing. Feel the proverbial heat as you view *gasp!* an unlicensed film on the big screen!
Consolidated Works, Sun at 10 pm.
Chappaqua
Notable mostly for it's backwards assortment of a cast (featuring Ravi Shankar, Donovan, Ornette Coleman, and such career counterculture icons as William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg), Chappaqua, the hallucinatory 1967 cult film, is the supposedly autobiographical look at filmmaker/star Conrad Rooks' Parisian self-rehabilitation--charting a non-linear narrative of heroin withdrawal.
JBL Theater, Wed at 9:15 pm.
Dada Cinema
"It is the spectators who make the pictures."
Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.
* Hard-Boiled
Hard-Boiled is one of the most exciting action movies ever made. Chow Yun-Fat turns in a magnificently assured performance as Tequila, a hardened flat foot, pitted against the powerful Hong Kong gun smuggling rings that killed his partner. Under the superlative direction of John Woo, the movie's ultraviolence is indulgently stylized to preposterously sexy proportions, culminating in an over-the-top 30-minute finale so positively exhilarating that it encroaches on the boundaries of physical pleasure. Phew, it's all too a bit too much stimulation for me really, I reckon I'll have a bowl of oatmeal, get an early night in, and work on growing back my nose hairs. (Kudzai Mudede)
Northwest Asian American Theatre, Tues at 7 pm.
Hell House
Featuring an original score (unavailable anywhere else) by the brothers Kadane (of Bedhead/New Year fame), Hell House documents from conception to completion the original Pentecostal Halloween Hell House in what is now something of national phenomenon. No ordinary haunted house, the Hell House helps to guide us sinners through the hurdles that the dark lord places in our path, from the gory perils of fetus removal to the horror of the "gay plague", in a truly horrifying display of fundamentalist fury.
Little Theatre, Thurs at 7 pm and 9 pm, additional shows Oct 11-13, 16, 17.
Inheritance
As is so often the case with low-budget, independently produced features, it's necessary to approach Inheritance with a certain open-minded appreciation for limited means. Unfortunately, its also too-often the case that such films overshoot their means, and rather than embracing the singularly charming elements of the medium, independent filmmakers attempt (unsuccessfully) to replicate the contrived clichés of vapid Hollywood productions, in both narrative structure and visual style. Locally-produced Inheritance combines these frustrations with molasses pacing so awkward that I couldn't help but imagine the weeks of deliberate storyboard sessions that no doubt consumed preproduction. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Seattle Art Museum, Tues at 7:30 pm.
* Pather Panchali
The first installment of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy remains in some ways the most affecting, its scrappy, almost amateurish direction only increasing your emotional investment in the young lead. Throughout the series, Apu learns the value and wisdom of others, as well as the folly of caring only for yourself; Pather Panchali traces the nascent steps of this evolution, as the child Apu realizes that the poverty in which he's raised affects not only him, but his poet father and much-harried mother as well. Some clumsy moments--both narratively and cinematically--but what do those matter in the face of such glowing, embracing humanism? (Bruce Reid)
JBL Theater, Wed at 7 pm.
* Run Lola Run
A young Berlin hipster named Lola has 20 minutes to find enough money to stop her boyfriend from being killed. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer tells the story three times, each with different but equally incredible twists, surprises, tangents, and endings--which is exactly what makes this movie fun to watch. (Charles Mudede)
Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight.
* SEATTLE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
See preview this issue. A festival like this is not without risk, but nothing worth doing ever is. Go to www.seattleundergroundfilm.com for complete schedule. Closing celebration at
Rendezvous, Tues at 7 pm Grand Illusion,
see Movie Times for showtimes this week.
* Siddhartha
As an adaptation of a novel that depicts an internal transformation (and is therefore effectively unfilmable), this 1972 rendition of the Hesse novel is a thrilling failure. Failure because the story is anti-drama, anti-cinema. Thrilling because of Sven Nykvist's unspeakably gorgeous cinematography of India, which shimmers, glows, and burns like gold. This is a very '70s kind of movie, a relic of an era when the audience could be counted on to be stoned, and to sit through a ponderous reading of a ponderous novel, and to be contented. I don't mean to suggest the film isn't amazing, it's just better if you're a 50-year-old hippie. (SEAN NELSON)
Varsity, Fri-Sun at 12:30 pm, 2:40 pm, 4:45 pm, 7 pm and 9:15 pm, Mon-Thurs at 7 pm and 9:15 pm.
Spiritual Film Festival
If the quality of religious entertainment is any indication, the Spiritual Film Festival (118 short, spiritual films) will most likely be the most important conglomeration of faith-based film you've seen all week.
Seattle Art Museum, see www.damah.com for full details.
* Super-8 VS. DV Deathmatch
See Movie Review Revue this week.
Consolidated Works, Thurs at 9 pm.
Twinsanity Shorts
A predictably mixed-bag of shorts exploring various avenues of duality, Twinsanity falls victim most frequently to concept overshooting visual content. Highlights include with, an unfortunately bland video document that excerpts elements of an intriguing performance art piece involving a set of twins, the all-to-brief Chris Smith (American Movie) student film Think Twice, and Ann Marie Fleming's charmingly PBS It's Me, Again, whose 50 minute running time dominates the series. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Consolidated Works, Fri-Sun at 8 pm and 10 pm.
Youth Voices Shout Out!
Kids with video cameras spilling the universal truths of youth. I just hope they have the sense to use Barbies to illustrate.
Little Theatre, Fri at 7:30 pm.
now playing
* 8 Women
On the surface, jealousy is the combative common ground the film's eight women share in the home of a murdered man--who is a husband, a father, a brother, a son-in-law, and a philanderer in relation to the various characters. The women candidly sing and dance to their inner feelings, while hiding away their jealousies or hurling bold suspicions at one another. (KATHLEEN WILSON)
Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever
Lucy Liu is, of course, hot. Antonio Banderas appears to be asleep throughout the film. And the director, "KAOS," appears to be harboring a substantial grudge against train boxcars, since at least twenty are incinerated during the film's finale. In short, yes, it's pretty bad. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
The Banger Sisters
After her daughter's eye-catching turn as a young groupie in Almost Famous, Goldie Hawn plays an aging one in this cloying, aggravating piece of false, middlebrow claptrap. (SEAN NELSON)
* Baraka
This movie is what's known in cinephile circles as a "tone poem." All that means is there's no plot, no characters, and no literal meanings. All you get instead are some of the most beautiful images ever rendered for the screen--a sort of sensual omnibus that strives successfully to give an overwhelming inkling of the vast panoply of human and natural interaction that is life in this modern world. Directed by the guy who shot the immortal Koyaanisqatsi. You have got to see this on a big screen, because a TV can't contain it. (SEAN NELSON)
The Barbershop
Starring two popular rappers, Ice Cube and Eve, Barbershop is about a young man (Ice Cube) who reluctantly runs a barbershop he inherited from his recently departed father. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Blood Work
Blood Work is a total bore. (MICHAEL SHILLING)
* Das Experiment
The good news is, this movie's about a journalist who takes part in an interesting scientific study of power dynamics. In the study, half of the volunteers play guards and the other half play prisoners. The bad news is, this study was done in real life, and they had to stop the experiment because the "guards" got too violent. If you believe that humans have a core of decency within them, you may want to skip this one. (SEAN NELSON)
*The Fast Runner
Although the filmmakers have lovingly reconstructed every detail of prehistoric Inuit culture--this being the first feature-length film entirely in the Inuktitut language--by recording life on the infinite tundra with digital-video intimacy, they keep the characters palpably real. Inside glowing igloos and behind roiling teams of sled dogs, the viewer sees a legend sprout from the ice. (MATT FONTAINE)
Four Feathers
This adaptation of the A.E.W. Mason novel about the glory of Her Majesty's Empire is a good deal more skeptical than its predecessors. War is clearly hell, here, and imperialism is hardly left unexamined. But while director Shekhar (Elizabeth) Kapur's revisionist eyes find some chilling contrasts, the overall effect is that of a pre-built battleship being crammed into a whiskey bottle. Feathers remains a noble, if misguided, effort at political filmmaking. (SEAN NELSON)
*The Good Girl
When it comes to deep, dark cinematic comedy--the kind that makes you want to laugh and weep and squirm out of your skin at the same time--Miguel Arteta and Mike White have cornered the market. Following 2000's Chuck & Buck comes The Good Girl, which explores similarly perverse terrain--the soul of a woman trapped by fate and circumstance, driven to commit acts of deeply iffy morality and legality. (DAVID SCHMADER)
*Igby Goes Down
A melancholic comedy that captures the privileged heartbreak of Salinger far better than The Royal Tenenbaums ever could. Igby, a preppie with a punk streak, gets kicked out of his last boarding school, and takes to Manhattan, where he squats purposelessly, has sex with junkies and JAPs, and basically seethes, until life more or less insists that he make a move. A sharply-observed film down to the upturned collars and half-Windsor knots, Igby gets to the heart of its characters without either indicting or apologizing for its cultural framework. (SEAN NELSON)
Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie
The computer-animated version of the pamphlets you find at bus stops. Those backwards-assed Christian fundamentalists are spreading their demon-seed again, this time using produce as their minions. Oh, those devotion-drunk fools--don't they know that any reasonable child is never, ever, going to listen a vegetable?
Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Woodinville 12.
Just a Kiss
See Movie Review Revue this week.
Uptown.
The Last Kiss
This movie stars a lot of beautiful Italian people you've never heard of, and it's set in Italy, where everyone cheats on each other and it's always raining. Secretly, I want to see it again. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
*Lovely & Amazing
This follow-up to the similarly graceful Walking and Talking is a shrewdly respectful character study of a fractured family of women trying to ride herd on their raging neuroses. Fantastic acting and sensitive writing underscore the simple DV directorial approach. (SEAN NELSON)
Moonlight Mile
See Movie Review Revue this week.
Guild 45th, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12.
One Hour Photo
Directed by Mark Romanek (who has made some amazing music videos), One Hour Photo is at best a mildly surprising thriller, and at worst a rather dull affair. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Red Dragon
Based on the novel that came before Silence of the Lambs, which was scarier than Silence of the Lambs, and has already been filmed before, as Manhunter.
Cinerama, Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Woodinville 12.
*Secretary
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a slightly retarded nymphet secretary just released from a loony house, who develops a subversive relationship with her employer, played by James Spader. Part of Secretary's singular quality is that the heroine's problem is never resolved. She entrenches herself deeper and deeper in her "sick" dependency, and ultimately, it becomes her virtue. Lee is luminous and childlike, and although she's oblivious, she's never a victim, and you congratulate her for learning to know exactly what she wants. (MEG VAN HUYGEN)
Serving Sara
Sucks. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Skins
Chris Eyre's second feature film, Skins, is not as well made or acted as his first feature film, Smoke Signals, but it is more fascinating. Skins is set on the most impoverished reservation in America, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, and describes the day-to-day world of a reservation cop (Eric Schweig) who has an eccentric understanding of the law and how it should be administered. He is not a "bad lieutenant," but his sense of right and wrong is complicated by the maze and layers of misery that he encounters while on and off duty. At the end of Skins, we don't so much have a story or a clear idea of the cop than an impression of the deep sorrow that suffocates him and his fallen community. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Spirited Away
See Movie Review Revue this issue.
Stealing Harvard
Completely unnecessary. I'd try harder to convince you to stay away, but chances are this flick won't be in theaters long enough for you to see it. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Sweet Home Alabama
A shit-on-a-stick waste of a lesson that's already been taught in one hackneyed comedy after another--namely, that poor white Southern folk are fat, dumb, and wear Jaclyn Smith, but the boys are hot and they ain't as stupid as city folk think, 'cause they have heart. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Swimfan
Fatal Attraction for teens, with neither tension, nor boobies. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Trapped
The screening of this kidnapping drama, starring Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, and Courtney Love, was yanked at the last minute. Draw your own conclusions on that one.
The Tuxedo
As everyone knows, what makes a kung fu film great is that sooner rather than later they get to the point: the dazzling dance of attack and defense. The Tuxedo is a bad kung fu film because it spends too much time and energy developing its sorry plot (a spy spoof), and the fight scenes are worth shit. The Tuxedo sucks like nobody's business. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Wasabi
See Movie Review Revue this week.
Varsity.
