* 7th Annual Local Sightings
Of the five films that I have seen of the 100 or so long and short films to be screened during the 7th Annual Local Sightings film festival, I will mention but two: Have You Seen Me?, a five minute short by William Weiss, and Borrowing Time, a feature by Webster Crowell. Have You Seen Me? is a brilliant short about that strange race of missing people whose images appear in our bundled junk mail and the backs of milk cartons. The short's humorous treatment of a very sad subject succeeds because, ultimately, any effort spent on tracking down these missing Americans (which the short film attempts to do around the streets of Seattle) will never be rewarded. And whenever a person is doing something utterly pointless, they are in a situation that is utterly comical. Whereas Weiss's short film is funny, Webster Crowell's feature is mad. It is also maddening, as it surrenders nothing to us, the viewers, and demands from us everything. All and all: Much in Borrowing Time is brilliant, and much is hard to understand or is simply absurd. The movie concerns two aliens who arrive on lifeless earth to explore its ruins, and one of the many impressive things that Crowell achieves in this space epic is to make Seattle, the city in which the film was shot (but not set), look completely inhuman and apocalyptic. The buildings are empty, as well as the streets. Suddenly, a nuclear bomb is detonated by operatic ghosts or bionic ants (not sure which); a neighborhood (Queen Anne? Fremont?) crumbles and radioactive dust rises into the dead sky. At last, an artist has visualized a totally negative Seattle--this is the ugly future of our pretty present. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
All events at Northwest Film Forum. Opening Night w/ Borrowing Time, Fri Oct 8 at 7 pm. Shorts package: Strangely Poetic, Sat Oct 9 at 5 pm and Thurs Oct 14 at 9 pm. Flight From Death, Sat Oct 9 at 5:30 pm. Shorts: Tragedy and Comedy, Sat Oct 9 at 7 pm and Mon Oct 11 at 9:30 pm. Quick Brown Fox, Sat Oct 9 at 7:30 pm. Buffalo Bill's Defunct, Sat Oct 9 at 9 pm. PDX's Northwest Film Center presents Best of the 30th Northwest Film and Video Fest (includes Matt McCormick's American Nutria and 33 Fainting Spells' Entry), Sat Oct 9 at 9:30 pm. Film Company presents Late Show, Sat Oct 9 at 11:30 pm. Shorts: In Nature, Sun Oct 10 at 3 pm and Tues Oct 12 at 9 pm. City Without a Home, Sun Oct 10 at 3:30 pm. Max Rules, Sun Oct 10 at 5 pm. Shorts: Five Real Documentaries Plus One Fake, Sun Oct 10 at 5:30 pm and Mon Oct 11 at 7:30 pm. Personal Cinema with Jon Behrens and R.K. Adams, Sun Oct 10 at 7 pm. Hedda Gabler, Sun Oct 10 at 9:30 pm. Gas City, Mon Oct 11 at 7 pm. Unsung, Mon Oct 11 at 9 pm. Prescription: Silliness! (films by Dave Hanagan), Tues Oct 12 at 7 pm. Super Celluloid Open Screening, Wed Oct 13 at 7 pm. Big City Dick, Wed Oct 13 at 7:30 pm. The Emergency Pants Collection: 9 Short Films by William Weiss, Wed Oct 13 at 9 pm. A Summer's Tale, Wed Oct 13 at 9:30 pm. Not Recommended Usage: An Evening of Cameraless Films, Thurs Oct 14 at 7:30 pm. Shorts: Dancing and Dating, Thurs Oct 14 at 7:30 pm. Tell Us the Truth, Thurs Oct 14 at 9:30 pm. Closing Night Awards Show, Fri Oct 15 at 7 pm.
Big Animal
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, Weekdays 7:30, 9:15 pm, Sat-Sun 4, 5:45, 7:30, 9:40 pm.
Boutique
An Iranian film about the troubles that befall a generous store clerk. Seattle Art Museum, Sat Oct 9 at 6 and 8 pm.
Customer 152
Terrence Mackleby is not good at managing his funds. As this movie opens, he's filing for bankruptcy in order to escape his credit card debt. When he gets an application for a mysterious new credit card, he applies--and that's when the Tall Men start showing up. This shot-on-video feature was made by Lake Stevens resident Jonathan Holbrook, who is showing it in Seattle for the first time. Though it has the inconsistency of tone that can be found in most video features, Holbrook's obvious admiration for David Lynch leads to some oddly energetic and entertaining performances. (ANDY SPLETZER) Rendezvous, Sat Oct 9 at 8 pm.
* The Dark Crystal
You know what this means: time to get stoned and go watch the muppets! Egyptian, Fri-Sat midnight.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
A 1951 science fiction film about peaceful aliens. EMP's JBL Theater, Fri Oct 8 at 7 pm.
* Dig!
No one could accuse the Dandy Warhols or the Brian Jonestown Massacre of being humble, understated, or, often times, anything less than ridiculous. Lead Dandy Courtney Taylor is the first--and often loudest--to sing his Portland retro pop band's praises, while his keyboardist Zia McCabe was well known for playing topless. San Francisco's psychedelic popsters Brian Jonestown Massacre easily became what club promoter Eric Shae called "The band you love to hate and hate to love." They were often a shamble of style-over-substance, breaking up and breaking down, employing tambourine players who did little more than look strung out on stage, and desperately attempting to translate being a fucked up mess into an ounce of fame (which their one-time guitarist, Peter Hayes, later achieved with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club).
As Dig!, the new documentary about the Dandys vs. BJM, shows, these groups were able use some talent to cultivate followings within the music industry (from Psychic TV's Genesis P-Orridge to A&R types) and achieve modest successes. Dig! spotlights the rise and stumble of the Dandys as they work their way through signing to Columbia, as well as BJM's desperate attempts to cling to a label without killing each other. But more than being about the record industry, Dig! is a movie about the superegos of a bunch of temperamental, drug addicted, jealous musicians who both love and loathe each other. And for that reason the film is pure genius--as well as an accidental comedy.
Over the years director Ondi Timoner spent making Dig!, members of BJM (especially the delusional, self important frontman Aton Newcombe) get increasingly jealous of the Dandy's midlevel milestones while the Dandys are shown having little negativity in response. (To be fair, though, Taylor--no modest angel himself--narrates this film, giving his band a decidedly unfair advantage). This triggers onscreen hissyfits, spiteful songwriting, and outrageous whining from BJM, which comes to a head too many times and too many coke lines to count. Whatever you think of their music, Dig!'s war of the coulda-beens is an entertaining fight to the bottom--a contest BJM easily win. (JENNIFER MAERZ) Varsity, Fri 1:50, 4:20, 7, 9:30 pm, Sat-Sun 1:50, 4:20, 7, 9:30 pm, Mon-Thurs 7, 9:30 pm.
A Dog's Life w/ Shoulder Arms
Two Charlie Chaplin films. Movie Legends, Sun Oct 10 at 1 pm.
The Glass Key
SAM's film noir series continues with this Dashiell Hammett adaptation about a gangster who attempts to join a rival gang. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Oct 7 at 7:30 pm.
Nicotina
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri 2:35, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40 pm, Sat-Sun 2:35, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40 pm, Mon-Thurs 7:15, 9:40.
Nora Prentiss
SAM's film noir series continues with this 1947 film about a quiet doctor who chances to meet a nightclub singer named Nora Prentiss. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs Oct 14 at 7:30 pm.
Northwest Film Forum Grand Opening Bash
A party celebrating the formal opening of Northwest Film Forum's new digs on 12th Avenue. Featuring music from Anna Oxygen and the Buttersprites and performances by Sarah Rudinoff and Nick Garrison. Northwest Film Forum, Thurs Oct 7 at 8 pm.
The President Versus David Hicks
The father of David Hicks, an Australian detainee at Guantanamo Bay, attempts to gain a fair trial for his son. Northwest Film Forum, Tues Oct 12 at 7 pm.
Preventative Warriors w/ Home of the Brave, Land of the Free
One of these documentaries examines the Bush doctrine as detailed by the National Security Strategy; the other looks at the work of the U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. Northwest Film Forum, Tues Oct 12 at 9 pm.
Say Your Thing
Bush bashers and antiwar activists will want to turn out Sunday night to have a drink and watch some short political videos. Most of them preach to the converted, like "A Million Dollars Later," which is practically a home movie about Bush protests in Portland, and "Drums of War," a generic film-school movie that takes the controversial stance of being against war. But a couple of them do transcend the activist agenda. Bryan Boyce's 2001 "State of the Union" casts G.W. Bush as the Teletubby sun who uses his laser vision against the bunnies in Teletubbyland, while the voiceover in "The Monkey's Hive" ends up being a lot more entertaining than the images that go with it. Meanwhile, "Horton Hears a Human" will be quite popular, as it uses the animation from the Dr. Seuss classic but adds a layer of current politics into the characters and rhyming narration, even though it didn't quite work for me. (ANDY SPLETZER) Rendezvous, Sun Oct 10 at 8 pm.
Sounds of Shadow and Light
The Northwest premieres of two rediscovered short films I Graduated, But... and A Straightforward Boy, by Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, plus a 1926 avant-garde film by Teinosuke Kinugasa called A Page of Madness. Accompanied by original live scores by Aono Jikken Ensemble. Broadway Performance Hall, Fri-Sun 7:30 pm.
The Speaking Hand: Zakir Hussein and the Art of the Indian Drum
A documentary by Sumantra Ghosal about the tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussein. Seattle Art Museum, Sun Oct 10 at 11:30 am.
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack spends a day in Seattle presenting his work and discussing the art of storytelling. Broadway Performance Hall, Sat Oct 9, 9:15 am-4 pm. For tickets ($20), call 325-2770.
Yor, the Hunter from the Future
A prehistoric warrior poses the age-old question, "Where did I come from?" Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat 11 pm.
NOW PLAYING
* The Bourne Supremacy
Forget the plot. Remember the dizzying fight scenes, the indefatigable cloak and dagger in which everyone is the smartest person in the room (and Bourne is the smartest of them all), the best car chase ever filmed (fact!). Remember director Paul Greengrass's masterful handheld choreography. Best of all, remember the supporting cast: Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, Franka Potente, all of whom, along with Damon--whose robotic beauty has never better served a character than this one--help to elevate the Robert Ludlum pulp into a high lowbrow masterpiece. (SEAN NELSON)
Cellular
A man receives a call on his cell phone, and the caller claims to have been kidnapped. But his cell battery is running out....
Collateral
As polished and pleasant as all this scenery is (and as good as both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are), Collateral nonetheless fails, both as a thriller and as yet another entry into Michael Mann's brooding-men oeuvre. What may have been intended as a thinking man's thriller--patient, observant, character-driven--is thoroughly derailed by a surprising source: Mann's inability to shoot action. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
A Dirty Shame
A Dirty Shame tackles the very John Waters-worthy topic of sexual addiction, only to squander it in a pile of unfunny, obvious, and surprisingly tame jokes. Has popular culture finally out-crassed John Waters? (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
First Daughter
This daughter-of-the-prez teen flick is surprisingly good, even though it's exactly like Chasing Liberty and even though it stars Katie Holmes of bland, excessively scrubbed Dawson's Creek fame. And I ought not neglect to mention that the plot argues for the reelection of a subtly right-leaning president. What's great about First Daughter, despite all these negative portents, is that Katie Holmes' character is fundamentally unlikeable. And Katie Holmes knows it. Watching an actress condescend to her own character--from inorganic grins to pantmomimes of sorority-girl fun--is deeply, perversely satisfying. (ANNIE WAGNER)
* The Forgotten
The Forgotten is a surprisingly strong mainstream thriller, with twists that are both implausible and utterly credible, thanks especially to the open-wound vulnerability of the great Julianne Moore. She plays a bereaved mother who suddenly begins to suspect that everyone around her--shrink, husband, neighbor--is part of a conspiracy to make her believe her dead son never existed. Because this is a thriller, she's right, of course, but in a world of infinite possibilities, the choices made by screenwriter Gerald DiPego and highly skilled genre director Joseph Ruben justify the thrills in a refreshingly inventive style. (SEAN NELSON)
Friday Night Lights
A working-class football movie starring Billy Bob Thornton.
* Garden State
Zack Braff's debut film, Garden State, which he wrote, directed, and stars in, may very well be a similar act of egogasm (when you put Simon and Garfunkel on the soundtrack of your examination of disaffected twentysomethings, you're just asking for it), but it features enough odd grace notes among the rampant navel-gazing to warrant a watch. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Descartes has no business being in the land of anime. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
Directed by George Butler, and narrated by Ben Affleck, this documentary is about the birth of John Kerry's political career, which is completely opposite from that of his opponent in this year's presidential election. After returning from service in Vietnam, Kerry was instrumental in organizing what we now call "truth commissions" (Vietnam vets confessing their war crimes), as well as a major protest in Washington D.C. that involved Vietnam vets who were against the war. The documentary shows John Kerry speaking at the protest and managing it. But the heart of the documentary is the footage of 27-year-old Kerry in a moment of what can only be called American grace: testifying, on national television, as a decorated veteran, before the noble eagle-like men of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is the most important moment of his political life, and he rises to the occasion--his speech is clear, economical, and powerful. At the end of the testimony, which runs 4 minutes, Kerry is famous. Richard Nixon recognizes him as a force and wants "to destroy him before he becomes another Ralph Nader." One hopes that the Kerry who courageously protested a bad war in 1971 will be the Kerry who is our Commander in Chief in 2005. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Hero
Initially, Yimou Zhang, the director of such intimate character pieces as Raise the Red Lantern and To Live, may seem an odd choice to successfully rekindle the flaming swords and arrows of the martial arts genre, but from the opening frames he sells you. Hero melds modern wirework effects with the director's own mastery of character to create an awesome chop-socky epic with an honestly moving emotional backbeat. This time, at least, the hype can be believed. I could watch it every night. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
I * Huckabees
See review this issue.
Intimate Strangers
Directed by Patrice Leconte, Intimate Strangers has a strong start and a weak finish. The opening is strong because the premise actually works. But once the accountant is exposed, the comedy dies and a drama is born. With the comedy gone for good, all that's left to enjoy are the film's set designs and the cinematography, which works hard to capture the bourgeois elegance of Sandrine Bonnaire's face. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Ladder 49
I can't say Ladder 49 is a powerful movie that does real justice to the life of a firefighter, because I'm not a firefighter. I don't even personally know any firefighters. But if it is, if this movie is even 75-percent legit... well then, shit--firefighters are amazing, courageous, and insane human beings. (MEGAN SELING )
The Last Shot
This is one of the most painfully ludicrous movies you will ever see, so inept in its execution that it's sure to inspire many a slapped forehead. In order to bolster his FBI career, Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) conjures an idea: He'll pretend to produce a movie in Rhode Island, where the local crime boss, a relative of John Gotti, will hopefully flex his muscles with the unions--and hand Devine a major indictment. In order for Devine to make his plan work, however, he needs an unawares dope, some poor sap whose dreams are so inconsequential that they can be sacrificed by the feds. Enter Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick), an aspiring filmmaker who has for years struggled to get his beloved script made. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Maria Full of Grace
Following an angelic (i.e., stunningly gorgeous) young woman--pregnant and sick of life in her one-factory town--who joins up with the local drug lord for a single trip across the Colombian border, this first film from writer-director Joshua Marston is an admirably restrained, even-handed debut that wisely avoids making sweeping societal pronouncements, shrinking Maria's world--whether she's in rural Colombia or big-city New Jersey--to the small circle of people who directly impact her life. (ADAM HART)
Monumental
According to this documentary, which is well made and scored by beautiful alternative rock, David Brower, a 20th century conservationist, fought hard to protect what was left of America's wilderness from the indefatigable progress of our overdeveloped society. He hated dams, which I think are really awesome (in both senses of the word). True, they kill everything with the water they hold, but a massive dam is as magnificent as a dramatic cliff--in fact, I will go as far as to argue that a dam is more magnificent than cliff, because a dam powers a whole metropolis whereas a cliff does nothing but be a cliff. But to hell with dams and cliffs, my main problem with heroic environmentalists like David Brower is not their convictions or positions or actions (those interviewed about Brower's life and character frequently say he was a man of action), but the way they make their arguments--meaning the language of environmentalism, which is so simple and makes nature seem so weak. A speech by Brower gives one the impression that nature has been reduced to a toothless lion. In an environmentalist view of things, human beings have all the power, and I can't separate this particular perception of the world with a certain strain of Western anthropocentricism. Enough said. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* The Motorcycle Diaries
This is a film that should be taken for what it is: a beautifully constructed road movie with a dash of conscience on the side. There is much to despise about Che Guevara later in his life; these early adventures help us understand where the eventual fanatic was born. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Napoleon Dynamite
In this charming new film, 24-year-old writer/ director Jared Hess mines the nebulous area between popular chic and weirdo freak, where outcast attributes are both quality, subtle comedy, and a charmingly dark part of our collective high-school unconscious. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
* Open Water
This year's Sundance bidding champ, Open Water, made with a skeleton crew and produced on a budget unfair to most shoestrings, has a central gimmick that's hard to trump: actors in the water messing around with real live sharks. Where husband-and-wife team Chris Kentis and Laura Lau excel is in creating the steadily mounting feeling that something could go terribly wrong at any moment, both in front of and behind the camera. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Raise Your Voice
Small town girl Hillary Duff moves to the big city.
Reconstruction
See review this issue.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Alice (Milla Jovovich) survives a dastardly laboratory incident! But now she has to flee from the undead! The horror.
Rosenstrasse
See review this issue.
Shark Tale
Dreamworks' newest faux-Disney offering is a drably animated parable about the perils of watching too much Cribs. Will Smith provides the voice of a lowly fish named Oscar, a whale-wash employee who can only fantasize about appearing on a billboard in the ocean equivalent of midtown Manhattan. But then a freak accident kills a shark who'd been pursuing Oscar, and the boy from the reef's South Side seizes the opportunity to reinvent himself as a shark-slaying celebrity. Clearly, the ruse can't be sustained for long. (ANNIE WAGNER)
Shaun of the Dead
A sharp, clever, and gory horror-comedy that manages to be as scary as it is hilarious, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead shows all the marks of becoming a cult classic (and yeah, I know that sounds clichéd--but in this case, it's actually true). In the recent glut of financially successful zombie flicks--from 28 Days Later to the remake of Dawn of the Dead--the UK-made Shaun is the clear spiritual and intellectual winner, a film that simultaneously respects and satirizes the zombie genre. (ERIK HENRIKSEN)
Silver City
Silver City is a toothless political satire weighted down by self-satisfaction, lame performances, and a plot that seems to understand that its only purpose is to motorize the anti-George W. Bush allegory that beats ineffectually where the film's heart should be. (SEAN NELSON)
* Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
This is perhaps the most expensive experimental film ever (think of a cheerful Lars von Trier's Zentropa, or a Guy Maddin film with a ridiculous budget), and as such it's fairly shocking that it exists at all. Studios are not ones to gamble, after all, especially on first-time filmmakers with cockamamie schemes about robots and fighter planes, but Conran has managed to make something in Sky Captain that both harks back and leaps forward at the same time, and it is without a doubt, on a purely technical level, one of the bravest major studio pictures ever released. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Tae Guk Gi
Here is a truism: When the battle scenes in a war movie become too graphic, the movie essentially becomes an antiwar movie. This is the case of Tae Guk Gi, an epic about two brothers who are swept into the middle of the civil war between North and South Korea. The movie, which is directed by Je-Kyu Kang, makes obvious statements about how the war was meaningless--there were no real differences between the enemies, and ultimately what took place was brother killing brother, father killing son, son killing sister. However, these apparent criticisms of the civil war (which has yet to be resolved), and war in general, are not as powerful as the images of combat--exploding bodies, bullets striking heads and guts, grenades blowing off limbs. To show this is in great detail, which Tae Guk Gi does, is to make a final case against the state of war. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Taxi
Queen Latifah plays a cab driver and Jimmie Fallon plays a cop in need of some hot tips.
Vanity Fair
The problem with Reese Witherspoon as Becky is linked to the way this film tries to reinvent her character. Thackeray's secret sympathy for his conniving protagonist--who is so bad she even hates children--always seeps through the cynical narration. Becky Sharp is great because, no matter how much we admire her pluck from the safe distance of the 21st century, she was a terrible bitch. Mira Nair does not agree. (ANNIE WAGNER)
What the #$*! Do We Know?!
This ungainly, inane film purports to be about quantum physics but is really about the power of positive thinking, with a midlife-crisis plot (starring Marlee Matlin) and some childish cartoon figures and a series of talking heads who can't stop using the word "paradigm." (EMILY HALL)
Wimbledon
In this wretched, soulless tale of love on the courts of Wimbledon, tennis boy Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) meets tennis girl Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst) when a serendipitous keycard mix-up sends him into her hotel suite just as she's finishing her shower. The sad fact is that the best thing about this movie is the dorky, good-omen ball boy, who pops up whenever it looks like Peter is about to lose. (ANNIE WAGNER)
The Yes Men
This documentary follows two culture jammers as they plot out a series of increasingly absurd theatrical stunts. Seeing the way their absurdities play with the credulous corporate audiences is fairly amusing, and the lengths they go toward pulling the wool over people's eyes is admirable. The only problem is that the film, directed by the team responsible for the brilliant American Movie, is equally credulous, which makes the activism feel cloying and self-satisfied. (SEAN NELSON)
