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Film/TV • City • Death • Slog AM/PM • The Worst President

Slog PM: Studio Ghibli Will Stream, WeWork Is Troubled, Trump Is Worse Than Hitler?

by Chase Burns • Thursday at 6:00 pm

Kikis Delivery Service is flying on to one of HBOs 10,000 streaming platforms this spring.
Kiki's Delivery Service is flying on to one of HBO's 10,000 streaming platforms this spring. Courtesy Studio Ghibli

Trump says he will host the next G-7 Summit of world leaders at his private resort in Doral, Florida: Slate claimed the "self-deal is worthy of impeachment all on its own." A Fox News legal analyst called it a "direct" and "profound" violation of the Constitution. The mayor of Doral said he learned all this news the same time we did.

The South Lake Union crane collapse in April was caused by: companies failing to abide by safety procedures when dismantling a crane, according to a Washington State Department of Labor & Industries report. The crane, which killed four people after it collapsed on a Google Cloud building and fell onto a road below, was owned by Morrow Equipment LLC. Morrow, GLY Construction, and Northwest Tower Crane Services were fined a total of $107,200. The companies have 15 business days to appeal the fines.

Rick Perry resigns: The move has been expected for a few weeks, although I forgot he even had a job.

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Film/TV • Things To Do • EverOut

38 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend: Oct 17–20, 2019

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Thursday at 5:00 pm

Döppelgangers and undead ghouls, oh my! The apocalypse is funny in Zombieland: Double Tap.
Döppelgangers and undead ghouls, oh my! The apocalypse is funny in Zombieland: Double Tap.

This weekend, watch award-winning films from Germany at ...and the winners are..., see Eddie Murphy embody a blaxploitation legend in Dolemite Is My Name , or catch a sneak preview screening of the hotly anticipated Bong Joon-ho movie Parasite. See all of our film critics’ picks for this weekend below, and, if you've got a special taste for the macabre, click here to find all the spooky movies you can watch this month. If you're looking for even more options, check out our film events calendar and complete movie times listings (which are now location-aware!).

Note: Movies play Thursday–Sunday unless otherwise noted

Ad Astra
Writer/director James Grey's follow-up to 2016's excellent, underrated The Lost City of Z is a clunkier affair, with sad-sack Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) embarking on an almost-certainly doomed voyage through the solar system to track down his MIA astronaut father (Tommy Lee Jones). Along the way, he fights battles both external (space pirates!) and internal (daddy issues!), and he also spends a whole lot of time monologuing, thanks to an unnecessary, on-the-nose voiceover that rivals Harrison Ford's awkward ramble in Blade Runner. But it's when the movie shuts up—when Gray's camera skims the plains of the Moon, when an antenna towering into Earth's atmosphere begins to shudder, when the screen is filled by the shadow-blue rings of Neptune or the churning storms of Jupiter—that Ad Astra hits the profundity and scope that all McBride's monologuing fails to get at. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Wide release

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Sponsored

Uncanny Comedy Fest Starring Ronny Chieng, Jubal Fresh & More!

Join Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show, Crazy Rich Asians), Jordan Rock, Mark Viera, Justin Rupple, Manny Martin, Adam Ray, and Michael Winslow on October 25th at Tacoma Dome for an evening of laughs with at the Uncanny Comedy Fest! 21+

Get tickets HERE.

Weed

Pot Stock Profits Are Going Up in Smoke

by Josh Jardine • Thursday at 4:45 pm

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Darren415/Getty Images
Until recently, there was much ado about investing in the “Green Rush” of cannabis stocks. Those with a stomach for the risks of investing in cannabis saw some returns hit 400 percent or more. But those high returns won’t be happening for many other investors, as 2019 has thus far served as a major disappointment.

This has been true for both US and Canadian brands, although with national cannabis legalization, Canada has a stock market that can list cannabis stocks. And many of those stocks in the Great White North are sliding south, quickly.

How bad is it? It’s bad. As Merry Jane writes: “Canada’s federal cannabis program, which is largely operated by five companies, saw a total market loss of $23 billion since September 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the US, two companies canceled a merger last week that would’ve been worth $700 million."

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Film/TV

Blood-Splattered Zombieland: Double Tap Is a Comedy Sequel That Actually Works

by Ben Coleman • Thursday at 4:20 pm

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Jessica Miglio

The problem with comedy sequels is that it's hard to tell the same joke years later, but funnier. Despite the ravages of time and changing tastes, filmmakers must suplex the lightning back into that bottle, hoping everyone's down for another helping of that one bit everyone quoted in college, except now with too many celebrity cameos. (I'm very deliberately looking at you, Anchorman 2).

But despite lurching into theaters a full decade after the original, Zombieland: Double Tap avoids those pitfalls while delivering a suitably zany Zombieland experience with the easy charm of an off-brand Mike Judge picaresque.

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Sponsored

Entre Hermanos is Going the Extra Mile for HIV+ Immigrants

Alejandra Grillo-Roa is no stranger to paperwork. It makes up the majority of her job at Entre Hermanos, but her job isn’t exactly dreary. She is the organization's Bilingual Medical Case Manager, so filling out forms, making appointments, and checking in with her clients — HIV+ members of the Latinx LGBTQ community — is often a matter of life and death.

“For my clients, the biggest challenge is being undocumented,” she says.

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Film/TV • Unstreamable

Every Unstreamable Film We've Blurbed (So Far)

by Chase Burns and Jasmyne Keimig • Thursday at 3:30 pm

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Andrew on Twitter was wondering if we had a list of all the Unstreamable films we've written about so far, which was a good thing to wonder. We didn't. Now we do. Here you go, Andrew!

We'll update this list each week. Our current total is 49 films.

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Things To Do • EverOut

58 Major Events to Know About in the Seattle Area This Weekend: Oct 18-20, 2019

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Thursday at 3:00 pm

Celebrate our sister city of Reykjavík at Taste of Iceland activities throughout the weekend, including a synth-punk concert on Saturday and a short film festival on Sunday.
Celebrate our sister city of Reykjavík at Taste of Iceland activities throughout the weekend, including a synth-punk concert on Saturday and a short film festival on Sunday. Shutterstock

All week long, we've been posting lists of Seattle events to keep you busy (including the best arts & culture events, quirky things to do, and the best music shows to see), but we realize there's a lot to sort through. So, if you only have time to read one list, make it this one: We've plucked the biggest events you need to know about in every genre, from the Who to This Is Halloween to Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience. See them all below, and find even more things to do this weekend on our complete EverOut Things To Do calendar, including the highlights for the entire month.

SEASONAL & COMMUNITY FESTIVALS

Fall Foliage Festival and Plant Sale
Pick up plants, pumpkins, and seasonal treats, see pop-up artist demos, take gardening workshops, and more at this autumnal festival.
Saturday-Sunday, Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden (Federal Way)

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Beer

Pike Brewing Turns 30, Meaning It’s Time to Say Thank You

by Lester Black • Thursday at 2:35 pm

Rose Ann and Charles Finkel pictured in their basement beer library at Pike Brewing.
Rose Ann and Charles Finkel pictured in their basement beer library at Pike Brewing. Lester Black

Rose Ann and Charles Finkel deserve more credit. These two Seattleites have had a strangely large impact on how Americans eat and drink. Thirty years ago today, they opened Pike Brewing, a brewery that has anchored Seattle’s craft beer scene, mentored dozens of brewers that have gone on to launch some of the best breweries in the country, and taught countless thousands of people how to appreciate beer.

You can celebrate 30 years of Pike Brewing with a party at their pub tonight, but the story of Rose Ann and Charles as food and drink pioneers begins long before Pike Brewing started. So I recently sat down with the couple in Charles’ office (and beer library) in the basement of their serpentine brewery on Post Alley to talk with them about, well, all kinds of things: moving to Seattle to build Chateau St. Michelle winery, why they support Planned Parenthood, how Charles is the reason oatmeal stouts exist today, and why you won’t see them purchasing a six-pack of Elysian Brewing at the grocery store.

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Transportation

Bill That Would Require Alcohol-Detecting Devices in All New Cars Should Become a Law

by Charles Mudede • Thursday at 2:20 pm

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kali9/gettyimages.com

A bill on Capitol Hill sponsored by Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone Act, or RIDE Act, would, if made into a law, "require automakers to build cars and trucks with passive detection systems that prevent the vehicle from operating if the driver is impaired." This is how it would work. You enter your car, the device smells your breath and determines if you are fit to drive or not. If not, the car will not start.

From the Washington Post:

Such devices, known as ignition interlocks, are in widespread use for those charged or convicted of drunken driving; they require the driver to exhale into a Breathaylzer-like device and prevent the car from starting if a person’s blood alcohol level is above the legal limit.”

But researchers and engineers have been working to develop newer technology that would obtain instantaneous and precise readings of every driver’s blood alcohol level when the driver attempts to start the vehicle. Safety advocates hope the technology will become as standard as air bags. Limited road testing has been underway in Maryland and Virginia.

Let's think about this for a moment. What are the pros and cons of such a bill?

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News • Election 2019!

Republican Donors Are Pouring Money Into Egan Orion's Campaign

by Rich Smith • Thursday at 2:00 pm

What does Egan Orion and Donald Trump have in common? Donors.
What do Egan Orion and Donald Trump have in common? Donors. Courtesy of Egan Orion's Campaign

Egan Orion has raked in cash from at least 21 major Republican donors in his campaign against incumbent Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant. According to public disclosure records, all of those donors gave the maximum $500 to his campaign, with one giving only $250. Five of those donors have given to Donald Trump, and three of those Trump donors appear to have never or only once played in Seattle city council politics before. Over a dozen of these donors have given only to Orion's campaign in the council races this election cycle.

Six of the Republican donors have also given a combined $90,000 to People for Seattle, a PAC run by former Seattle Interim Mayor Tim Burgess. The PAC is spending thousands on advertising and paid canvassers for Orion and other candidates who are also endorsed by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s PAC, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy, which has received $1.5 million from Amazon alone.

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Music • Inbox Jukebox

Inbox Jukebox Track of the Day: A Blissful Cover of Jazz Legend Alice Coltrane's "Sivaya" by L.A. Bassist Sam Wilkes

by Dave Segal • Thursday at 1:15 pm

All hail another lovely tribute to the sainted Alice Coltrane.
All hail another lovely tribute to the sainted Alice Coltrane. Leaving Records

Sam Wilkes, "Sivaya" (Leaving)

Los Angeles bassist Sam Wilkes is becoming one of the freshest musicians in this decade's jazz renaissance. His 2018 debut album, WILKES, revealed an artist able to tap into the highest reaches of spiritualized expression. Last year he performed many of that record's songs live at the Highland Park Ebell Club, which he filled with Astroturf to flatten the big room's acoustics. You can hear the results on Live on the Green (out November 8); its eight tracks are a balm for the soul, with Wilkes getting beneficent support from alto saxophonist Sam Gendel, drummer Tamir Barzilay, electric guitarists Adam Ratner and Brian Green, and Jacob Mann on Roland Juno 106 and Korg Kronos.

Live on the Green includes a cover of "Sivaya" by the illustrious Alice Coltrane, so of course I have to spotlight it. (Earlier this year on Slog I wrote about Sunwatchers covering Coltrane's "Ptah the El Daoud." I will never pass up a chance to celebrate Ms. Coltrane's essential music.) Released on 1977's Transcendence, "Sivaya" represents an early example of Alice's embracing of Vedic, chant-heavy composition. Wilkes dispenses with the original's handclaps and vocals and emphasizes its serenely beautiful melody and breezy tempo. This version efficiently sweeps away the world's chaos, for at least the five minutes of its run time. That it brings more attention to Alice Coltrane is a rich bonus to this blissful blessing of a performance.

Savage Love

His New Girlfriend Doesn't Want to "Scare Him Off" With Her Kinks

by Dan Savage • Thursday at 12:30 pm

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My girlfriend and I are both avid listeners of your podcast. Admittedly, I am always a few episodes behind her because I have a fairly demanding work schedule, but it’s great to hear your thoughts on sex and intimacy issues. I had to email rather than call because she would definitely recognize my voice if you wound up playing the call over the air.

Okay, we are both very open and open-minded people. We’ve known each other for years, but only have been dating for four months or so. And the sex is great. We’ve both had our share of experience in the bedroom, which certainly helps. When talking about what turns us both on, I feel like we do share a good amount. However, she’s made a few comments recently saying that she “doesn’t want to scare me away” with her sexual fetishes and interests. I don’t think she realizes it but that makes me a little nervous. What could it be? What did I do to make her feel that she can’t share this with me? What should I do?

Thanks For Reading

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Film/TV • Things To Do • EverOut

49 Spooky Movies You Can Watch Before Halloween 2019 in Seattle

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Thursday at 12:00 pm

Let this amazing variety of movies bewitch you! Get it? Witches? Hocus Pocus?
Let this amazing variety of movies bewitch you! Get it? Witches? Hocus Pocus? Walt Disney

Seattle is a great place to be a horror movie fan, not only because you're in good company, but also because we have terrific small and art-house theaters showing a wondrous variety of everything frightening. Whether you're jonesing for a critically acclaimed new release like Parasite or looking to revisit a fun, friendly classic like Hocus Pocus or hoping to get deeply, artsily disturbed by Possession, we've got you covered. (You may notice that half of these come from the Beacon. That's because the Beacon is the best thing since sliced fle—bread, we mean sliced bread—and the theater shows a staggering number of movies per month.) Check out more spooky events on our Halloween calendar, and find more movie times here.

The Beacon


Anime Sunrise: The Curse of Kazuo Umezu/Mermaid Forrest
Anime and horror collide! The Beacon is doing a double bill of two creepy OVAs (original video animation), The Curse of Kazuo Umezu and Mermaid Forest, as part of their ongoing Anime Sunrise series. Inspired by the works of horror mangaka Kazuo Umezu and Rumiko Takahashi, these unstreamable vintage tapes are tough, if not impossible, to find. A rare tape doesn’t equal a good tape (trash can be rare), but Mermaid Forest is dark, puzzling, weird—and fueled by mermaid blood. Hot, scaly, mermaid blood! It includes scenes of slaughtered merfolk, a doctor who cuts off people’s hands, twinks cursed with immortality, a demon dog who kills anyone who crosses his murderous master... Excellent Halloween fodder. I doubt you'll be able to see either of these in a theater again. CHASE BURNS
Sun Oct 20

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Film/TV

Dolemite Is My Name Features Eddie Murphy at His Most Bittersweet

by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey • Thursday at 11:30 am

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FRANÇOIS DUHAMEL

Of the many stars of the blaxploitation genre of the early 1970s, Rudy Ray Moore may not be the most famous, but he was certainly the most original. An absolutely filthy-mouthed comedian (he labelled himself a “ghetto expressionist”), Moore gained a well-deserved, underground following for his rhyming jokes that usually involved obscene takes on pimps, prostitutes, and hustlers.

After recording several comedy albums, he used the money to self-produce his starring vehicle, 1975’s Dolemite—about a rhyming pimp trained in kung fu who takes revenge on the rival who put him in jail. The film went on to make $12 million, securing Moore as one of blaxploitation’s greatest artists, and one who was later crowned the “godfather” of modern rap.

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Things To Do • Culture • EverOut

Where to Celebrate Diwali 2019 in Seattle

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Thursday at 11:00 am

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GETTY/MURALINATH

Diwali, the fall Hindu festival of lights that avows the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness, officially falls on October 27 this year, but there are local celebrations taking place throughout the season. Below, we've rounded up all the places to eat traditional food, dance to Bollywood music, and learn more about the holiday around Seattle, from a Diwaloween dance party to a gourmet supper club to lots of family-friendly festivals. You can also see them all on our complete Diwali calendar.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18

Asha Diwali Dhamaka
The Seattle chapter of Asha for Education will celebrate the Hindu fall festival with music from DJ RKay, Bollywood karaoke, live and silent auctions, and festive food and drinks.
Microsoft Building 92, Redmond

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Housing

Seattle Times Not Sure If Seattle's Secretive but Booming Million-Dollar Condo Market Has Had an Impact on the City's Economy

by Charles Mudede • Thursday at 10:30 am

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irina88w/gettyimages.com

The Seattle Times, article "Report spotlights how some owners of high-end Seattle condos conceal their identities," makes a muddle of these two points. One: a lot of rich people own Seattle luxury condos in secret (and the more expensive the condo, the more likely it is owned by an unknown person or persons). Two: It suggests that this is not such a big problem because "top-market condos still make up only a fraction of the Seattle housing market, though their numbers are growing." The first point says there is a problem Seattle should be concerned about; the second one says there is not, and thereby undoes the whole point of the piece. The article then confuses the matter even more by quoting a pro-market urbanist, Roger Valdez, who knows next to nothing about economics. He states: “It’s easy to imagine that there are millionaires lined up around the block waiting to buy high-rise condos... But the fact is that most of the builders in the city are building small and medium-sized apartments, houses and townhouses.” (Duh!)

However, the crucial element missing in Valdez's statement is an actual explanation. All he has done for Seattle Times' readers is describe a thing, and then say this is that thing. It's like saying 'This a dog' (it looks like this and behaves like that), and then pointing to a thing that looks like what you just described, a dog. Yes, in reality, there are not many rich people in Seattle or the world for that matter. You will not find them "lined up around the block." But this piece of information tells us very little. On the other hand, it's just stunning that anyone would believe that the activities of a few super-rich people would have a negligible effect on a specific market (say real estate) or the economy as a whole.

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