Is it the rain that makes Seattle's movie scene so lush? Whatever the case, there's a lot to take in this weekend, from movies by homegrown Seattle filmmakers, like Brown's Canyon and the Violet Films/SJ Chiro Short Films Retrospective, to some Hitchcock classics to the new biopic Tom of Finland. Follow the links for complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers, or, if you're looking for even more options, check out our complete movie times listings or our film events calendar.

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THURSDAY ONLY

House of Usher
If you have a yen for bastardized, cheesy versions of Edgar Allan Poe classics, the team of slithery star Vincent Price and king of B-movies Roger Corman has the thing for you. This version of "The Fall of the House of Usher," about the mad scion of a cursed line and his beautiful cataleptic sister, mashes in a silly love story, saturated colors, and plenty of spooky decor.
Scarecrow Video

Thelma
Much like Jordan Peele folded acidic commentary and comedy into the shocks and dread of Get Out, Joachim Trier’s fourth feature, Thelma, is a lot more than it appears: as a thriller about a young woman with kinetic abilities. Our introduction to Thelma is as a lonely university student, who, when not fielding weirdly invasive phone calls from her parents, shuffles quietly between classes and the library. As she studies one afternoon, she finds herself gazing longingly at a female classmate, Anja (Kaya Wilkins), then suffering a seizure that sends her falling to the floor and sends crows thumping into a nearby window. As the friendship and attraction between the two women deepens, Thelma reels with fantasies and increasingly dangerous seizures, not to mention an existential crisis, as she begs God to remove this desire from her heart. There’s much more to Thelma, but I hesitate to unpack it and risk ruining the film’s slow-build tension. It keeps you waiting for the dam to burst—and makes the eventual deluge all the more satisfying. ROBERT HAM
Grand Illusion

Smiles of a Summer Night (Winter Light: The Films of Ingmar Bergman)
Not all of the films by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman are sad and gloomy. Some are indeed comedies, such as Smiles of a Summer Night. The title of that film really says it all—the film’s plot simply involves men and women falling in and out and in and out of love. Will they find happiness at the end of the movie? Will something special happen on the shortest night of the year? These are the problems enjoyed by a society with a very good welfare system. CHARLES MUDEDE
Seattle Art Museum

Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope
Want to see Sonny Chiba as the scion of a lycanthrope clan versus a supernatural phantom tiger? We don't blame you. This is the first time the film from the infamous Toei Studio will be released outside of Japan.
Ark Lodge Cinemas

THURSDAY & SATURDAY

2017 Sundance Film Festival Short Films Tour
Short film may be something of a neglected art for your average filmgoer, but there's a lot to be said for the brief format—not least of all because it's a way for emerging talent to get noticed. These Sundance shorts include the International Fiction Jury Award-winning "And the Whole Sky Fit In the Dead Cow’s Eye" by the Chilean Francisca Alegría, a ghost story; the US Fiction Jury Award-winning "Lucia, Before and After," depicting a woman during the 24-hour waiting period for an abortion in Texas; Kristen Stewart's directorial debut "Come Swim"; and much more.
Northwest Film Forum

THURSDAY & SUNDAY

Tom of Finland
Tom of Finland lived a very interesting life. It’s a shame this biopic covers so much of it. Touko Valio Laaksonen, the man behind the pseudonym, was a prolific homoerotic fetish artist whose life spanned from WWII trenches to beefcake magazine fame to vilification during the Reagan era. So much of Laaksonen’s art is about gaydar—the lingering glances, nonverbal cues, and performance of stereotypes that allowed (and continue to allow) queer people to find each other. Tom of Finland is a glowing tribute, even if a film about filth could have used a little more filth. CHASE BURNS
Northwest Film Forum

FRIDAY ONLY

Violet Films/SJ Chiro Short Films Retrospective
If you're into the local film scene (or just good contemporary movies in general), check out these short films by SJ Chiro, who won acclaim last year for her debut feature Lane 1974. (The Stranger loved it, and so did FIPRESCI, which awarded the film the New American Cinema award.) The event will benefit two people who lost everything in the Sonoma County fires.
West of Lenin

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

Brown's Canyon
In this semi-improvised film by Seattle-based director John Helde and his producers/lead actors Jenn Ruzumna and Lisa Every, two self-help instructors are stranded in their own women's retreat in Utah over a weekend that puts their friendship to the test and threatens multiple disasters.
Northwest Film Forum

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

The Final Year
There are probably more important things you can do in response to the Trump era than spend 89 minutes of your time watching The Final Year, a wistful documentary about former President Barack Obama's foreign policy worldview. Having given 89 minutes of my own time to this film, I feel it's likely the people it focuses on—Obama, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, and former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes—would agree you should do something else. By the end of the movie, as all of them grapple with the unexpected 2016 presidential election results, the unanimous consensus seems to be that the tens of millions of Americans who helped propel Obama to two terms in the White House are now a sort of ark. They are, in this view, the repository of noble ideas and aspirations temporarily washed out of power by a perfect storm of resentment, technological disruption, media failure, and enthusiastic demagoguery. Answering this frightful reality by watching nostalgic movies does not seem to be anyone's idea of how decent Americans, including ex-Obama officials, should be leaping into action. And yet, if you have arrived at a moment of exhaustion with organizing and Congress-calling and marching and talking to conservative relatives, and if you feel so spun around by the Trump administration's rapid-fire lies and manipulations that you can't remember what it used to be like, then yes, The Final Year will remind you what has been lost. ELI SANDERS
Grand Illusion

The Paris Opera
What you must not do with this superb documentary about the workings and the ups and downs of one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world, Paris Opera, is compare it with Frederick Wiseman’s work. Wiseman’s documentaries are simply exhaustive. They are not beautiful and have very little or no poetry in them. This documentary by Jean-Stephane Bron, a Swiss director, has the pace, the editing, the appearance, and the mood of a big-production drama. A young man from the Russian sticks auditions and, to his surprise, is hired by the opera. He hardly speaks any French, and now he is at the center of this civilization and this institution (which has a view of the Eiffel Tower, the business district, the gray and black rooftops of the great old metropolis). There are certain sequences in this doc that will lift your spirits up to the highest states of feeling that this art can reach. CHARLES MUDEDE
SIFF Film Center

Rear Window
Voyeur in a wheelchair gets his comeuppance when he witnesses a murder and tries to do something about it. Full of "that Hitchcock touch," and boasting one of the best opening shots of any film ever.
Ark Lodge Cinemas

Run Lola Run
At the beginning of this century, culture critic Steven Shaviro wrote an essay in this paper, “The Cinema of Absence,” which argued that a number of films at the end of the 20th century were responding to the oversaturation of images: “television and video… hundreds of cable TV channels; thousands of movies available on VHS, laser disc, and DVD; surveillance cameras everywhere; lots of hyperrealistic, fast-moving video and computer games; and an ever-increasing number of webcams and streaming video sources online.” Cinema at the start of the 20th century could separate itself from the world, but cinema at the end of it could not. One response to this interpenetration of cinema, the real and the virtual were narratives that were fragmented (Pulp Fiction) or told “the same story, until the characters finally get things right” (Run Lola Run). The latter, directed by Tom Tykwer and staring Franka Potente, was basically cinema not as reality but as a video game. And it worked. The film was a big hit, and it now stands as Tykwer’s second-finest artistic achievement (the first being The International). Run Lola Run will never grow old. CHARLES MUDEDE
Central Cinema

Vertigo
A detective is hired by a friend to shadow the friend's suicidal wife—but things go devastatingly wrong when he falls in love with the mysterious woman. When, after the disaster, he finds the double of the woman he failed to protect, he dooms them all. This is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most celebrated films, and its dreamlike thrall still holds power even if the plot doesn't make much sense.
Ark Lodge Cinemas

SATURDAY ONLY

Foolish Mortals
The American is an animal that’s always looking for the spiritual in a country that has sold its soul to money. Recall this line in the Communist Manifesto: Capitalism “has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.” Many Americans do not want to accept this fact. There has to be something more than what they see all around them every day—“naked self-interest” and “callous cash payment.” They join megachurches or become obsessed with popular attractions like Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. The latter’s fan culture is the subject of this curious documentary by James H. Carter. And indeed, some of the fans do see something in the Haunted Mansion that’s more than just a moneymaking machine. It is, after all, about the spirit world. CHARLES MUDEDE
Seattle Design Center

Saturday Morning Kung Fu Theater
Early risers can spend their Saturday mornings watching classic martial arts cinema (courtesy of Push/Pull film archivists) over coffee and donuts. Get a boost for the rest of the day. This week's movie is 36th Chamber of Shaolin, a Hong Kong revenge story starring the action hero Chia-Hui Liu (Kill Bill: Volume 1).
Push/Pull

Saturday Secret Matinees
Grand Illusion and the Sprocket Society will continue their tradition of pairing an adventure serial with a different secret matinee movie every week. This year, the serial is Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and the theme of the feature film will change every fortnight (maybe they stole the idea from the Stranger's new printing schedule. Though probably not). The remaining themes include "Swashbuckling Heroes! (this week)," "Very Bad Deals," "Twisted Intrigues," "Atomic Monsters," and "Widescreen Thrills." The coolest part, from a film buff point of view? Everything will be presented on 16mm.
Grand Illusion

ALL WEEKEND

All the Money in the World
It sounded crazy: Mere weeks away from the release of All the Money in the World, director Ridley Scott decided to erase every trace of Kevin Spacey from his movie following disturbing allegations of that actor’s sexual assault and harassment. Scott quickly refilmed large sections with Christopher Plummer, who replaced Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty, founder of Getty Oil and one of the richest men of the 20th century. I can see why Scott went to such extremes. He knew he was sitting on top of a taut, exciting thriller about the 1973 Italian kidnapping of Getty’s grandson, John Paul Getty III, and damned if he was gonna let Spacey torpedo it. All the Money in the World is as fun to watch as a lit fuse. The story primarily focuses on Paul III’s mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), who teams up with Getty’s security man, former CIA agent Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), to negotiate with the Italian kidnappers. The script adroitly handles themes of money and family, and Scott’s virtuosic skill in building suspense serves him well in a handful of excellent, nail-biting sequences. This thing should have been a disaster. In Scott’s hands, it’s anything but. NED LANNAMANN
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
For years, the Austrian-born Hedy Lamarr was known as the hottest, most sophisticated lady in Tinseltown. But Alexandra Dean’s documentary, using archival footage, testimony, and some recently rediscovered interviews with Lamarr, reveals just how shallowly studio executives viewed their scandalous asset. When still a teenager, Hedy Lamarr was quite possibly the first person to simulate an orgasm onscreen. After fleeing a bad marriage in the Third Reich for the safety of Hollywood, she became frustrated with her pigeonholed status as a European sex symbol. But worse than the limitations on her acting career was the dismissal of her intellect. She collaborated on a frequency-hopping torpedo signaling system with the American composer George Antheil. While the Navy ignored their idea, their patent inspired technology essential to secure wifi, bluetooth, and military communications. Bombshell is an essential re-examination of the fascinating woman obscured and cheapened by Hollywood mystique. JOULE ZELMAN
Northwest Film Forum

Call Me By Your Name
As I sat watching the story of unexpected passion between a teenage boy and a slightly older male grad student staying with his family at their palatial Northern Italian villa during the languid, dappled, decadent summer of 1983, I thought three things: (1) James Ivory (Maurice, The Remains of the Day, Howards End), who wrote the screenplay based on André Aciman's novel, is the laureate of agonizingly slow-burning love shared by inexpressive people in stately houses, (2) Guadagnino seems able to make the air around this family actually swoon with intellectual fecundity and erotic possibility, and (3) honestly, what is Armie Hammer doing there? Hammer plays Oliver, the American grad student who captivates the imagination and emotions of young Elio, a musical prodigy poised at the frustrating age when you're supposed to start choosing a path but you can't seem to take a step in any direction. Timothée Chalamet (recently seen as the pretentious indie-rock rich kid boyfriend in Lady Bird) is perfect as Elio. He's coltish one minute, graceful the next, and always one step ahead of everyone. Intelligence streams out of him as convincingly as lust and longing. The question then becomes: Is Oliver, as embodied by Hammer, worthy of Elio's adoration? I just can't see it. This leaves a hole at the center of what would otherwise be—and still, semi-miraculously, is—a very involving, melancholy film. SEAN NELSON
Various locations

Coco
The “Coco” in question is the oldest living relative of the film’s young protagonist, Miguel, but the story is driven by Miguel’s passion for becoming a musician—and the conflicted relationship he has with his family, who label music as “bad” for reasons he has yet to learn. But Miguel is tenacious when it comes to performing and after his abuelita smashes his guitar, Miguel steals the guitar of a famous ancestor. Since taking from the dead is a big no-no, Miguel crosses over into the Land of the Dead. Coco ends up being an exceedingly tender kids’ film with deep themes about mortality, ancestry, and memories—and any adult with a soul will be moved, too. JENNI MOORE
Various locations

The Commuter
One of the most productive and entertaining collaborations in Hollywood today is that between Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra and the Irish actor Liam Neeson. They have made three excellent action thrillers. They are about to release a fourth, The Commuter, which in tone and setting is much like the duo’s masterpiece—their second collaboration, Non-Stop. This film also stars the underappreciated actress Vera Farmiga. She plays a baddie. She brings bad news to Liam, who is 65 and not getting younger. Liam must get out of yet another tough situation. He is on a commuter train, the love his life (his wife) seems to have been kidnapped, he must do something he doesn’t want to do or lose everything. This is what we call a movie, my man. A bloody fucking movie. CHARLES MUDEDE
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

The Disaster Artist
Even if you have never seen The Room, Tommy Wiseau’s infamous masterpiece of shocking artistic poverty, there’s plenty to recommend James Franco’s re-creation of its conception and creation. Much like Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, this film makes the case that a complete lack of talent and vision are not necessarily bars to entry for a life in show business, as long as you have an unlikely friend, and the strangest accent since Martin Short in Father of the Bride. Littered with hilarious cameos from the likes of Seth Rogen, Megan Mullally, and Bryan Cranston, The Disaster Artist is funny, sweet, and strange, with a central performance by Franco that rises to the level of either high camp or high art. SEAN NELSON
SIFF Cinema Uptown & Meridian 16

The Florida Project
The real reason The Florida Project is a breakout success, and the reason everyone should see the film, is the rowdy, previously unknown seven-year-old actor Brooklynn Prince. Moonee, played by Prince, is a mischievous tyrant who spends her days terrorizing the Orlando hotel she calls home. Like director Sean Baker’s Tangerine, the characters in The Florida Project don’t want anyone’s pity. Prostitution, drugs, arson, assault—it all goes down in the Magic Castle, the purple hotel (or project) where Moonee lives. Prince—with considerable help from her costars, Baker, and screenwriter Chris Bergoch—resonates beyond the twee and cute. At the film’s climax, Prince delivers a performance that would make even the surliest curmudgeon cry. CHASE BURNS
Ark Lodge Cinemas

I, Tonya
Tonya Harding was considered a freak, even though she was arguably the most technically skilled skater of her time. In the wake of the infamous 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan (which she may or may not have had a hand in), Harding was further ostracized, transformed by the nascent 24-hour news cycle into a white-trash demoness—so it’s important that any fictional depiction of her life acknowledge that she was also a real person who suffered. I, Tonya, is a solid attempt, largely thanks to Margot Robbie’s portrayal of a very human, very sympathetic Tonya. Without sugarcoating Harding’s personality (which could be caustic) or her tragic life (which was full of abuse and abandonment), I, Tonya tells a familiar story of a woman whose life was ruined by hapless, cruel men and sexist gatekeeping. It has been criticized for its stylized, darkly comic depiction of abuse, but it’s also one of the only portrayals I’ve seen that presents Harding as a person, and that acknowledges she was abused. It’s hard not to root for her in the film—she's a talented weirdo surrounded by bad men, whose raw determination can’t be blunted by an equally abusive and narcissistic mother (an excellent, unnerving Allison Janney) who teaches her to conflate being loved with being hit. It’s impossible not to empathize with Harding, and to imagine what her career and life might have looked like had she been able to make a clean break from her abusive family. MEGAN BURBANK
Various locations

Lady Bird
Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, never better) is a teenage girl striving to find a self she can live in while stranded in moribund, lower-middle-class Sacramento, "the Midwest of California." Her efforts begin with that name, which she bestowed upon herself—Christine was too normal—and loudly demands that everyone call her at all times. The crusade also manifests in the form of hair dye, petty crime, habitual lying, sexual experimentation with unworthy boys, and musical theater. Though Lady Bird will perform for anyone, the only audience she truly wants is her exasperated, judgmental, sharp-tongued mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf, almost certainly the greatest living actress). It's an exquisitely observed portrait of a mother and daughter so intractably at war that they can't see how close they are until it's too late. SEAN NELSON
Various locations

Molly's Game
It does not matter that this film is based on a real story. Reality sucks if it is not fucked with, which will certainly be the case in this crime drama about a woman (Jessica Chastain) who was a world-class ice skater and also happened to run a world-class underground poker joint. The Russians were in on the action just like the 2016 election. The FBI bust her shit up. What did she do wrong? Girls just want to have fun. The over-acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin decided that this would be the first film he directed. Expect to enjoy parts this film that are devoted to crime, and expect to be bored by the parts devoted to redemption. CHARLES MUDEDE
AMC Seattle 10 & Meridian 16

Phantom Thread
The alleged news that this will be Daniel Day-Lewis’s final outing as an actor would only be reason enough to see this film if you actually believe he truly won’t ever act again once he’s finished cobbling or whatever he’s doing this time. But really, all you need to know is that he’s in it. Boom, it’s a don’t miss. But then you see the trailer, in which obsessive jealousy burns slowly, causing terrible damage as it mounts, and you see the makings of a Paul Thomas Anderson gem, and another brilliant performance by Day-Lewis, one of the finest actors who ever drew breath. SEAN NELSON
Various locations

The Post
The Post is Spielberg’s clear and passionate ode to the adversarial press, and not only is it a refreshing departure from his past work, it also turns out to be a good fit for his slick storytelling style. Spielberg is, at his core, a populist—a guy who wants to make crowd-pleasers so badly that his name has become synonymous with them. With The Post, Spielberg’s skills are put to a purpose. Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee, the chain-smoking, gray-suited editor of the Washington Post. Hanks is the perfect choice for a character who’s juuust enough of a salty old sumbitch to keep things from turning into mushy hagiography. In one of the first scenes, Bradlee tells Katharine “Kay” Graham—the owner of the newspaper, played by grand dame of cinema Meryl Streep—to “keep your finger out of my eye.” t’s 1971, and the drama of the day concerns the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of the United States’ disastrous involvement in Vietnam and the lies the government told the American people along the way. Daniel Ellsberg (The Americans’ Matthew Rhys, who has a great cloak-and-dagger face) has started leaking the report to the New York Times, which gets slapped with an injunction. With the New York Times silenced, The Post follows the Washington Post’s journey to (1) acquire the Pentagon Papers and (2) decide whether to publish, risking lawsuits and jail time. The story has obvious contemporary parallels, with the press risking it all to check the president’s power—and Spielberg, surprisingly, rises to the challenge. In a lot of ways, The Post is the movie Oliver Stone wanted Snowden to be. VINCE MANCINI
Various locations

The Shape of Water
The Shape of Water is strange, sweet, and wonderful, and easily the greatest film ever made about a mute cleaning lady who falls in love with an amphibious fish man. A fairy tale set in 1962, it finds Elisa (Sally Hawkins) working the graveyard shift at the Occam Aerospace Research Center—a cold institution that marks a time, del Toro says, “where America is looking forward. Everything [is] about the future... and here comes a creature from the most ancient past.” That creature—wide-eyed, gilled, and played with strength and inquisitiveness by Doug Jones—is imprisoned at Occam. Locked in a tank and chained in a pool, he’s prodded by a reverent scientist (Michael Stuhlbarg) and tortured by a dominating military man (Michael Shannon). When Elisa finds him, she recognizes a kindred spirit—and feels an attraction that’s met with varying degrees of enthusiasm from her dubious coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her artist neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins). Whether they’re human or... whatever the hell the creature is, The Shape of Water’s characters are played by some of the best actors working today—all of whom give whole-hearted, nuanced performances, anchoring a story that can feel bigger (and weirder) than life. The characters’ depth is reinforced by del Toro: his stories are marked by an earnest affinity for outcasts—which, in the falsely idealized America of the 1960s, includes the mute Elisa, the closeted Giles, and the Black Zelda. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The spectacles in Star Wars: The Last Jedi are some of the most powerful and believable in the franchise—Luke Skywalker's dark island, the interiors of the First Order’s battleships, the space battles. The audience is completely immersed in this distant galaxy with its operatic narrative. But what do we find once we get there? A scene that's recognizably pro-vegetarianism; a sophisticated critique of the destructive, elitist principles of the Jedi religion; a feminist rejection of male impulsiveness and a celebration of rational, thoughtful female leadership; and a political economy that springs from the idea that many of the problems of this galaxy might be related to its laissez-faire market. All of this is in the new Star Wars film, which may disappoint Trump supporters but will certainly be enjoyed by every other human in this galaxy. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
One way you know a film is written by a playwright is when everything everyone says in it is clever and wise and perfect. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, written and directed by Martin McDonagh, never fails on this score. The dialogue, particularly when given life by actors Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell, is hilarious and provocative. But the biggest indicator that you're watching the work of a playwright is the sense that there's no way the story is what the film is really about. The three billboards in Three Billboards are signifiers and catalysts, but they're also red herrings (literally red, in fact). The billboards are taken out by Mildred (McDormand) as a way to publicly shame Ebbing's police chief (Woody Harrelson) for having failed to catch the man who raped and murdered her daughter. They also keep her grief alive and present tense. McDonagh depicts graphic violence and hateful language flippantly, in a style people like to call Tarantinoesque. But McDonagh is not a shock artist, not satisfied milking the disjunction of liking the bad cop or the mean lady. He's making the case that humans are complex, that "sympathetic" is relative, and that whatever horrible things people are capable of doing to each other (and they are indeed horrible), we still have to live together when we're done. SEAN NELSON
Various locations

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