SEATTLE MOVIE NEWS:

Local artist and filmmaker Sarah Jane Lapp gets some love from AO Scott in the New York Times (you didn’t know you were casting his wife’s stepfather, did you?); the feature Zoo (by Robinson Devor and our own Charles Mudede) and the short Little Farm (by Calvin Reeder, also known for Jerkbeast and Piledriver) prepare to dazzle Sundance Film Festival next week; and Warren Etheredge attempts to christen Seattle’s movie-making renaissance: Witness the birth of munge.

OPENINGS:

This weekend you should see Pan’s Labyrinth. No excuses. I don’t want to hear any “I’m an asshole, I don’t like fairy tales” or “fanboy bullshit la la” in the comments. Seriously. It’s amazing.

Guillermo del Toro was going to do a press tour, but he canceled, so we don’t have an interview. It’s too bad, because he’s prone to announcing that that one of his favorite directors is Hitchcock “because he was fat, repressed, and Catholic, which is excellent for me.” (The format of that interview, a conversation between del Toro and his adorable star Ivana Baquero, is ad-heavy, but there’s some good stuff in there.) The Austin Chronicle has a decent interview that gets into some of the sound-based characterizations I describe in my review.

51 Birch Street, opening tonight at Northwest Film Forum, is also fantastic, though on a much tighter scale. I love those “first person” documentaries (as NWFF is wont to call them) that reveal a distinct, flawed personality behind the camera. The movie’s ostensibly about Doug Block’s parents, but you’ll learn just as much about the awkward filmmaker himself.

Letters from Iwo Jima isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, according to Andrew Wright. But at least it’s less maudlin than his previous WWII-in-the-Pacific-theater film, Flags of Our Fathers.

Also reviewed this week in “On Screen”: Alpha Dog, starring a tattooed Justin Timberlake (scattershot, says Bradley Steinbacher), Flannel Pajamas (““‘Oops! I got Snapple on my merkin!’” transcribes Lindy West), and Stomp the Yard (“the coolest moves this side of Footloose,” says Megan Seling).

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In DVD, Lindy West reviews the Bollywood take on Fight Club, a Hinglish rumpus entitled Fight Club: Members Only (oh, and buzz off, Caryn James, Fight Club is the best film Brad Pitt has ever done).

Film Shorts are fully integrated with Movie Times this week; look for reviews of Old Joy, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, and more.