Arts This Weekend at the Movies
posted by on September 28 at 16:11 PM
I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks, most recently in Paris, where I saw two astounding things. One:
That rat display case? In Ratatouille? It’s real. I had no idea.
Two: Persepolis, which is awesome, at least in (the original) French. From this New York Film Festival review, I gather that the English version won’t mess with the wobbly-accented wonder that is the “Eye of the Tiger” scene.
But back to Seattle. I’ve been bitching for what seems like years about the Seattle-produced and filmed Brand Upon the Brain! not being presented in Seattle as it was originally conceived: a “live spectacle,” with an orchestra and live foley artists and a “castrato” and a narrator. But I can bitch no longer, as Brand Upon the Brain! is coming to the Cinerama October 10 and 11, as part of Northwest Film Forum’s Local Sightings festival. I’m thrilled. Mark your calendars and by your tickets now.
Opening this Friday:
In an extra-long On Screen this week: the Jon Krakauer adaptation Into the Wild (“A simplistic, dewy-eyed paean to a conflicted young man whom [director Sean] Penn would rather canonize than investigate,” says Brendan Kiley)…
… The Kingdom (“feels much more successful when it downshifts into a rock ‘em, sock ‘em action flick,” says Andrew Wright), Trade (“tries to avoid the stench of sexual exploitation, but lands in a mess of sentimentality—red roses, pink bikes—which is far more revolting,” say I), King of California (it may romanticize manic depression, but it’s charming, concludes Kiley), The Jane Austen Book Club (great actors, a painfully pseudointellectual script—why the hell is Emily Blunt costumed like Miranda July?, I ask), Feast of Love (“The worst thing about Feast of Love,” Charles Mudede observes, “is that the sex scenes are not sexy.”), December Boys (“an episodic coming-of-age drama,” according to David Schmader, featuring an orphan named Harry Potter—err, Daniel Radcliffe), and the mumblecore standard-bearer Hannah Takes the Stairs (“seems like an empty parody of the form,” says mumblecore admirer Josh Feit).
And on an island of its own: Lindy West’s much-admired but hardly admiring review of The Game Plan.
And in limited runs this week, available via Get Out: Angels in the Dust, Apart from That, events in the Independent South Asian Film Festival (which is totally free this year), the last of the Paramount’s Charlie Chaplin series, an advance screening of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, and Vanaja. Enjoy.
Am I missing notification of the two PETER GREENAWAY films at Northwest Film Forum?
This is coincidental because in an earlier comment this week I mentioned how much I liked his stuff. It's always good to revisit old tastes and see if they match up to the present. I expect these to hold up, unlike Slacker which blew my mind when it came out, and then seeing it ten years later, it seemed a bit trite.
You can always go see some Keifer Sutherland movie as well, and then make fun of it later.
Lastly, I'm still waiting to hear back from Jonah if whether we're filming tomorrow at the Food Bank. Maybe my voicemail got erased?
I'd go for the Chaplin.
That or the two Italian movies that Cinema Seattle is showing at the SIFF Theater next to the Festa Italia this weekend.
Speaking of slackers, I quite enjoyed Reaper - the only good show on CW now (man, it's a desert on that channel ...)
sticking up for paris: this isn't really common at all. it's the display window of a shop called Noir Kennedy, in the Marais, a place that sells Cheap Mondays. so there.
I only look at pictures on slog...and I have to say: rats ewww! hehe. just kidding. I look at words sometimes, but still rats ewww!
Kiley really gets it wrong about Penn & "Into The Wild." The recent revised addition to the Krakauer book, and a Men's Journal piece indicate new material on the specifics of Chris' death, still I think the director makes clear the costs of going it alone.
I grew up in Canada, and lived in the Canadian Rockies, where reading lit alone will give you an education in survival. I believe the film offered a clear contrast between what it is to quest with the help of others vs. alone without skills or supplies.
For my money, Into the Wild is one of the best movies of 2007 (and I've seen almost 300 so far this year). I can understand that it wasn't to Brendan Kiley's liking--to each his own, and all that--but I'm sorry he didn't get more out of it. I found it incredibly moving. Then again, I grew up in Alaska, and that may have colored my perceptions. Limbo and Grizzy Man aside, I can't say I've seen many films that have captured the state in all its terrible beauty quite so vividly.
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