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Friday, September 5, 2008

This Weekend at the Movies

posted by on September 5 at 18:45 PM

Hello my darlings.

It’s Friday again. It’s supposed to be beautiful outside this weekend. The sun will shine. But if you feel like spending some special times indoors (and there are many good things to see), here’s what’s opening this week:

LaFrance1.jpg

Over at Northwest Film Forum, it’s La France, a craaazy war story/fairy tale/jangly musical. I liked it: “Anyone who knows me knows that World War I is obviously my favorite war. The trenches, the tactical fuckups, the mud, the arbitrariness of the whole thing—it’s a sublimely affecting disaster. It’s also, as it turns out, the ideal context for a gloomy fairy tale. What villain’s home turf is scarier than the skeletal trees and sucking mud on the front? Um, Baba Yaga’s chicken hut? Fuckin’ Mordor? Please.”

Brendan Kiley positively adored I Served the King Of England: “A coarse, gallows-humor picaresque about a wise simpleton who gets battered by the forces of Czech history—provincial narrow-mindedness, then the Nazis, then the Communists, and finally, provincial narrow-mindedness again.”

And special guest eyeball contributor Forest Whitaker(!) lends some spiritual insights into his new movie The Ripple Effect: “What do you fear? Can there be joy without pain? Let me tell you a parable, my friend. When the brick maker ran out of bricks, he asked the heron, ‘Do we create our own realities? Are our realities created by us? Is the universe created from inside us?’ And the heron said ‘CAAAW!’ and—God, I wish people would stop casting me in this vapid, pseudospiritual crap.”

There are lots of worthy options (and some dumb ones) in Limited Runs:

Charles Mudede on Trans-Europe Express, part of the Film Forum’s Robbe-Grillet series:

Trans-Europe Express, directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet—a French novelist who was at the center of a literary movement, Nouveau Roman, that had its moment in the ‘50s and ‘60s—is a movie that is not conditioned by the stuff of cinema. It’s not even conditioned by the literary (or the mode of literature). What, then, is the substance—or value—of this fine movie, which was released in 1967 (near the end of Nouveau Roman moment) and stars the star of the Nouveau Roman moment, Robbe-Grillet? If one wants to see the value of Trans-Europe Express, one must look at it not as a work of art but as a historical record. In essence, Trans-Europe Express has the value of a document. What it represents to us, the lovers of Robbe-Grillet’s severe (almost Borgesian) novels, is the body of the famous author. We get to see Robbe-Grillet’s size (not fat or thin), his face (not handsome or ugly), his hair (not too long or short), his posture (not strict or lazy), and his voice (not manic or flat). As for the document’s story (or meta-story—it’s film about making a film), it does not matter one bit. What matters is, first, seeing Robbe-Grillet, and, second, seeing his almost criminal obsession with the female body. The author both hated and worshiped the fantastic form of a youthful woman.

Eli Sanders did not care for A Jihad for Love:

You have to admire someone who travels, at great personal peril, to twelve Muslims countries in order to make a documentary about the way those countries treat their homosexuals. But that doesn’t mean you have to like the resulting film. A Jihad for Love fails to engage in large part because it fails to tell us anything we don’t already know. It’s hard to be gay in the Muslim world; things are changing, but not quickly enough; etc. The documentary also wastes our time (and the filmmaker’s) by engaging in crazy-making debates with radical Muslim theologians—as if there were anything rational about their opposition to homosexuality. The radical theologian is not to be reasoned with, and the audience’s time is not to be wasted on such nonsense.

Also at NWFF, The Dead Science: Leviathan Blood, part of their “Villainaire Festival of Culture”; The Sprocket Society’s Secret Sunday Matinee, which is a SECRET; and another by Robbe-Grillet, The Immortal Woman. Central Cinema has Bull Durham (Costner!) and The Sensation of Sight (Strathairn!). The Egyptian midnight show is Camp, which is about camp (the summer kind). Grand Illusion has Destry Rides Again and Hollywood High. At SIFF Cinema it’s The Human Condition Part One: No Greater Love; and The Secret of Roan Inish for the children. The Fremont Outdoor movie is Fireball XL5. Environmentally conscious folks can see Kilowatt Ours courtesy of Wallingford Meaningful Movies; and daredevil types who like jumping off snowy cliffs can be delighted by Ready at the King Cat Theatre. Seattle Asian Art Museum is screening The Thief of Bagdad. Oh, and there’s Devil’s Island, an Icelandic film about abandoned postwar bunkers and the people who live in them, at the Nordic Heritage Museum. Did I miss anything? Probably.

As always, check our Movie Times page for complete listings.

RSS icon Comments

1

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is really good.

La France, much as I adore French movies, and even with an interesting lead actress ... isn't.

Posted by Will in Seattle | September 6, 2008 2:19 AM
2

Oh Miss Lindy West! I can't wait for the Pro Choice Kareoke Party. Unless I already missed it. In which case I demand another at ReBar. Where I am currently closing up shop. Isn't Camp the movie about Christian bible camps? settle a bet I'm too lazy for IMDB.

Posted by Victoria Liss | September 6, 2008 3:57 AM
3

Oh Miss Lindy West! I can't wait for the Pro Choice Kareoke Party. Unless I already missed it. In which case I demand another at ReBar. Where I am currently closing up shop. Isn't Camp the movie about Christian bible camps? settle a bet I'm too lazy for IMDB.

Posted by Victoria Liss | September 6, 2008 3:57 AM
4

Oh Miss Lindy West! I can't wait for the Pro Choice Kareoke Party. Unless I already missed it. In which case I demand another at ReBar. Where I am currently closing up shop. Isn't Camp the movie about Christian bible camps? settle a bet I'm too lazy for IMDB.

Posted by Victoria Liss | September 6, 2008 4:04 AM
5

How could you leave out BANGKOK DANGEROUS?!

Posted by Elliott | September 6, 2008 8:44 AM
6

I know that Roan Inish was supposed to be a movie kids could enjoy, but I watched it at just that special time of life (the kid time!) and fell asleep over and over. I guess it's beautiful and heartbreaking but damned if I'll ever know.

Posted by yomamacuhsuckit | September 6, 2008 1:32 PM

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