Movie Diary 6/18/2013

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, 2013). Saw this in the Egyptian theater, the anchor of the Seattle International Film Festival since the early 1980s. The place is going to close in a few days, which really is a drag. Same theater where I saw Linklater’s Slacker at a 10 a.m. screening at SIFF, before it had a distributor. This new Linklater is also very fine, but it made for a doubly melancholic evening.

World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013). It’s better than you think it is. (full review 6/21)

Man of Steal, Sightseers East (Weekly Links)

Henry Cavill: Supe in Smallville

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald and Seattle Weekly, and etc.

Man of Steel. “Seriously damaged by the dullness at its center.”

The East. “Marling is serious enough to be unnerving.”

Sightseers. “One of the film’s most amusing strokes is the suggestion that these two lunatics might actually be in love.”

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. “Arrives while its story is in midstream.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about Man of Steel, The Kings of Summer, and our expectations for summer movies. The conversation is archived here.

Thursday, June 20, I’ll be in Port Townsend, WA, giving a talk called “Hope in Hard Times,” a look at how a politically radical spirit found its way into Hollywood films in the early 1930s. The event begins at 7 p.m., is sponsored by the Jefferson County Historical Society, and held at the Port Townsend city council chamber. More info here.

Heads up for next Friday: The members of Framing Pictures convene at 5 p.m. at the Northwest Film Forum for another conversation about movies. The event is free; check in with our Facebook page and the NWFF site.

Movie Diary 6/13/2013

The Secret Disco Revolution (Jamie Kastner, 2012). Speaking as someone whose senior class song was “Get Down Tonight,” I had perhaps unfairly high expectations for this quasi-chronicle of disco, which posits an amusing alternate-history account of disco’s purpose. It doesn’t hang together, but good to hear from people like Maxine Nightingale again. (full review 6/28)

The Frankenstein Syndrome (Sean Tretta, 2010).  Oddly sober for a cheap horror movie, but still not very good. Ed Lauter did a few scenes.

Movie Diary 6/10/2013

Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013). Big and loud, with an amusing final scene. But I have a few questions of the “Why did they do that?” variety. (full review 6/14)

Viola (2012), Rosalinda (2011), They All Lie (2009), The Stolen Man (2007); all by Matías Piñeiro. From Argentina, a young filmmaker who makes whimsical, elliptical films wrapped around actresses, Shakespeare, and 19-century political leaders. Working on an article.

Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012). Crack comic timing from stars/screenwriters Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, cannily harvested by Wheatley. Fun in its dark-hearted way, but is it anything new? (full review 6/14)

Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2009). Pretty sure all that convoluted dialogue is connected to what Andrew Sarris said a long time ago in Seattle about how Hitchcock shows you exactly where everything is and how it’s done, so you then stop worrying about the plot and can concentrate on what the movie’s really about.

Kings We Tell (Weekly Links)

Hawke’s nest, The Purge

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald and Seattle Weekly, and etc.

The Kings of Summer. “Fell directly into my sweet spot.”

The Purge. “If you’re going to stage an entire movie inside a house, it would be useful for the audience to know where things are.”

Stories We Tell. “This scrupulous approach is welcome in an era of sometimes navel-gazing ‘personal’ documentaries.”

No KUOW appearance this week; back on schedule next week.

I’ll be part of one of those panels at the Seattle International Film Festival; this one’s Saturday afternoon, June 8, at 1 p.m., and is called “The Media and the Movies: In Cahoots or at War?” Location is SIFF Film Center; more info here.

 

Village Knew (Weekly Links)

Onata Aprile, a modern Maisie

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald, and etc.

What Maisie Knew. “Indistinct exteriors and generic rooms, as though we’re seeing things through Maisie’s unworldly perspective.”

Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation. “Oddballs, eggheads and beatniks were encouraged, not ostracized.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about sequels such as The Hangover III and Fast & Furious 6, and how they hang together; plus a few quick SIFF picks. The talk is archived here.

Here is a piece I wrote on Jules Dassin’s weird, arty 1966 film 10:30 P.M. Summer, published in the current issue of Film Comment – and online at the FC website.

Movie Diary 5/28/2013

The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986). Remains an unusual, haunting, very odd picture. It works as a study of how people change in relationships, and how the outward skin we wear does not always correspond to the inside. A movie that appears to have been directed by a scientist.

Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation (Laura Archibald, 2012). Docu-strum through some of the folkies in the Village, early 60s. Reading Bob Dylan’s lovely Chronicles will furnish a more flavorful portrait, but this does its job. (full review 5/31)

Reap the Wild Wind (Cecil B. DeMille, 1942). It’s almost as though C.B. found a great backdrop for an adventure story (salvage boats in 1840s Caribbean) and resolved to people it with resolutely unlikable characters. A peculiar film, although the giant squid fueled some lurid childhood dreams for me.

Men Must Fight (Edgar Selwyn, 1933). An uncertain blend of pacifist sentiment and man’s warlike nature – with a futuristic bent, ‘cuz the thing is set in 1940. A second world war seemed like a cinch, even in ’33.