Local & Repertory

Balikbayan #1 Director Kidlat Tahimik will introduce his Filipino essay film, about the history of the Philippines and its colonial legacy. (NR)

Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 267-5380, nwfilmforum.org. $6-$11. 7 p.m. Tues.

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BFE: DVD Release Party Seen during SIFF last year, local actor/director Shawn Telford’s low-key teen drama has its roots in his unsupervised Idaho panhandle upbringing. The titular acronym stands for “Bum Fuck, Egypt,” he told us during the fest last year. Shot in lovely widescreen by Ty Migota, B.F.E. puts you in mind of The Last Picture Show and Dazed and Confused—all are looks back at youth that are by turns bitter, nostalgic, angry, and wondering. The kids are mostly unsupervised (or party with their irresponsible parents); the specter of meth hangs overhead; and teenage pregnancy is a fact of life. None of the misbehavior depicted is autobiographical; rather, says Telford, “It reflects the sense of the place, the wildness. The setting of the film is a character in itself.” (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11. 7:30 p.m. reception, 8:15 p.m. screening, Sat.

Crossfire Hurricane/ Gimme Shelter Directed by Brett Morgen (of the new Kurt Cobain doc), Crossfire is his 2012 tribute to The Rolling Stones, alternating with the Maysles brothers’ great (and disturbing) 1970 concert doc. (NR)

SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 324-9996, siff.net. $7-$12. 7 p.m. (Crossfire) & 9:15 p.m. Mon.-Wed.

Frozen Sing-Along Don’t pretend you don’t already know the lyrics to “Let It Go.” (NR)

SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, siff.net. $7-$12. Noon, Sat.

Gringo Trails This new doc by Pegi Vail examines the environmental costs of eco-tourism. (NR)

Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11. 5 p.m. Sun.

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My Neighbor Totoro If you’ve got kids, or even if you don’t, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 enchanted anime adventure film is sure to bring a smile. The gentle tale concerns two sisters who encounter woodland spirits when they move to the country. (G)

Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Wed. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

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Noir de France As allusive as its title, Jean-Pierre Melville’s all-but-unknown Army of Shadows, a French resistance saga made—and tepidly received—in 1969, emerges from the mists of time as a career-capping epic tragedy. Adapted from Joseph Kessel’s wartime novel, Shadows follows a taciturn resistance agent (the bulky, self-contained Lino Ventura) through a series of arrests, escapes, and betrayals. Wearing glasses and carrying a briefcase, he looks like an accountant and thinks like a chess master. Ventura is reason made tangible, exuding a purity of purpose beyond mere action. Moving from rainy prison camps through sun-baked Marseilles and blitzed London to the bleak windswept towns of northern France, Shadows sustains an atmosphere of total paranoia, occasionally leavened with existential pathos. Only when Melville’s vision reaches its chilling conclusion is it apparent that the title is absolutely literal. This really is an army of shadows. They are, all of them, dead men. (NR) J. HOBERMAN Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $63–$68 series, $8 individual. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.

Serenity This 2005 sci-fi Western by Joss Whedon is a brainy valentine to fans of the short-lived Firefly. A gaggle of tough-talking, gun-slinging space cowboys (and -girls) rocket through the 26th-century cosmos, pilfering cash from the sinister Alliance and sometimes swearing in Chinese. Confused neophytes may find solace in several witty fight scenes, a Whedon trademark, in which the jabs exchanged are alternately verbal and physical. And though Serenity is a bit too cerebral for its own good, that same quality lifts it above most sci-fi flicks. (PG-13) NEAL SCHINDLER Central Cinema, $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Wed.

Song of the Sea Dazzling in its visual presentation, though not so thrilling in its conventional storytelling, the Irish-animated Song features a plot is drawn from Celtic folklore, specifically the tradition of the selkie, those mythological shapeshifters who can live on land or sea, as humans or seals. Our hero is Ben, a young lad whose mother vanishes under dramatic circumstances the night his mute younger sister Saoirse is born. They live on a wee shard of an island with their mournful father, a red-bearded lighthouse-keeper, but a series of marvelous events lead Ben into a secret world of magical creatures and spell-spinning songs. Director Tomm Moore and the Cartoon Saloon crew seem more interested in creating the gorgeous vistas that occupy virtually every frame. (PG) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Film Center (Seattle Center), 324-9996. $7-$12. Sat.-Mon. See siff.net for showtimes.

Ongoing

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K

urt Cobain: Montage of Heck This fascinating documentary portrait will have strong appeal in Seattle—even among viewers for whom, like me, Cobaniana seems a completely exhausted subject, two decades after the Nirvana front man’s suicide. It’s a vivid, impressionistic, and often contradictory profile that reaches deep into the Cobain family archives. Director Brett Morgen spent an arduous eight years on the project; the movie’s too long, though never less than engrossing, and you can see why Morgen wrestled so long with the editing. What a short, rich, and troubled life his subject lived. Cobain’s cassette-tape journals from the late ’80s spring into animated vignettes. The most remarkable of them, about trying to lose his virginity with a possibly disabled girl in Aberdeen, reminds me of a Raymond Carver story: concise, unsparing, brutal in its details, yet oddly compassionate toward all thwarted, unhappy parties. The episode ends in shame and a suicide attempt. There’s a mournful self-awareness here that colors the rest of the film. Even as Cobain grasps for success, there’s the parallel feeling that it’s undeserved and fraudulent. (NR) B.R.M. SIFF Cinema Egyptian

The Salt of the Earth This is an unwieldy documentary portrait of the great Brazilian humanist photographer Sebastiao Salgado, made by two authors: Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, etc.), a professed fan who provides voiceover praise; and Juliano Salgado, the artist’s elder son, who’s part of the family enterprise. Stacked with stunning images (almost like a pedestal), this overlong doc can feel like a promo reel for Salgado’s ongoing Genesis photo series. No outside voices or critics dare interrupt the master or his tribute. Acclaim came in the ’70s and ’80s, as Salgado began haunting war zones, sites of famine and displacement, and scenes of brutal, back-breaking labor in the Third World. Salgado himself speaks in contented aphorisms—sometimes sounding like Bono, so secure in his compassion for the world’s poor and downtrodden. (PG-13) B.R.M. Guild 45th

The Water Diviner Part of Russell Crowe’s immense credibility as an actor is how grounded he is—woo-woo stuff is really not for him. Yet in his directorial debut, he plays Joshua Connor, a dowser who’ll use that a talent to search for the bodies of his three sons, all lost on the same day in the disastrous World War I battle of Gallipoli. Yet in 1919 Turkey (the Ottoman Empire having collapsed), Crowe’s convincing depiction of grief morphs into melodrama. Connor strikes up a friendship with hotelkeeper Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) and her impish son, escapes from a train ambush on horseback, and runs afoul of political unrest. As a director, Crowe is earnest and old-fashioned, and there are movie-watching pleasures to be had here. Lord of the Rings cinematographer Andrew Leslie knows how to look at big open spaces so you sense the bones beneath the surface. The film gets bogged down in its many flashbacks and sidebar dramas, and finally uncorks one too many unlikely coincidences. The Water Diviner feels almost too careful in its desire to hit all the right notes and do justice to all sides. Which makes it more of a war memorial than a living, breathing movie. (R) R.H. Sundance, Bainbridge, Thornton Place, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square

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What We Do in the Shadows The premise is ’90s-stale: basically MTV’s The Real World cast with vampires, presented as direct-address documentary. This droll comedy comes from the brain trust behind 2007’s Eagle Vs. Shark: Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi, who play neck-biters Vladislav and Viago, respectively. Our three main vamps are a hapless lot. They can’t get invited into any of the good clubs or discos—ending up forlorn in an all-night Chinese diner instead. After all the aestheticized languor of Only Lovers Left Alive, the silly deadpan tone is quite welcome. Clement and Waititi know this is a sketch writ large (forget about plot), so they never pause long between sneaky gags. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance, Admiral, SIFF Cinema Uptown & Film Center, Majestic Bay

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While We’re Young Documentary filmmaker Josh (Ben Stiller) and producer wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are stalled in careers and marriage. They need a shakeup, and it arrives in the form of a spontaneous, fun-loving Brooklyn couple half their age: would-be documentarian Jamie (Adam Driver) and wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Noah Baumbach’s lively, career-best comedy sends cynical Josh into unexpected bromance, and much of the movie’s charm lies in our being swept along, too. In denial about his fading eyesight and arthritis, Josh will discover that being foolish and confounded is good for the system, a tonic. Extra bonus: Charles Grodin. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance, Ark Lodge, Kirkland Parkplace, others