Friday, Feb. 27

Fists & Fury

The Oscars are past, so now the Cinerama is celebrating . . . violence? Well, not exactly. This festival mostly harkens back to the golden era of kung fu and martial-arts movies, the genre that Seattle-educated Bruce Lee helped make an international sensation during the ’70s. (Remember to visit the Wing Luke’s ongoing exhibit dedicated to his local years and subsequent film career.) Yet along with chopsocky favorites like Game of Death and Enter the Dragon (the latter at 7:30 p.m. tonight), the series also ventures back to Kurosawa classics Rashomon and Yojimbo, action comedies from the likes of Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow (The Legend of the Drunken Master, Shaolin Soccer, etc.), and the artful, Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, always worth revisiting. Like a Chinese restaurant buffet, this is a spinning sampler of flying fists and feet, numbering 18 titles in all (plus both halves of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill). Also represented are not-so-spry Jet Li and Donnie Yen, both from the last generation of wuxia stars (all those stunts take a toll on the body). Where are the younger roundhouse-kickers like Iko Uwais (The Raid) or Tony Jaa (Ong-bak)? I guess they’ll have to wait for Fists & Fury 2. (Through Thurs.) Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6880. $12. See cinerama.com for schedule.

BRIAN MILLER

Saturday, Feb. 28

Sync Music Video Festival

When John Landis directed the video to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” back in the early ’80s, his intended venue was not television, where MTV was then busy building an empire out of video stars, but a movie theater where the short film—which happened to include one of the biggest hits of the century and a zombie Michael—could be fully appreciated. Hard to imagine such a vision in this current era, when we watch most of our videos on our phones. It’s really not an enjoyable experience. The screen is the size of a postcard—maybe—the sound quality is garbage, and, let’s be honest, it’s hard to stay focused on one thing for three minutes when the option to chat with your friends is ever-present. Our current deficit of a proper venue for videos (MTV, I hardly know you) is why Artist Home, along with Seattle Weekly and SIFF, has put together the Sync Music Video Festival. Now in its third year, the festival will feature a collection of videos highlighting directors and musicians from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. This year we will be recognizing the work of directors Leeni Ramadan, Tristan Seniuk, and Ransom & Reason; shining a spotlight on the videos made for Shabazz Palaces’ music; and screening a world premiere of OCnotes’ “Hum Drum Killa,” directed by last year’s Sync Grand Jury Award winner Stephan Gray. All this on the big screen, where, as Landis knew, this work belongs. SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N, 464-5830. $15. See syncvideofestival.com for new details.

MARK BAUMGARTEN

Sunday, March 1

Eloquent Objects

Although the tendency would be to view this selection of Southwestern art as a Georgia O’Keeffe show (with 22 of her paintings on view), the intent is to bring the New Mexico still-life tradition out of the desert and to our mossy climes. Thus another 40-odd works will represent her peers and heirs: Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Gustave Baumann, Eliseo Rodriguez, and a dozen more. Flowers, cow skulls, cacti, and the Painted Desert are surely represented here, but there’s a meditative way of seeing that’s equally important to the arid inspiration. The desert strips away everything excess (recall Peter O’Toole’s T.E. Lawrence saying he liked the desert because “It’s clean”), always a useful lesson for artists. This touring show is making its only West Coast stop in Tacoma. TAM has more works by O’Keeffe (1887–1986) in its permanent collection (some added with the recent Haub family bequest), though she’s the main draw here, and her influence extends far beyond Santa Fe. We’ll see that reach in a concurrently running companion show, The Still Life Tradition in the Northwest, featuring local names like Morris Graves, Norman Lundin, and Doris Chase. (Through June 7.) Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., 253-272-4258, tacomaartmuseum.org. $14. 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

BRIAN MILLER

Monday, March 2

Self Absorb

In the first minute of Self Absorb, an indie animated web series by Seattle’s Ian Obermuller, a green man wakes up with amnesia in an alien jungle, greeted by two talking cats who have received consciousness transplants. A couple of scenes later, we are treated to jokes about phenomenology, and a purplish old man named Doctor Trellis delivers the amazing line “I’m not a wizard, I’m a metaphysicist.” Developed over the years in his free time, the first two episodes of Obermuller’s series, released on the web in 2010 and 2011, went criminally underrated. Its high production values, deliciously trippy design, and unique fusion of surreal goofiness and serious philosophical contemplation is way better than 99 percent of the junk on TV. Obermuller will debut all four chapters of the recently completed series at the Northwest Film Forum, and if you are a fan of Chad VanGaalen’s melty music videos, the work of Moebius, or Star Trek-style space operas, you are going to devour Self Absorb. Also, the show’s got mothertruckin’ dancing salamanders in it. Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 329-2629, nwfilmforum.org, $5. 8–9 p.m.

KELTON SEARS

Marc Goodman

Hollywood is doing a good job of showing the world why cyber-security is needed. The Sony hacking scandal—aside from inflicting The Interview on a larger, freedom-loving audience—showed us all the havoc that a maybe-foreign organization could wreak on lax security. Citizenfour revealed the lengths our own government will go to infringe on our security (in the name of security). And Black Hat hinted at the lack of job security Chris Hemsworth will have after the Thor franchise dries up. For solutions, though, movies are worthless. That’s why we have books, like Marc Goodman’s Future Crimes. In this tome—available in cyber-resistant paper—the cybercrime consultant explores the “burgeoning dark side of the Internet,” from those big corporate attacks to humdrum identity theft and creepy GPS stalking. He also, thankfully, offers steps to protect ourselves from a horrifying future where hackers can tap into your baby monitor and listen in as you and your family watch Black Hat. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhallseattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m.

MARK BAUMGARTEN