Local Film Events

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007: Six Classic James Bond Films The series continues with 1967’s mediocre Japan-set You Only Live Twice, running Friday-Sunday and starring Sean Connery. Far better and sadder is the underrated 1969 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Sun.-Thurs.) with George Lazenby. Today a 007 footnote, he bridged the Connery and Roger Moore eras in his single turn as James Bond. Not the greatest actor in the series (which isn’t saying much), he robustly inhabits the role in a picture that is, ironically, one of the best and most tender of the pre-Daniel Craig franchise. Diana Rigg is here a very equal co-star, no mere Bond girl, as the woman who wins 007’s heart. Telly Savalas plays the bald, evil nemesis holed up in the Swiss Alps, where a ski chase, snowy car chase, and a memorable toboggan-run fist fight make this a genuinely exciting spy movie wrapped around a plausible love story. See the GI’s website for complicated schedule. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Grand Illusion, $5-$8, Through March 28.

Citizen Hearst Directed by Leslie Iwerks and narrated by William H. Macy, this new doc examines the life and legacy of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), whom you may remember, in fictional form, in a little movie called Citizen Kane. (NR) Crest, Thu., March 14, 7 p.m.

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I Am Secretly an Important Man SEE THE WIRE, PAGE 17.

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L.A. Rebellion Originating at UCLA, this traveling retrospective honors African-American filmmakers who, after the Watts riots, brought street politics into their indie films. Weekend highlights include Larry Clark’s 1977 music drama Passing Through (8 p.m. Fri.), Alile Sharon Larkin’s 1979 Your Children Come Back to You (8 p.m. Sat.), and Jamaa Fanaka’s 1976 romance Emma Mae (8 p.m. Sun.). See nwfilmforum.org for full schedule and details. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, Fri.-Sun., Through March 24.

The Long Kiss Goodnight From 1996, Renny Harlin directs his wife, Geena Davis, in a failed action flick that actually points the way to the Angelina Jolie era. Perhaps she should be paying Davis royalties? (R) Central Cinema, $6-$8, Wed., March 13, 7 & 9:30 p.m.

Midnight Horror Call the tavern, or just drop by, to see what random gore flicks are playing in this ongoing series. Plus drink specials! (NR) Comet Tavern, 922 E. Pike St., 322-9272, comettavern.com, Free, Thurs.-Sun.

Movie Night DJs Jon Francois and Nik Gilmore set music to silent movies. Tonight they tackle the 1931 Polynesian-set romance Tabu, by F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, $5, Thu., March 14, 8 p.m.

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The Night of the Hunter Charles Laughton’s 1955 drama is the movie freak’s definitive love machine: maligned when first released, hopelessly out of synch with American postwar sensibilities, so aberrant and singular it may properly be called the first Hollywood cult movie. It’s an arch, Kabuki-like morality play set in a Saturday Evening Post mid-country and populated by shrieking archetypes. The affect is mega-noir, of course, mated with scripter James Agee’s gushingly folkloric voice, Stanley Cortez’s Teutonic cinematography, and twisted around the hot core of Presbyterian outrage. As the notorious blackjack preacher (“LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on his knuckles) stalking a pair of little children in possession of a loot-stuffed doll, Robert Mitchum manifested unscrupulous evil so shocking that Laughton (according to Mitchum) upped the film’s fairy-tale ante in post-production as countercharge. The issues are elemental, the morality biblical, the trials Homeric. In terms of cinematic texture, it’s a hound from hell. (NR) MICHAEL ATKINSON. Central Cinema, $6-$8, Fri., March 15, 7 p.m.; Sat., March 16, 7 p.m.; Mon., March 18, 7 p.m.; Tue., March 19, 7 p.m.

The Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster won Oscars for this overrated serial-killer flick from 1991. (R) Egyptian, $8.25, Fri., March 15, 11:59 p.m.; Sat., March 16, 11:59 p.m.

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Silent Movie Mondays Joan Crawford stars in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), in its day a scandalous look at the flapper generation. Performance by Seattle Dance Collective precedes the show, possibly including the Charleston. Organist Jim Riggs provides live accompaniment. (NR) The Paramount, 911 Pine St., Seattle, 877-784-4849, stgpresents.org, $10, Mondays, 7 p.m. Through March 25.

The Sprocket Society’s Saturday Secret Matinees “Alien Encounters” is the March theme for various short films being screened. Ongoing is the 1939 adventure serial Zorro’s Fighting Legion. Total program length is about two hours. (NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$8, Saturdays, 2 p.m. Continues through March 23.

Upstream Color Director Shane Carruth (Primer) will introduce his latest, scheduled to open next month. In it, he plays a guy drawn into some kind of identity-morphing sci-fi romance with a mysterious woman (Amy Seimetz). (NR) SIFF Cinema Uptown, $6-$11, Thu., March 14, 7 p.m.

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Y Tu Mama Tambien Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, this 2002 film became a box-office sensation in Mexico. It’s both populist—lowbrow, even—and sophisticated. Base urges and serious aspirations mix untidily together. Our 17-year-old protagonists, Tenoch and Julio, are typical teens, caring only for marijuana, music, and—most of all—sex. (Prepare for an amusing if “Eeew!”-inducing diving-board masturbation contest.) With girlfriends away, their mission to get laid leads to a fuller adult understanding of life via an unlikely tutor, Tenoch’s married Spanish cousin-in-law Luisa, a beautiful 28-year-old who improbably accepts their invitation to road-trip to a phantom beach. Certainly she’s no victim; the horndogs test her with their frank, raunchy banter, and she responds in kind. Meanwhile, an unidentified Goddardian narrator intermittently comments upon the tale, lending unexpected sub-textual depth to Mama’s picaresque high jinks. It’s a funny, raunchy, and ultimately poignant trip. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $6-$8, Fri., March 15, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., March 16, 9:30 p.m.; Mon., March 18, 9:30 p.m.; Tue., March 19, 9:30 p.m.; Wed., March 20, 9:30 p.m.

Ongoing

Amour Hollywood generally treats aging as an ennobling process, a time of gauzy reflection or an opportunity to transmit sage wisdom to tow-headed grandkids. This is not a view shared by Austrian director Michael Haneke (Funny Games, Cache), who has specialized in an impeccably crafted cinema of cruelty, repressed passion, and dread. So it’s something of a shock for Amour to begin as a loving portrait of a marriage between retired music teachers Georges and Anne (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva), who remain independent in their 80s. Amour’s story is nothing if not logical and familiar: the medical crisis, doctors, the daughter’s visit, nurses, rehab, moments of resiliency and love, the “never take me back to the hospital” demand, setbacks, adult diapers, despair. Haneke renders Georges and Anne’s dilemma with dispassionate, clinical observation. Amour often plays like a Frederick Wiseman documentary. For Haneke, life itself is cruel. There is no consolation, only an end. (PG-13) Brian Miller Kirkland Parkplace

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Argo Ben Affleck’s Oscar winner begins with the November 4, 1979, attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran. While 52 Americans are held hostage, six embassy workers manage to escape, ultimately hiding out at the home of Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Determined to smuggle the houseguests out of Iran by disguising them as a film crew on a location scout, CIA exfiltration expert Tony Mendez (Affleck) enlists the help of John Chambers (John Goodman), a movie makeup artist, and Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), an old-school producer. Between hokey wisecracks ribbing industry idiocy, the trio seizes on a dusty script for a Star Wars rip-off called Argo. Affleck’s movie doesn’t reflect who we are now so much as it argues for what Hollywood can be. It’s a love letter from Affleck to the industry that made him, shunned him, and loves nothing more than to be loved. (R) Karina Longworth Varsity, Factoria Cinemas, Oak Tree, Lincoln Square, Meridian, others

Emperor Based on a Japanese historical account set in postwar Tokyo, Emperor is mostly narrated through the figure of young Gen. Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), an actual assistant to the smugly regal Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones), supreme commander of defeated Japan. Fellers is charged with deciding whether the weak, reclusive Emperor Hirohito should be charged as a war criminal? And would such a shocking trial cause the people to revolt, as several Japanese characters tell Fellers, and possibly turn the country Communist? Complicating matters—and here’s your historical embellishment—is Fellers’ lost Japanese love from college, a former exchange student named Aya (Eriko Hatsune), whom he’s trying to find in the rubble. Most of Emperor’s scenes are stilted and didactic, as Fellers is lectured about the U.S. fuel embargo that preceded Pearl Harbor, our own shameful colonial history, and the innocents killed in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Tokyo firebombing raids. It’s as if the entire cast, Japanese and American, is reading from cue cards. Fox does little more than listen (or look moony in awkward college flashbacks); much of the Japanese characters’ English sounds phonetic (subtitles are random); and Jones has too little screen time to paint his khaki prima donna. (PG-13) Brian Miller Varsity, Lincoln Square, others

56 Up In Michael Apted’s ongoing documentary series, well-off barrister Andrew declares, “There is still a class system, but it’s based on financial success. It’s been ever thus, and I don’t think it’s ever going to change.” Echoing him is Lynn, a working-class East Ender who’s been made redundant. The Labor Party has failed, she says, and others from her circle share that view, criticizing Thatcher and David Cameron for weakening the welfare state. 56 Up’s subjects seem rather pessimistic, if not quite bitter, about the UK’s enduring inequalities. Apted is a sympathetic, off-camera presence, yet he resists any overview or analysis. Each individual story subsumes the issue of class. Apted is more interested in coping than social advancement, how his subjects—rich and poor—adapt to their circumstances. He and his subjects are all on a friendly first-name basis by now. In a real sense, they’re our friends, too. And what do we do when reuniting with old friends—fill out questionnaires and filter the results in a computer? No, we trade stories. (NR) Brian Miller SIFF Film Center

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Lincoln Our 16th president becomes an almost 4-D character made flesh by Daniel Day-Lewis, arguably the best actor of his generation. The challenge for director Steven Spielberg is to square the Georgia white marble of the Lincoln Memorial with the flesh-and-blood reality we can never really know—evoking the man without diminishing the leader. His other challenges include relating the complications and subtleties of political maneuvering, and the inherent suckiness of the biopic form. Spielberg solves that by lensing the portrait through a single event: the fight to pass the 13th Amendment. The film is studied and often somber, but it is also hugely entertaining, a bitchingly fun story of political gamesmanship, influence trading, patronage, cronyism, and outright bribery. This Lincoln is quietly ironic, an indulgent storyteller, a hugely charismatic leader. Day-Lewis deservedly won an Oscar for the role. (PG-13) Chris Packham Admiral, Crest, others

Lore As World War II ends badly for the Nazis, fresh-faced teenager Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) sees her SS officer father hurriedly burn the evidence of his war crimes, while her mother barks bitter reprisals. Both prepare for their inevitable capture by the Allies. Neighbors want nothing to do with the five kids. The children duck Allied patrols and fellow refugees en route to Grandmother’s house. And they find the unlikeliest of protectors in a young concentration-camp survivor, Thomas (Kai Malina), with a startlingly clear-headed survival instinct and an instant grasp of the complicated new politics of postwar Germany. Lore and her four younger siblings trek through an ever-present now, a series of negotiations and confrontations for a 14-year-old growing up fast. She’s no innocent Riefenstahl mountain girl standing tall against evil; she’s not even particularly likable. Lore is alternately scared, angry, frustrated, and torn—especially about the Jewish “inferior” who time and again saves these children. The misty landscape of forests and fields and rivers is lovely, but Lore’s real odyssey is through a dead, deluded culture holding tight to its bigotry, nationalism, and grief for the fallen Fuhrer. (NR) Sean Axmaker Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square

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Side Effects Steven Soderbergh is a total filmmaker who handles his own camera, but is only as good as his script. And this big pharma/crime tale by Scott Z. Burns is not a great script. Yet it starts out smartly enough, as Emily (Rooney Mara) waits for her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) to be released from jail after a four-year term for insider trading. Understandably, Emily is depressed, and she’s on a lot of pills. Her new shrink, Dr. Banks (Jude Law), provides suicidal Emily with modest meds and a sympathetic ear. Then he enrolls her in a clinical trial that will, conveniently, provide him some much-needed extra income. Disaster follows. As Side Effects becomes a medical-legal procedural, with lawyers, courtroom testimony, and flashbacks, you could imagine a different set of actors—perhaps Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck—in an older, black-and-white version of the same script, with the same enjoyable plot twists. Side Effects ultimately feels like a remake. And if that’s the way Soderbergh chooses to end his career, fine. Side Effects embodies the pleasures of the familiar, if not the discoveries of his past. (R) Brian Miller Cinebarre, Pacific Place, Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, others

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Silver Linings Playbook If you took the fighting out of The Fighter, David O. Russell’s previous movie, you’d be left with a close, fractious family like the Solitanos of his hugely appealing new Silver Linings Playbook. Instead of Boston Irish and boxing, we have Philadelphia Italian and the Eagles. The family patriarch (a fine, restrained Robert De Niro) is an OCD bookie bound by strange rituals to the team; his wide-eyed wife (Jacki Weaver) is the nervous family conciliator/enabler; and their volatile son Pat (Bradley Cooper, wired) is fresh out of the nuthouse with a restraining order from his ex. But Pat is looking for those silver linings through self-improvement: reading, running, losing weight, scheming to win back his wife. Russell’s pell-mell approach perfectly suits the story of Pat’s mania and wrong-footed romance with young widow Tiffany (the Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence), who’s even more titanic in her instability than Pat. (R) Brian Miller Seven Gables, Oak Tree, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Majestic Bay, Cinebarre, Pacific Place, others

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Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal dramatize the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. From the major details to the smallest ones, the reporting is so good you scarcely question a beat. Jessica Chastain gives a sensational performances as Maya, a young CIA officer obsessed with bin Laden. Waterboarding and starvation are depicted, without any of the moral outrage some might expect from a Hollywood treatment of this subject. Rather, Bigelow and Boal come not to judge but to show, leaving the rest up to us. This is superb journalism and even better filmmaking, culminating in an electrifying re-enactment of the raid on bin Laden’s Pakistan hideout. But what impresses most about Zero Dark Thirty is the long time it spends in the middle distance, immersing us in the workaday lives of agents and analysts who sacrifice much in the name of something bigger than themselves. (R) Scott Foundas Lincoln Square, Admiral, Crest, others

Theaters:

Admiral, 2343 California Ave. SW, 938-3456; Ark Lodge Cinemas, 4816 Rainier Ave. S, 721-3156; Big Picture, 2505 First Ave., 256-0566; Big

Picture

Redmond, 7411 166th Ave. NE, 425-556-0566; Central

Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684; Cinebarre, 6009 SW 244th St. (Mountlake Terrace)., 425-672-7501; Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6680; Crest, 16505 Fifth Ave. NE, 781-5755; Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 781-5755; Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St., 523-3935; Guild 45, 2115 N. 45th St., 781-5755; Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., 781-5755; iPic Theaters, 16451 N.E. 74th St. (Redmond), 425-636-5601; Kirkland Parkplace, 404 Park Place, 425-827-9000; Lincoln Square, 700 Bellevue Way N, 425-454-7400; Majestic Bay, 2044 NW Market St., 781-2229; Meridian, 1501 Seventh Ave., 223-9600; Metro, 4500 Ninth Ave. NE, 781-5755; Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 267-5380; Oak Tree, 10006 Aurora Ave. N, 527-1748; Pacific Place, 600 Pine St., 888-262-4386; Seven Gables, 911 NE 50th St., 781-5755; SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996; SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), 324-9996; Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave NE, 633-0059; Thornton Place, 301 NE 103rd St., 517-9953; Varsity, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755.