Local & Repertory
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The Big Lebowski The Coen brothers’ 1998 stoner-noir become a slow-creeping classic, gradually accruing cultural weight via DVD, the Lebowski Fest gatherings, frequent art-house revivals, and even books on its live-and-let-live philosophy (including one by its star, Jeff Bridges, forever the Dude). As the Dude seeks his stolen rug, his quest is like Raymond Chandler filtered through dirty bong water, with almost every line of dialogue a hazy, hilarious non sequitur. The Coens are engaged in a genre mash-up, but also a clash of decades: The aimless and amiable Dude embodies the holdout spirit of the ’60s, but he’s surrounded by the crass achievers of the late Reagan era. And though he hates The Eagles, the Dude’s mantra of “Take it easy” gives an ethical foundation to the comedy. When the lies are exposed and the paraplegic Big Lebowski (David Huddleston) is sprawled on the floor of his mansion, the Dude takes pity. Help me get him back in the wheelchair, he tells John Goodman’s Walter. In a moral sense, it’s big of him. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, Aug. 30-Sept. 4, 7 & 9:30 p.m.
Code of the West This well-rounded political doc closely follows the Montana State Legislature’s 2011 effort to repeal the prior legalization of medical marijuana. Taking a heartfelt but objective approach, director Rebecca Richman Cohen interviews those on both sides of the heated debate, including activists, community leaders, state senators, marijuana growers, and medical patients. The sweeping new law runs against the political tide felt in Colorado and Washington State (via Initiative 502) the following year. As Montana legislators grapple with the issue, Code of the West also invites viewers to reconsider their own views about marijuana as a legal business or contraband. Still, those on both sides of the issue stick to their scripts, neither faction presenting much factual evidence to support their arguments. For example, the worrying problem of teens increasingly using marijuana isn’t investigated here; and nor do we hear from teenagers themselves. Code of the West is a little bit like the documentary version of Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic, as it bounces among the different parties affected by the proposed legislation. (No spoilers here as to whether it passes or not.) Cohen certainly shows the divide between different states on drug policies; and through that divide we also see how different legal systems work. But the doc would be more powerful had it delved into the everyday lives of citizens affected by the lawmakers and lobbyists above them. Note: discussion with local legalization activists follows the screenings. (NR) NING LIU Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, nwfilmforum.org, $6-$10, Fri., Aug. 30, 7 & 9 p.m.
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Escape From New York/They Live! One of the undersung screen heroes of the 1980s, Snake Plissken gave Kurt Russell an iconic role in John Carpenter’s dystopian 1981 satire Escape From New York. Everyone knows the plot, in which Snake has to break into prison (i.e. Manhattan) to rescue the same president who’s run our country into the ditch and oppressed the underclass, whose numbers certainly include Plissken and his criminal cohort. Payback is sweet, so long as you’re paid for it. Following is Carpenter’s 1988 They Live!, in which aliens have taken over the planet and conspired with yuppies to keep the working man—championed by wrestler Roddy Piper—in his place. Mind control is achieved through coded TV and advertising that Piper can discern, along with the aliens, thanks to magical eyeglasses. But it’s also the economic structure that has him living in a crowded Hooverville. (R) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, siff.net, $6-$11, Tue., Sept. 3, 7 & 9:30 p.m.
Moonlight Cinema Remember high school, when your teacher moonlighted as a stripper, your best friend stole police cars and got away with it, your girlfriend (or boyfriend) wooed you in a whipped cream bikini? If that was your experience, seeing Varsity Blues (1999) will be a trip down memory lane. The negligible plot concerns five football team members (including James Van Der Beek, Paul Walker, and Scott Caan) who enjoy being small town sports heroes but are pretty bummed about the demands placed on them by their despotic, embittered coach, played by Jon Voight in the movie’s one compelling performance. Under the leadership of Van Der Beek’s character, a quarterback who’s been accepted to Brown (you can tell he’s Ivy League material because he studies a book on football maneuvers while on the bench) the boys decide to overthrow their crusty boss and bring their own fresh perspective to coaching the team. 21 and over Outdoor screening begins at dusk. (R) CATHERINE TARPLEY Redhook Ale Brewery, 14300 N.E. 145th St. (Woodinville), 425-483-3232, redhook.com, $5, Thurs. 6 p.m.
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Movies at Magnuson Park From 1987, Rob Reiner’s charming adaptation of the classic William Goldman children’s tale The Princess Bride is sweet, funny, and well played down the line for both parents and kids. Cary Elwes and Robin Wright Penn are the handsome, occasionally quarrelsome lovers; Wallace Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, and the late Andre the Giant help get them together after many amusing adventures. Outdoor movie screens at dusk. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Magnuson Park, 7400 Sand Point Way N.E., moviesatmagnuson.com, $5, Thurs. 7 p.m.
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Road House “You’ve got a degree from NYU. What in?” “Philosophy.” “Any particular discipline?” “No, not really. Man’s search for faith. That sort of shit.” Care to guess who that philosopher is, and in what 1989 movie he kicks ass, trades quips with Sam Elliott (long before the Coen brothers got the idea), defeats Ben Gazzara, and wins Kelly Lynch? There can be only one man, one answer: Patrick Swayze in Road House. The 1989 movie finds Swayze in a contemplative mood. He’s a man of peace, yet not one afraid to fight. But the true fight, my friend, lies within one’s own mind. And the calm Swayze seeks through his mastery of martial arts is a deeply spiritual quest. But men—bad men, ruffians and rednecks—are drawn to his calm. They’re unbalanced and volatile; they flow like water to the serene Zen center that is Swayze, so that he, the sensei, can instruct them. Because he has a Ph.D in ass-whooping. And each beating is a lesson. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $6-$8, Thu., Aug. 29, 8 p.m.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World For all of Scott Pilgrim’s adherence to the graphic novels upon which it’s based, it goes even deeper, conveying the ache pulsating between the lines in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original comic. Edgar Wright’s 2010 film version is still essentially The Oldest Story in the Book: Boy meets girl and has to fight to keep her. And the boy—Michael Cera—is a stunted mess stranded in deep-freeze Canada. He’s got himself a high school girlfriend named Knives (Ellen Wong), plays bass in a decent-but-never-gonna-make-it pop-punk trio called Sex Bob-Omb, and shares an apartment and bed with gay roomie Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin). At first, Scott’s but another in a looooong line of mopey, tousled kidults played by Cera, who seems to have a range from A to A. But as soon as Scott meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the kid sprouts some fuzz on his peaches. (PG-13) ROBERT WILONSKY Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., 323-0587, landmarktheatres.com, $8.25, Saturdays, 11:59 p.m. Continues through Sept. 14.
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Slapstick Savants SEE THE AGENDA, PAGE 36.
Videodrome Pegged to the new documentary Rewind This! (about the rise and fall of VHS), also playing the GI this week, David Cronenberg’s 1983 fright flick has James Woods get entirely too close to his video machinery. Debbie Harry co-stars. (R)
Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Fri., Aug. 30, 10 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 31, 10 p.m.
Ongoing
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Before Midnight
Before-ophiles already know that Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) are now a couple and the parents of adorable twin girls. On vacation in Greece, the Paris-based family is contemplating a move to the U.S., where novelist Jesse’s teen son lives. But Celine has a career back in Paris, and she naturally takes his suggestion as an affront. From the first 10-minute take in the car ride back from the airport, kids snoozing in the rear seats, Before Midnight becomes their on-again/off-again argument about who has to sacrifice what for a relationship, what sexual spark keeps it burning, and how shared romantic history becomes both a burden and a bond. Your tolerance or enthusiasm for the third chapter of Celine and Jesse’s intermittent romance will depend on your feelings about Richard Linklater’s last two talkathons featuring the same duo. That’s really all the guidance you need: If you cherish the first two movies, as I do, the third installment feels necessary—a midlife tonic for all those foolish old romantic yearnings, a trilogy driven by fallible, relatable characters rather than franchise economics. (R) BRIAN MILLER Crest
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Blackfish This relentless documentary circles around the 2010 death of Dawn Brancheau, a supremely experienced SeaWorld trainer who was killed in a performing tank by Tilikum, a 12,000-pound whale. But that death is the starting point for a film that makes a couple of general thrusts: Killer whales should not be kept in captivity, and the sea parks that own them have done a suspiciously incomplete job of informing their trainers and the public about how they operate their businesses. Interviews with former SeaWorld trainers paint a sad picture of a happy-face culture that sugar-coated the containment of giant wild animals; because of the industry’s expert PR spin, the trainers themselves would hear only vague rumors about injuries in marine parks. If Blackfish outrages people, so much the better. The case is closed, and whales and dolphins are too high on the evolutionary scale to keep captive. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables
Blue Jasmine There’s nothing comic about the downfall of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the inspiration for Woody Allen’s miscalculated seriocom. Blue Jasmine is an awkward mismatch of pathos and ridicule, less fusion than simple borrowing. Grafted onto the story of delusional trophy wife Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a Madoff-like fable of the recent financial crisis. In flashback, we see her husband (Alec Baldwin) buying her consent with luxury while he swindles the Montauk set. In the present timeframe, Jasmine is broke and living with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in a shabby San Francisco apartment. Jasmine is a snob who needs to be brought low. Perhaps because her heroine isn’t entirely Allen’s creation, he doesn’t finally know what to do with her. Jasmine is more foolish than evil, but there’s nothing funny about her final punishment. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Ark Lodge, Kirkland Parkplace, Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square, Lynwood (Bainbridge), Thornton Place, Sundance
Elysium Elysium hangs in orbit, a giant spinning space station of deluxe McMansions and WASPy country clubs; it’s a brief supersonic ride from the filthy, overpopulated Earth of 2154. Down below, Max (Matt Damon) is a worker-drone who must find a way to get to Elysium and fix his decaying body after radiation accident at the factory. Already you can see the outlines of Neill Blomkamp’s allegory, a world divided between the haves and the have-nots. Most of the time we’re on Earth, in a Los Angeles that resembles Mexico City. Damon knows exactly how to lock Max into focus; Jodie Foster (leading with clenched jaw) is on point as the Elysium security chief; and William Fichtner is scrupulous as a corporate jerk. Less successful are Wagner Moura and Sharlto Copley in supporting roles. If this movie lacks the startling originality of Blomkamp’s 2009 District 9, it’s still workable enough to qualify as satisfying old-school science fiction. (R) ROBERT HORTON Ark Lodge, Bainbridge, Cinebarre, Cinerama, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Majestic Bay, Meridian, Thornton Place
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Fruitvale Station By an accident of timing, if not craft, Ryan Coogler has made one of the most important movies of the year. His docudrama chronicles the last 24 hours in the life of Oscar Grant (played by Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old black man shot to death by overzealous transit cops on an Oakland BART platform in 2009. His killing was actually witnessed and filmed on cellphones by New Year’s revelers returning home on the same BART train from which he was dragged by the cops. Fruitvale Station leads up to that incident with a day-in-the-life format. It’s overly sentimental and possibly too soft on Grant, who goes out of his way to do favors for everyone he encounters. After showing us the actual cellphone video before the credits, Coogler spends a relaxed hour humanizing Grant; then comes the grim rush of docudrama that loops us back to the fateful railway platform. (R) BRIAN MILLER Meridian, Sundance, others
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In a World… Carol Solomon (writer-director Lake Bell) is a voice nerd, fascinated by the accents she covertly tapes with her ever-present Dictaphone, yet her career is confined to voice coaching, not doing voiceovers for movie trailers, her family trade. When her widowed father Sam (Fred Melamed) kicks her out of the house to make way for a young new girlfriend (Alexandra Holden), he condescendingly tells Carol, “I’m going to support you by not supporting you.” Then the couch-surfing Carol catches a break at a recording studio run by amiable Louis (Demetri Martin). In a World… plays like an overstuffed sitcom, with Carol’s wacky friends and neighbors dropping in for brief, effective bits (these include Nick Offerman, Rob Corddry, and Tig Notaro). It’s a knowing industry satire, but not a mean industry satire. Bell doesn’t write the conflicts, easily resolved, or characters any deeper than they need be—save for the imperious yet fragile Sam. Some may recall the wonderful Melamed, an actual voiceover artist, from the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man. His Sam is sexist, sure, but also a wounded bundle of pride whom Carol must somehow nudge off his voiceover throne. (R) BRIAN MILLER Lincoln Square, Meridian, Sundance
The Spectacular Now In this agreeable adaptation of a 2008 young-adult novel by Tim Tharp, teen protagonist Sutter (Miles Teller) leads a wildly unsupervised life of partying and blown-off homework. He wakes up on a lawn, unsure where he left the car, which introduces him to smart-girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley, one of Clooney’s kids in The Descendants). They’re total opposites, and The Spectacular Now is the story of their unlikely yet plausible romance. (Oh, and Sutter is plainly an alcoholic, though that term is curiously omitted here.) Director James Ponsoldt’s young duo behaves with a likable, naturalistic ease. There are no Hughesian quips or ridiculously hunky/beautiful high-schoolers here. Both these kids are living in a bubble, but such is first love. Reality intrudes in a clunky third act, as a road trip to find Sutter’s father (Kyle Chandler) yields predictable results. Every generation needs its new Say Anything. This isn’t that movie, but it earns points for trying. (R) BRIAN MILLER Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Sundance, others
The Way, Way Back Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam James) and his divorced mother Pam (Toni Colette) are dragged to a Massachusetts beach rental by her overbearing new bf Trent (Steve Carell). Trent. There is no way we are going to like a guy named that (and a car salesman, of course), and Duncan emphatically dislikes the bullying Trent. In this awfully broad and familiar tale, unhappy Duncan finds a sympathetic mentor in Owen (Sam Rockwell), the flippant king of the local water park where Duncan lands a summer job. Owen is the anti-Trent: goofy and fun-loving, spitting out nicknames and bald lies, treating his staff with affectionate sarcasm, and harboring a not-so-secret thing for his boss (Maya Rudolph). While the drunken adults enjoy “spring break for adults” (per Duncan’s glum crush object, played by AnnaSophia Robb), Duncan finds new pals and self-confidence. We’ve seen this story a thousand times. But what are its incidental pleasures? Rockwell, Rockwell, and Rockwell. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Kirkland Parkplace, Guild 45th, Meridian, Thornton Place, othrs
When Comedy Went to School If the name Shecky Greene does not ring a bell, you might not be the target audience for this new documentary. But there was once a time when someone with this unlikely name roamed the Earth, and this film chronicles the prehistoric, pre-TV age in which such comedians flourished. The doc proposes New York’s Catskill Mountains as the cradle of a couple of generations of comedy, and it is hard to argue with the assertion. This was the testing ground for Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar, Jackie Mason, and the king of the one-liners, Henny Youngman. Jerry Lewis was a busboy at a Catskills hotel before he wangled his way onstage. Directors Mevlut Akkaya and Ron Frank manage to get Lewis, Caesar, Mort Sahl, and Jerry Stiller to reminisce about the era; Robert Klein—who also had first-hand experiences in the Catskills—is the doc’s agreeable host. Problem is, this rich subject is presented in a scattered way that eventually becomes irritating enough to detract from the funny stuff. The film clocks in at 77 minutes, leaving plenty of room for more jokes. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Varsity
The World’s End In this this third Edgar Wright-Simon Pegg-Nick Frost collaboration, five grown Englishmen try to reprise a failed 1990 pub crawl. Decades later, the obnoxious black sheep Gary (Pegg) is the least successful of the bunch, still stuck in the past. The rest of them—played by Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan—don’t want to leave their comfortable London lives for the leafy suburb of Newton Haven, which seems quite changed upon their return. There, however, The World’s End suddenly and enjoyably shifts genres (that being Plot Turn A). The film gets a needed jolt of energy: clumsy, comic fight scenes, panicked chases from pub to pub, and lines like, “Pop her head off like an aspirin bottle!” This works fine for a while—until, like the first section, it runs out of ideas. In their screenplay, Pegg and Frost again return to their love of cheesy old movie genres and the vicissitudes of male friendship (see Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead). But here they’ve got to write a unified ending for both disparate halves of the movie, and they don’t. Instead they cough up Plot Turn B, an epilogue that should’ve been kept for the DVD extras. (R) BRIAN MILLER Cinebarre, Lincoln Square, Meridian, Thornton Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Sundance, others
