Local & Repertory
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The Big-Screen 70 mm Film Festival Just voted Best Movie Theater in our Best of SeattleR readers’ poll, Paul Allen’s Cinerama is presenting a dozen old titles worthy of its giant screen. Classic titles include Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Sound of Music. (NR)
Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6680, cinerama.com, $13, Through Sept. 29.
Chosen This new documentary relates how two Washington state girls were lured into sex prostitution, then rescued. Both will attend the event. (NR)
Seattle Aquarium, 1483 Alaskan Way, sharedhope.org, $35, Thu., Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m.
Drop Dead Gorgeous A beauty pageant goes horribly amiss in this dark comedy from 1999. Look for Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, and Ellen Barkin. (PG-13)
Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, Sat., Sept. 28, 9:30 p.m.; Wed., Oct. 2, 9:30 p.m.
Dune David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel, once considered to be a movie franchise, stars Kyle MacLachlan and Sting. (PG-13)
Central Cinema, $6-$8, Thu., Sept. 26, 8 p.m.
GMO OMG This new documentary considers the debate regarding genetically modified foods and concerns about labeling. See siff.net for showtimes. (NR)
SIFF Film Center (Seattle Center), 324-9996, $6-$11, Sept. 27-Oct. 3.
The Great Hip Hop Hoax Jeanie Finlay’s documentary follows two Scottish lads who seek to reinvent themselves as American rappers. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, nwfilmforum.org, $6-$10, Through Sept. 26, 7 & 9 p.m.
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Mother of George A Nigerian makes his way to New York in this much-praised drama, which played during SIFF this spring. Look for Isaach De Bankole in a supporting role. (R)
Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., 781-5755, landmarktheatres.com, $10, Sept. 27-Oct. 3.
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Pink Ribbons, Inc. An expose in the purest, most pissed-off sense, director Lea Pool’s Pink Ribbons, Inc. digs into the bizarre elision of philanthropy, corporate sponsorship, and sanitized pseudo-activism that comprises the breast-cancer-awareness industry. The hallmark of this “movement,” of course, is the proliferation of pink doodads—everything from yogurt cups and teddy bears to cars and, incredibly, fast-food packaging—ostensibly bringing attention to the disease but mostly serving as promotional detritus for companies eager to cash in and camouflage for a few with carcinogenic product lines. The clueless, PR-challenged Susan G. Komen Foundation, whose flack offers an on-camera defense, spearheads these efforts, which Pool and experts such as Barbara Ehrenreich and Dr. Samantha King (whose 2006 book inspired the film) methodically reveal to be, like the color itself, vomitously distracting and of marginal utility. (NR) MARK HOLCOMB Keystone Congregational Church, 5019 Keystone Place N., 632-6021, keystoneseattle.org, Free, Fri., Sept. 27, 7 p.m.
Raising Ms. President: This new doc concerns “the next generation of female political leaders.” (NR)
Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave., 425-893-9900, kpcenter.org, $10, Thu., Sept. 26, 7 p.m.
The Room Tommy Wiseau’s horrible 2003 vanity project is screened for your derision. (R)
Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., 323-0587, landmarktheatres.com, $8.25, Saturday at midnight.
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Samurai Cinema Toshiro Mifune stars in the classic 1961 Yojimbo, playing the shabby, cunning ronin who turns two warring clans against each other. (NR)
SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, siff.net, $6-$11, Mondays, 7 p.m. Through Oct. 21.
Screenings at Scarecrow From 1982, Class of 1984 has teenage punks run amok (Michael J. Fox among them). The movie plays at 8 p.m. Friday and is followed at 8 p.m. Saturday by the sequel, Class of 1999, shot here in Seattle in 1989. The 1950 education drama Blackboard Jungle screens at 1 p.m. Sun., starring Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, and Sidney Poitier. Monday at 7 p.m. is Girls in Prison, made for the 1994 Showtime series Rebel Highways. Beer is available from VHSpresso. 21 and over for evening events. (NR)
Scarecrow Video, 5030 Roosevelt Way N.E., 524-8554, scarecrow.com, Free.
Totally ‘80s Tuesdays:
Krull and Dragonslayer are screened. (PG-13)
SIFF Cinema Uptown, $6-$11, Tuesdays, 7 & 9:30 p.m. Through Oct. 22.
The Virgin Suicides In her 2000 adaptation of the Jeffrey Eugenides novel, Sofia Coppola envisions suburbia as a sensual experience, with cicadas buzzing, sprinklers clicking, and sunlight streaming through leafy trees. The five blossoming Lisbon sisters, aged 13 to 17, live in a pastel world of quilted bedspreads, unicorn cologne bottles, and journals filled with bubble-like handwriting. As the siren-like Lux, with bared shoulders and eyes peering beneath long blonde hair, Kirsten Dunst is wonderful, bringing to her character the maturity of a veteran actress. On the surface, Virgin Suicides seems like a girls’ coming-of-age story, but because it’s narrated by the neighborhood boys who watch them from afar, the Lisbon girls just end up as mythical figures—their personalities unknowable to us as well. Still, Coppola knows how to use the camera, and understands how to direct actors. The result is a beautifully nuanced yet ultimately opaque film that lingers in memory. (R) SOYON IM Central Cinema, $6-$8, Sept. 27-29, 7 p.m.; Wed., Oct. 2, 7 p.m.
Ongoing
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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. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite looks into fatal incidents at Victoria, B.C.’s Sealand of the Pacific and Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. If Blackfish outrages people, so much the better. Whales and dolphins are too high on the evolutionary scale to keep captive. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Bainbridge Cinemas
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, a task relished by Ginger, her boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale), and her ex (a surprisingly sympathetic Andrew Dice Clay). As with Baz Luhrmann’s recent The Great Gatsby, you sense that Allen wants to say something about our present culture of inequality and fraud, but he only dabbles, never probes. 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, Bainbridge, Kirkland Parkplace, Harvard Exit, Majestic Bay, Sundance, others
Populaire In a provincial French village, circa 1958, Rose (Deborah Francois), a humble shop owner’s daughter, hopes to land a modern new secretarial job with an insurance broker in the nearest town. Her prospective boss Louis (Romain Duris) discovers Rose is a demon at the keys, and he demands to coach her in a speed-typing competition. What ensues in their predictable Pygmalion romance certainly looks great. The nightclubs and suburban kitchens have a slightly unreal sheen, like postcards printed too bright. Duris, of Heartbreaker and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, wears his slim-cut suits with a tiger’s predatory grace. Francois flounces around in her country frocks until Rose’s success graduates her to cover-girl glamour, accessorized with pink typewriter. The cars, furniture, and even the food appear as if from family photo albums taken during the de Gaulle era. Director Regis Roinsard loves the period details, perhaps too much to lampoon them. So why isn’t Populaire more fun? Unforgivably, for a movie about speed, it’s way too long and slow for a romantic comedy. It feels as though Roinsard can’t let go of the old family album; he wants us to study every page and photo. (R) BRIAN MILLER Varsity
