Local & Repertory
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The Big Sleep Could Howard Hawks’ 1946 detective thriller be the greatest Hollywood movie ever made? Quite possibly so. “You don’t like to be rated,” says Lauren Bacall’s coltish Vivian Sternwood to Humphrey Bogart’s private dick in a leisurely scene about halfway through, twirling her unlit cigarette like a horsewhip. “You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch—and then come home free.” Likewise, Hawks allows his mystery to unfold at its own pace, and even to remain playfully unresolved. What does it matter who killed Owen Taylor when there’s all this endearing repartee swirling around, not just between Bogie and Bacall, but between the detective and a gorgeously brainy bookseller, a winsome cab driver, a thumb-sucking nymphet, a justly sour gangster’s moll, and a diminutive gumshoe (Elisha Cook Jr.)—as well as between Hawks and the viewer. (NR) ROB NELSON Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, March 21-26, 7 p.m.; Sat., March 22, 3 p.m.
DocBrunch Michel Gondry’s recent documentary Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? consists of a conversation with Chomsky, almost entirely animated with Gondry’s line drawings and collages. Chomsky is famed as a pioneering linguist and far-left political critic; Gondry engages all that with his crayoned doo-dads and oddly haunting cut-out pictures illustrating some of Chomsky’s basic ideas. A skeptic might note that for someone who espouses the importance of doubting and questioning, Chomsky’s responses to Gondry’s questions tend to be sweeping and peremptory, cutting off their interlocutor when he offers some resistance. And that’s too bad, because one of the intriguing things about the movie is Gondry’s presence: a warm, inquisitive, thickly accented personality that seems to bring out some intriguing admissions from Chomsky. The movie could use more of that. (NR) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, siff.net, $6-$11, Sun., March 23, 2 p.m.
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Film Court Local Jeopardy champ (and occasional SW contributor) Ken Jennings will serve as prosecutor in the matter of whether the 1994 Forrest Gump deserved its Oscar (over Pulp Fiction, among other competitors). Douglas Willott will defend Gump. Central Cinema, $10-$12, Thu., March 20, 8 p.m.
Harry Smith: Early Abstractions and the Animation of Bodily Rhythm Several titles by the late avant-garde artist (1923-1991) will be screened, with scholarly remarks by Rani Singh, director of the Smith archives, and live music for one screening by local musician Lori Goldston. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, nwfilmforum.org, $6-$8, Sat., March 22, 8 p.m.
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Masterful Suspense Restored This weekend mini-festival features a trio of disparate titles, all screened from new digital restorations. They are Orson Welles’ 1947 The Lady From Shanghai, William Friedkin’s 1977 Sorcerer (the weakest of the three, a remake of The Wages of Fear), and Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre. See siff.net for schedule. (NR)
SIFF Cinema Uptown, $6-$11, March 21-23.
Pacific Wonders: Nontheatrical Films From the Northwest Vintage titles will include the 1968 “city symphony” Comin’ Home Baby and 1981’s In Partnership With Time, about historic preservation. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11, Thu., March 20, 9 p.m.
Red Renewal: Seattle’s Socialist Spring Newly elected city council member Kshama Sawant has brought socialism back to the national spotlight. Now there’s an entire film retrospective that will program titles (some still pending) looking back to our 1999 WTO protests, the great strike of 1919, and other touchstones of the left. Screening at 8 p.m. Friday is The Land Beyond the Rainbow, made in 1991 by a filmmaker raised in East Germany as a survey on the collapse of his old country and socialism in general. See nwfilmforum.org for complicated ongoing schedule. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11, Through May 1.
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Thelma Schoonmaker SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 25.
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The Selfish Giant Playing as part of SIFF’s Recent Raves! series, The Selfish Giant is a UK-set drama that takes its title (if not actual story material) from an Oscar Wilde story. The two boys we follow are on their own all day, having been suspended at school for bad behavior. Arbor (Connor Chapman) can be hyperactive and destructive when he’s not on his medication; collecting crap metal gives him a focus for his demon-like energy. His slow, docile buddy Swifty (Shaun Thomas) tags along and keeps Arbor settled down. Swifty has a similarly empathetic bond with animals, which leads the scrap-dealer (Sean Gilder) to see him as a driver for cart-racing his horse in local road races. Without money, Arbor and Swifty are without worth, so they’ll do anything to make some. Clio Barnard’s film is situated in a grim West Yorkshire town called Bradford, where she previously shot a documentary. The subtitles are entirely necessary. Whether she’s honoring those thick accents, finding the proper pitch for the boys’ tussling friendship, or pausing for eerie shots of the town’s nuclear towers shrouded in fog, Barnard rarely sets a foot wrong. The outcome of the story is not difficult to predict, but Barnard is more interested in place and character than in surprising plot twists. (NR) R.H. SIFF Cinema Uptown, $6-$11, Mon., March 24, 6:45 p.m.
The Sprocket Society’s Saturday Secret Matinees The 1949 serial Batman & Robin will be screened in weekly installments. March’s surprise features will have a B-movie monster theme. (NR)
Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8 individual, $35-$56 pass, Saturdays, 2 p.m. Through March 29.
Swingers Director Doug Liman, writer/co-star Jon Favreau, and Vince Vaughn had their breakthrough with this enjoyable 1996 rom-com about the perils of dating in L.A. (R)
Central Cinema, $6-$11, March 21-26, 9:30 p.m.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me This 1992 prologue to David Lynch’s two-season TV enigma didn’t exactly resolve every unanswered question from the series, but it surely helped foster Seattle’s thriving Twin Peaks cult (which extends, of course, all the way to North Bend, where part of the show was shot). Yakima’s Kyle MacLachlan, Kiefer Sutherland, and Chris Isaak are the FBI investigators who essentially prepare the ground for the “Who killed Laura Palmer?” conundrum that follows. Party begins at 7 p.m., followed by 8 p.m. screening. (R)
Ark Lodge, 4816 Rainier Ave. S., 721-3156, arklodgecinemas.com, $11, Tue., March 25.
Water on the Table Director Liz Marshall will be on hand to discuss her eco-documentary profile of activist and “water-warrior” Maude Barlow. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11, Sun., March 23, 6 p.m.
Ongoing
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American Hustle The latest concoction from David O. Russell is full of big roundhouse swings and juicy performances: It’s a fictionalized take on the Abscam scandal of the late 1970s, in which the FBI teamed with a second-rate con man (here called Irving Rosenfeld, played by Christian Bale) in a wacko sting operation involving a bogus Arab sheik and bribes to U.S. congressmen. Along with the FBI coercing him into its scheme, Irving is caught between his hottie moll Sydney (Amy Adams) and neglected wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). Even more complicated for Irving is that one of the targets of the undercover operation, a genially corrupt yet idealistic Jersey politico (Jeremy Renner), turns out to be a soulmate. Equally unhappy is the presiding FBI agent (Bradley Cooper, his permed hair and his sexual urge equally curled in maddening knots), who’s developed a crush on Sydney that is driving him insane. (R) R.H. Big Picture, Sundance
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Dallas Buyers Club Making a straight white Texas homophobe the hero of a film about the ’80s AIDS crisis doesn’t seem right. It’s inappropriate, exceptional, possibly even crass. All those qualities are reflected in Matthew McConaughey’s ornery, emaciated portrayal of Ron Woodroof, a rodeo rider and rough liver who contracted HIV in 1985. Fond of strippers, regularly swigging from his pocket flask, doing lines of coke when he can afford them, betting on the bulls he rides, Ron has tons of Texas-sized character. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, the unruly Dallas Buyers Club goes easy on the sinner-to-saint conversion story. McConaughey and the filmmakers know that once Ron gets religion, so to speak, their tale risks tedium. As Ron desperately bribes and steals a path to off-label meds, his allies and adversaries do read like fictional composites. Best among them is the transvestite Rayon, who becomes Ron’s right-hand woman (Jared Leto). They’re both fellow gamblers who delight in beating the house. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance
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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier—the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson—all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) R.H. Guild 45th, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square, Big Picture
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The Great Beauty Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning account of an aging playboy journalist in Rome casts its eye back to La Dolce Vita (also about a playboy journalist in Rome). Yet this movie looks even further back, from the capsized Costa Concordia to the ruins and reproachful marble statues of antiquity. “I feel old,” says Jep (the sublime Toni Servillo) soon after the debauch of his 65th birthday party. He’s been coasting on the success of his first and only novel, 40 years prior, content with his goal to be king of Rome’s high life. Jep is a dandy with thinning hair brushed back and a girdle beneath his silk shirt. False appearances are all that count, but it takes intelligence to deceive. Servillo makes Jep both suave and somber, a guy living parallel lives in hectic ballrooms and in his head. His wry glances are both mocking and wincing, appropriate for a movie that’s simultaneously bursting with life and regret. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance
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Her Spike Jonze’s unlikely romance is set in a smooth, efficient near-future Los Angeles. There are no poor people, no upsetting stories on the news. Technology works perfectly. Everyone ought to be happy, and that’s the problem for mopey Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix). Gradually it emerges that he’ separated from his wife (Rooney Mara), but won’t sign the divorce papers. Impulsively deciding to upgrade his phone and home PC, Theodore opts for the new OS1 ( “It’s not just an operating system, it’s a consciousness”). He chooses a female voice (Scarlett Johansson’s) called Samantha, which soon takes over his life. In this ingenious and unexpectedly touching story, both humans and programs worry about being alone. And both yearn to connect across the digital divide between sentience and software. (R) B.R.M. Sundance
Non-Stop Neesploitation. The Full Neeson. Release the Neeson. After Bronson and Eastwood, is there any more satisfying expression of cranky white codgerhood than the resurgent Liam Neeson? His latest, aka Neeson on a Plane, is a hokey but effective thriller encapsulated by our hero’s throwaway line: “I hate flying.” And yet flying is what this alcoholic federal air marshal does for a job. Bill Marks is a familiar distillation of Neeson’s prior roles in The Grey, Taken, and Unknown—a mournful pessimist who only bothers with life out of habit, loyalty, or revenge. Who’s sending him text messages on a London-bound flight, threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes for a ransom of $150 million? The plot mechanics don’t really add up, but the constant indignity and annoyance of post-9/11 air travel are what rings true here. Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, and recent Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o are also on board. (PG-13) B.R.M. Kirkland Parkplace, Bainbridge, Meridian, Thornton Place, Cinebarre, others
Particle Fever If nothing else, this documentary confirms something you’ve probably always suspected: Really brilliant physicists are almost exactly as nerdy as the average science-fiction geek. Director Mark Levinson was probably wise to focus on the personalities working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), that huge project near Geneva. Their quirkiness allows a human portal into the science behind this massive underground laboratory, which after 20 years of effort went live in 2008 and confirmed important results just last year. We are guided in this journey by a batch of physicists, from esteemed veterans in the field to the puppy-dog enthusiasm of Monica Dunford, who treats the word “data” the way the average person might describe a Powerball jackpot. All of them are pretty much unified in their anxiety over the outcome of the LHC’s evidence. Levinson does a good job explaining the basis of this stuff, although one wants to know a little more about why it all matters. (NR) R.H. Harvard Exit
