Local & Repertory
Funny Business Local film appreciation group The Sprocket Society presents various silent-era comedies starring Laurel & Hardy, Out Gang, and even cartoon heroes like Felix the Cat. (NR)
Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Tue., May 14, 8 p.m.
GoldenEye Neither the best nor the worst of the Pierce Brosnan 007 movies, this 1995 installment has Bond battling baddies who hope to launch a rogue nuke into space. The supporting roster of talent is pretty good, including Judi Dench as M, Alan Cumming as a computer whiz, and Famke Janssen and Izabella Scorupco as, ahem, the Bond girls. (PG-13)
Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, May 10-14, 9:30 p.m.
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Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut: French New Wave Masters From 1976, Truffaut’s Small Change is an exquisite portrait of childhood, assembled from the daily doings of several kids–and some concerned adults, too. (NR)
Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63-$68 (series), $8 individual, Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Through May 30.
Samurai Cop American lawmen resort to the martial arts in order to fight the invading Yakuza in this violent 1989 exploitation flick. (NR)
Egyptian, 805 E. Pine St., 720-4560, landmarktheatres.com, $8.25, Fri., May 10, 11:59 p.m.; Sat., May 11, 11:59 p.m.
Seattle True Independent Film Festival STIFF offers 30 features and nearly 100 shorts through May 11. Venues also include Lucid Lounge and Wing-It Productions. See trueindependent.org for full schedule and details. (NR)
Grand Illusion, $8, Through May 11.
Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival This weekend mini-festival runs at the Harvard Exit, Northwest Film Forum, and other venues, featuring a dozen-odd titles, plus related events. Of special note is Turning (2 p.m. Sat., NWFF), a tour doc following Antony Hegarty and transgender performing artists around Europe. About it, our Gwendolyn Elliott recently wrote, “On stage and off, these 13 performers are deeply interesting; and like the themes of androgyny and mortality running through Hegarty’s songs, their backgrounds are shrouded in mystery. Through concert footage, intimate backstage scenes, and the slog of touring, an all-encompassing portrait of femininity emerges.” Full schedule and details: threedollarbillcinema.org. (NR)
Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., $10-$60, May 9-12.
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The Usual Suspects SEE THE WIRE, PAGE 19.
Ongoing
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The Angels’ Share Ken Loach, that old British leftie director, keeps up his commitment to the poor and disenfranchised with this underdog, offbeat comedy. He directs it with warmth and affection. In the slums of Glasgow, Robbie (Paul Brannigan) has a prison record, a history of violence, and a short temper. But now he’s also a young father desperate for a fresh start. Then his community-service supervisor introduces him to the venerable Scottish tradition of distilling whisky. Robbie discovers he has a nose and a knack for fine spirits. The “angels’ share” of the title is the distiller’s name for the 2 percent of whisky that evaporates in the casks during the aging process. But you could also call it the film’s tacit approval of a particularly unconventional bit of larceny, as Robbie and his urban cohort don kilts and head to the Highlands to steal a rare, precious barrel of Malt Mill. They’re no angels, but Loach likes these kids, and he makes the whole low-tech caper their due. (NR) SEAN AXMAKER SIFF Cinema Uptown, Sundance Cinemas
The Company You Keep Directing himself in this workmanlike political drama, Robert Redford plays a widowed lawyer whose comfy life in Albany is scrambled by revelations about former members of the Weather Underground who’ve been living in hiding for 30 years. He’s one of them. Some half-hearted on-the-run material follows, as Redford goes incognito, searching for his old radical cohorts (Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, etc.) to exonerate himself. The feds are in pursuit, and a dogged newspaper reporter (Shia LaBeouf) is also on the case. LaBeouf brings his usual jumped-up nerviness to the reporter, even if his character’s journalistic methods are less than credible, and Sarandon carries off a strong jailhouse interrogation scene before she disappears from the picture. Her scene turns out to be an early indicator of the film’s general method, which is to set two characters to argue over the past actions of the violent wing of the counterculture and whether it was all, you know, worth it. (R) ROBERT HORTON Oak Tree, Sundance, Kirkland Parkplace, Lynwood (Bainbridge), others
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Deceptive Practices: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay Ricky Jay is an author, raconteur, and showman who prefers to work as “a close-up magician,” as he’s called in Molly Bernstein’s admiring documentary. He is a wonder with cards, his tool of choice; and the nonchalance of his presentation makes his mastery all the more riveting. There’s plenty of footage here of Jay and his cards, from his long-hair days performing on The Tonight Show (at age 20) and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert to his one-man Broadway shows. Jay is as guarded with his personal life as he is with his professional secrets. He tells captivating stories about the magicians who mentored him and the culture of magic. He’s such a seductive host that we get through his entire career without learning much about who he is. (NR) SEAN AXMAKER Varsity
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Eden Directed by Seattle’s Megan Griffiths, Eden is based on the true story of Chong Kim, a victim of the U.S. sex-trafficking trade, so horror and suspense are already built into it. The film’s protagonist (played with a tempered focus by Jamie Chung) is given the name Eden when forced into sex slavery. Within what appears to be a warehouse in the American Southwest, we witness a system in place, a collection of routines for breaking down the women trapped inside. Much of the film’s suspense comes from Eden’s fraught relationship with one of her captors, Vaughan (Matt O’Leary)—an increasingly tangled connection inventively played by the actors. (The cast also includes Beau Bridges as a lawman.) Eden rarely sets a foot wrong. Given the potentially lurid material, Griffiths gives the film a sort of committed austerity—which comes to seem more horrifying for its calm approach. (R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Uptown
From Up on Poppy Hill Produced and co-scripted by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by his son Goro Miyazaki, this is a gentle, somewhat slight story of student life and young love in early-’60s Japan. As the country looks to bury its wartime history and show the world a modern new face at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, these students are determined to hold on to the past by saving their old, neglected clubhouse (known as The Latin Quarter) from demolition. Nothing like a cause to spark a sweet, utterly chaste high-school romance between sunny young Umi, a teenage girl who’s running her family boarding house and looking after her siblings, and student leader Shun, until unexpected complications halt their blossoming relationship. The English-dubbed cast, which includes Anton Yelchin, Gillian Anderson, Christina Hendricks, Aubrey Plaza, and Bruce Dern, is appropriately understated. But behind the idealized, picaresque coastal village of Yokohama is a postwar culture of absent parents, self-sufficient kids, and adults uncomfortable acknowledging (let alone discussing) the past. (NR) SEAN AXMAKER Varsity
Iron Man 3 As we begin what’s likely the last of the Robert Downey Jr.-starring Iron Man movies, Tony Stark is even more of a tic-ridden, neurotic head case than before. He’s neglecting his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), now moved into Stark’s swank Malibu mansion. He’s suffering PTSD from something to do with worm holes and aliens (this from The Avengers, but don’t worry if you skipped it). In a 1999 prologue, Rebecca Hall and Guy Pearce play scientists snubbed in different ways by the arrogant Stark. A dozen years later, they’ll have their revenge. Ben Kingsley shows up with jihadi beard, long hair in a bun, and a Nixonian growl to threaten the world via YouTube. His performance becomes much richer and funnier in IM3’s second half; though like the others, it’s lost amid soaring steel suits, orange-glowing, DNA-enhanced villains, and dangling shipping containers. Downey increasingly seems a cog in the endless Marvel/Disney/Paramount franchise line. The iron suit has become more valuable than the man, and those proportions are exactly wrong. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Ark Lodge Cinemas, Cinebarre, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Majestic Bay, Meridian, Thornton Place, Sundance, Vashon, Bainbridge, others
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Mud Matthew McConaughey’s character, known only as Mud, is a ne’er-do-well Arkansas native, a fugitive and teller of tall tales, hiding on a sandbar island. His improbable refuge—a boat lifted into the trees by a recent flood—is discovered by two young teens who naturally idolize this tattooed, charismatic outcast. Mud has a neat treehouse; Mud has a hot girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) and a gun; Mud is every 14-year-old’s idea of cool, like some dude from a cigarette ad come to life. Back home, reality is more complicated for Ellis (Tye Sheridan, one of Brad Pitt’s boys in The Tree of Life). Mud is his story, not Mud’s, as Ellis watches his parents’ marriage dissolve, has his first kiss, and begins to question the story Mud is feeding him. Mud is very well crafted and acted. (Look for Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, and Joe Don Baker in significant supporting roles.) It’s a big step up from indie-dom for writer/director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter). There are traces of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird—not because Nichols is borrowing, but because he’s plainly plowing that vein of Americana. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance, Oak Tree, Meridian, others
The Place Beyond the Pines Luke (Ryan Gosling), a tattooed, muscled motorcycle stunt rider in a traveling circus, is a bad boy. But then Luke discovers that a former one-night stand (Eva Mendes) has a toddler-aged son. He quits the circus, tells Romina he wants to settle down, to take care of her and the kid. However, Luke has no job skills but motorcycle riding and, taught by a new mentor, bank robbing. Pines is the second film by Derek Cianfrance to star the Gos (after Blue Valentine), but it turns out to be a much larger and longer ensemble piece, one that eventually skips 15 years forward from its initial story. One of Luke’s stickups is interrupted by anambitious young cop with a law degree, Avery (Bradley Cooper), who has an eye on politics. Fifteen years later, however, Avery will have to reconsider the debt he owes Luke’s family. Pines aims to be a small-town generational saga, in which the sins of fathers are settled by their sons. But only the early crime scenes have any spark to them. (R) BRIAN MILLER Harvard Exit, Cinebarre, others
The Reluctant Fundamentalist The Oxford-educated actor and hip-hop artist Riz Ahmed plays Changez, a charismatic professor in Lahore, who recounts his story to a U.S. journalist (Liev Schreiber). While the two sweat out a crisis involving a kidnapped Western academic, Changez’s past life unfolds in big blocks of flashback. Having come to America at 18, Changez goes through mostly expected ups and downs: upper-class girlfriend (Kate Hudson), brilliant success on Wall Street. Then comes 9/11. Changez absorbs anti-Muslim anger and lets his beard grow out, eventually returning to Pakistan. If this tale has a shot at succeeding, it probably needs a better frame than the present-day kidnapping story, which feels like a tricked-up stab at suspense. Director Mira Nair is a talented image-maker, and the grainy widescreen cinematography (by Declan Quinn) is convincing. But except for the occasional zinger from Kiefer Sutherland’s Wall Street shark, the clunky dialogue sets forth one issue after another, betraying a seriously tin ear for the way people actually speak. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables
Renoir The title identifies the family; the moment is 1915. As war rages on the other side of France, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), by now elderly and arthritic, paints at his sun-dappled estate on the Cote d’Azur. He employs a new model, Andree (Christa Theret), a willful redhead who suits Renoir’s vision of glowing flesh and interior mystery. Andree also falls under the gaze of Renoir’s middle son, during his return home to convalesce from a war injury. The young soldier will one day be Jean Renoir, the director of Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game and a giant of world cinema. Renoir is a failure in many ways. But there are lots of reasons to see movies, and spending a couple of languid, summery hours on the Renoir estate is not an entirely contemptible one(R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Uptown
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The Source Family The Source Family was an early-’70s cult that followed its charismatic leader from L.A. to Hawaii, where death and diaspora followed. Yet The Source Family turns out to be an oddly affirmative and sympathetic portrait of the disciples, if not the guru, during an era when many were casting about for alternative forms of spirituality. The doc benefits from fantastically evocative period stills, home movies, and audio recordings of Yod (aka Yahowa, aka Jim Baker), a World War II hero and restaurant entrepreneur. Yod also took 14 wives from among his gorgeous young flock—but it was the ’70s, right? Neo-hippie revivalism is today a marketable trend, but Yod’s old disciples maintain a stubborn dignity outside of fashion and time. (NR) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Film Center
