Local & Repertory
The Fifth Element Luc Besson sure gives you a lot to look at in his 1997 sci-fi tale, which stars Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich. What it all means is a different matter. Still, Besson never fails to put the money on screen, and he also invested in a solid supporting cast that includes Ian Holm, Gary Oldman, and … Luke Perry? Well, it was the ‘90s, after all. (PG-13)
Central Cinema, $6-$8, May 31-June 5, 9:30 p.m.
Ghosts of Piramida This music doc follows the Danish band Efterklang to an abandoned Russian mining town, where members record ambient sounds and create new sonic textures from the rusting metal machinery. From that, they record their new album Piramida. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$10, Sun., June 2, 7 & 9 p.m.
Java Heat Oh, Mickey Rourke, what are you doing? Our favorite half-deaf wrestler takes a turn as Indonesia-based terrorist in this new thriller, in which a slain politician’s daughter is kidnapped, and an American security agent (Kellan Lutz) seeks to find her. (R)
Grand Illusion, $5-$8, May 31-June 2, 9 p.m.
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Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut: French New Wave Masters The epitome of New Wave pop art romanticism, the 1965 Pierrot le Fou is as evocative of its epoch as a Warhol or a Beatles album. Pierrot was partially inspired by the script for Bonnie and Clyde, which had been sent to Jean-Luc Godard, and is almost linear—at least for J.L.G. Made in the middle of Godard’s greatest period, it’s a grand summation of everything he’d achieved since Breathless—collage structure, autonomous sound, interpolated set pieces—as well as his version of a location thriller. Shot in wide-screen and saturated primary colors, mainly in the south of France, Pierrot looks sensational—as does Godard’s then-wife, Anna Karina, who, even as she captivates and abandons co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo, is herself the movie’s documentary subject. Karina’s insouciant grace and spontaneous outbursts parallel that of the film: Culturally, Pierrot le Fou is all over the map, juxtaposing Sam Fuller (in his celebrated party scene) with Federico Garcia Lorca, the war in Vietnam, and Auguste Renoir. (“Let’s go back to our gangster movie,” Karina tells Belmondo after an idyll on the beach.) Few films have ever been more hostile to Americans and more devoted to their cars. Pierrot is hardly devoid of Godardian misogyny, but whatever personal bitterness infuses the filmmaker’s representation of Karina, the movie itself radiates joy of cinema. (NR) J. HOBERMAN Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63-$68 (series), $8 individual, 7:30 p.m. Thurs., May 30.
Let Your Light Shine: Experimental Animations by Jodie Mack The New Hampshire-based filmmaker will attend this screening and discuss her work. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$10, Sat., June 1, 8 p.m.
Remix Visiting curator Joe Milutis will introduce and discuss this evening of mash-up cinema, which promises to include all manner of shorts and oddities. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$10, Tue., June 4, 8 p.m.
Within Reach: Director Mandy Creighton will introduce her documentary chronicling a bicycle-powered journey she and her husband undertook, in which they crossed the U.S. to learn about sustainable development and other environmental issues. (NR)
Northwest Film Forum, $6-$8, Mon., June 3, 7 p.m.
Ongoing
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Frances Ha Co-written by and starring Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach’s latest is an unabashed tribute to the actress’ distinctive (don’t you dare say “quirky”) charms. The outline of a typical indie picture is in place, as we follow 27-year-old Frances and her New York apartment-hopping over the course of a few months. Frances dreams of being a dancer, as though nobody’d told her that if you haven’t made it as a dancer by 27, your dream should probably be in the past tense. (Actually, somebody probably told her. But her go-with-the-flow optimism is undaunted by such realities.) In the early reels, we mark Frances’ closeness to her BFF Sophie (Mickey Sumner), a bond that will fray as Sophie gravitates toward her boyfriend. The appeal of Frances Ha comes from Gerwig’s pluck and the film’s sprightly sense of play. Many scenes last only a few seconds, and consist of the kind of overheard conversational snippets that capture the found poetry of random eavesdropping. These bits provide a sense of Frances’ life, and perhaps hint at its disconnectedness. Shot in cheap-looking black-and-white, the film also conjures up Baumbach’s love of the French New Wave, and his soundtrack is peppered with vintage ’60s music by Georges Delerue. Even as it veers into the precious, Frances Ha succeeds on its genuinely inventive rat-a-tat rhythm and Gerwig’s unpredictable delivery. It builds to an ending that is righteously non-Hollywood. But it feels good just the same. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas
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 world is pared down to defining details, the pace slowed to appreciate the peace and stillness within the social bustle of school and home. 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 Crest
The Great Gatsby In Baz Luhrmann’s lavish new 3-D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short, classic novel, which runs all of 142 minutes, Leonardo DiCaprio plays another golden, doomed lover. (Spoiler: He ends up face down in the pool—not quite like Titanic, but close.) Why 3-D, why Gatsby, why now? The movie feels five years too late, after the subprime bubble burst. Though we see our narrator, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), making cold calls on Wall Street, this movie doesn’t look forward to the crash of 1929. The director is interested only in love, not money. And his Gatsby (DiCaprio) only uses money as glittering lure to attract his lost love Daisy (Carey Mulligan), which requires shady deals with the gangsters he fronts for. Luhrmann’s devotion to the novel is admirable, but he breaks its axles with such ardor. Quoting often from the source text, Luhrmann both tells too much and shows too much. He too-muches too much. The party scenes in Gatsby’s mansion burst with manic energy; everyone’s singing and dancing like it’s La boheme, but Fitzgerald was never so frivolous. Amid all Lurhmann’s confetti and champagne corks, DiCaprio seems lost in a feature-length Chanel ad. Only in the movie’s quieter moments (particularly the ending), does Luhrmann gets Fitzgerald’s somber mood exactly right—when the party’s over and the pool fills with dead leaves and broken martini glasses. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Pacific Place, Big Picture, Kirkland Parkplace, Guild 45th, Lincoln Square, others
The Hangover Part III Parts I and II of the Hangover series earned their R rating with unbridled debauchery, dude-bros gone wild, trying to reconstruct their misdeeds after drug-induced blackouts. They were killing brain cells to avoid their wives and fiancees, to escape the crushing, black-hole gravity of suburbs, kids, and carpools. Not anymore. Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) has busted out of a Thai prison. He’s stolen some gold from a baddie named Marshall (John Goodman). Marshall then takes Doug (Justin Bartha) hostage, forcing the other three members of the pack to find Chow—or Doug dies. But nobody cares if Doug dies. He’s like Zeppo Marx, disposable. Our three heroes are eventually sent on two not-very-interesting exfiltration missions: 1) get the gold out of a Tijuana mansion, and 2) get Chow out of a Vegas hotel penthouse. (Back are Bradley Cooper as Phil, Ed Helms as Stu, and Zach Galifianakis as Alan—the last unmarried lone wolf in the group.) A thousand heist films have been here before, and director Todd Phillips is no student of cinema—he just quotes old movies, including his own. From Chow’s prison escape through the wolfpack’s two bungled B&E jobs, this Hangover is mainly a recycling effort. Even the final scene is a slo-mo reprise. A few F-bombs aside, this final Hangover is disappointingly tame. (R) BRIAN MILLER Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Cinebarre, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Sundance Cinemas, others
The Iceman Like many a true-crime tale, the story of Richard Kuklinski sounds like it would make an incredible movie. A dreary wallow in the mire, this one goes wrong almost from the start—save for the lead casting. The Iceman is carried on the formidable back of Michael Shannon, the Frankensteinian actor from Take Shelter and Boardwalk Empire. He brings the eerie focus of a man who could smite you down just for looking at him sideways—ideal for this role, though limiting for projects that don’t require the unsettling threat of immediate death. Somehow this outwardly quiet maniac finds a wife (Winona Ryder, suitably fragile) and settles into small-town Jersey life while prospering as a hit man for a second-rate gangster (Ray Liotta). Scattered through this grisly scenario, which goes on for decades, are stock lowlifes played by actors who clearly cannot resist the chance to slap on a vintage ’70s mustache: Chris Evans, David Schwimmer, Stephen Dorff. Everybody but James Franco, right? Oh, wait, here he is, in a 10-minute cameo. At some point Kuklinski becomes like Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade guy—yes, maybe he’s a tad maladjusted, but surely we can understand his protectiveness of home and hearth. (R) ROBERT HORTON 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). He’s a needy playboy-inventor who’s happiest when tinkering in the lab with his robots. He commands, and they obey. Love me, he says, and they do. 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 that pendulum like yo-yos. Flippant yet wounded, 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 Woodinville, Majestic Bay, Meridian, Thornton Place, Sundance Cinemas, others
Kon-Tiki Thor Heyerdahl drifted across the South Pacific on a balsa-wood raft from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, then wrote a book and made a movie about his 4,300-mile journey, winning the Best Documentary prize in 1951. This new Kon-Tiki is a feature dramatization of Heyerdahl’s attempt to prove Polynesia could’ve been settled from the Americas. Most anthropologists thought him wrong, and this Heyerdahl (Pål Hagen) must scrape together funds, do his own publicity (via Morse code from the raft), and risk his neck to get the project done. (In a sense, he’s an indie filmmaker ahead of his time.) Kon-Tiki’s all-Norwegian cast shot the movie in two different languages under directors Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg, giving this fluent English version a charming veracity. The six actors become sunburnt, gaunt blond Vikings during their 101-day voyage, finally looking like survivors of Burning Man. Despite some tensions among the crew, the occasional lowering of Heyerdahl’s confident smile, and circling sharks, we know the outcome of their adventure. There’s not much drama, though there are a few nice moments of awe. Isolated like astronauts, alone on a calm, dark sea, the men stare up at the stars. “Maybe nature has accepted us,” Heyerdahl muses. Werner Herzog would disagree, but isn’t it nice to think that way? (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Harvard Exit
Love Is All You Need Philip and Ida, who meet cute at their grown children’s wedding in Italy, are played by Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm. She’s a cancer survivor with a cheating husband; he’s a widowed, workaholic grouch. You can see where this is going. With kids and kin gathered for a wedding weekend at Philip’s Sorrento estate, Susanne Bier’s romantic comedy runs strictly according to plan. Hairdresser Ida begins to reveal the effects of her chemotherapy, goes swimming in the nude, and Philip politely averts his eyes. Both tolerate their boorish relations; both respond appropriately when their kids (Molly Blixt Egelind and Sebastian Jessen) begin to hesitate before the altar. If one match falters, another can be lit. (Amid this nuptial confusion of three languages, with Danish and Italian being thrown at him, Brosnan invariably answers in English—like he’s got a Google-translate chip in his brain.) Bier (Open Hearts, In a Better World ) is unapologetic about constructing this wishful midlife rom-com. And if her story is entirely predictable, it’s also filled with agreeable characters and genuine emotions. The lemon groves and scenery also give it a travelogue aspect. If Philip’s the frustrated botanist, Ida is the tulip bulb who just needs some careful tending to bloom. (R) BRIAN MILLER Seven Gables
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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. Though a little too long and leisurely—shall we just say Southern?—for my taste, 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), but it’s also a step back to the classical. 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 Varsity
The Place Beyond the Pines Luke (Ryan Gosling), a tattooed, muscled motorcycle stunt rider in a traveling circus, is a bad boy—just the way you like them. But then Luke discovers that a former one-night stand (Eva Mendes) has a toddler-aged son. Suddenly he turns paternal. 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 (Ben Mendelsohn), 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. Shot in upstate New York, Pines aims to be a small-town generational saga, in which the sins of fathers are settled by their sons. Cianfrance shows admirable seriousness about his characters, but only the early crime scenes have any spark to them. (R) BRIAN MILLER Varsity
Quartet
Quartet centers on the residents of Beecham House, a baronial residence for retired musicians. Former conductor Cedric (Michael Gambon) determines that the reunion of the foursome who shone in a long-ago production of Rigoletto will be the event’s biggest draw. Assembling the headlining act requires a few desultory scenes of encouraging Beecham’s newest addition, opera diva Jean Horton (Maggie Smith), to participate. Jean states her objections sharply: “I can’t insult the memory of who I was.” That all-too-real fear for the eminences gathered here stands as the only true pathos in the sentimental and pandering Quartet, adapted by Ronald Harwood from his own 1999 play and directed by Dustin Hoffman. “Their love of life is infectious,” says the staff doctor, holding back tears in the final minutes, belying the previous scenes of agony over hip-replacement surgery and Reginald’s stated wish to have “a dignified senility.” (PG-13) MELISSA ANDERSON Crest, Majestic Bay
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.
