Opening
Fading Gigolo John Turturro’s new New York-set comedy has received some awful reviews. In it he plays a florist-turned-gigolo, with Woody Allen as his pimp. Expect plenty of double entendres and mildly smutty jokes. Sofia Vergara and Vanessa Paradis are among Turturro’s unlikely clients. (R)
Seven Gables, Opens Fri., May 9.
Teenage Matt Wolf’s new documentary chronicles the invention of the teenager, using a wide array of archival footage, plus readings from various sources by Jena Malone, Ben Whishaw, and others. An electronica score comes courtesy of Bradford Cox, of the band Deerhunter. (NR)
Varsity, Opens Fri., May 9.
Local & Repertory
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The Iron Giant Our favorite film of 1999. The Iron Giant is rendered in traditional animation, not CG. It’s a pure and simple animated fable that—among other things—gently introduces the notion of mortality to kids. Brad Bird (The Incredibles) takes the standard-issue Cold War tropes of sci-fi invasion and A-bomb anxiety to create something genuinely special in 1958 Maine. Jennifer Aniston voices the single-parent mother of our 9-year-old hero, Hogarth; Vin Diesel—perfectly named here—supplies the mechanical utterances of said giant. Without stooping to parent-oriented humor, The Iron Giant is still better most of today’s feature-length toons. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $6-$8, May 9-13, 7 p.m.; Sat., May 10, 3 p.m.; Sun., May 11, 3 p.m.
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Pulp Fiction SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 19.
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Rosemary’s Baby Delirious with potions, blood, and anagrams, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is the definitive cinematic treatment of what Mia Farrow’s onscreen husband John Cassavetes patronizingly calls the “pre-partum crazies.” (Does it mean anything that the sinister name “Roman Castevet” invokes both the director and one of the stars?) Superbly acted (especially by bone-thin Farrow and Ruth Gordon as the ultimate neighbor from hell), it’s a satantango in the land of Is-this-real-or-am-I-crazy?, with a luridly literal ending that doesn’t negate the previous, more interior terrors. (R) ED PARK SIFF Film Center $6-$11, Sun., May 11, 4 p.m.
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Sci-Fi Film Festival The fest continues with worthwhile titles including John Carpenter’s The Thing, Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Cinerama, $9, Through May 12.
Seattle True Independent Film Festival Well over a dozen oddball indies, plus many shorts, will be screened at the Grand Illusion, Wing-It Productions, and Lucid Lounge. See trueindependent.org for prices, schedule, and other details. (NR) Through May 10.
Total Recall: It’s now possible to feel nostalgia not only for 1990-style sci-fi, but also for Arnold Schwarzenegger at that brief shining moment when he and director Paul Verhoeven teamed up to make this superior adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story (“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”). No Blade Runner, Total Recall is still a smart amalgam of action and paranoia, with the valence between reality and implanted memory always in doubt. Does Arnold’s hero save the red planet in his mind only? And what’s his true identity? Faithful to Dick’s ambiguities, Total Recall won’t fully answer either question. This is not to be confused with the 2012 starring Colin Farrell. (R) B.R.M. Central Cinema, $6-$8, May 9-13, 9:30 p.m.
Ongoing
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 If Tobey Maguire was all open-faced wonder about his accidental arachnid skill set, Andrew Garfield’s more of a brooder—Peter Parker hiding in his room despite the entreaties of Aunt May (Sally Field). He’s given a welcome few goofy grace notes with girlfriend Gwen (Emma Stone), but most of the time we’re watching his masked CG avatar swing seamlessly through Manhattan canyons, not the actual thespian. The dazzling computer effects have advanced so far from the Sam Raimi/Maguire pictures that most viewers won’t even notice the absence. Everything slowly builds after a zingy first hour to a two-part finale that’s more coded than directed. Where are the actors? No one cares. Neither do Garfield, Stone, their castmates, or director Marc Webb. Returning from Part I, Webb keeps the tone light, caps the sulking, and limits the inside jokes. The plot and dialogue are elementary—subtitles not required anywhere on the planet. Also worth the 3-D IMAX ticket price is the roster of supporting talent: Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Chris Cooper, Colm Feore, Denis Leary, and Paul Giamatti. Given the money invested in Spidey’s aerial ballets with the camera (totally untethered, as in Gravity), it’s nice to see the budget padded with so many pros. (PG-13) B.R.M. Ark Lodge, Kirkland Parkplace, Majestic Bay, Bainbridge, Sundance, others
Captain America: The Winter Soldier Unlike 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, which existed purely to set up Marvel’s 2012 ensemble summit meeting The Avengers, Winter Soldier is actually a movie: It has a story, a subtext, and a few fun pulp surprises along the way. Chris Evans returns to the title role; his cheerful calm is the closest anybody in this cycle has come to summoning Christopher Reeve’s buoyant comic-book presence from the first couple of Supermans. Cap finds his 1940s-era mindset challenged by the surveillance-state approach of a government minister (Robert Redford, cleverly cast), and his existence threatened by the mysterious Cold War–era nasty known as the Winter Soldier. The computer-generated climax will either be tedious or thrilling, depending on your tolerance for the digital battlefield, but there’s something to be said for the movie’s basic competence. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Majestic Bay, Sundance, Thornton Place, Bainbridge, others
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Finding Vivian Maier The biggest discovery of 20th-century photography was made in 2007 by Chicago flea-market maven/historian John Maloof. Vivian Maier was a nanny who died soon thereafter, indigent and mentally ill, a hoarder. Maloof bought trunks of her negatives with no idea what they contained. The revelation of those images, in a series of art shows and books, immediately placed her in the front rank of street photographers like Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand. But who the hell was she? Now Maloof and Charlie Siskel have directed a kind of documentary detective story about the enigmatic spinster (1926–2009). It’s an irresistible quest, as Maloof interviews the now-grown kids Maier cared for, plus a few fleeting friends and acquaintances, who had no idea of her gifts. Maier was almost pathologically secretive (“sort of a spy,” she said), but all photographers hide behind the camera. Would she have wanted her images seen by the public? Maloof conclusively answers that question. Would she have wanted his movie to be made? All her grown charges say the same: No. (NR) B.R.M. Varsity
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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, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Bainbridge, others
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Jodorowsky’s Dune I don’t believe for one second this documentary’s central claim: Chilean-born Alejandro Jodorowsky’s planned ’70s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune is the Rosetta Stone of all subsequent sci-fi, from Star Wars to Alien to The Matrix. But the irrepressible director, now 85, is the first guy you’d want to invite to a dinner party, no matter how outrageous and unsustainable his tales. Director Frank Pavich tries to recap the chapters of Jodorowsky’s varied career: avant-garde theater in Mexico during the ’60s; midnight-movie success in the ’70s with his head-trips El Topo and The Holy Mountain (both excerpted); and finally Jodorowsky’s ill-fated, French-financed 1975 attempt at Dune. The renderings and storyboards in Jodorowsky’s 3,000-page illustrated script are amazing; and it’s no surprise to see how his talented colleagues, some interviewed here, would go on to Hollywood success—sadly leaving their old mentor behind. Pavich’s account is perhaps too insidery and film-geek-detailed, paying homage to this near-forgotten director, but it’s impossible to fault his generosity after such a long draught. Jodorowsky has clearly honed and polished his anecdotes about supposed Dune enlistees, including Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, Pink Floyd, and Salvador Dali. Are any of them true? Does it really matter? Not when the telling is so cheerfully entertaining. (PG-13) B.R.M. Ark Lodge, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Sundance
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Le Week-End If a British couple making a misguided trip to Paris to save their marriage sounds like a cliched plot, rest assured it’s not. Instead, we meet still-beautiful Meg (Lindsay Duncan) with her sculpted cheekbones and long blonde hair, and Nick (Jim Broadbent), a sweet, goofy-ish philosophy professor who confesses on the trip that he’s just been sacked from his job. From the first scene their dysfunction is evident. s Nick makes one loving overture after another, Meg’s aggravation with him—and downright cruelty—becomes increasingly palpable, even as she tries to check it. (Their push-pull dynamic is expertly rendered by the veteran team of director Roger Michell and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, previous collaborators on The Mother and Venus.) Despite Nick and Meg’s 30-year rut and the loathsome jabs that result, there are exquisite moments of levity. Also here are unexpected moments of passion: a long kiss on the street, an almost discomfiting scene of sexual masochism. The weekend culminates at a posh dinner party thrown by Nick’s old Cambridge buddy, played appropriately neurotically by Jeff Goldblum, where both this marriage’s frailty and its endurance are beautifully, achingly captured. (R) NICOLE SPRINKLE Kirkland Parkplace, Vashon Theatre
The Lunchbox In teeming Mumbai, a network of Dabbawallahs delivers hot lunches to desk-bound bureaucrats like Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a lonely widower nearing retirement. His food is commercially cooked, while luckier office workers have wives back home who employ the same Dabbawallah delivery service. Somehow the lunches get switched, regularly, between Saajan and neglected housewife Ila (Nimrat Kaur). What’s worse, her distracted and possibly adulterous husband can’t even taste the difference! She’s hurt and offended, while Saajan is delighted with his misdirected meals. The Lunchbox is the simple story of their accidental epistolary friendship. Saajan and Illa communicate by notes, and nowhere does writer/director Ritesh Batra seriously suggest his two leads will ever hook up. Nor does a chaste, Brief Encounter–style meeting of the souls seem likely. The Lunchbox merely describes an increasingly hectic, impersonal city, where two kindred spirits crave human connection. (PG) B.R.M. Ark Lodge, Harvard Exit, Kirkland Parkplace, Majestic Bay, Sundance, Lynwood (Bainbridge)
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Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch’s new vampire film is full-bodied and sneaky-funny, a catalog of his trademark interests yet a totally fresh experience. It’s his best work since Dead Man (1995). Eve (Tilda Swinton) is a denizen of Tangier, where she slouches around the atmospheric streets at night. Adam (Tom Hiddleston) lives in Detroit, where he creates arty rock music and collects guitars. Adam needs Eve, so she joins him for sessions of nocturnal prowling. One does not expect much in the way of plot; and when Eve’s reckless sister (Mia Wasikowska) comes to town, it almost seems like an intrusion. The pace has been so languid and luxurious until then, you might actually resent this suggestion that a story is threatening to break out. Why would vampires need a storyline? They live on without much change or growth, and can’t even look forward to an ending. So Jarmusch’s dilatory style actually suits their world nicely. The timeless vampires seem depressed about what has happened to the world. All one can do is cling to culture and wait out the decline, holding tight to the books and vintage LPs and centuries-old apparel that serve as markers of a better time. (R) R.H. Guild 45th
The Raid 2 Gareth Evans’ sequel to his culty 2011 The Raid: Redemption, which was set primarily within a Jakarta high-rise, considerably widens the canvas this time out. Returning hero Rama (Iko Uwais) has survived that adventure only to be tapped for an undercover operation as unlikely as it is brutal. He’s spent two years in jail earning the trust of an Indonesian gangster’s son (Arifin Putra), the better to infiltrate the gang when he gets out. The aim is to gain information about police corruption and smash the syndicate, but Evans seems less interested in the intricacies of storytelling than he is in devising one flabbergasting action sequence after another. This he does, with utter confidence, for two and one-half hours. This is far too long by ordinary standards, but not too long if you a) have an appetite for unbridled mayhem, or b) curiosity about the spectacle of a director playing can-you-top-this with himself. On the latter point, Evans frequently succeeds, staging an awe-inspiring car chase, a massive donnybrook in a muddy prison yard, and a climactic hand-to-hand fight in a state-of-the-art kitchen that uses each utensil for maximum effect. (R) R.H. Sundance
Under the Skin Yes, this is the movie where Scarlett Johansson gets naked and—playing an alien huntress cloaked in human skin—lures men to their deaths. Aided by some motorcycle-riding minions, Johansson’s unnamed character is more worker bee than killer, a drone programmed to do one particular thing. This consists of driving around Scotland in a white van, calling out to single men with a posh English accent, then leading them back to her glass-floored abattoir. In the eerie, affectless Under the Skin, director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) dispenses with suspense or context. Instead we have process, sometimes dull. Johansson’s alien cares only for the body, not the mind, and she’s learned only enough of our language and social protocols to flirt and deceive. Eventually Johansson’s visitor goes rogue, apparently having been inspired to empathy—or maybe just bloodless curiosity—after picking up a disfigured hitchhiker. Under the Skin then becomes a dilatory chase movie, without much action, as her brood tries to return her to the nest. The movie risks tedium to ask an unsettling question about this apex predator: If this she can question her role, consider her apartness from the hive, might she then have a soul? (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Harvard Exit
Theaters:
Admiral, 2343 California Ave. SW, 938-3456; Ark Lodge, 4816 Rainier Ave. S, 721-3156; Big Picture, 2505 First Ave., 256-0566; 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, 363-6339; Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St., 523-3935; Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., 547-2127; Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., 323-0587; 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; 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., 632-8821; SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996; SIFF Film Center, 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, 632-6412.
