Local & Repertory
•
Down by Law Jim Jarmusch’s 1986 prison escape comedy places hipsters John Lurie and Tom Waits in the swamps of Louisiana, in the company of pre-Life Is Beautiful Roberto Benigni. Crisp black-and-white photography and a great soundtrack compliment Jarmusch’s wry humor—relaxed, situational, and founded in the endearing eccentricities of his characters. With Benigni’s lovely wife, Nicoletta Braschi. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $6-$8. 10 p.m. Fri.-Wed.
Princess Mononoke Hayao Miyazaki’s epic 1999 fantasy is grounded in a mythology as richly complex as Disney’s fairy tales are simplistic. The last of a lost clan, Prince Ashitaka leaves his peaceful paradise on a quest to find a cure for the demonic disease threatening to devour him. He travels west into a medieval Japan in the early stages of industrialization, where he finds forests razed and the earth sucked dry of resources. Yet the natural world has rallied to fight the human incursion. Miyazaki paints his figures in moral shades of gray—presenting the yin and yang within both nature and man. (PG-13) SEAN AXMAKER Central Cinema, $6-$8. 7 p.m. Fri.-Wed. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
Rock Out With Your VCR Out Curators from Scarecrow Video present the worst bands of the ’80s and beyond, in al their MTV glory. (NR)
Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org. $5-$9. 9 p.m. Sat.
Sweet Dreams Ice cream and African drumming precede this doc about musicians in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. (NR)
Keystone Church, 5019 Keystone Pl. N., meaningfulmovies.org. Free. 6:30 p.m.
Ongoing
•
Boyhood Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was shot in the director’s native Texas in short bursts over a 12-year period—Linklater knew the shape of the film, but would tweak its script as time marched on, incorporating topical issues and reacting to his performers. This means that unlike most movies, which remake the world and impose an order on it, Boyhood reacts to the world. Protagonist Mason (Ellar Coltrane), tracked from first grade to high-school graduation, is learning that life does not fit into the pleasing rise and fall of a three-act structure, but is doled out in unpredictable fits and starts. Linklater doesn’t reject melodrama so much as politely declines it, opting instead for little grace notes and revealing encounters. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke are terrific as the parents, and Linklater’s daughter Lorelei is distinctive as Mason’s older sister. As we reach the final stages, there’s definitely a sense of rounding off the story, and a few appropriate nods toward lessons learned—the movie’s not as shapeless as it might seem. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, Harvard Exit, Ark Lodge, Vashon, Kirkland Parkplace, others
•
Calvary This is a bumpy, uneven picture full of colorful digressions and narrative dead-ends. Its writer and director is John Michael McDonagh, whose The Guard was no less unwieldy (though more comical). But both pictures are given ballast, and a deep keel beyond that, by the greatness of Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson’s cleric, Father James, tends a small ungrateful flock on the windswept west coast of Ireland. Catholicism is fading fast, even in Ireland, and the widening pedophilia scandal has made the church a damaged brand. Father James is a newcomer in a village now venting what seems to be centuries of resentment against the old ecclesiastical control. That anger is expressed in the film’s very first scene, set in a confessional, where Father James is told he’ll be killed in a week, to be sacrificed for the sins of his church. Calvary is equally a thriller about a man investigating his own murder and a consideration of what it means for a nation to lose its collective, unifying faith. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Harvard Exit
•
Finding Fela Though he outlived Bob Marley, Fela Kuti never managed to connect with Western ears in the same way. His tunes were too long for our Top 40 charts, and Nigerian politics were too distant and complicated when compared to simple sing-along Caribbean liberation anthems. For that reason, mounting a 2009 Broadway musical about his eventful yet eccentric life (1938–1997) proved a challenge for Bill T. Jones and his collaborators, as we see in Alex Gibney’s comprehensive documentary about the show—which toured through Seattle last year—and its inspiration. Fela himself is most vivid in old performance clips, especially in his sinuous, jumpsuited glory during a 1978 gig at the Berlin Jazz Festival. He’s more elusive in old interviews from the archives, leaving his children (including musician Femi Kuti), manager, former bandmates, and journalists to assess his life and legacy. One of his takeaway quotes in Finding Fela might as well be his epitaph: “Music cannot be for enjoyment. Music has to be for revolution.” In truth, his music realized both. (NR) B.R.M. Varsity
•
Frank Michael Fassbender spends most of this unlikely band comedy inside an oversized papier-mache head, which ought to make Frank the world’s worst musical frontman. Instead he inspires fierce, cultish devotion among his his band, the Soronprfbs, who may have no actual fans. Part of the suspense here for viewers is when or if Frank will ever remove his fake noggin. For new keyboard player Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), the suspense is whether Frank’s suspicious acolytes will ever truly accept him; and further, if Frank will ever acknowledge Jon as a musician likewise possessing genuine talent. This is a fundamentally sad film, yet one full of slapstick, silliness, and laughter. Frank is essentially unknowable, so his band willingly accepts every humiliation and ridiculous challenge to earn—or at least guess at—his good favor. (The most hilariously protective of Frank, and scornful of Jon, is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s fierce Clara—a kind of muse and ninja.) English journalist Jon Ronson really did play in a band led by a guy like Frank. However, he and director Lenny Abrahamson have greatly embellished the tale, which now makes you think of any number of outsider artist-savants and the thrall they exert over their insecure followers. Is Frank cult leader or charlatan, genius or insane? It’s hard to decide, since he never breaks character—or can’t, really, given the mask. (NR) B.R.M. Varsity
•
Guardians of the Galaxy Give thanks to the Marvel gods for Guardians of the Galaxy. If you’ve ever had to suppress a giggle at the sight of Thor’s mighty hammer, this movie will provide a refreshing palate-cleanser. First, understand that the Guardians of the Galaxy tag is something of a joke here; this is a painfully fallible batch of outer-space quasi-heroes. Their leader is an Earthling, Peter Quill (Lake Stevens native Chris Pratt, from Parks and Recreation, an inspired choice), who calls himself “Star-Lord” even though nobody else does. In order to retrieve a powerful matter-dissolving gizmo, he has to align himself with a selection of Marvel Comics castoffs, who will—in their own zany way—end up guarding the galaxy. (His costars, some voicing CGI creatures, are Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, and the pro wrestler Dave Bautista.) Director James Gunn (Super) understands that getting character right—and keeping the story’s goals simple—can create a momentum machine, the kind of movie in which one scene keeps tipping giddily over into the next. Guardians isn’t exactly great, but it comes as close as this kind of thing can to creating explosive moments of delight. (PG-13) R.H. Sundance, Thornton Place, Kirkland Parkplace, Ark Lodge, Big Picture, others
•
Land Ho! Dr. Mitch is well into his 60s, adult kids gone, divorced, eating dinner alone when we meet him. He won’t admit it, of course, especially to his somber visitor Colin, his former brother-in-law, who carries the weight of post-midlife more heavily. Colin initially seems the guy in need of cheering up, which the earthy, garrulous Mitch makes his mission by taking the two of them to Iceland. Land Ho! is a buddy movie and a road-trip picaresque with an unusual pedigree. It was directed and written (with a healthy dollop of improv) by indie filmmakers Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens; the latter cast her loud, colorful cousin, Earl Lynn Nelson (a non-actor), as Mitch; and the Bellevue-based Australian Paul Eenhoorn actor plays his quiet foil. These old goats are in need of an adventure—through the discos and fashionable restaurants of Reykjavik; out to the remote hot springs and black-sand beaches—and they’re fully aware it could be their last adventure. (“Life is too short to sit still,” says Mitch, who gradually reveals his own problems and need for companionship.) What Nelson and Eenhoorn have is genuine Hope and Crosby–style chemistry, which makes the film so charming. And though Colin quietly protests the overbearing Mitch, we see—thanks to Eenhoorn’s expert performance—how he’s secretly pleased by the attention and reanimated by Mitch’s vulgar vigor. (R) B.R.M. Guild 45th
A Most Wanted Man Directed by the very deliberate Dutch photographer-turned-filmmaker Anton Corbijn (Control, The American), this adaptation of a lesser 2008 John le Carre novel will, I think, be remembered as the best among Philip Seymour Hoffman’s posthumous releases. In a post-9/11 world, he plays a rumpled Hamburg cop, Bachmann, with failures in his past, who’s charged with the dirty work of counter-terrorism. Crawling out of the Elbe, like a rat, is a Russian-Chechen Muslim we’ll come to know as Karpov. Bachmann and his squad (including Continental all-stars Daniel Bruhl and Nina Hoss) follow Karpov intently without arresting him, hoping he’ll lead to bigger fish. His bosses are dubious; a separate, rival German intelligence agency interferes; and he’s even got to negotiate with the CIA—represented by Robin Wright—to allow Karpov room to roam. Rachel McAdams shows up as a naive, sympathetic human-rights lawyer (riding a bike, of course). Will Karpov plant a bomb in the rush-hour subway or lead Bachmann to an important al-Qaida funding link? Related within a few days’ time and surveillance, that’s the essential plot. The recent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a much better movie as it evoked the old, analog Cold War; unreliable technology meant that human relationships, and betrayals, were paramount. Hoffman would’ve been a better fit in that bygone world of smoky negotiation and curdled compromise. (R) B.R.M. Ark Lodge, Kirkland Parkplace
The November Man Sometimes a genre needs no excuses. This is not a great movie, nor perhaps even a particularly good one, it’s a straight-up spy picture with distinct attractions. One of those is Brosnan, who makes a much better James Bond now than he did when he actually carried the license to kill. He plays Peter Devereaux, a retired secret agent much surprised when his former apprentice (Luke Bracey) and old boss (bullet-headed Bill Smitrovich) get caught up in a botched rescue mission. It’s all connected to a corrupt Russian politician and Chechen rebels, tied together with an enjoyably wild conspiracy theory. The mystery woman, because there must be one, is a social worker (Olga Kurylenko, recently seen twirling in the nonsense of To the Wonder). The political intrigue distinguishes it from a Liam Neeson vehicle, even if the story line actually pulls a chapter from Taken in its late going. This film’s very lack of novelty is an attribute—it’s neither better nor worse than the average spy flick, and those terms are agreeable to this fan of the genre. (R) R.H. Sundance, others
•
The One I Love It’s almost impossible to describe the fanciful sci-fi plot here without resorting to significant clues, so let’s be vague about things. Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) and Ethan (Mark Duplass) are a bickering L.A. couple making no progress in marriage counseling. (Ethan’s affair will be revealed later.) Childless and confortable, they’re studies in yuppie self-absorption, neither one willing to concede ground to the other. Their smooth therapist (Ted Danson) sends them to a weekend retreat that’s worked well for other clients, he says. There, Sophie and Ethan wonder what became of their fun, Lollapalooza-going, X-dropping days. What happened to their kinder, cooler selves? In a very big story twist, writer Justin Lader and director Charlie McDowell cleverly filter that feeling of past/present discontent through a refracting lens. (Duplass actually gave them the movie’s premise to develop.) Just how well do you know your spouse? You want to be a better partner, but it takes so much damn effort. And The One I Love forces Ethan and Sophie to make that effort; their very freedom depends upon it. Thus their weekend lesson may be this: A successful relationship requires you to be a very good actor. (R) B.R.M. Sundance
•
The Trip to Italy Director Michael Winterbottom reunites with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon for another eating-kvetching tour, this time ranging from Rome to Capri and the Amalfi coast. Coogan and Brydon are playing caricatures of themselves (who also co-starred in Winterbottom’s 2005 Tristram Shandy), not quite frenemies and not quite BFFs: two guys anxious about their personal and professional standing at midlife. Joking about the classical past and the stars of Hollywood’s golden age, they constantly worry how they’ll rate against the greats. Though it didn’t occur to me when I saw the movie during SIFF, their constant nattering about the permanence of art versus the fleeting pleasures of the now makes them fellow travellers with Toni Servillo in The Great Beauty. He could almost be their tour guide, and they need one. Now I grant you that newbies may find less to appreciate in the dueling Roger Moore impressions and crushed hopes of middle age. This is not a comedy for the under-40 set. Still, the gorgeous locations and food may inspire happy travels of your own. Go while you’ve got time remaining. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance, SIFF Cinema Uptown
