Archive for the ‘Hey, a Movie!’ Category
« Older EntriesBad Bunnies, Malicious Mice
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
You wouldn’t dream it, but Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse used to be a pair of crude, violent and tactless bastards. They’ve been so thoroughly cleansed and commodified by their corporate masters that neither of them are really interesting anymore (Mickey even less so than Bugs). But film archivist Dennis Nyback isn’t buying the friend-to-all-children act; he’s seen the cartoons these malefactors used to make, and he’s screening them at the Grand Illusion. Turns out that Bugs is a racist and sexist, and Walt Disney didn’t invent animation; Nyback provides compelling visual evidence that’s only coincidentally funny as all hell. Who knew? Also: Dr. Seuss visits the heart of darkness. Do not bring the kids — in fact, don’t even tell them this is happening. Tell them you’re going to an opium den, to avoid traumatizing them.
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“I love you” and “too much”
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
It has been some years since I’ve seen John Hughes’ “Pretty in Pink” — second-run — and still I have questions about it. I want to know why (SPOILERS) Molly Ringwald chooses that doorknob Andrew McCarthy over audience surrogate John Cryer — to say nothing of choosing James Spader, who was in the prime of his oiliness. I want to know why Annie Potts’ character felt the need to transform herself in order to keep a boyfriend. (Also would like to know why she didn’t answer my 36 neatly typed, soul-searching fan letters, only a third of which proposed marriage.) I want to know OMD — up to that point a reliable source of catchy, but sophisticated synth-pop — stepped on its collective dick and delivered the worst song of its career. Most of all, I want to know why I still care about these things 24 years past the point they still mattered. I may yet be answered some of these questions this Saturday evening at 7 p.m., when “Pretty in Pink” plays the Fremont Outdoor Cinema … though, frankly, I’m not to learn anything I didn’t already know. That’s fine. I have been, and shall remain, a Duck-man.
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The invincible “Billie Jean” shakes up Cal Anderson Park
Friday, July 30th, 2010
The more I think about it, the more I see the debt that “Thelma and Louise” owes to 1985’s underappreciated “The Legend of Billie Jean,” screening for free (!) tonight at sunset at Cal Anderson Park as part of Three Dollar Bill Cinema’s “Blonde But Not Forgotten” series. Somebody gets shot who has it coming; a mousy woman awakens to kick major ass; and the action climaxes in a whiteout. Texas trailer park siblings Helen Slater and Christian Slater (pre-tiresome Jack Nicholson parody) are forced to take it on the lam after an unfortunate accident. Along the way they acquire a ragtag band of misfits, including sexy dork Keith Gordon (Keith, why did your star never rise?) and Yeardley Smith, who provides viewers with the amusing experience of hearing Lisa Simpson’s voice ask “When can I get a diaphragm?” Peter Coyote prefigures “Thelma”’s Harvey Keitel as the soft-hearted cop on a mission to save the fugitives from the mess they’ve made. One could posit oh-so-seriously that “Billie Jean” is more relevant than ever today, when we designate, elevate and devour “celebrities” at a breakneck pace. But mostly, it’s just good-time kids-vs.-grownups fun. - Sheri Quirt
Tags: free Seattle movies, Three Dollar Bill Cinema
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Who has short shorts? Re-bar has short shorts
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Forgive the late notice, but there’s a film event happening 7 p.m. tonight at Re-bar that looks intriguing. Tall Beers and Short Shorts, a quarterly screening series featuring new short films by local and regional filmmakers, is the very definition of an entertainment deal: You’ll see 13 films, including Lou Karsen’s “Crops for Clunkers,” Will Bulman’s “Apple Insanity” and “Sandwish” by Erika Valenciana and Kate Reynolds, all for a paltry $10. Plus, you’ll be support local independent film and helping to sustain Seattle’s cultural blah-de-blah blah. The important thing is that you’ll see a lot of great film for very little money — and do you really need an excuse to spend a quality evening in one of Seattle’s most elegant dive bars? Nope. All you need is a base of water and food, and some cab fare.
Tags: Seattle film
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Help the Grand Illusion by seeing John Waters’ lusty ladies
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Via the Kung Fu Grindhouse bl-g: Word is that the Grand Illusion Cinema, that wonderful non-profit boutique cinema in the U District, is straying dangerously close to insolvency … and that cat just won’t fight. The Grand Illusion screens those classic movies you’ve heard about but never seen — and sometimes, the ones you haven’t even heard about. It is Seattle’s most daring revival house, and it needs your love to keep that middle finger proudly raised. Kung Fu Grindhouse encourages all fans of cinema to check out a screening of John Waters’ perfectly grotesque “Female Trouble,” this Tuesday, July 27 at 9 p.m. at the Grand Illusion. For every ticket you buy, KFG will donate another $5 to keeping the Grand Illusion alive. Or, if you don’t want Divine haunting your dreams, contribute directly to the Grand Illusion at the preceding link. A year membership is just $30 — about what you’d spend on two tickets to a crappy 3-D movie, and with infinitely more transvestite opportunities.
Tags: cheap seattle, seattle cheap movies, the grand illusion
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This weekend in outdoor movies
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
The temperature is perfect, the skies are clear, and the time is ripe for outdoor movies. In fact, to paraphrase Vonnegut, the time is damn near rotten-ripe. It’s glorious out there, my friends — the stuff that celluloid dreams are made of. I doubt we’ll see a nicer outdoor movie weekend until the next one, so if I were you, I’d get my lawn chair out and stake my place right now.*
On Friday, July 16, Three Dollar Bill Cinema presents “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell — the sun and the moon personified, throwing light and shade on Cal Anderson Park. It’s the opening film of 3DBC’s “Blonde, But Not Forgotten” series, which will include the obvious (“Desperately Seeking Susan”), the family-friendly (“Candleshoe”), and the inexplicably beloved (“The Legend of Billie Jean”). Admission is free, but donations are always appreciated. It takes money to look this good.
The Fremont Outdoor Movies series has been overdoing it lately (a couple of weeks back it was overrun by zombies), so it’s not terribly surprising that this Saturday, July 17, Fremont is getting “The Hangover.” Suggested admission is $5, and as anyone who’s seen the movie is likely to tell you, you’ll find the film unspooling at the corner of Fuck Off & Get a Map. And if “The Hangover” offends your delicate sensibilities, the same night sees the opening of the West Seattle Outdoor Movies series with “Mamma Mia,” a movie about rich people overcoming adversity by huffing their way through the radio hits of ABBA. It opens with a short W.C. Fields comedy, despite the fact that Fields would have probably hated “Dancing Queen” more than children or puppies.
*Regretfully, I won’t be there with you. I’m going back to Vegas this weekend. Watch for long-overdue updates here.
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We’re Desperate: Bogart holes up at Grand Illusion
Monday, July 5th, 2010
Got two things to say on this, the final day of my July 4th break. (By the way: I’m taking a July 4th break.) The first thing is this: I hate Flickr’s new photo page layout scheme. They’ve made if difficult to find the most basic information about the images — took me a day to find where they’d stashed the “grab the HTML” link that makes the image-posting part of my job sooooooo very easy — and the navigation is counter-intuitive; I don’t know what buttons to push or what happens when you push ‘em. You can say what you will about Google, but if they’d bought Flickr instead of Yahoo, I’d be able to search my five years’ worth of images in a quick and thorough manner. (They’d also play fast and loose with my privacy, but I’ve come to expect that of every web service I use.)
Secondly: “The Desperate Hours,” William Wyler’s taut 1955 thriller, is playing at the Grand Illusion through Thursday night. Humphrey Bogart plays an escaped convict; Fredric March is the family man at the wrong end of that pistol-whipping you see above. There’s nothing more American than watching Bogart slap around some pompous jerk who thinks he’s hot shit because he went to college. Me, I like to imagine that March works for Yahoo, and Bogart is merely providing QA.
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Free tickets to “Plug & Pray” at SIFF
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Steven Spielberg once made a film called “Artificial Intelligence” that you paid money to see because you wondered how badly he’d screwed up Stanley Kubrick’s original concept for the film. (I like the movie, but we’ll talk about that later.) Tomorrow, SIFF invites you to take another excursion into the creepy world of artificial intelligence through the lens of Jens Schanze’s documentary “Plug & Pray.” Schanze’s film considers the world of advanced machine intelligence from both angles: either it’ll make our lives better or it’ll kill us all. Even Kubrick kinda hedged his bets on that one.
Tickets for Wednesday night’s screening of “Plug & Pray” at the Harvard Exit are currently free, thanks to the coolest film festival in the known universe. Get yours here.
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SIFF ‘em and see: Fiends and absent superheroes
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Today brings a few SIFF features you shouldn’t miss — all of them, curiously enough, about unearthing the truth. “The Tillman Story” explores the dark, seemingly insuperable line between what we’re being told about the war and what’s actually happening on the ground, as director Amir Bar-Lev takes a hard look at the tragic death of pro football player turned Army Ranger Pat Tiillman. “An Inconvenient Truth”/”It Might Get Loud” director Davis Guggenheim is patiently “Waiting for Superman” while he sifts through the rubble of America’s educational system, and not surprisingly comes up with more Kryptonite than anything else. And you should return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as an innocent acrobat struggles to get free of the clutches of “K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces.”
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Robots and mea culpas
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
Sorry, there’s no “Cheap-end” update this week; I didn’t have time. However, it probably doesn’t matter much, because if I know you — and I do know you, I think, a little teeny bit — you’re on your way to the Gorge for that Sasquatch thingy. Enjoy your outdoor music and Honey Buckets, you stinky hippies.
For those of you who are staying in town, I have two things: One, a threadbare promise that I’ll post some tips over the weekend, and two, a recommendation to see the SIFF screening of “RoboGeisha” at the Egyptian, tonight at midnight. I have not seen “RoboGeisha,” nor have I heard anything from anyone indicating that the film may actually be worth seeing. All I have to base my recommendation upon is this trailer:
Seriously, though, that trailer’s screwy. But what else are you gonna do, go see that video game movie with the “Brokeback” kid? To hell with that! Move up to Fried Shrimp Country!
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