The Stranger

Stranger Suggests: An Award-Winning Author, Young Bruce Lee, and Clubbing at the Cottage

Julianne Bell — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 11:42:00 -0800

One really great thing to do every day of the week! by Julianne Bell MONDAY 2/16

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart with Living Hour

(MUSIC) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is one of those indie bands that shaped the soundscape of the late aughts. Their shoegazey, synth-spiked rock blossomed out of New York as the band played shows around the city and shared songs on MySpace (RIP). The Pains—as they're affectionately known—disbanded in 2019 after releasing five albums, but announced a reunion in 2024 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their debut album with shows across Europe and North America. It's been over 10 years since the group played Seattle, and I can't wait to sing along to every word of "A Teenager in Love," a bouncy track off their self-titled debut fitting for the week after Valentine's Day. Canadian dream pop/fuzzy rock band Living Hour and Portland alt-rock group the Prids round out the lineup. (Vera Project, 7 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

TUESDAY 2/17

Nicola Griffith

(BOOKS) Seattle-based author and self-described “queer cripple with a PhD” Nicola Griffith has received countless honors, including two Washington State Book Awards and six Lambda Literary Awards, and was inducted into MOPOP’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2024. Her novels Hild, Spear, and Menewood explore the medieval era through a queer perspective, and she also cofounded the #CripLit movement with the late activist Alice Wong. Her latest work, She Is Here, is a new installment in PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series, in which “today’s edgiest fiction writers showcase their most provocative and politically challenging stories.” Griffith’s contribution combines fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and artwork to discuss topics ranging from disability justice to the distinction between love and ownership. (Third Place Books Ravenna, 7 pm, all ages, free) JULIANNE BELL

WEDNESDAY 2/18

History Pub: The Vanguard Generation: African American Artists, 1880-1918

(TALKS) Before the Harlem Renaissance, there was the Vanguard Generation, aka the first wave of Black artists and performers who helped shape American popular culture in the shadow of Jim Crow. Active in the years between the Civil War and World War I, many were the first in their families to be born free (or to attend college), creating art under extraordinary constraints. Drawing from newly uncovered archival documents, scholar Daniel E. Atkinson brings their stories of talent, conflict, and solidarity to life for this unique edition of History Pub. Hosted in partnership with Humanities Washington, this event is a reminder that Black innovation has always been foundational. (Spanish Ballroom, Tacoma, 7 pm, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS

THURSDAY 2/19

Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story

(PERFORMANCE) Keiko Green is a playwright, screenwriter, and performer who splits her time between Seattle and LA, and has written for TV shows like Hulu’s Interior Chinatown and the upcoming Apple TV series Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Last fall, Seattle hosted productions of two of her plays: Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play, a wacky time-traveling comedy set in 1999, and Hells Canyon, a chilling horror thriller. Now, there’s another opportunity to glimpse even more of Green’s impressive range with the Seattle Children’s Theatre premiere of her play Young Dragon, which shows Bruce Lee as an ambitious young man finding his place in the world in Seattle. I’m willing to bet audience members of all ages will be moved by Bruce’s journey to becoming a “flexible, fluid, and flowing master.” Seattle Children’s Theatre recently made the difficult decision to pull a two-week April run of Young Dragon from the Kennedy Center due to the impact of the Trump administration, which makes it even more important to support local productions like this one. (Seattle Children’s Theatre, times vary) JULIANNE BELL

FRIDAY 2/20

Next Exit

(PERFORMANCE) Meet j. chavez, a Seattle theatre maven who won the KCACTF (Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival)’s National Undergraduate Playwriting Award (whew), for their opus how to clean your room (and remember all your trauma). Their new play Next Exit deals passionately, yet sympathetically, with a man named Miguel trapped on a highway (sans car, I think), who is communing with and deriving philosophical companionship from a dead possum called Orlando. Some deer come out, and a Lady In Yellow, and a sinister force that threatens to eat up anyone and anything lingering too long by the sizzling side of I-5. I’m not clear on how this all flows together. But you should indubitably find out. (Annex Theatre, times vary, all ages) ANDREW HAMLIN

SATURDAY 2/21

Club 90s: Heated Rivalry

(PARTIES & NIGHTLIFE) I’m grateful for the spark of euphoria that the low-budget Canadian hockey drama Heated Rivalry has brought to the internet over the last few months. No matter what horrifying apocalyptic shit is happening in the news, NO ONE CAN TAKE THE COTTAGE FROM US. Composer Peter Peter’s soundtrack to the blockbuster show is equally as hot-and-heavy and obsession-worthy, and episodes also include some banger needle drops. At this rave, dance to Wolf Parade’s "I'll Believe in Anything,” and reenact the haunted club scene as Harrison’s cover of t.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said” blares. This trendy event aims to let off some collective steam and celebrate queer joy—all this sexual tension has to go somewhere outside of streaming “KISS!” at every Kraken game. (The Showbox, 8:30 pm, 18+) BRI BREY

SUNDAY 2/22

Bitchin Bajas, Geologist

(MUSIC) Don’t be deceived by Chicago trio Bitchin Bajas’ goofy name: They’re one of the world’s headiest groups. Evolving out of neo-krautrockers Cave, BB synthesists Cooper Crain and Dan Quinlivan and saxophonist Rob Frye have been enhancing their melodic chops, creating majestic tracks that would sound righteous filling Europe’s most ornate cathedrals. This past October at Neptune Theatre, they outshone their much more celebrated headliners Stereolab in a set that made me feel as if I were on five hits of Owsley. Animal Collective member Geologist (aka Brian Weitz) just released Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, the follow-up to last year’s arcane, abstracted Americana LP, A Shaw Deal, with Sleepy Doug Shaw. The new hurdy-gurdy-powered album’s a mystical avant-rock trip that I dig more than anything his parent group have done. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL

Stranger Suggests: Dead Bugs, One Decent Reason to Leave the House on Black Friday, and the Perfect Pie Crust

Bri Brey — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 15:43:00 -0800

One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Bri Brey MONDAY 11/24

Christopher Marley: Exquisite Creatures

(BUGS) Dead bugs may seem like a strange medium for artistic expression, but Christopher Marley has made a career out of arranging the corpses of insects, lizards, birds and more while simultaneously fighting for the conservation of the creatures he makes artistic use of. He sustainably harvests and preserves every beetle body, butterfly wing, and crab shell he uses to precisely arrange his kaleidoscopic mosaics. Less creepy crawly and more visually fascinating, the exoticism of the creatures on display and the ability to see them up close is reason enough to visit this curious exhibit. (900 Alaska Way, all ages) BRI BREY

TUESDAY 11/25

Built to Spill, Papas, Larry Yes

(MUSIC) Built to Spill is the best thing to come out of Idaho since the potato crop. Doug Martsch has been rocking out Boise-style since ’92. In that sense, they’re a “legacy act.” But good songs never die, and There’s Nothing Wrong With Love and Keep It Like a Secret are timeless because they were never super on trend. Built to Spill always did its own thing. (But if you’re worried the new-ish songs from 2022’s When the Wind Forgets Your Name will ruin your precious nostalgia, even these “new” songs were written a long time ago.) The band is joined by Boise’s Papas and Portland’s Larry Yes, two artists so small that putting them on this bill with indie-rock legends is, like Built to Spill, rad, old-school scene love. (Neptune Theatre, Nov 25–26, 8 pm, all ages) VIVIAN McCALL

WEDNESDAY 11/26

Minus the Bear: Menos El Oso 20th Anniversary Tour

(MUSIC) Seattle loves Minus the Bear, and for good reason: they've been playing energetic rock shows here for over two decades, and even played the last show of their farewell tour at the Showbox in 2018. Lucky for us, the quintet reunited this year, putting out a 20th anniversary deluxe edition of their sophomore release, Menos el Oso, and promising to play the album in its entirety on tour. They return to the Showbox for three shows in November, and I know hardcore fans are going to go to every one, just in case this is indeed the last time they play their hometown—plus, they're mixing it up each night with a different local band on the lineup. Minus the Bear is known for their guitar-filled math rock, incorporating influences from pop and punk in a way that inevitably gets everyone in the audience headbanging. (Showbox, Nov 26 and Nov 28–29) SHANNON LUBETICH

THURSDAY 11/27

Bake a Pie

BILLIE WINTER

(FOOD) Pies are the most complicated "simple" dessert in the world. "Bake a pie!" they say. The crust is just a few ingredients!" they tell you. Liars. Yes, the best crust is one of just flour, butter, salt, and water, but you must have them all in exact proportions and handle them with care to achieve delectably flaky results. Over mix? Tough crust. Not enough butter? Dry. Too much water? The dreaded soggy bottom. For those who flex their pie-making muscles just once a year for Thanksgiving, stop it. Let Coyle's Bakeshop help. Not only do they have pie tutorials on Instagram, but their Greenwood shop is stocked with supplies, including pie dough and pie shells, and yes, they're open early on Thanksgiving morning. (Coyle’s Bakeshop, 7 am-11 am) MEGAN SELING

FRIDAY 11/28

Record Store Day Black Friday 2025

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Easy Street Records (@easystreetrecords)

(SHOPPING/MUSIC) It's almost impossible to escape the consumerism of Black Friday, so why not support a local record store while you're at it? If you're looking for special Record Store Day releases, I recommend making these shops your first stop, but casually flipping through crates can be a nice break at any point in your hectic shopping day. Participation varies store-to-store, but expect sales, exclusive merch, and extended hours; West Seattle's Easy Street Records opens at 7 a.m. and serves up free coffee and bacon as a little added incentive to get there early. Highlights from this year's exclusive RSD releases include The Original Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan on vinyl for the first time (with never-before-seen liner notes), a paper airplane-shaped record from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and the soundtrack to Wicked For Good, which was released in theaters last week. Check out the RSD website for a full list of participating stores. SHANNON LUBETICH

SATURDAY 11/29

Come From Away

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Seattle Rep (@seattlerep)

(THEATER) Ugh, I love Come From Away more than I can articulate. The hit musical tells the story about the small town of Gander, Newfoundland coming together to help the passengers on 38 planes stranded there after American airspace closed on 9/11. It is a musical that reminds us of the generosity of strangers and the goodness that persists in spite of large-scale evils. Come From Away got its start at the Seattle Repertory Theatre a decade ago when producers staged an early version of the show. It returns to that stage this fall, but the show won’t be the same version we all know. The Rep is putting a twist on Come from Away this year. All I know is there will be an emphasis on actors also playing musical instruments. Whatever version of Come From Away graces Seattle stages, I’m excited to see it and be welcomed back to The Rock. (Seattle Repertory Theatre, through Jan 4, various times) NATHALIE GRAHAM

SUNDAY 11/30

UMI – People Stories World Tour

(MUSIC) On people stories, the highly anticipated follow-up to Seattle-born singer UMI's 2022 debut Forest in the City, the soul artist turns personal reflections and fan confessions into deliciously groovy tracks. This isn't the first time UMI has used her music to promote collective healing: she last stopped in Seattle on her Meditation tour, which included an opening yoga flow, breathwork, journaling, and an intimate acoustic performance. The new album explores questions such as "How can I be happy if the world is unhappy?" and "What if I did a psychedelic trip on my lunch break at the grocery store?" (if you want to learn more about the stories behind the songs, check out her Instagram post). Blending influences from R&B, folk, reggae, and Japanese pop, UMI's music grabs your attention, then pulls at your heartstrings. (The Showbox, 8 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

Stranger Suggests: Dorie Greenspan’s Birthday Party, an Anti-AI Art Show, and the Band That Made Kurt Cobain a Giddy Fanboy

Julianne Bell — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:10:00 -0700

One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Julianne Bell MONDAY 10/20

Rob Anderson: Are You Afraid of the '90s

(COMEDY) I was obsessed with the I Love the [insert decade here] series of VH1 specials that aired constantly in the mid-2000s and offered a window into the absurdity and history of past decades. Internet personality and comedian Rob Anderson first transformed this style of deep-dive nostalgic comedy into successful TikToks, and now he’s developed those into a full live stage show complete with video, songs, and pop culture factoids. Anderson seeks to answer ever-looming questions like, “What did our unhinged media from this decade teach us about teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, and questionable age gaps?” A LOT, it turns out. (Crocodile, 7 pm [sold out] & 9:30 pm, 21+) BRI BREY

TUEDAY 10/21

My Favorite Murder Live

(PODCAST) One of the first and best podcasts to capitalize on the nation's obsession with true crime, My Favorite Murder has been investigating cold cases and telling the stories of victims since 2016. Hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark have built a dedicated fan base of Murderinos with the convivial sign-off “stay sexy, and don’t get murdered.” It’s bullseye if you obsessively watch reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case Files, and the like. This is the duo’s first tour in almost six years, so miss it at your own peril. (Paramount Theatre, Tues–Wed, 7 pm, all ages) BRI BREY

WEDNESDAY 10/22

Book Larder Presents: Dorie Greenspan

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (@jccsf)

(FOOD & DRINK) Over the course of her career, legendary New York Times–bestselling cookbook author Dorie Greenspan has won five James Beard Awards, collaborated with Julia Child, and developed thousands of recipes. In her new cookbook, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes, the culinary grande dame turns her attention to simple, effortless cakes that can be whipped up with pantry staples at a moment’s notice, from “BFF brownie cake” to buttermilk plum cake. She’ll stop by Fremont Abbey for a conversation with food writer Nancy Leson, followed by a Q&A and book signing. Bonus: Cake will be provided in celebration of Dorie’s birthday week. (Fremont Abbey, 7 pm) JULIANNE BELL

THURSDAY 10/23

Miki Berenyi Trio, Gina Birch and the Unreasonables

(MUSIC) If you are a jazz dude and not familiar with this mysterious trio, don’t worry, your ego and masculinity aren’t tarnished! The Miki Berenyi Trio isn’t really a jazz trio at all, but a dream-pop supergroup consisting of Lush’s Miki Berenyi, Moose’s Kevin McKillop, and Aircooled’s Oliver Cherer. The ensemble’s debut, Tripla, is a richly layered kaleidoscope of trip-hop, dance music, shoegaze, and ’90s rock. Berenyi’s immediately recognizable voice meditates on the disrespect of Mother Earth (“8th Deadly Sin”), toxic masculinity (“Big I Am”), and misogyny spread on social media (“Grango”). Although the subject matter is often dark, the album is actually quite joyful. I suspect it will sound amazing live. And don’t you dare miss an opening set from feminist post-punk icon Gina Birch (of the Raincoats) and her new band, the Unreasonables. (Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

FRIDAY 10/24

Form Over Function Artist Panel: Intimacy

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Seattle Art Source (@seattleartsource)

(VISUAL ART) In an era of screens, filters, and AI-generated… everything, what does real intimacy look like? Seattle Art Source invites you to explore this topic at an evening of conversation and contemplation with artists Barry Johnson, Kyler Pahang, and Kade Marsili, moderated by curator Seth Sexton. As part of the Form Over Function exhibition (on view through November 8), this panel explores how artists interpret the human form and the closeness it conveys in a hyper-digital age. If you missed last week’s panel on “Emergence,” this is your chance to join a thoughtful discussion and to engage directly with the exhibition's creators (no algorithm required). (Seattle Art Source, 5 pm, free, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS

SATURDAY 10/25

Shonen Knife, the Pack A.D.

(MUSIC) Is there any band cooler than Shonen Knife? The answer is no. Formed in Osaka, Japan, in 1981 by two college friends and their younger sister, the band was named after a knife marketed to boys, and the trio began writing pop-punk songs about candy, animals, and consumerism. They’ve had some lineup changes throughout the years, but the current touring band consists of founding sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano and drummer Risa Kawano (who has been with the band since 2011). Just take it from noted Shonen Knife fanboy Kurt Cobain, who once said, “When I finally got to see them live, I was transformed into a hysterical 9-year-old girl at a Beatles concert.” They will be joined by British garage-rock duo the Pack A.D. for two consecutive shows. The late show sold out quickly, so don’t sleep on these tickets! (Tractor Tavern, 4:30 pm & 8:30 pm [sold out], 21+) AUDREY VANN

SUNDAY 10/26

Makaya McCraven

(MUSIC) Chicago-based drummer Makaya McCraven’s riotous Earshot 2022 gig at Nectar had the crowd going as wild as a Sun Ra keyboard solo. A key figure in the current jazz resurgence as part of the crucial International Anthem label, McCraven shows a keen appreciation for the music’s ’60s/’70s avant-garde while adding his own distinctive spin with inventive post-production editing and electronic enhancements. His newest output consists of four EPs that will be collected under the title Off the Record (available on physical formats October 10 and digitally October 31). These tracks spawned from live improvisations over the years and then were chopped and spiced [sic] into the fascinating pieces you hear on record. Each EP has its own personality and personnel. Hidden Out! features some of McCraven’s most athletic, powerful drumming. The funky “Battleships” slinks in the vein of Mr. Ra’s “Twin Stars of Thence,” with spidery guitar filigree by Jeff Parker. The People’s Mixtape offers polyrhythmic avant-funk that should appeal to open-minded hip-hop fans. PopUp Shop’s serpentine post-bop jams could’ve earned Blue Note’s stamp of approval back in the day. The jaggedly rhythmic and electronics-laced Techno Logic, with cornetist Ben LaMar Gay and tubaist Theon Cross, represents Makaya’s most experimental material. Fortuitously, this studio magic translates to the stage. (Madame Lou’s, 6 pm & 9:30 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL

Prizefight!

Win tickets to rad upcoming events!*

Felly

November 5, Madame Lou's

ENTER NOW!

Contest ends October 29 at 10 am

*Entering PRIZE FIGHT contests by submitting your email address signs you up to receive the Stranger Suggests newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Stranger Suggests: The Godfather of Punk, a Gay-as-Hell Teen Sex Dramedy, and Puzzles from a ‘Jeopardy!’ GOAT

Julianne Bell — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:47:00 -0700

One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Julianne Bell MONDAY 7/28

Iggy Pop

(MUSIC) Few have had as fabled (or feral) a career as Iggy Pop. Having graced stages worldwide in band or solo form for nearly 60 years, the man, the myth, the bare-chested legend now returns to Seattle to unleash his unrelenting energy at Marymoor Live. For diehard Stooges fans or even casual dabblers in punk iconography, this show will surely be a jolt of raw power. Expect timeless anthems like “Search and Destroy” to solo gems like “The Passenger,” with the godfather of punk behind the chaos of it all. (Marymoor Park, 7 pm, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS

TUESDAY 7/29

‘Little Darlings’

(FILM) I watched this underrated ’80s teen sex dramedy as a high schooler and almost never hear people talking about it, so I’m thrilled to learn that Here-After will be screening it. At the all-girls summer camp Camp Little Wolf, tough girl Angel and sheltered rich girl Ferris clash upon meeting and make a bet to see who can lose their virginity first. Roger Ebert wrote that the movie “somehow does succeed in treating the awesome and scary subject of sexual initiation with some of the dignity it deserves.” I love the queer subtext, the gay-as-hell vintage denim and shag haircuts, and the fact that the film allows its teen girl subjects to be horny and messy in a way they aren’t often permitted to be. (Here-After, 7:30 pm, 21+) JULIANNE BELL

WEDNESDAY 7/30

Lifeguard

(MUSIC) Baby-faced Chicago trio Lifeguard’s scathing and tuneful new album, Ripped and Torn, marauds with the kind of authority that makes aging critics utter cringe proclamations like “the kids are all right.” But, Jah damn it, Lifeguard have that innate sonic charisma that suggests they spent their youths intently studying history’s most righteous post-punk groups (Wire, Mission of Burma, and Gang of Four), and then putting their own distinctive stamp on that style. That Lifeguard’s guitar/bass/synth/drums hit with an angular force while retaining a nagging melodiousness can make even the most jaded listeners doubt their “rock is dead” dogma. (Baba Yaga, 7 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

THURSDAY 7/31

Author Talk: Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings will be at Third Place Books Lake Forest Park Thursday, July 31.

(BOOKS) Back in 2012, record-setting Jeopardy! GOAT and current host Ken Jennings created his own proprietary weekly trivia puzzle, which previously appeared in Parade and Mental Floss. It seems simple enough in theory, but is punishingly difficult in practice: answer five questions, the responses to which share a theme in common. (Example: feet, McDonald’s, fingerprints, and St. Louis are linked by all having arches.) Think you have what it takes? Jennings will celebrate the release of The Complete Kennections, which collects all of his past quizzes in one volume along with hundreds of new and updated ones, by dropping by Third Place Books for a talk, Q&A, and signing. (Third Place Books Lake Forest Park, 7 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

FRIDAY 8/1

'& Juliet'

(THEATER) If you've ever felt less than satisfied with the ending of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, you're not alone. (Killing yourself over a boy? Ugh.) & Juliet imagines what our heroine's journey might've looked like if she had outlived Romeo by more than a few minutes—it’s presented in the form of a jukebox musical, which means most of the songs are well-known bops that make following along enjoyable for musical nerds and newbies alike. Created by David West Read, the Emmy Award-winning writer of Schitt’s Creek, the show premiered on London's West End and has won nine Oliviers. I was sold on the concept as soon as I saw "Since U Been Gone" on the soundtrack. (Paramount Theatre, July 29–Aug 3, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

SATURDAY 8/2

Death Cab for Cutie: Plans 20th Anniversary

(MUSIC) File under aspirational millennial nostalgia tours: indie darlings Death Cab for Cutie are celebrating 20 years of their major-label debut, Plans. As someone who saw Death Cab on their Transatlanticism anniversary tour TWICE, I can vouch that Ben Gibbard and crew have still got it. At the time of its release, Plans was Death Cab’s biggest commercial success, earning a Grammy nomination. But if you're a true fan, this revival will rattle the depths of your brain, only to realize you still effortlessly remember every lyric. Shut up and take my disposable income so I can scream “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” along with a stadium full of other alleged misfits! (Climate Pledge Arena, July 31 & Aug 2, 8 pm, all ages) BRI BREY

SUNDAY 8/3

Bridget Everett and the Tender Moments

(COMEDY) Before Bridget Everett was known as the star of HBO’s heartwarming comedy series Somebody Somewhere, she was known as New York City’s alt-cabaret provocateur, regularly performing at Joe’s Pub. At these performances, Everett would stand on tables and sing her heart out alongside her backing band, the Tender Moments—made up of the Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz and the Julie Ruin’s Carmine Covelli. Now, the group is finally bringing the perennially sold-out, cult-favored cabaret show to the West Coast. If you prefer not to be serenaded, touched, flashed, or handed the microphone during comedy shows, I recommend avoiding the first 30 rows. (Moore Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

Prizefight!

Win tickets to rad upcoming events!*

Paul Simon

August 5, McCaw Hall

ENTER NOW!

Contest ends August 4 at 10 am

Dinosaur Jr. + Snail Mail

August 8, Chateau Ste Michelle

ENTER NOW!

Contest ends August 4 at 10 am

*Entering PRIZE FIGHT contests by submitting your email address signs you up to receive the Stranger Suggests newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Stranger Suggests: A Cosmic Flick with a Live Soundtrack, Art That Bridges the Gap Between Life and Death, and an Absurd Comedian

Megan Seling — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:41:00 -0700

One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Megan Seling MONDAY 7/21

'Eddington'

(FILM) Ari Aster has a habit of sending messages before we're ready for them. Hereditary didn't wait for you to adjust to the darkness before it struck a decidedly freaky match. Then, Midsommar spawned a thousand flower crown costumes, but also drove horror films back into the daylight. Eddington is similarly uncomfortable, as some of the first narrative cinema set during the COVID-19 era. Are you ready? The film follows Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal as a sheriff and mayor in small town New Mexico, where in May 2020, a new virus propels a darkly comedic standoff. Aster looked to traditional and revisionist Westerns like My Darling Clementine and Unforgiven to inspire Eddington's style. (Various showtimes at SIFF Cinema Uptown, Regal Meridian, and AMC Pacific Place 11) LINDSAY COSTELLO

TUESDAY 7/22

Koyaanisqatsi: Live with Philip Glass Ensemble

(FILM/MUSIC) If time is a flat circle, Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi is a set of interlinked rings in a magician's grab bag. The rollercoaster tone poem collages the cyclical nature of humanity with soul-stirring time-lapse photography. It was a quick (and surprising) sensation upon its 1983 release, so the cosmic flick, whose title is drawn from a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance," became the first entry in the Qatsi trilogy. Philip Glass's hypnotic score is basically crucial to the Koyaanisqatsi experience, so I'm stoked to witness the Phillip Glass Ensemble and Seattle Symphony perform it live for this concert-slash-screening. (Benaroya Hall, 8 pm, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

WEDNESDAY 7/23

Author Talk: Cassandra Khaw with Katee Robert, ‘The Library at Hellebore’

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Katee Robert (@katee_robert)

(BOOKS) Last year, based on recommendations from the Seattle Public Library and Elliott Bay Book Company, I picked up Bram Stoker Award–winning author Cassandra Khaw’s novella The Salt Grows Heavy, a gothic retelling of The Little Mermaid featuring a murderous, flesh-eating siren and an androgynous plague doctor who join forces to take down a sinister death cult. The book was both eerie and sensual, so I’m excited for their newest release, The Library at Hellebore, a dark academia fantasy tale in which a group of students enrolled at a prestigious boarding school must team up to defend themselves from the cannibalistic faculty. New York Times–bestselling erotic romance author Katee Robert will join Khaw in conversation. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

THURSDAY 7/24

Devo

(MUSIC) In the case of Devo, you need not be worried about the questionable stamina of aging rockstars or their stage presence fading with time. The band’s performance of “Uncontrollable Urge” at the SNL50 celebration proved that these new wave legends are continuing their long tradition of goofy stage antics and sounding fucking awesome. Celebrating 50 years of being a band and “cosmically devolving,” as their tour moniker describes it, they’ll perform two nights at the zoo. What a beautiful world. (Woodland Park Zoo, July 23-24, 6 pm, all ages) BRI BREY

FRIDAY 7/25

Kate Berlant

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by I Think You Should Reel (@ithinkyoushouldreel)

(COMEDY) You might know comedian, actress, and LA cool girl Kate Berlant from her appearances in movies like Sorry to Bother You and Don’t Worry Darling, her role in Amazon Prime’s A League of Their Own reboot, her Bo Burnham–directed special Cinnamon in the Wind, her frequent collaborations with comedy partner John Early, or her existential wellness podcast Berlant & Novak (formerly Poog) with fellow comic Jacqueline Novak. (She’s booked and busy!) I was lucky enough to catch her critically acclaimed one-woman show KATE in New York and was delighted by her genius portrayal of an exaggeratedly egotistical character version of herself. Get a glimpse of her absurdist style at this stand-up performance at the Neptune. (Neptune Theatre, 6 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

SATURDAY 7/26

‘Spirit House’

Lien Truong, The Crone, 2022. See it at the 'Spirit House' exhibit at Henry Art Gallery beginning July 26. COURTESY OF HENRY ART GALLERY

(VISUAL ART) Taking its name from the small devotional structures that shelter the supernatural around Thailand, this group exhibition asks 33 contemporary Asian American artists to explore how art can bridge the gap between life and death. Through paintings, photography, and sculpture, these works invite you to “commune with your ancestors, reflect on significant memories, and journey through time and space.” I am most excited to see work from California-based artist Kelly Akashi, who creates tender sculptures of hands from glass and stone. (Henry Art Gallery, free) AUDREY VANN

SUNDAY 7/27

Bite of Seattle

(FOOD) Seattle boasts plenty of food and drink festivals year-round, but Bite of Seattle—billed as “Seattle’s original and largest food and beverage showcase” and claiming to draw 355,000 guests each year—is the most well-known gluttonous gathering by far, having been in business since 1982. Look forward to upwards of 300 food vendors, as well as beer and wine gardens, retail vendors, cider tastings, kids’ activities, live cooking demos, and more than 65 musical performers. Artists include punk-infused instrumentalists mega cat, powerhouse vocalist Shaina Shepherd, rock-and-rollers the Moondoggies, rapper Oblé Reed, and “funk juggernaut” Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme. (Seattle Center, 10 am–9 pm Friday through Saturday & 10 am–8 pm on Sunday, free, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

Stranger Suggests: Tender and Strange Art, Soft Serve That’ll Make You Scream, and an Anti-Fourth of July Celebration

Audrey Vann — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:39:00 -0700

One really good thing to do every day of the week. by Audrey Vann MONDAY 6/30

‘Pride: The Ric Weiland Collection’

(VISUAL ART) If you didn’t know already, Ric Weiland was a software developer and programmer who was hired as the second employee for a little company called Microsoft. Given his early involvement at the tech giant, Weiland was able to retire at the young age of 35 to dedicate his life to philanthropy and LGBTQ advocacy. Sadly, Weiland died at just 53, but his legacy lives on through the $65 million he left to queer rights organizations (such as the Pride Foundation). The MOHAI will honor Pride Month with a small-scale exhibit of photographs, letters, ephemera, and artifacts from Weiland’s estate that reflect his enduring fight for equality. While you’re there, be sure to check out the Collections Spotlight: Denim, which showcases artifacts from the MOHAI collection that tell the history of your ol’ blue jeans. (Museum of History & Industry, through Oct 5, all ages) AUDREY VANN

TUESDAY 7/1

Nina Katchadourian: ‘Origin Stories’

Nina Katchadourian's show 'Origin Stories' is on display through October 26. PHOTO BY DAMIEN GIFFITHS, COURTESY OF NATIONAL NORDIC MUSEUM

(VISUAL ART) In Origin Stories, artist Nina Katchadourian unpacks the quirks, rituals, and memories that shaped her creative world, from family summers in Finland to shipwreck obsessions and childhood games gone existential. Installed across the National Nordic Museum, the show blends humor, nostalgia, and tender strangeness. (For instance, there's a bronze sculpture of a stick-cow in the mix, as well as a six-channel video about her parents’ accents.) Go forth for a reminder that personal history is messy, mythic, and often hiding in plain sight. (National Nordic Museum, through Oct 26, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

WEDNESDAY 7/2

Ballard FC vs. Tacoma Stars

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by The Stranger 🗞 (@thestrangerseattle)

(SPORTS) USL League Two champions Ballard FC are back this season to defend their title as NW division champs. The team returns to Interbay Stadium this year, bringing them closer to their namesake and adoring fans. Fanfare at the games includes Dick's burgers thrown into the crowd after every goal, half-time shenanigans, and high school bands. Even without all that hullabaloo, I would recommend a game to anyone as cheap, entertaining, family-friendly fun. It doesn't get much more local than being sponsored by Reuben's Brews and having "Up the bridges!" as the team’s main chant. (Interbay Stadium, 7 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

THURSDAY 7/3

Humaira Abid

"Shape of War: First Series - 1 (Story of Rasha and Ahmed, Gaza)," by Humaira Abid, 2025. COURTESY OF GREG KUCERA GALLERY

(VISUAL ART) Each time I walk into the Greg Kucera Gallery, I stumble upon a crowd around Humaira Abid’s wood-carved blouses, oohing and aahing at their delicacy and realism. Through her sculptures and paintings, the Lahore-born, Pakistani American artist depicts ordinary objects like clothing, shoes, purses, and letters in an extraordinary way—by meticulously carving them out of pinewood and often adorning them with exquisite miniature paintings. The pieces don’t just display jaw-dropping craftsmanship, but also share powerful stories related to violence against women, refugees, and displacement. (Opening reception. July 3, 6–8 pm; artist’s talk, July 5, noon, Greg Kucera Gallery, free) AUDREY VANN

FRIDAY 7/4

F#CK the Fourth!

Bring snacks to share!

(COMMUNITY) Predictably, I am not feeling very patriotic this Fourth of July. I think many of us are in the same boat, sneering at American flags and scoffing when we hear “God Bless America.” Well, fear not! There’s an event for you and other skeptics, and it’s one that encourages you to DO SOMETHING on a local level for your community and your country. Take the time to register to vote and help others do the same, write postcards to government officials, create zines, and have a little catharsis with your fellow firework-hating neighbors. Organizers are inviting folks to “hang out among us, your local artists that support trans rights, immigrants, rights to protest, bodily autonomy, and all the good stuff.” Hell yeah, pals. That’s what I call America. (Push/Pull, 1–4 pm, free, all ages) BRI BREY

SATURDAY 7/5

TARBOO

(MUSIC) Back for its second year, TARBOO returns to the Olympic Peninsula on Fourth of July weekend with three days of top quality music at Quilcene Lantern, which has become a hub for live music and community in recent years. The fun kicks off Thursday with an evening show featuring three local artists that's totally free and open to the public, followed by two ticketed days with a stellar lineup. Two of my top Pacific Northwest music-makers headline: Seattleite Chong the Nomad crafts the most danceable beats, and Portland-based Blind Pilot has been one of my favorite indie folk bands for over 15 years. Other standouts include Seattle grunge pop bands Great Grandpa and Mt. Fog, and California-based soulful folk songstress Uwade (she's toured with Fleet Foxes). I recommend grabbing a camping pass and staying onsite at their 53 acres of "rolling farm fields" for maximum granola vibes. (Quilcene Lantern, July 3–5, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

SUNDAY 7/6

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by The Stranger 🗞 (@thestrangerseattle)

Pastry Project’s Soft Serve Window

(FOOD) The Pastry Project’s soft-serve window is only open for the summer, and it offers three flavors—purple vanilla, chocolate, and twist. While the ice cream is decadent enough to enjoy on its own—no cheap, icy mix here—the true magic is in the toppings. The aforementioned hard shell dip is available in butterscotch, chocolate, and strawberry passionfruit, and you’re gonna definitely want to add their rainbow peanut crunch. That’s housemade honeycomb-esque peanut brittle that has been smashed to bits and mixed with chopped peanuts and rainbow sprinkles. Nut-Blasting Crispy Magic Rainbow Crunch Fuck Yeah is what they should call it. That on a twist cone with the strawberry passionfruit dip tastes like a PB&J turned up to 11. (The Pastry Project, Thurs–Fri, 3–8 pm; Sat–Sun, noon–8 pm) MEGAN SELING

32 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend: Oct 31–Nov 3, 2019

Charles Mudede — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:38:00 -0700

Harriet, Jojo Rabbit, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Other Critics' Picks by Charles Mudede

There are plenty of cinematic ways to celebrate Halloween, like a live-scored The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or the Booktoberfest Halloween Horror Movie Marathon. But if you're looking for something more serious, critically acclaimed stories of resistance are opening this weekend: the moving biopic Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman, and Taika Waititi's daring Nazi Germany-set comedy Jojo Rabbit. And for something more escapist, you can always admire Linda Hamilton in Terminator: Dark Fate. See all of our film critics’ picks below, and, If you're looking for even more options, check out our film events calendar and complete movie times listings. In the South Sound? Check out our list of the best movies playing this weekend in the Tacoma area.

Note: Movies play Thursday–Sunday unless otherwise noted

70MM Film Festival II
The large-format film series is back for more! Return to the huge theater for classics like Vertigo and The Untouchables as well as more recent hits like Interstellar and Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.
Cinerama
Friday–Sunday

Ad Astra
Writer/director James Grey's follow-up to 2016's excellent, underrated The Lost City of Z is a clunkier affair, with sad-sack Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) embarking on an almost-certainly doomed voyage through the solar system to track down his MIA astronaut father (Tommy Lee Jones). Along the way, he fights battles both external (space pirates!) and internal (daddy issues!), and he also spends a whole lot of time monologuing, thanks to an unnecessary, on-the-nose voiceover. But it's when the movie shuts up—when Gray's camera skims the plains of the Moon, when an antenna towering into Earth's atmosphere begins to shudder, when the screen is filled by the shadow-blue rings of Neptune or the churning storms of Jupiter—that Ad Astra hits the profundity and scope that all McBride's monologuing fails to get at. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Meridian 16

The Beacon Halloween Special
Horror movies are one thing, but there's nothing like revisiting that episode of Freaks and Geeks where Lindsay accidentally eggs her little brother while he's trick-or-treating with his friends. The Beacon will pay tribute to your favorite TV shows' quintessential Halloween episodes and shower you with candy. Costumes are obviously encouraged.
The Beacon
Thursday only

Blade Runner
The three great science-fiction works of the first half of the 1980s are Blade Runner by Ridley Scott (1982), “Clear” by Cybotron (1983), and Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984). With these three we get the images of the urban future. Los Angeles is the city in the movie, Detroit is the city in the music, and Tokyo is the city at the center of the book. All of these works have withstood the test of time, and so reward frequent visits. We still have so much to learn from the sounds, words, and cinema of the post-humanist world. Blade Runner is also packed with amazing urban details: the sushi bar, the hotel room, the nightclub. I could live here forever. CHARLES MUDEDE
Central Cinema
Saturday–Sunday
Showing in recognition of the film's setting in time, November 2019!

Booktoberfest Halloween Horror Movie Marathon
The library will present four classics that you can watch for free: A Bucket of Blood, Little Shop of Horrors, Carnival of Souls, and Night of the Living Dead (the original).
Central Library
Thursday only

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Removed as they are from the modern movie-going experience, silent movies possess a special kind of hypnotic otherworldliness—and few are stranger than Robert Wiene's 1919 Expressionist masterwork The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a tale of a malevolent fairground "doctor" and the unfortunate sleepwalker who murders at his command. Don't miss your chance to see this film with a live score by award-winning Seattle keyboardist Wayne Horvitz and his ensemble.
The Royal Room
Thursday only

Dolemite Is My Name
Of the many stars of the Blaxploitation genre of the early ’70s, Rudy Ray Moore may not be the most famous, but he was certainly the most original. After recording several comedy albums, he used the money to self-produce his starring vehicle, 1975’s Dolemite—about a rhyming pimp trained in kung fu who takes revenge on the rival who put him in jail. In Dolemite Is My Name, Eddie Murphy plays Moore from his days as a struggling comedian/singer/dancer who worked as a record store manager, to making comedy albums and eventually willing his cinematic visions to life. The film deftly captures the hardship of inner-urban life in the ’70s, where classism and privilege kept Black entertainers who were unwilling to play the game out of the mainstream. Dolemite Is My Name is a bittersweet, filthy-mouthed comedy that also sneakily educates its audience in the Black experience. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
SIFF Cinema Uptown & Ark Lodge Cinemas
Thursday only

Godzilla
Ishiro Honda's original Godzilla in its Japanese version, believe it or not, is a sad, elegant drama of sacrifice and hubris that just so happens to have a man in a monster suit tromping through Tokyo. If you've only seen the sequels or remakes or the bowdlerized American cut, go back to the newly restored source, the Ur-kaiju.
Grand Illusion
Thursday only

Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Godzilla returns, but he's on our side now! Yoshimitsu Banno's 1971 Godzilla sequel pits the King of Monsters against a deadly smog monster that feeds on toxic waste. This one gets trippy.
Grand Illusion
Thursday only

Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace
April Wright's documentary celebrates the golden age of ornate movie theaters.
Grand Illusion
Friday–Sunday

Guy Maddin's Seances
The great Canadian and art house director Guy Maddin presents a performance that connects silent-era films with the latest technology (cloud computing), and the past with the future of the image. Seattle is a cloud city. Northwest Film Forum is one of Seattle’s top art houses. Seances will be a cinematic experiment that can’t go wrong because Maddin will there (for every show), and he is really a great director, and seeing him do his thing (clouds and images) will definitely be fun. CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday

Harriet
With Harriet, audiences are given a live-action reimagining of Harriet Tubman’s journey to self-liberation: changing her name, hiding in bales of hay, being chased by dogs, and getting cornered by armed men on a bridge before jumping into the river. Harriet shows how Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) got help from a secret network of safe houses and trusted free Blacks (Leslie Odom Jr. and Janelle Monáe) who stuck their necks out to help her cause. Throughout the film, the only music you’ll hear, gladly, are negro spirituals—songs that enslaved Blacks used to express their sorrow and joy, and to secretly communicate. (Tubman, who was nicknamed Moses, would sing “Go Down Moses” as a signal to enslaved Blacks that she was in the area, and would help anyone who wished to escape.) Harriet doesn’t subject the sensitive viewer to excessive gore or violence (though there is one particularly unsettling scene), because for once, this is a story in the “slave movie” genre about tremendous triumph, leadership, and Tubman’s unwavering faith, both in God and herself. JENNI MOORE
Various locations

Hustlers
Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, Hustlers is based on the true story documented in “Hustlers in Scores,” a 2015 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler. The movie kicks off in 2007, before the effects of the recession were fully felt, and when things were still fun and business was still good. Wall street guys were making bank, and a considerable amount of that dough made it into the hands of strip club workers. But in 2008, the financial crisis started to affect the club’s clientele, which also meant a decline in the dancers’ pay. Hustlers shows how an all-out class war ensued, with a group of four stripper friends (played by Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Keke Palmer, and Lili Reinhart) targeting their rolodex of wealthy clients, drugging, and guiding them to a club where the women had negotiated a percentage of their spending. Once there, the women would easily persuade their drunken victims to hand over their credit cards, racking up thousands of dollars in expenses. Ultimately, the funny, fleshy Hustlers is solid because the strippers are uniquely portrayed as real women with full lives, but also, let’s be honest: It’s just fun to watch Wall Street pervs get taken advantage of for their money. JENNI MOORE
AMC Seattle 10 & Meridian 16

Jojo Rabbit
The latest from Taika Waititi starts off with a bright, Wes Andersonian whimsiness: Young Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) joyously bounces about at summer camp, having the time of his life as he frolics and laughs with his second-best friend Yorki (Archie Yates) and his first-best friend, the imaginary Adolf (Waititi). Just one thing: Jojo is at Hitler Youth camp—their campfire activities include burning books—Adolf is Adolf Hitler, and World War II is winding down, with Germany not doing so great. Both because of and in spite of its inherent shock value, Jojo Rabbit—based on a book by Christine Leunens—is just as clever and hilarious as Waititi’s other movies, but as it progresses, the story taps into a rich vein of gut-twisting melancholy. There’s more to the complicated Jojo Rabbit than first appears, and only a director as committed, inventive, and life-affirmingly good-hearted as Waititi would even have a chance of pulling it off. He does, to unforgettable effect. ERIK HENRIKSEN
AMC Pacific Place & Thornton Place

Joker
Joker isn’t really the story of a good man gone bad; clown for hire Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is troubled from the outset. He’s barely scraping by, living with his mother (Frances Conroy), and coming undone due to cuts in social services. Sure, Phillips overdoes it with long, panning explorations of Fleck’s bruised, skinny ribs, but then again, men with insecurities about being skinny are presumably the film’s target audience. The first half hour unfolds like a dog-whistle symphony for insecure guys who think they have it bad. Fleck berates his black social worker (Sharon Washington) for not listening to him when she’s obviously doing her best. He fixates on a black single mother (Zazie Beetz) after the briefest sign of camaraderie. Yet there are a series of trap doors throughout Joker that unexpectedly drop its audience into new perspectives. Early on, an obvious foreshadow shifts Fleck onto a new path, and as that plotline plays out, Joker offers some surprisingly rewarding reflections on the relationship between the villain and Batman. (Oh yeah! This is a Batman movie, remember?) Both men, Joker suggests, might be equally deranged, making sweeping moves against the world without regard for those who become collateral damage for their respective manias. SUZETTE SMITH
Various locations

Judy
A biopic about the last months of famed entertainer and Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland, Judy features an uncanny, spot-on performance from Reneé Zellwegger that’s unfortunately paired with a script that veers from affecting to eye-rollingly ham-fisted. Bouncing back and forth from Judy’s famed London Palladium gigs six months before her death and her childhood that was crushed under the abusive thumb of Louis B. Mayer while filming The Wizard of Oz, Zellwegger gives an honest, raw performance that lays bare Garland’s crippling depression and addiction. However, her valiant attempts at subtlety are betrayed by a shallow script that relies too heavily on emotional manipulation. That aside, Zellwegger’s gloriously accurate hair and makeup is almost reason enough to see this film, and when she belts out “The Trolley Song,” you'll long for the days when consummate pros like Garland pushed past their personal demons to bring audiences to their feet. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Various locations

The King
Timothée Chalamet stars as Prince Hal, forced to abandon his carefree ways and ascend the throne, in this non-Shakespeare film about Shakespearean material. It takes some chutzpah to revisit a history already dramatized by the most famous writer of the English language, but reportedly,a zany Robert Pattinson as the sneering French Dauphin makes it fun. (Tip: See more of RPattz directly below!)
Crest

The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse, the second film from Robert Eggers, the director of the excellent, wildly disconcerting period horror The Witch, is... funnier than expected? Sure, it’s also fucked-up and intense and distressing, but there are significantly more fart jokes than one might expect. Robert Pattinson, with a voice like The Simpsons’ Mayor Quimby, and Willem Dafoe, with a voice like The Simpsons’ crusty old sea captain, play two lost souls manning a decrepit lighthouse on a miserable, unnamed island. Like The Witch, this is a story and a setting that feels old, and Eggers captures it in joyless black and white, antiquated dialogue, and a squarish, 1.19:1 aspect ratio. Pattinson and Dafoe squabble and fight and scream, and something is lurking on the rocky cliffs, and something else is lurking at the top of the tower, and man, this one seagull really hates Pattinson. Things get weird, and sad, and unexpectedly touching; Dafoe and Pattinson are both great, and if you’re going to descend into Eggers’s particular brand of fraught, bleak madness, one could hardly ask for better company. As we head into another dour, dark Northwest winter, Eggers’s whipping gales and damp despair are here to remind you that hey, things could always be worse. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

Los Reyes
Keith Watson of Slant magazine called this film about dogs in a Chilean skatepark "a quietly radical attempt to view the world from a non-human perspective that also doubles as a chilled-out buddy comedy of sorts." Follow Chola and Football as they hang out with skaters who discuss "personal addiction, trouble with the authorities, and a variety of other subjects" (to quote publicity materials).
SIFF Film Center
Friday–Sunday

Motherless Brooklyn
Director/star Edward Norton’s decision to turn Jonathan Lethem’s postmodern neo-noir novel into a literal 1950s-set noir, with jazz music and vintage cars aplenty, is both an asset and a liability. Motherless Brooklyn is easy on the eyes, and the all-star cast conveys the sense—if not the suspense—of a twisty-turny mystery populated by crooks, dames, reporters, jazz musicians, and an ultra-powerful tycoon inspired by infamous New York City developer Robert Moses. But the movie’s overlong and unfocused, too, and there’s almost no emotional purchase, even as stakes escalate. NED LANNAMANN
Various locations

Mr. Klein
Joseph Losey's blistering portrait of French complicity in the persecution of the Jews doubles as a paranoid, existential drama about identity. A Catholic man, Klein (played by Alain Delon), is making a bundle exploiting Jewish people who are trying to flee Occupied Paris. But when he's confused with another Klein, an unknown person, he finds himself on the wrong side of France's racial laws. This masterpiece was scripted by Franco Solinas, who also wrote The Battle of Algiers, and launches the retrospective on the Marxist screenwriter, titled "To Win a Revolution."
The Beacon
Friday–Sunday

My Own Private Idaho
Imagine you’re Gus Van Sant in the early 1990s. You’ve living in Portland, you’re fascinated with the grime and grunge of the city. You’ve got three partially formed ideas for screenplays: one based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, one about a young man trying to find his mother, and one about a narcoleptic sex worker with the face of an angel. Well, Early ’90s Gus Van Sant, mash those ideas together into one problematic-but-somehow-still-charming script and call Keanu! You’re about to make My Own Private Idaho! BRI BREY
The Beacon
Saturday only
This begins the Sex Work Is Work series.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Once Upon a Time doesn't have the self-conscious, This Is a Quentin Tarantino Film™ feel of the filmmaker's past few movies. Make no mistake: Nobody besides Tarantino could have made Once Upon a Time—like all of Tarantino's movies, it's a singular thing, uniquely dialed in to his obsessions and quirks. But like Tarantino's best movies, it feels neither reliant nor focused on those obsessions and quirks. We spend the bulk of our time with three people: Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an earnest, anxious, B-list actor whose career is right about to curdle; Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Rick's toughed-up, chilled-out former stuntman and current BFF; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a bubbly, captivating actress who's just starting to enjoy her first taste of success in show business. Two of these people—the ones who're beginning to realize the world is no longer all that interested in what they have to offer—are fictional. The third is not, and how much you know about the real-life events that occurred in and around Los Angeles in 1969 will profoundly color your experience watching the film. How Tarantino plays with history in Once Upon a Time is one of the more intense and surprising elements of the film—and, thankfully, it's also one of the best. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

Parasite
Parasite is director Bong Joon-ho at his very best. It's a departure from the sci-fi bent of his recent movies, though it's no less concerned with the state of society today. Set in Seoul, South Korea, the families and class issues at play reflect our global era, in which the disparity between the haves and have-nots seems to be widening. Parasite follows the Kim family, who secretly scam their way into the lives of the wealthy Park family. Slowly and methodically, the Kims begin to drive out the other domestic workers at the Park residence, each time referring another family member (who they pretend not to know) for the vacant position. And so the poorer family starts to settle comfortably into the grift—until a sudden realization turns their lives upside down. The resulting film offers an at turns hilarious and deeply unsettling look at class and survival, its essence echoed in the environments the characters inhabit. JASMYNE KEIMIG
SIFF Cinema Egyptian & AMC Pacific Place

Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook
Republicans have been on a mission to make it harder to vote, especially for minorities and poor people. This documentary paints the grim picture while giving updates on the fight against voter suppression.
Keystone Church
Friday only

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
How does a new generation of fighters for trans rights inherit Dr. Frank N. Furter of Transsexual, Transylvania (played by Tim Curry), in this campy 1975 horror musical? Susan Sarandon costars, along with ripped fishnet stockings, corsets, and the dreams of science fiction.
AMC Pacific Place 11
Thursday only

Salvatore Giuliano
This Franco Solinas-penned anti-establishment drama is based on the real Sicilian bandit, presenting him as a figure caught up in the machinations of the underworld and the police. The acclaimed neo-realist film continues the Franco Solinas retrospective.
The Beacon
Sunday only

Synonyms
Nadav Lapid's lauded autobiographical comedy of culture clashes is about an erratic young Israeli evading mandatory military service and deciding to "become French."
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Friday–Sunday

Terminator: Dark Fate
If nothing else, Dark Fate has one thing going for it: Sarah Connor. Linda Hamilton is back, which means there's a Terminator movie worth watching again. Well, it's worth watching, I guess, if you, like me, have devoted entirely too much of your ever-shrinking life span to thinking about terminators. For everyone else, Dark Fate's appeal—which largely hinges on seeing Hamilton, Arnold, and various bloodthirsty murderbots back in action—might be limited. Deadpool director Tim Miller does a lot of things right: His action sequences are messy but intense; he knows to let Hamilton, with her wry eyebrows and smoke-scratched voice, steal scenes whenever she feels like it; and he somehow pulls off the insane-sounding task of making a Terminator movie that's legitimately, consistently funny. But at the end of the day, Dark Fate is another sequel that tries, with mixed success, to reboot a rusty series, and several of the attempts it makes to feel current land with a wet thud. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Wide release

Thieves' Highway
The wonderful noir actor Richard Conte stars in this early Jules Dassin film about a long-haul trucker seeking revenge on the louse who crippled his father. This movie kicks off the Beacon's exciting retrospective of the blacklisted director, "And Not a Word to the Cops."
The Beacon
Saturday only

The Wrong Man
In one of Hitchcock's lesser-known but still compelling tales of an innocent man beset by a judicial nightmare, Henry Fonda plays a meek, devout jazz musician wrongly accused of murder. This film is screening as part of the 42nd Film Noir Series.
Seattle Art Museum
Thursday only

Zombieland 2: Double Tap
The problem with comedy sequels is that it's hard to tell the same joke years later, but funnier. Despite the ravages of time and changing tastes, filmmakers must suplex the lightning back into that bottle. But despite lurching into theaters a full decade after the original, Zombieland: Double Tap avoids those pitfalls while delivering a suitably zany Zombieland experience with the easy charm of an off-brand Mike Judge picaresque. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone all return to banter and blast zombies, and their wry camaraderie speaks a seemingly genuine desire to play in this viscera-splattered sandbox again (rather than, as with many long-delayed sequels, simply the desire for a new beach house). Added to the mix are a spate of goofy newcomers, including a delightfully unapologetic flibbertigibbet (Zoey Deutch) and a pair of dirtbag doppelgangers (Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch). It's more a live-action cartoon than a serious entry in the zombie canon, but as a low-key genre comedy, it totally works. BEN COLEMAN
Wide release

Also Playing:

Our critics don't recommend these films, but you might like to know about them anyway.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

33 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend: August 22–25, 2019

Bri Brey — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 16:30:00 -0700

Apocalypse Now, Poltergeist, A German Youth, and Other Critics' Picks by Bri Brey

This weekend, revisit a reassembled masterpiece of sound design, Apocalypse Now Final Cut, be charmed all over again by My Neighbor Totoro, or learn about revolutionary women with ¡Las Sandinistas! Follow the links below to see complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers for all of our critics' picks. If you're looking for even more options, check out our film events calendar and complete movie times listings (which are now location-aware!), and don't forget to see where outdoor movies are playing.

Note: Movies play Thursday–Sunday unless otherwise noted

Angel Has Fallen
Angel Has Fallen, the third movie in the inelegantly named ______ Has Fallen series, pulls off an unexpected trick: It's actually pretty good! Star and coproducer Gerard Butler reportedly wanted to sunset the franchise in the spirit of 2017's masterful Logan, and damn if he didn't get pretty close. Here, secret service super-agent Mike Banning (Butler) is beginning to feel the effects of his previous escapades: He's got a compressed spine, some sort of chronic post-concussion syndrome, and a low-key opioid habit that he hasn't told his wife about. And while he's still fully capable of taking down a dozen elite commandos at a time, these cracks in his action-hero armor contribute to a genuine sense of tension in the film's claustrophobic, deftly choreographed combat. Gone are the previous entries' generic, nonwhite terrorist villains, replaced with aggrieved middle-class military contractors brandishing tactical gear and tricked-out automatic rifles. For a franchise that's always felt at least a decade removed from relevance, Angel Has Fallen ends up being an intense, surprisingly of-the-moment action thriller. BEN COLEMAN
Various locations

Apocalypse Now Final Cut
Apocalypse Now's opening scene immediately sets up the lush sound design: We start off looking at a silent, tropical field. Then comes the distant whir of choppers. Then a tambourine. Slowly, "The End" by the Doors edges into clarity. The noise of the choppers builds alongside the vocals of Jim Morrison. They crash on top of each other as the viewer watches a field in Vietnam get bombed. The screen sets on fire, then Morrison's voice sings: "This is the end." Apocalypse Now Final Cut, along with being remastered in 4K Ultra HD, has made its sound even more impressive. In collaboration with Meyer Sound Laboratories, Coppola's film company American Zoetrope has developed what they're calling "Sensual Sound." Hailed as a "breakthrough" by Meyer Sound, Sensual Sound creates an infrasonic, ultra-low frequency impact that hits audiences in the gut. It apparently emits noises that reach viewers on a deeper physical level, making Apocalypse Now's helicopters, spears, and bombs feel like an immediate threat. CHASE BURNS
Ark Lodge & Grand Illusion
Thursday, Saturday–Sunday

Big Trouble in Little China
With a title that mirrors the poeticism of a POTUS tweet, this 1986 classic is a comic book come to life filled with martial arts, monsters, magic, and Kurt Russell in a tank top saying cheesy shit like “I was born ready!” and “Son of a bitch must pay!” BRI BREY
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday

Bigger Than Life
Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) never directed anything darker than this tale of a suburban downward spiral. The usually urbane James Mason plays an overworked father who's diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. When he starts an experimental drug treatment, he grows healthy—but also experiences sinister psychological effects that cause his family to fear him.
The Beacon
Saturday–Sunday

Blinded by the Light
A young Pakistani British man, feeling like an outcast and depressed by the racism around him, finds new inspiration in the music of Bruce Springsteen in this charming film by Gurinder Chadha.
Wide release

Buñuel and the Labyrinth of Turtles
In 1930, filmmaker Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí collaborated on the subversive, surreal comedy L'age d'Or. It's now considered a landmark in the history of film, but at the time, it was reviled and caused a rift between the two men. Salvador Simó's animation, based on the graphic novel by Fermin Solis, catches up with Buñuel as he tries to find his creative footing once again, turning to a documentary-like style in Land Without Bread. It combines Buñuel's footage and Simó's art.
SIFF Film Center
Friday–Sunday

Cold Case Hammarskjold
In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash on his way to the Congo to oversee ceasefire negotiations between UN forces and the Katanga rebels. For years, many have suspected foul play over the official's demise. Hammarskjöld may have been too anti-colonialist for certain UN powers' states, for one thing. In this muckraking documentary, Mads Brügger makes the case that Hammarskjöld's strange death was just one result of an incredibly evil conspiracy. Whether you buy everything he claims or not (and the New York Times has challenged some of his most incendiary implications), he unveils some truly shocking facts.
Grand Illusion
Friday–Sunday

The Farewell
If you had a fatal disease, would you want to know? This question lies at the heart of a 2016 This American Life segment called “What You Don’t Know” by Lulu Wang. Her 80-year-old grandmother, known as Nai Nai, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and given three months to live. Her family decided not to tell her she was sick at all. Now Wang has written and directed a film, The Farewell, based on her family’s experience. It features Awkwafina, the wonderful rapper and actor, in her first starring role. GILLIAN ANDERSON
Various locations

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
The first of the Fast & Furious spinoff films, the ampersand-fueled Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is exactly as goofy and fun as it should be. Free of the core saga’s melodrama, the buddy cop comedy finds Dwayne Johnson’s tough guy Hobbs and Jason Statham’s tough guy Shaw flex-bickering and secretly loving each other as they work with Shaw’s super-spy sister (Vanessa Kirby, AKA the sister on The Crown) to fight Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), who, notably, has a robot motorcycle. (In the first five minutes, somebody asks Lore who he is, and he says, “Bad Guy,” which is almost as good of a name as “Brixton Lore.”) If you thought F&F couldn’t get any sillier, Hobbs & Shaw is happy to prove you wrong (the Rock fights a helicopter), and if you thought F&F couldn’t get more emo, Hobbs & Shaw is also happy to prove you wrong (once again, we learn that families, both those we inherit and those we create as we flip dune buggies through the air, are Very Important). In conclusion, vote Hobbs and Shaw in 2020. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

The Garden of Secrets
See a screening of The Garden of Secrets and hear from biomimicry and biophilia experts about how nature-inspired design is both innovative and sustainable.
Northwest Film Forum
Sunday only
Part of Seattle Design Festival.

A German Youth
Jean Gabriel Périot's assembled-footage documentary chronicles the birth of the Red Army Faction, a group of young radical leftists led by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Without drawing conclusions, Périot invites questions about repression, propaganda, and the role of violence in an inherently violent society.
The Beacon
Friday–Sunday

Good Boys
If you think a 12-year-old saying "Fuck" is kinda funny—and for the record, I'm not judging you—then you'll probably have fun with Good Boys. There are a bunch of 12-year-olds in it, and they all say "fuck" a lot, which also doubles as the film's plot synopsis. BEN COLEMAN
Various locations

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
The film adaptation of John Cameron Mitchell's legendary stage play is one of the greatest rock movies ever made, and you should see it on the big screen whenever possible. .
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Thursday only

Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Sure, Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s scope is small, but it gives you everything you could want from a movie: It’s smart, emotional, and even a bit action-packed once Ricky and Hec embark on an unplanned adventure in the forest. But most of all, it’s funny. So, so funny. Wilderpeople is a hugely loveable movie that’s suitable for date night or the whole family, and I know that sounds like a hacky movie poster blurb. But when a movie’s this good, it’s tough to avoid clichés, so I’ll leave you with another: Don’t miss it. NED LANNAMANN
Scarecrow Video
Sunday only

Inglourious Basterds
Basterds isn’t Tarantino’s best film, but it isn’t his worst, either—it’s kind of been forgotten, actually, in the wake of the bigger hit of Django Unchained and the more recent The Hateful Eight. More than anything, Basterds might be notable for being Tarantino’s first go at radically revising real-world history in order to make something like WWII fit into the mold of a wacky, pulpy Tarantino movie. Which makes the question kind of impossible to ignore: Is Tarantino—brilliant director, phenomenal writer, patron saint of movie bros, and a filmmaker who’s been justifiably criticized for his films’ gleeful and constant uses of racial slurs—really the right guy to be revising history? ERIK HENRIKSEN
Central Cinema
Thursday only

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A classic of '50s paranoia, interpreted variously as a fable about communism or middle-class conformity, Don Siegel's adaptation of Jack Finney's serial still has the power to chill.
The Beacon
Thursday only

¡Las Sandinistas!
This recent documentary focuses on Dora Maria Téllez, a medical student turned Sandinista General, and her female comrades who fought for women's rights within the Nicaraguan revolutionary movement.
The Beacon
Sunday only

The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Inspired by a true story, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is about the city’s rapid gentrification and those crazy looks white folks give Black and brown people for daring to feel at home in their own neighborhoods. It centers on carpenter Jimmie Fails, who becomes obsessed with his massive childhood home in the city and sets out on a mission to buy it. These days, it’s going for a cool $4 million. Fails plays a fictionalized version of himself in the film, which he cowrote with his best friend, director Joe Talbot. Almost right off, there are hints the film was directed by a white person. In this San Francisco, white neighbors don’t call the cops, but rather use the threat of calling the cops as a weapon in order to get Black people to scram. After finishing the film, I was left with questions about these characters’ lives: How does Jimmie find time to make money? Where do these Black San Franciscans get their food? It adds another level of too-smooth glaze to the film to never see its main characters working or doing any other life stuff. JENNI MOORE
Ark Lodge

Man from the Future
A scientist goes back in time to rectify a humiliating breakup and has to deal with all sorts of unintended fallout in this Brazilian comedy by Clàudio Torres.
Scarecrow Video
Friday only

Mike Wallace Is Here
Director Avi Belkin’s doc about the famed 60 Minutes reporter—who interviewed everyone from Malcolm X to Ayatollah Khomeini to Oprah Winfrey to Eleanor Roosevelt to Vladimir Putin—is a smart, measured look at Wallace’s greatest journalistic hits and misses, his struggles with depression, and his influence over a changing, weakening news business. Mike Wallace Is Here remains clear-eyed and hard-hitting, just as, one imagines, the no-bullshit Wallace would have wanted it. ERIK HENRIKSEN
SIFF Cinema Uptown

My Father Is My Mother's Brother
Don't be misled, there's no incest involved in this award-winning Ukrainian documentary about a gay punk musician, Anatoly, charged with taking care of his niece while her mother suffers a mental health crisis. Muriel Del Don of Cineuropa writes of this story of love, family, and identity: "The strength of My Father Is My Mother's Brother lies in this freedom, simplicity, intensity of images and the courage of its characters—modern anti-heroes in search of happiness."
Northwest Film Forum
Sunday only

My Neighbor Totoro
Two young sisters befriend a magical forest behemoth, a fuzzy flying rabbit-owl with a huge grin and many unusual friends (who else loves Catbus?), in this gentle and fantastical film about family, love, and the mystical unknown.
Various locations
Sunday only

Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood
Once Upon a Time doesn't have the self-conscious, This Is a Quentin Tarantino Film™ feel of the filmmaker's past few movies. Make no mistake: Nobody besides Tarantino could have made Once Upon a Time—it's a singular thing, uniquely dialed in to his obsessions and quirks. But like Tarantino's best movies, it feels neither reliant nor focused on those obsessions and quirks. We spend the bulk of our time with three people: Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an earnest, anxious, B-list actor whose career is right about to curdle; Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Rick's toughed-up, chilled-out former stuntman and current BFF; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a bubbly, captivating actress who's just starting to enjoy her first taste of success in show business. How Tarantino plays with history in Once Upon a Time is one of the more intense and surprising elements of the film—and, thankfully, it's also one of the best. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

The Peanut Butter Falcon
A young man with Down's Syndrome (Zack Gottsagen) runs away from his group home with hopes to become a wrestler. He's abetted by a small-time criminal (Shia Labeouf) and, more reluctantly, a nursing home attendant (Dakota Johnson). Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle doesn't give it high praise, exactly, but hints that it might please some: "The Peanut Butter Falcon is a nice little movie that barely goes anywhere, but audiences, in a certain mood, might be willing to drift along with it."
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

Poltergeist
Ghosts bend silverware, break glassware, take spiritual possession of a large tree in the backyard, and ultimately decide to open a sizable portal in the living room in Tobe Hooper's haunted-house classic.
The Beacon
Friday–Sunday

Rear Window
A voyeur (James Stewart) in a wheelchair gets his comeuppance when he witnesses a murder and tries to do something about it. His nosiness puts his glamorous girlfriend (Grace Kelly) and his own skin at risk. This suspenseful mystery boasts one of the best opening shots of any film ever.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Saturday only
Part of Dressed to the Nines.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Rather than go the goofy Goosebumps route, André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) seems to have gone full Creepypasta-spooky (though still PG-13) for his adaptation of the '80s children's chillers. Øvredal has proven himself a talented scaremaster, and Guillermo del Toro worked on the screenplay, so, given the powerful pull of millennial nostalgia for childhood frights, this has a shot at being a hit. On the other hand, the trailer boasts such lines as "You don't read the book, the book reads you!", which sounds an awful lot like a line from Blumhouse's 2018 schlocky Truth or Dare, so... JOULE ZELMAN
Various locations

Sound and Vision Film Series
The megatheatre will once again focus on the harmony of sight and sound, with excellently soundtracked movies like Apocalypse Now Final Cut, Goldfinger, Eraserhead, A Hard Day's Night, Raging Bull, and more.
Cinerama

Toy Story 4
How can Pixar continue a peerless run, without turning on autopilot or trumpeting the same themes in movie after movie? The Toy Story franchise is the best example of how Pixar has avoided those pitfalls. Each is about the adventures of a gaggle of charming kids’ playthings, but as the franchise has carried on, the ideas underpinning those high jinks have gotten richer and darker. By Toy Story 3, the first Toy Story's simple message of tolerance became, in part, an exploration of accepting death. The fourth installment eases up a bit, with a much simpler theme of not being afraid to grow up. That’s the challenge facing Bonnie, the little girl who was gifted all of these toys. But with a little help from Woody, she makes a new friend: Forky, a spork with glued-on googly eyes, popsicle sticks for feet, and a pipe cleaner for arms. This strange crafts project becomes Bonnie’s new favorite plaything—which means Woody must protect and mentor this bundle of nervous energy, which only wants to return to the trash from whence it came. ROBERT HAM
Regal Meridian & Thornton Place

Ukrainian Shorts Showcase
These shorts by Ukrainian directors feature small, poetic, personal stories about people in their late 20s/early 30s, about as old as the country itself. Celebrate Ukraine's independence day by watching these tales of parenthood, love, marriage, and life.
Northwest Film Forum
Sunday only

Up
Watch Asian, Asian American, and Asian-starring films—for the last showing, it's Pixar's Up. Before the films start at sundown, enjoy live performances and fun activities for kids.
Hing Hay Park
Saturday only

The Virgin Suicides
It's difficult to think about The Virgin Suicides without considering the French band Air. The band's sexy, chilled-out, down-tempo score is arguably the best part of the film. Often appearing when tragedy occurs, the spacey, solemn music estranges the viewer from the film's violence. When a little girl is dramatically impaled early on, Air kicks in with its moodiness, softly protecting viewers from the gore. It's music for dysphoria. My partner describes the score as feeling like an antidepressant. Also of note: The Virgin Suicide's sound design. As the film's gang of boys flips through the pages of the girls' diaries, trying to learn more about them after their suicides, the rustling of the pages seems to thunder. It's like ASMR for books. I've always loved this detail. It's as if the girls' words are literally heavy. And maybe they are. CHASE BURNS
The Beacon
Thursday only

Yesterday
The latest from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), Yesterday is about a musician, Jack, who, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, wakes up to a world where the Beatles never existed (but Ed Sheeran—who plays himself—does?). Jack remembers the Fab Four, however, and finds rocketing fame and fortune (and a sense of dwindling creative self-worth) performing their songs as if they were his own. LEILANI POLK
Ark Lodge

Also Playing:

Our critics don't recommend these films, but you might be interested in them anyway.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

So I Married an Ax Murderer (Part of Erin O'Kay's Fog City Cinema)

UHF

Where'd You Go Bernadette

33 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend: August 15–18, 2019

Bri Brey — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 13:49:00 -0700

Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hyenas, The Queen, and Other Movies Worth Watching by Bri Brey

This weekend brings Where'd You Go Bernadette, a Cate Blanchett-starring adaptation of local author Maria Semple's hilarious novel—but sadly, early reviews are not favorable. For a better time, rock out with a restoration of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, thrill to more queer glamor with The Queen, travel into Jim Henson's puppet dystopia with the fabulistic The Dark Crystal, or see what classics are playing at Cinerama's Sound and Vision Film Series. Follow the links below to see complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers for all of our critics' picks. If you're looking for even more options, check out our film events calendar and complete movie times listings (which are now location-aware!), and don't forget to see where outdoor movies are playing.

Note: Movies play Thursday–Sunday unless otherwise noted

Cassandro, the Exotico!
"We don't say 'break a leg' in lucha libre. We say 'good luck.'" The line comes from Cassandro, a famous and flamboyant lucha libre wrestler known as an exotico, which is a wrestler who fights in drag. He's talking to Marie Losier, the documentarian behind Cassandro the Exotico!, a brisk and shimmering 16-millimeter film about Cassandro's radical success as the "Liberace of lucha libre." Lucha libre, as Cassandro explains, has included exoticos since the 1940s. In the past, exoticos performed mostly as clowns, but Cassandro says he's changed the game. In 1992, Cassandro won the Universal Wrestling Association World Lightweight Championship as an exotico, which he claims not only changed the Mexican sport, but also "changed the Mexican culture." Thanks to Cassandro, exoticos now get to beat the shit out of people. CHASE BURNS
Northwest Film Forum
Thursday only

Comedy Gold from the American Cinema
This summer, let the silver screen wash over you and enjoy old-school cool with comedic classics like the unusually lighthearted Hitchcock movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Seattle Art Museum
Thursday only

The Dark Crystal
Toxic avarice, environmentalism, slavery, the power of love, the importance of respect for your fellow creature, ethnic cleansing—all of these still-relevant topics are threaded throughout The Dark Crystal in 1982 Jim Henson/Frank Oz puppet-and-animatronic story form. It follows a pair of elf-like Gelflings, the last of their kind, as they embark on a dangerous quest to restore balance to their world by returning a lost shard to the powerful but broken gem of the film’s title. It was one of my favorites as a kid (my tastes skewed morbid), and now that Netflix is releasing that prequel series from the Jim Henson Company, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (available for streaming August 30), now is a good time to get refreshed on the original. LEILANI POLK
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday

Do the Right Thing
One of the best scenes in one of the best movies of the remarkable year 1989, Do the Right Thing, concerns something we are now very familiar with, gentrification. Set on a hot summer day in Brooklyn, the scene goes like this: Black Buggin Out (played by Giancarlo Esposito) gets accidentally run into by white Clifton (played by John Savage), who is wearing a Larry Bird top and leaves a mark on Buggin Out’s brand-new white Air Jordans. Buggin Out: “Who told you to step on my sneakers? Who told you to walk on my side of the block? Who told you to be in my neighborhood?” Clifton: “I own this brownstone.” Buggin Out: “Who told you to buy a brownstone on my block, in my neighborhood, on my side of the street? Yo, what you wanna live in a Black neighborhood for, anyway? Man, motherfuck gentrification.” Then Buggin Out asks: “Why don’t you move back to Massachusetts?” Clifton: “I was born in Brooklyn!” CHARLES MUDEDE
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday)

A Faithful Man
The actor Louis Garrel—one of the most beautiful men in French cinema, and also one of the stars in a film (Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers) with two other beautiful humans, Michael Pitt and Eva Green—is also a fine director. His second film, A Faithful Man, is straightforward, restrained, and short—only 75 minutes, people. For those who enjoy simply watching attractive French people dealing with the twists and turns of love, this is a movie you should not miss. CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum
Thursday only

'Filibus' with Johann Wagner and Sage Fischer (Dolphin Midwives)
Seattle's newest movie theater will screen Mario Roncoroni's 1915 Italian silent film (based on a story by science-fiction writer Giovanni Bertinetti) Filibus, which follows the exploits of a "cross-dressing futuristic sky pirate who pounces on her prey from a zeppelin manned by a crew of loyal henchmen." Johann Wagner and Sage Fischer of Portland's Dolphin Midwives will provide a live soundtrack.
The Beacon
Friday–Saturday

Hausu
A hilarious landmark in bugout madness, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 haunted house tale is about a group of doomed schoolgirls with names like Gorgeous and Kung Fu who fall into the clutches of a genteel—and secretly evil—old lady. Featuring butt-biting flying heads, a hungry piano, and one naughty kitty.
Scarecrow Video
Friday only

Hyenas
The Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty, a "genius" per Charles Mudede, followed up his famed Touki Bouki (1973) with a trenchant satire based on a play by the Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. In Hyenas (1992), when a long-absent, now-wealthy woman returns to her depressed hometown, she offers riches to help the townsfolk get on their feet...if they commit a horrific act on her behalf. Indiewire says it's a "fantastical and witty" commentary on materialism and neocolonialism.
SIFF Film Center
Friday–Sunday

Last Year at Marienbad
You will never make sense of this 1961 film. It is a maze without a center. You enter the work and simply marvel at the way director Alain Resnais has arranged each section of the maze with an architect’s eye for shapes, lines, and the positions of objects. If you think there’s a crime in all of this that needs to be solved, kill that thought right away. You must simply exist within the film’s moments in much the same way a fly exists in a room in one of those novels by Alain Robbe-Grillet. CHARLES MUDEDE
The Beacon
Thursday only

MacGruber
The setup's the same as those of SNL's MacGruber sketches: The mulleted, Miata-driving MacGyver MacGruber (Will Forte) tries to save the world, usually by piecing together half-assed gadgets with random crap that's near at hand, only to discover he's fantastically incompetent and that his half-assed gadgets never, ever work. MacGruber's all over the place, shameless and willing to do whatever it can for a laugh—this film's a hard-R, with welcome doses of profanity and blood and the most intentionally awkward sex scene since those puppets pooped on each other in Team America: World Police. It's pretty fantastic, is what I'm getting at, but to put it another way: When my only complaint about a movie is that it had a good opportunity to squeeze in a Richard Dean Anderson cameo but they didn't go for it, it's probably safe to give it a whole bunch of thumbs up. ERIK HENRIKSEN
The Beacon
Friday–Sunday

Midsommar
When we meet college student Dani (Florence Pugh), she's isolated, enduring a nerve-shredding family crisis behind a mask of feminine selflessness and apparently afraid to reveal her emotions to her distant and manipulative boyfriend, Christian. But once an affection-starved Dani, along with Christian and his bros, follow their friend Pelle to his cultish village in rural Sweden for a mysterious pagan festival, Midsommar blossoms into a flower of a different color. The Americans respond to their surroundings in varying ways: Christian and fellow PhD student Josh try to probe the village's secrets for academic glory, while douchey Mark ogles long-tressed local girls. Dani, meanwhile, wavers between unease with the cult's weird rituals and attraction to its sense of unshakable fellowship. Soon, they're all swept up in rites involving dancing, feasting, and tripping out, unaware that far more transgressive acts are being prepared. The ensuing narrative is expansive, a bit funny, full of elaborate invented culture, and overall less exhausting (and exhilarating) than director Ari Aster's Hereditary. Where Hereditary is about losing a family, Midsommar is about gaining one, a process that's a lot less wholesome than it sounds. JOULE ZELMAN
AMC Pacific Place
Friday–Sunday

No Man of Her Own
A seduced-and-abandoned pregnant woman, played by the indomitable force of cinema Barbara Stanwyck, sees her chance for a better life and steals another woman's identity. But this decision doesn't lead to peace of mind. This suburban noir, based on a novel by pulp master Cornell Woolrich, was directed by Mitchell Leisen.
The Beacon
Sunday only

Phonic Seattle
Not content to enliven Seattle's music scene with two great rock groups—Tres Leches and AIAIA—Alaia D'Alessandro has recently completed a documentary film titled Phonic Seattle. Her aim with this project is to examine how Seattle musicians are adapting to the tumultuous economic changes happening here. Toward that end, D'Alessandro enlisted three musicians—CarLarans, Julie-C, and Reese Tanimura, the last of whom also serves as managing director of Northwest Folklife—to take her on a tour of non-traditional spaces around the city that are bolstering the music scene, in order to observe performances and converse with DIY artists striving to thrive in tough circumstances. In the course of hitting eight different spots, D'Alessandro threads interviews with music. Northwest Film Forum will premiere Phonic Seattle, with a panel discussion involving many of the people depicted in the film. DAVE SEGAL
Northwest Film Forum
Friday only
sold out

The Proposal
“What happens to an artist’s legacy when it’s controlled by a corporation?” This is the central question in Jill Magid’s 2018 documentary The Proposal. In 1995, Swiss furniture company Vitra purchased the intellectual property rights and massive professional archive of Luis Barragán, a highly influential 20th-century Mexican architect. For decades, Mexican art historians and artists have asked Federica Zanco, the Swiss guardian of the work, that Barragán’s archive be made public and returned to its rightful home in Mexico. She has refused. In her impressionistic doc, Magid, a conceptual artist, concocts a perfect plan—or proposal, if you will—that could potentially bring Barragán’s archive out of private hands. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Northwest Film Forum
Saturday only

The Queen
When people talk about drag documentaries, they talk first about Paris Is Burning. That 1990 film about NYC's ball scene has been an inspiration for countless other queens, films, and shows—FX's Emmy-nominated Pose, most notably. But long before Paris Is Burning, there was The Queen, a 1968 documentary about a Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest. The Queen features stars: It's narrated by early drag pioneer Flawless Sabrina and famously includes a scene of drag performer Crystal LaBeija reading the house down for not awarding queens of color their crowns ("I have a RIGHT to show my color, darling!"). NWFF's opening night screening will feature a performance by Cookie Couture. CHASE BURNS
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday

Reports on Sarah and Saleem
An affair between a Palestinian Arab and a Jewish Israeli married to an army colonel attracts the attention of security forces, who exploit the clandestine couple and inadvertently drive them closer together.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Thursday only

Rifftrax Live: The Giant Spider Invasion
The hosts of RiffTrax will offer their comedic roasts of B-movie classic Giant Spider Invasion.
Various locations
Thursday only

Serial Mom
John Waters's suburban black comedy is about a wholesome suburban mom, played with enticing mischief by Kathleen Turner, who discovers a penchant for the murder of town miscreants. Take your own sweet mama to the movies to show your appreciation for all she does for you.
The Beacon
Sunday only

Sound and Vision Film Series
The megatheatre will once again focus on the harmony of sight and sound, with excellently soundtracked movies like Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pan's Labyrinth, and more.
Cinerama

Them That Follow
Olivia Colman isn't in Them That Follow a whole lot, but whenever she's on screen—as Sister Slaughter, the dour, hardened matriarch of a small, isolated Appalachian community of snake-handling Pentecostals—she's all but unrecognizable from all of her other remarkable turns. She's always great, and she's great again here. Sister Slaughter's just one of the authority figures keeping a stern watch on Mara (Alice Englert), a young woman who's all but betrothed to the dorktacular Garrett (Lewis Pullman), an eager follower of Mara's glare-y, shouty father, Pastor Childs (Walton Goggins, predictably excellent). One problem with the whole betrothal thing, though: Neither Sister Slaughter, nor Garrett, nor Pastor Childs know that Mara's pregnant with the child of of the guy she actually loves, Augie (Thomas Mann), who can't wait to get the fuck out this ass-backwards place and never see a snake again Though it presents a hypnotic vision of Appalachia—one where quiet woods, winding roads, and leaf-strewn hills are poisoned by nests of vipers, both literal and metaphorical—Them That Follow probably takes too much time getting to its core drama. But the performances carry it: Not only are Englert, Goggins, and Colman phenomenal, but even with smaller parts, actors like Jim Gaffigan and Kaitlyn Dever somehow embody rich characters who are trapped in a zealous, all-or-nothing faith. ERIK HENRIKSEN
AMC Seattle 10
Thursday only

The Women
A pantheon of major silver-screen actresses—Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, etc.—star in this comedy-drama about women trying to deal with the vagaries of men and cattiness of their own female rivals. It's pretty sexist, but the clothes are magnificent.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Part of Dressed to the Nines.

Also Playing:

Our critics don't recommend these films, but you might be interested in them anyway.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Brian Banks

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Where'd You Go Bernadette

Power Rangers Made Me Feel Old—Because I Am Old, So Very Old

Bri Brey — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 04:00:00 -0700

Power Rangers Made Me Feel Old—Because I Am Old, So Very Old by Bri Brey

Power Rangers these days, amirite?

They're all shiny and sleek! Their mouths move when they speak! They've got Bryan Cranston as their disembodied-head mentor! Ugh. They're like, totally AWESOME.

MY Power Rangers had to walk uphill both ways in nothing but tank tops to get to their juice bar! Now Power Rangers have iPhones. You think Zord battles in the '90s had $100 million budgets? This generation is spoiled with good Power Rangers and they don't even know it!

As much as Power Rangers is peppered with nuggets for fans who grew up yelling, "IT'S MORPHIN' TIME" in public parks, this is the Snapchat version of our beloved Rangers, and because I'm old, I'm confused by it.

The film still hits all the classic marks—teen angst, lessons about uniting to overcome evil, swooshing noises whenever punches are thrown, MORPHING, and giant robot battles. But now the graphics are clean and luxurious, there are a lot more car accidents than I remember (is that what today's teens are into?), and way fewer guitar solos. The lessons are more inclusive, and, other than the distractingly large breast plates on the women's morphed costumes, it's more feminist. The black ranger isn't Black. And best of all, the fight scenes are brain-meltingly impressive. YOU DAMN KIDS DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT WE HAD TO PUT UP WITH IN THE POWER RANGERS OF YORE!

Regardless, my fellow '90s kids should see this movie. Elizabeth Banks' portrayal of Rita Repulsa as an intergalactic zealot is fire (did I use that right?), and there's an abbreviated montage featuring the original theme song that made me audibly shout, "YEAH!" in the theater. But something has changed about these Power Rangers... they're... they're not made for me anymore.

Sure, this Power Rangers moves briskly, and, just like with Marvel movies, I almost cried at the three-quarter mark. But TBH (what does that even mean?), I left the theater and immediately went home and watched 1995's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie movie to cleanse my palate. Then I drank a Crystal Pepsi. If you need me, I'll be over here shaking my fist at the sky until I'm dead.

How to HUMP!

Bri Brey — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 04:00:00 -0700

How to HUMP!: A Guide to the Film Festival Where Everyone Is Sexy and Porn Isn't a Dirty Word by Bri Brey

Let's talk about HUMP!, bay-bee! Click here for tickets and line-up.

HUMP! is the world-renowned amateur porn film festival featuring a collection of hot shorts submitted by enthusiastic amateurs just like YOU! Created and curated by everyone's favorite sex-advice columnist, Dan Savage (crowd goes wild), and your favorite local alternative weekly newspaper (The Stranger, natch), HUMP! is pornography by the people, for the people, and the Pacific Northwest's number one source for organic, homegrown erotica. It's showing November 3–6 at SIFF Cinema Uptown and November 9–13 at On the Boards.

In its 12th year, we still think HUMP! is the best fucking (literally) film festival in the universe. And the laughs, sex, dicks, kinks, boatloads of come, and cash prizes have only gotten bigger and better. So whether you're a seasoned veteran or a virginal newbie, here's how to do HUMP! right.

LEAVE YOUR JUDGMENT AT THE DOOR

During HUMP! you will laugh, scream, be turned on, hide your eyes in shock, and absolutely learn something new. And that's because this year's lineup is going to show you things you never knew existed, never imagined could be sexy, and would NEVER click on if you were looking to get off in the privacy of your own home. But what is life without variety? Be brave. The filmmakers were brave enough to have sex on film for you to watch. So why not be bold for 90 minutes and enjoy what they have to share?

BE SEX-POSITIVE

Porn should represent everyone, and HUMP! is a porn democracy! It's about the freedom to show off who and what you're into without fear or hesitation. You don't have to have big fake boobs or a massive schlong to do it. We've got tons of spunk, spank, kink, style, grace, and a rainbow of hot sex to tickle every size, shape, gender, color, and preference. That being said, keep any negative body/sex shaming garbage out of your mouth like a respectful adult!

DITCH THE PHONE

We ask all audience members to turn their phones all the way off during HUMP! to insure the anonymity of our filmmakers. We don't want any photos, videos, Snaps, or sound clips to leave the theater, because these filmmakers want to be porn stars for the weekend—not for the rest of their lives on the internet. So take a deep breath and unplug for the screening. Your phone will still be there when the show is over. If we see your phone on during the show, we will take it from you and we won't give it back. We're that serious.

REACT

At HUMP! we encourage you to have a natural reaction to the things you see on the big screen. If something is hot, give it a whoop! If something is funny, laugh! If something is shocking (and let's be real, some of it is), gasp! And if something really freaks you out, just close your eyes for a few minutes. By the time you open them, a new film will be playing to titillate you!

PREPARE TO SEE SOMEONE YOU MIGHT KNOW

This year we had nearly 100 film submissions from businesspeople, fisherpeople, puppy players, puppeteers, animators, sewer dwelling radioactive turtles, mail carriers, comedians, and more. We received globetrotting entries from as far away as Berlin and the UK, but the majority of the entries still come from our home in the good ol' Pacific Northwest. That means if you live in Portland or Seattle, you might see someone you know! What should you do if you see your neighbor, friend, or coworker on the screen? Enjoy the momentary voyeurism and give them a knowing high-five the next time you see them!

NERVOUS? BRING A FRIEND, DRINK A DRINK

At some point during the show, you might need a pal to turn to and give a wide-eyed stare of shock, or a sexy side-eye. It's fine to go it alone, but HUMP! is best enjoyed in a group and slightly (repeat: SLIGHTLY) lubricated—so grab your squad and a drink!

PERV OUT (APPROPRIATELY)

If watching porn in a theater surrounded by hundreds of strangers seems a little pervy—that's because it is. But it's also fun! And it's good for building a sex-positive society! So enjoy the unique experience.

KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED

If you're wondering if these films were made especially for your HUMPing eyeballs and this festival, many of them were. So be on the lookout for this year's extra-credit items: a "Make America Great Again" hat (we encouraged filmmakers to avoid giving any money to Donald Trump by making or buying a knockoff) and an accordion. Imagine the possibilities!

VOTE!

Put aside your election-related angst and vote for your favorite films at the end of the screening. The winners will receive huge cash prizes awarded by audience ballot, and this year's categories and prize packages are:

Jury Award (chosen by those who curated HUMP!): $1,000

Best Humor: $2,000 First Prize, $1,000 First Runner-Up

Best Sex: $2,000 First Prize, $1,000 First Runner-Up

Best Kink: $2,000 First Prize, $1,000 First Runner-Up

Best in Show: $5,000 Grand Prize

JUST STFU AND DO IT ALREADY

HUMP! is porn for women. It's porn for men. It's LGBTQIA and straight. It's porn for cis and trans, kinky and vanilla, big and small. COME ONE, COME ALL! HUMP! IS PORN FOR EVERYONE. We know you'll love this year's lineup as much as we do, and here's a sneak peek at the films you'll be seeing at the 2016 edition of HUMP!

The Forbidden Tango

It takes two to tango—and these sexy boys really love to dance. Clean up on aisle dance floor!

Fuck on the Mount

An adventurous couple shows off their acroyoga and oral skills in front of some gorgeous scenery. Destination fucking—our new favorite sport!

You've Got Tail

A mail carrier gets bit by the puppy-play bug when he discovers a house full of sexy, submissive doggies and their master. We've never seen such a creative Kong substitute!

Birthday Boss

Workplace power dynamics can be hot, as proved by this hilarious phone-sex session!

Camping Trip

Pitch your tent and give that air mattress a good blow, because we're going camping! This film goes from bromance to Brokeback real quick—and who needs lube when you have sunscreen?

Art Primo and the Rainbow Dildo

Sometimes all you need to get off is a sexy belly-dancing outfit, some quality camera gear, and a giant rainbow dildo.

Correspondence

This kinky couple's video diary—filmed over the course of a year—will have you believing in soul mates: One person can be the person you want to pee on, the person who wants to watch you pee on yourself, and the person who wants to fuck you senseless in a field before going home to masturbate onto some pomegranate peels. True love is real!

Cock-A-Pult

We could play with this contraption all day. GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!

I'm Not Poly but My Boyfriends Are

Sex-positivity doesn't come easily for everyone. But it's never too late to embrace who you are and what you want! That's what the star of this film has learned—as have all of her boyfriends!

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

A dreamy octopus takes liberties with a lonely woman. A beautiful animated romp—and tentacle porn's first appearance at HUMP!

Toys, Trans, and Training

A lesson in ass-eating, blowjobs, rim seats, and scorching hot sex.

A Pervert's Guide to Avoiding Loneliness

Remember your college friend who would pick up a guitar at every party? Well, he got himself an accordion—and a jock strap—and now he's gonna sing us a song about his long list of kinks.

It's Fucking Complicated

Communication is key, and for this couple, the laundry list of "things I'm really into" is longer than usual. But once they get it all out in the open, they're #1 at doing sex!

The Little Merman

A sexy merman rescues the man who could be the love of his life—but to be with the man of his dreams, our merman is going to need two legs and something big between them. A fairy tale for the ages.

Summer Fuckation

What did you do last summer? This hot sporty couple fucked at Burning Man, climbed (and fucked) on some rocks, and even fucked in the sky. Their sex conquers all summer activities, and it's hot as hell!

Boat Daddy

Two gorgeous seamen do a lot more than sailing. A vintage feel paired with a classic fuck.

Playing Scrabble

A demure game night turns into a wild orgy featuring clowns, fisting, whipping, screaming, and a bodily fluid we've never seen at HUMP! Consider yourself warned.

Fucking Boring

BDSM and three-ways are great way to avoid boring sex—but basic can be sexy, too. Bring on the Netflix, tea candles, and cuddles. But don't forget to feed your gimp before you go to Bed Bath & Beyond!

Breakfast in Bed

What's a boy to do after some hot early morning sex? Make his man something equally hot for breakfast...

Sock Puppet

An adorable musical number featuring sock puppets, xylophones, and intergenerational fist fucking!

Savage Kingdom

Observe the elusive wild gimp in its natural habitat. Highly educational!

Sexucation: Just Jizz

An infomercial for an alternative cure-all. You'll want to order a case of Just Jizz after you watch!

HUMP! screenings are already selling out. So what are you waiting for? Get your tickets NOW at humpfilmfest.com!