A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
As baby Superman is quickly pushed into a spaceship by his parents to save him from their crumbling world, we find out that he wasn’t alone on his trip to Earth. His best bud, a pup named Krypto, stows away and offers company in the strange new land. Jump forward a few years and we see Superman as we know him. As per usual, he has the major hots for Lois Lane and as he readies himself to pop the question, Krypto freaks out thinking he’s being replaced…
Is there any sadder fate than being the last (rich) white man in Brooklyn without a hit podcast? Sure, Ben Manalowitz (B.J. Novak) has a plum job at the New Yorker (not New York magazine), a huge apartment with a view, no shortage of rooftop party invites, and a phone that’s constantly blowing up with messages from the half-dozen women he’s simultaneously casually “dating”. But he (feels that he) has (somewhat incongruously given his actual job) no platform by which to prattle his ideas about the true source of America’s divisions — not by geography or politics, but by asynchrony and self-curation — into the ears of millions of captive listeners. Such is the central challenge facing Ben in Novak’s debut as a feature film director.
After a topsy-turvy couple of years in which big films tiptoed back into cinemas, Nope, the third feature from Jordan Peele lands in theaters this weekend. In a bombastic blockbuster season of big planes and superhero bloat, Peele’s cryptic tale of weird happenings in a lonely gulch of inland California might just be the best time you can have at a movie theater all summer. Chase and I saw a promo screening this week and couldn’t wait to talk about it.
The adjective I can’t escape when thinking about the new movie Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is “delightful.” It’s a charming little mid-century, working-class, romantic comedy led by the wonderful Lesley Manville that is just a joy to watch.
The people of Zol, after years of civil war, have the neighboring Aquafa securely under their thumb. Val, a war-weary former soldier from the now dispersed Broken Antlers (an elite fighting squad of the Aquafa people), is reduced to working in a mining camp alongside fellow Aquafa’s just to earn a meager living. Val still mourns his family who were lost to a disease brought on by a mysterious pack of wolves killing anyone they attack and bite, but whom oddly tend to steer clear of the Aquafa people. Assumed long since gone, the fear of these wolf packs has waned but after attacking several groups of people throughout the kingdom including the Emperor and everyone in Val’s mining town, many are dying from the disease they carry called Black Wolf Fever or mittsual. Both Val and a young girl, Yuna, are bitten but somehow survive the attack and escape their servitude finding a small village to settle in.
The story is predictable with the usual messages about the power of being different and earning trust and all of that usual stuff. It is also consistently silly but has a surprisingly high batting average of jokes that land.
A boy, a young man, and a middle aged tech guru all have one thing in common: their spirits. With each life lived, the challenges, missteps and bad choices follow our protagonist like a shadow and he seems to learn very little until we meet the young Leng Heng (portrayed by Leng Heng Prak). His family and community is facing forced removal to make way for a high speed train and while his mother fights for their home, Leng fights growing anxiety and sleeplessness as visions plague his dreams. Realizing that he may be seeing his past selves, he and his friends go on a journey for treasure, but what they find instead is far more enthralling and insidious than he could have imagined.
A narrator makes all the difference in the world. One can easily imagine the story of French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died together while observing the eruption of Mount Unzen, told with withering nihilistic disbelief by Werner Herzog. Or their matching red knit caps as the centerpiece of the production design for a twee fictionalized version of molten melancholy by Wes Anderson, perhaps the Life Volcanic. Instead, in her compilation of the couple’s own photos and films, Sara Dosa has enlisted the talents of Miranda July, who conveys the story of their lives together with boundless wonder and aching romance.
Set during an experimental art collective’s stay at an elite monthlong creative residency in an English country manor house, Peter Strickland’s latest cinematic provocation will certainly raise both eyebrows and questions. Peter Strickland’s newest film played as part of this spring’s Seattle International Film Festival, Tony and I saw it separately, and enjoyed the cinematic feast with varying levels of indigestion. Regardless, we both agree that for those of certain appetites, it’s worth your time. With the film getting a theatrical run this weekend, we revisit our warmed-over festival reactions.
Somehow we’re already halfway through 2022. Amid the fireworks and festivities of the long weekend, we took stock of our favorite movies of the year. We each separately compiled our individual lists and in a surprising bit of unanimity we all picked the DANIELS’ maximalist multiverse-spanning sci-fi saga Everything Everywhere All At Once as our favorite.
