A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
Like the previous Naked Gun and Airplane! movies, the comedy here relies on puns, physical humor, deadpan, and visual gags. Most of the bits fall flat (the law of averages demands it), and the humor can sometimes be scatological and certainly not for everyone—but man, did I enjoy it. Director Akiva Schaffer, from the comedy trio the Lonely Island, clearly knows how to generate laughs in the compact 85 minute running time.
The Fantastic Four has proven to be an oddly tricky team of superheroes to adapt. After decades languishing in the custody of other studios, Marvel finally got their “First Family” back after a pricey union with 20th Century Fox. Six years after those nuptials, the first MCU-produced family takes its first steps onto the big screen this weekend. With a fresh visual palette and a quaint sense of optimism, it’s a reliably agreeable re-introduction to a quartet that’s slated to be a key piece of Marvel’s latest phase of storytelling, that falls somewhere between Fantastic Snore and Fantastic Fine on the excitement-meter.
Hard to believe it’s already been five years since the SARS-CoV-2 landed on our shores, and the response to the novel coronavirus shredded the hearts and minds of the United States into a toxic waste dump whose halflife remains unknown. Or at least that’s the feeling that one gets from watching Eddington, the latest from the twisted mind of horror auteur Ari Aster. After a Cannes premiere approximately coinciding with the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, it crashes into theaters this weekend like the Kool-Aid Man running through a brick wall, but more painfully.
In 2023 Megan Griffiths debuted Year of the Fox at SIFF and Morgen had the delightful opportunity to interview our local director darling about this new venture collaborating with writer Eliza Flug (whose life the story is based on). You can now see this dark and thought-provoking drama at SIFF Film Center through 7/13.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that there’s a new Superman movie heading to theaters this summer. If you are living under a rock, the Man of Steel will cheerfully use his super-human strength to hold up said rock long enough to move yourself, your family, and your worldly possessions to much more stable housing.
Everyone was right: Eva Victor’s wondrously delicate and wry Sorry Baby is definitely the film of Sundance (and later, SIFF). As producers, Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski basically never miss. It’s now back in Seattle.
Taking place in the “Jurassic” universe, a secret scientific lab set up on a remote island not only cloned, but spawned super-beasts both grotesque and lethal. Jump ahead thirteen years to Mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansen) being offered unimaginable wealth by an overly eager big pharma rep, to lead a team that will extract dino DNA from live specimen near the now defunct lab. Bennett, her ragtag crew, the pharma rep and reluctant, recently unemployed, paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) seek out three specific species to snatch some blood then gtfo before you can say “Hold onto your butts”.
We’re just past the halfway point of 2025; so to commemorate the occasion a few of your friendly neighborhood SunBreakers took stock of the films we’ve seen so far.
Joseph Kosinski continues to establish himself as the cinematic poet laureate of aging men and fast metal. Like Maverick before it, F1 The Movie sees a past-his-prime speed demon called back into service for one last shot to live out his dreams and save a massive enterprise. Both might be better interpreted as death reveries, but damn if it isn’t incredibly fun to coast alongside their heroes in the perpetual golden hour of wish fulfillment.
Kudos to recent horror franchises for changing stuff up. 28 Years Later expanded its siege-horror foundation by steering it into the realm of post-apocalyptic dark fairy tale. M3gan 2.0, by contrast, doesn’t so much radically depart from its predecessor as significantly shift the emphasis of the genres it combines.
