To its enormous credit and occasional detriment, Jacques Audiard’s improbable musical is as mercurial as its title drug kingpin-to-society queen would-be heroine. With something new every few minutes the boldly ambitious film succeeds in never being boring while it has an enormous amount to say (sing).
Category: Festivals
Movie Festivals around the world
Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin shine in Sundance standout A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are terrifically paired as an anxiety bundle and his charismatic chaos monster cousin.
Live from your favorite local cinema, it’s Saturday Night
Jason Reitman’s hyperkinetic dive into the unbelievable 90 minutes of chaos before the first ever episode of Saturday Night Live is hardly a study in extreme competence, but it’s a hell of a ride.
Seattle Queer Film Festival opens tomorrow, goes online Monday
Maybe due to the changing of the seasons, October’s a big month for film festivals in the Pacific Northwest. Hot on the heels of Local Sightings and just as SIFF’s Docs Fest is winding down, the Seattle Queer Film Festival rises.
In The Outrun a stellar Saoirse Ronan searches for recovery, grace, and little birds
There’s nothing quite like a sobriety memoir to put an actor through their paces and Saoirse Ronan goes on a full marathon as an alcoholic searching for recovery, grace, and little birds in the harsh windswept beauty of the outer Orkney Islands
Are We Not Film? SIFF DocFest returns this week
Tomorrow begins one of my favorite mini-festivals in Seattle: SIFF’s annual DocFest. It’s a week-long festival celebrating some of the best new-ish documentaries out there (and in true Seattle fashion, this week goes from Thursday to Thursday, so it is actually eight days long).
Sweetheart Deal is a moving story of heartbreak and tragedy on Aurora Avenue
Sweetheart Deal is 98 minutes of tragedy and heartbreak but it also felt so vital and important to tell the stories of these women who suffer from so much abuse and marginalization. “Sex work is work” and “my body, my choice” are good, rhetorical, platitudes (that I believe) but they are also too vague to meaningfully represent anyone whose choice and autonomy are often taken out of the equation, often by situations far beyond their control.
The Wild Robot takes flight with gorgeous animation and voice acting
A movie about a lost robot and a cynical loner fox raising an orphaned goose, plus the power of unlikely animal friendships? It’s as if this gorgeously animated marvel was built in a lab specifically to make me weep. Task accomplished, satisfaction rating 10/10.
Kate Winslet brings a spotlight to a pioneering photojournalist in Lee
In the title role of Lee Miller, Kate Winslet embodies the humanity of a pioneering photographer who was driven to bravely document the front lines of World War II.
Local Sightings started off another stellar fest this weekend
This weekend saw the kickoff of Seattle’s 27th Local Sightings Film Festival ten-day run September 20th – September 29th. Hosted at Northwest Film Forum (and online), it showcases the best and brightest the Pacific Northwest has to offer, both new and established. Filmmakers from WA, OR, AK, ID, MT, BC, and the Yukon are all eligible to participate which adds a mix of cultures, perspectives and styles for us to enjoy. Just as in years’ past the festival includes short and feature film programs that run the gamut from documentaries to experimental films.