The holiday film with the most local relevance is almost certainly The Boys in the Boat. It tells the inspirational true story of the UW eight man crew team that improbably dominated better funded collegiate competition, made it to the 1936 Olympics, and showed Hitler the power of good old fashioned American determination.
On screens for the holidays: secret musicals Wonka and The Color Purple
The holidays are always a crowded time at the multiplex. This year brings a slate of movies begging for your attention, two of which are musicals even though their trailers try to keep that fact under wraps. Brief reviews of The Color Purple and Wonka below.
Seattle Film Critics name Top Ten Films of 2023 and honor Lily Gladstone with Hartl PNW Spotlight
This afternoon, the Seattle Film Critics Society (SFCS) announced the creation of a new award to specifically honor the outstanding work of a person with local ties to the Pacific Northwest. Named for the late John Hartl, the Seattle Times film critic whose wrote film criticism and features for the paper for decades, the Pacific Northwest Spotlight award will be presented annually by the SFCS board to acknowledge an exceptional body of work, rather than a single film or performance, that represents the region.
Poor Things rapturously reinvigorates the Frankenstein myth
In a relentlessly inventive take on the Frankenstein myth, a sexually-insatiable experiment stumbles out from a Goldbergian laboratory into a vibrant Ozlike world. Based on Alasdair Gray’s illustrated novel, Yorgos Lanthimos tells a coming-of-age story unlike any other, set amid some of the richest and most dazzling production design captured on film this year. With tremendous and daring performances across the stellar cast, Poor Things earns a must-see spot for holiday season moviegoers and well-deserved recognition on year-end lists and award nominations.
Frederick Wiseman gets you the best seat in the house with Menus-Plaisirs—Les Troisgros
Frederick Wiseman’s newest documentary runs for exactly four hours, probably about the amount of time you’d spend enjoying a dinner service at Le Bois sans Feuilles, the three Michelin starred restaurant run by the Troisgros family at their inn in the French countryside in Ouches. While the price of admission for the film is substantially less than even the a la carte menu at the celebrated restaurant, the intricately observed documentary is nevertheless a sumptuous immersion in the highest levels of new French cuisine.
The Boy and the Heron swoops into theaters this weekend.
The Boy and the Heron (2023 | Japan | 124 minutes | Hayao Miyazaki) In what might be his final film, master Japanese …
Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is an epic production, not a history lesson
The life and times of Napoleon should give plenty of fodder for a biopic. He rose from humble beginnings on his way to becoming one of the most powerful people in the world’s history. The tagline on posters says “He came from nothing; he conquered everything.” It’s quite the story! Sure, several million people died along the way, but who’s counting?
Everyone’s invited to Saltburn for the holidays
The best thing Emerald Fennell does with her sharp satiric follow-up to A Promising Young Woman is giving the always-sublime weirdo Barry Keoghan a whole goddamned movie to finally let his freak flag fly. She brings a distinctly female gaze to a twisty class comedy about an Oxford scholarship nerd falling in (and in love with) with the college’s landed party people elite through the transformative power of doing a fortuitous favor for a fellow student.
May December has notes on a scandal
The names Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau are nowhere to be found in the press materials for Todd Haynes’s new film May December, but anyone alive in 1997 will instantly recognize their story as the launching point for Samy Burch’s screenplay and Julianne Moore’s uncanny performance.
Nostalgia, silliness and oddly placed innuendos meld to make Trolls Band Together
In this newest installment of the Trolls franchise we find Poppy, queen of a large gathering of adorable trolls, and Branch, her eternally sour but also sweet boyfriend prepping to celebrate a wedding between their unlikely friends King Gristle and his sweetheart Bridget, both being the once-hated Bergens. Celebrations are halted when Branch’s older brother John Dory crashes the party to ask for his help to save Floyd, their sibling whose been kidnapped by a nefarious pop duo. John Dory believes the only way to save Floyd is to bring all the brothers back together to reform BroZone, their long-since dissolved boy band.