Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert is a feat of filmmaking. It’s a melodrama starring the actor responsible for one of the most cloying TV characters in my lifetime, and it operates in a genre prone to audience manipulation and overwhelming sentimentality, and it offers few (if any) surprises. Yet, somehow, I actually really, really enjoyed it.
I Am D.B. Cooper asks if the elusive hijacker is actually an area man from Skagit County
D.B. Cooper could be almost anyone so he could just as easily be an old man with a limp and a Goofy sweatshirt in Mount Vernon, out on bail for an assault charge named Rodney, which is who this movie is about.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed intertwines Nan Goldin’s life and photography into a searing portrait of the artist as activist
Although Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty and the Bloodshed puts decades of Nan Goldin’s photography onto the big screen, neither the film nor its subject are stuck in the past.
Empire of Light harkens to the days of beautiful old cinemas and a time of turmoil
Planted firmly in the middle of Main Street, the Empire movie theater could be in any small town from North Britain to Southern California and it would look the same. Hilary (Olivia Coleman) is a White middle-aged woman that works day in and day out in the thankless job of movie theater manager. Taken advantage of by her boss and ignored by everyone else, she lives a life of simple solitude.
Seattle Film Critics Society spotlights achievements in local filmmaking with PNW Award
This morning, the Seattle Film Critics Association (a few of your friendly neighborhood SunBreakers are members) announced nominations for a new annual …
The Inspection finds purpose through service in the DADT era
Elegance Bratton made his name as a filmmaker whose work in documentaries, short films, and television has focused on exploring the lives of vulnerable Black queer and trans young people in New York. With his feature film debut, he tells a lightly fictionalized version of his own troubled youth. Kicked out of his home at age sixteen by a staunchly homophobic mother, Bratton navigated homelessness for nearly a decade until a decision to enlist in the Marines helped him to find new purpose in his life. It’s a deeply personal story, but lyrically rendered with clear eyes, it’s also universally accessible.
Leonor Will Never Die is a tidal wave to absurdity and we’re just along for the ride
Leonor had a rich and lustrous career creating films that everyone loved; she brought joy to the masses and herself. Now as an older woman, her career long behind her, she is directionless, forgetful and desperate to be back in that limelight. Reigniting her passions, she begins reworking an old script and while taking a break is hit in the head by a rogue television set from above sending her tumbling into her own mind where her script becomes reality. This is no joyful reunion of cast and creator, most of her work involved gritty backdrops, guns and deadly scuffles. As she tries to navigate this unexpected journey and find safety in a familiar but dangerous world, back on Earth her son Rudy attempts to revive her from her “conscious sleep” as the doctor puts it.
Steven Spielberg takes us behind the camera with The Fabelmans
Deploying all of the tricks in his bag to conjure nostalgia and convey awe, upstart auteur Stevie Spielberg has at long last made his very own Licorice Pizza. I kid, but loosely fictionalized filmmaker memoirs are really in the air, aren’t they?
Hit the road with Timmy and Taylor for cannibal love story Bones and All
Luca Guadagnino has never shied away from heightened depictions of the pleasures or torments of the flesh. With his adaptation of Bones and All he confronts an entirely different sort of misunderstood passion and hunger in the form of a cannibal love story.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is less mystery and more scrumptious storytelling
A complete departure from the first film in storyline, yet the familiar feel of silliness, tension, and quizzical murder mystery, Glass Onion has no trouble keeping you captivated from beginning to end. A cast of characters, witty, untamed and ridiculous, open the film amidst the pandemic lockdown, all on a group call attempting to open identical mysterious puzzle boxes each received from a mutual friend: the brash and unapologetic billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). After a snappy discourse and several failed attempts, the boxes finally open to reveal invitations to Bron’s luxe private island for a murder mystery party.