A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
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.
Depression can be a black hole of emotions; a never-ending pit that is nearly impossible to claw your way out and Midday Black Midnight Blue is fully encompassed by that black hole from beginning to end. Ian, a man well into mid-life, is haunted by the joy and pain of an old flame.
Spin Me Round is the latest collaboration between Alison Brie and Jeff Baena, whose other films include The Little Hours and Horse Girl. Often, as with The Little Hours and Spin Me Round, Baena’s spouse Aubrey Plaza also stars. Alison Brie’s character is Amber, a young manager in the Exemplary Manager program at Tuscan Garden who finds there may be in Italy for reasons other than her potential in restaurant management.
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.
Several days late but not several dollars short, please see below for a machine-gun rundown of everything else I saw at SIFF …
When I finished watching Rick Charnoski’s narrative feature debut, I was so bowled over I had to see it a second time in as many days on a festival screen—just to determine if my immense love for it was the cinematic equivalent of an immediate, all-consuming crush that evaporates in the harsh light of day. Upon second viewing, I realized my movie-crush was no fluke.
When asked how he sees the movie of his life, Russian opposition presidential candidate Alexei Navalny bristles at the suggestion that his real-life story be depicted as a dry historic drama. It’s a thriller, Navalny asserts. And with that proclamation by its subject, filmmaker Daniel Roher literally opens the curtain on what turns out to be one hell of a thriller—and much more.
Although its “WTF” category was nearly as expansive as ever, this year’s truncated SIFF only featured three actual “playing-at-midnight” midnighters. Jenn takes a look at what worked and what didn’t.
Like anyone or anything just beginning to recover from the metaphoric or literal ravages of a global pandemic, the 2022 iteration of …
A young boy Rolf (Julius Weckauf) and his father Ludwig (Volker Bruch), a journalist who spoke out against Hitler, are racing toward the Spanish border via France attempting to escape the grasp of German soldiers and make it to America where Rolf’s mother waits for them.
