February 16, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 4:05 pm
Anybody who’s been following me on PubliCola for a while will know that I’m a huge fan of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. It’s one of the best portraits of a city ever to hit the silver screen (see my review of it from last March here). I can’t let a screening go by without [...] read more →
February 12, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 1:52 pm
Welcome to this week’s “Totally Agree” and “Totally Disagree.” This week, I Totally Agree with this brainy piece of criticism over at the new-to-me online media magazine FlowTV. Authors Michael Peterson, Laurie Beth Clark, and Lisa Nakamura dissect Avatar’s relationship with gender and disability, which have largely been ignored in favor of attention to the film’s relationship with [...] read more →
By Alexandra Bush at 12:20 pm
If you have any interest in film, ballet, great character study, classic drama, or what Technicolor was really good for, do yourself a favor this week and go see The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, UK, 1948) at the Northwest Film Forum. This landmark film about a maniacally driven ballet director Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) [...] read more →
February 8, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 6:21 pm
Ken Kesey’s classic Sometimes a Great Notion is arguably the great novel about the Pacific Northwest; it’s also a damn good movie. Knockout performances from Paul Newman and Henry Fonda are highlights in this chronicle of a family logging business determined to withstand the encroaching union. “Never give a inch!” is the Stamper family motto, [...] read more →
February 1, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 9:44 am
In general, I agree with Manohla Dargis’ take on the Oscars (“They are bullshit and we hate them”). I am, however, loving the dramatic ascent of Kathryn Bigelow and her Iraq war film The Hurt Locker, which I saw at SIFF last May. Bigelow is competing in Best Director and Best Film categories with her [...] read more →
January 29, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 12:31 pm
This week marks the beginning of FilmNerd Friday Roundups: Every week, I’ll give you one or two must-see films, plus this fun assignment: “Totally Agree” and “Totally Disagree”— where I weigh in on other people’s (opinions, reviews, essays, decisions) from the week in movies. (This week, for example, I Totally Disagree with Northwest Film Forum’s [...] read more →
By Alexandra Bush at 10:15 am
Maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to go to Sundance. In the meantime, I rely on great posts like this one from indieWire about the lucky critics’ domestic faves (“Winter’s Bone,” “Blue Valentine,” “Douchebag”) to help me compile my (hopeful) SIFF watchlist. The beginning festival season is an exciting timel. Four months and counting till [...] read more →
January 26, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 3:31 pm
Last week I wrote about a stand-off between the Northwest Film Forum and SIFF Cinema: In order to spark a debate about exhibition and medium, NWFF had scheduled a 35mm film screening of Planet of the Apes on the same date and at the same time (1/28, 7pm) as SIFF’s BluRay screening of the sci-fi [...] read more →
January 25, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 9:10 am
We know China doesn’t screw around when it comes to publicity, but their announcement that they will rename a mountain in Hunan province after a mountain in Avatar seems to reach a new level. A landmark at Disneyland? A stop on the Universal Studios tour? Nope. Just a mountain in China. read more →
January 22, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 3:35 pm
Unless you have kids or can never get enough of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (playing at Central Cinema), there’s not a whole lot going on this weekend, film-wise. You could spend it going to the multiplex to catch likely Oscar noms, but I’d recommend you get yourself to Scarecrow or On 15th Video and [...] read more →
January 20, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 1:58 pm
UPDATE: NWFF has backed off showing the 35mm Planet of the Apes at the same time as SIFF’s Blu-Ray, but the film will definitely show. As soon as I get a confirmed date, I’ll put it up here. If you’re a classic sci-fi enthusiast, you may have been looking forward to SIFF Cinema’s upcoming “Sci-Fi [...] read more →
January 15, 2010
By Alexandra Bush at 2:05 pm
It’s a mid-20th-century weekend for Seattle film. As Chris mentioned yesterday, the Northwest Film Forum is showing Rebel Without a Cause (1955) tonight, with screenwriter Stewart Stern in attendance. This film, along with oh-so-dreamy James Dean, helped name teen angst as we know it today. It defined a new set of American values for a [...] read more →
