March 22-29, 2006

Local film events and specialty venues.

Send listings two weeks in advance to film@seattleweekly.com

Aaina: South Asian Women Film Focus South Asian women are the subjects and filmmakers of this series sponsored by the Tasveer organization. Expect discussion following most screenings. Friday’s event includes poetry and music. Subjects include musical traditions of Punjab, Bollywood stereotypes, arranged marriages, and female truck drivers. See Web site for full schedule and details. Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 206-686-6684, www.tasveer.org. $5-$8. Thurs. March 23-Sun. March 26.

The Apartment Billy Wilder won three Oscars for this pricelessly acidic 1960 exposé of how the man in the gray flannel suit was spending his time outside the office suite. Jack Lemmon is the guy who lets his bachelor pad become a virtual bordello for his bosses, and Shirley MacLaine is the elevator operator whose cracked compact mirror tells us how she feels about being used by Lemmon’s boss (Fred MacMurray, in one of his best performances). Screened on video; admission includes discussion and snack. (NR) Movie Legends, 2319 N. 45th St., 206-632-2092. $5. 1 p.m. Sun. March 26.

Awesome: I Fucking Shot That This Beastie Boys fan-shot doc opens Friday, March 31; here’s your chance for an early look, in an evening that also includes a 30-minute short about its creation. (R) Pacific Place. Bella Bottega. Price depends on venue. 8 p.m. Thurs. March 23.

Seattle Weekly PickDavverspalooza As the success of SNL‘s “Lazy Sunday” video proves, bite-sized digital entertainment is only going to further erode network viewing practices. The locally made Steve Davvers: Washroom Attendant was apparently hatched as a one-off in 2004, then grew to a series of six episodes (about ten minutes each), all revolving around an overzealous bathroom jockey (Dylan Noebels) with psychic powers. “I can see clearly into the hearts of those who need me most,” he says with way too much conviction—and something like Jeremy Davies’ wide-eyed creepy sincerity. True to its setting, there is some toilet humor, but SDWA also gets at the everyday inanity of the workplace. In a real sense, Steve’s overpowering empathy and frustration make him an unseen orphan character from The Office; you can almost imagine him offering avid life-coaching lessons to Steve Carell off camera. (NR) Jewel Box Theater (Rendezvous), 2320 Second Ave., 206-441-5823. $10. 7:45 and 9 p.m. Wed. March 22.

Seattle Weekly PickA Fistful of Dollars The first of Clint Eastwood’s three “man with no name” films made with Sergio Leone, this 1964 spaghetti Western wasn’t released until 1967 when, of course, everyone correctly judged it to be a ripoff of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. Squinty-eyed opportunist Eastwood drifts into a town torn by a bloody feud; seizing upon the situation with quick-draw reflexes and more than a few funny one-liners, he plays the two equally hateful factions against each other. So we have the flat-brimmed hat, the poncho, the well-chewed cigar, the pages of dialogue Eastwood famously blue-penciled down to a few terse lines. He lets his guns do the talking instead. (R) Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 206-781-5755. $6-9. Midnight. Fri. March 24-Sat. March 25.

Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Fest Panels, discussions, workshops, and visiting speakers (including local journalist Jack Hamann, author of On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of WWII) are part of this three-day confab east of the Cascades. Screening subjects will include grizzly bears in Yellowstone, whale researchers, wind power in New England, our own Iron Goat Trail (yea!), the Exxon Valdez (boo!), and 9/11’s environmental fallout in Lower Manhattan. Ticketing includes various combinations of workshops and accommodation. Sleeping Lady Retreat (Leavenworth), 206-624-9725, www.hazelfilm.org. $5-$100. Thurs. March 23-Sun. March 26.

Joysticks Fight the power! An evil politician (Joe Don Baker) tries to separate kids from Pac-Man and other beloved games at the video arcade in this 1982 curio. Look for perennial TV villain Jon Gries as, well, a villain. As in any ’80s teen exploitation flick, you can expect the obligatory T&A scene, and an important subplot about the nerd losing his virginity. (R) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 206-523-3935. $5-$7.50. 11 p.m. Fri. March 24-Sat. March 25.

Seattle Weekly PickBob Mitchell/Silent Movies The 94-year-old organist, a living reminder that silent movies weren’t, visits Seattle to accompany three films on three nights. John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924) is a classic, action-filled Western about the making of the transcontinental railway. Kenyon Hall, 7904 35th Ave. S.W., West Seattle, 206-937-3613. $8-$14. 8 p.m. Fri. March 24. Greta Garbo stars in the Anna Karenina adaptation Love (1927), with John Gilbert as caddish Vronsky. 8 p.m. Sat. March 25. Forgotten today is 1926’s Hands Up!, a comedy about a spy from the South trying to capture Union gold. 3 p.m. Sun. March 26.

Movies at the Sunset Note all events are free and 21-and-over. The 1977 sketch comedy flick Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) helped launch the careers of director John Landis (Animal House) and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker writing team behind Airplane!(R) Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 206-784-4880. 7 p.m. Wed. March 22. Then rare rock videos are screened. 7 p.m. Wed. March 29.

Music Documentaries First, the hour-long The Myth: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, which apparently follows the cult singer, and his rabidly morose fans, from Prague to London. (NR) 911 Media Arts Center, 402 Ninth Ave. N., 206-682-6552. $5-$7. 7 p.m. Thurs. March 23. Next it’s the feature-length Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?, a look at contemporary Christian rockers, with reference to Pedro the Lion, Demon Hunter, and devout company. (NR) 7 p.m. Fri. March 24.

Portrait of Teresa Look for Ricky Martin, then age 7, as the eldest of three sons in this 1979 family drama from Cuba. Matriarch Teresa (Daisy Granados) struggles to keep her family together, despite her no-good husband, balancing her duties as wife, mother, union steward, and full-time revolutionary. And you thought capitalist women were overworked. (NR) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 206-686-6684. $5. 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. Wed. March 22.

Seattle Weekly PickVertigo SAM concludes its Hitchcock retrospective with his greatest work, the most emotionally resonant tragedy of his long career. Jimmy Stewart is the San Francisco cop, afraid of heights, who falls for Kim Novak, loses her, and then gradually loses his mind while trying to recreate her image with another woman (also Novak, unbeknownst to him). The 1958 psycho-thriller is less overtly Freudian than, say, Psycho, but plunges deepest into the psyche of a guy so in love with a dead woman (who claims to be a reincarnation) that his urges push a live woman—who can’t live up to his ideal—to her death. It’s eros and thanatos dancing to a classic score by Bernard Herrmann (to say nothing of the Saul Bass poster), pulling Stewart inexorably into the fatal whorl of his own passion, like the spiral curl of Novak’s blond hair, like the twisted tissues of his own cortex. (NR) Museum of History and Industry, 2700 24th Ave. E., 206-654-3121. $7. 7:30 p.m. Thurs. March 23.