Film 22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again

Published 7:38 am Saturday, July 5, 2014

Film

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Meridian, 1501 Seventh Ave., Seattle, WA 98101 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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A Hard Day’s Night The music business is fond of remastering old tracks and selling us new versions of familiar songs. You get that, plus a full visual restoration, in this 50th-anniversary edition of A Hard Day’s Night. Beatlemania was famously launched in the U.S. with the band’s February 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and mini-tour. Returning to the States that summer, the Beatles played Seattle on August 21, their third stop on a 23-city tour. But what if you weren’t lucky enough to live in one of those cities? Or what if you needed extra incentive to purchase the records, buy concert tickets, or watch their Ed Sullivan appearances? That’s what A Hard Day’s Night, cannily released in August (with the eponymous album), was all about. It’s both a genius marketing device and an enjoyably shaggy comedy-with-music. American teenagers already knew the songs in ‘64 (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “She Loves You,” etc.), and they’d seen the Beatles on newsreels and TV. But what the first Beatles movie did was cement these four personalities in the public imagination. Never mind that John, Paul, George, and Ringo were the somewhat-manufactured roles devised by Brian Epstein, their manager; A Hard Day’s Night gave these characters room to roam. Director Richard Lester and screenwriter Alun Owen built upon each moptop’s popular persona, layering gag upon gag on what we thought we knew about them. Was Ringo really the lazy, irresponsible one or George the quiet one? No, and it really doesn’t matter. The Beatles were cheerfully selling themselves in a vehicle that combines English music-hall humor with the cinematic energy of the French New Wave. Fifty years later, we’re still happily buying. (Also plays SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Friday, July 4, 2014

Begin Again As with his 2007 hit Once, writer/director John Carney again presents such an optimistic story, with all its dreamers, losers, opportunists-and original score-this time framed in Manhattan instead of Dublin. Keira Knightley is Greta, faithful girlfriend to up-and-coming rocker Dave Kohl (Adam Levine) and an aspiring songwriter herself. (Knightley performs her own songs, which bear some resemblance to Aimee Mann’s.) After Kohl scores a record deal, the pair moves to Manhattan, where he’s quickly seduced by the industry’s trappings. When Greta turns to fellow busker Steve (James Corden), he whisks her out to an open-mike night in the Village, where she’s discovered by down-on-his luck record exec Dan (Mark Ruffalo). Obviously we expect these two to connect, just as in Once. That film worked for me (and many others) because I could buy the central couple played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (both of them real musicians). Begin Again feels more like something purchased in a SoHo boutique. Greta’s supposed thrift-store chic simply reads as Knightley being expensively styled as Annie Hall. While Carney is again peddling the notion that a musician with a dream can get discovered, the reality of “making it” in the music biz has everything to do with hard work-not simple luck, as is the case here. (R) GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

Citizen Koch Perhaps you recall reading how directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin lost their public-TV funding for the project, then resorted to Kickstarter, because David Koch is on the board of two PBS affiliate stations. Editorial oversight may also have been lost, and one wonders how much Deal and Lessin have tailored Citizen Koch to suit their citizen financiers. Much of the film is set in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker seeks to break public-sector unions, then fights against a voter recall effort. He prevailed in both battles (aided by corporate money), as we know, because they took place over two years ago and were extensively covered by NPR, The New York Times, and company. Citizen Koch’s roster of talking heads is hugely disappointing: a few bloggers and activists, junior-varsity pundits, and the doomed 2012 Republican presidential candidate Buddy Roemer. As with their 2008 doc Trouble the Water, about Hurricane Katrina, Deal and Lessin do better with individual stories than the big picture. “I don’t get where regular people have become the bad guy,” says a Wisconsin prison guard about the barrage of TV ads implying his union (and others) have bankrupted the state. Well, we know where the money came from for those ads. I want to hate the Koch brothers. You want to hate the Koch brothers. But too much of Citizen Koch is old news. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

Hellion Recently widowed Hollis (Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul) insists on repairing the family’s storm-ruined beach house home near Galveston, even though it’s obviously doomed to foreclosure. Meanwhile back home, his two sons are unsupervised and running wild: 10-year-old Wes and, particularly, the budding 13-year-old delinquent Jacob (Josh Wiggins), who’s fond of setting fires, skipping school, talking back, and riding motorcycles. Trying to intervene, but gently, is Aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis, once the hellion herself, refreshingly cast against type). Naturally Jacob is acting out, owing to grief and an absent father. And of course Child Protective Services comes calling. Aunt Pam swoops down for the younger boy, and a remorseful Hollis weeps manly tears in private. And, midway through the movie, one of Jacob’s pack members produces a stolen handgun-which we know must be fatefully fired in the third act. The situation here is very much post-recession, with a family struggling against forces large and small. Although much of Hellion, set in southeast Texas, feels off-the-shelf and familiar, debut writer/director Kat Candler isn’t one to provide easy salvation for her characters. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

Korengal Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington came to SIFF 2010 with their acclaimed war doc Restrepo, which they filmed at great personal risk at a forward U.S. military outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Those events were over two years past when we spoke; and the U.S. had just then withdrawn forces from the Korengal, to Junger’s dismay. Since then, further plans have been announced to withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. Also during the interim, Hetherington was killed while covering Libya’s civil war. So how is it that we are back in the Korengal? Essentially because Junger-and this is not to impugn his motives-had plenty of footage remaining, and he got talked into it. This time around he has less to say. And the soldiers essentially say the same things. The problem here is that the geopolitical situation has changed too much for Junger since filming in 2007-08 (before Obama’s election). Now there’s Bowe Bergdahl, the VA scandal, the recent elections in Afghanistan, and the new Republican fantasy that we ought to be putting more boots on the ground there and in Iraq, not less. We need to be looking ahead at this point, not back. Korengal isn’t exactly a failure of journalism. It’s merely a footnote to a superior, then-timely film. (R) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

Le Chef In this French culinary comedy, the jokes are often corny and the plot twists as predictable as our hero’s classic menu. Chef Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno) is on the brink of losing his third precious Michelin star because he won’t bend to the trend of molecular gastronomy. (The new owners of his bistro demand it.) Meanwhile, Jacky Bonnot (Michael Youn) is a goofy aspiring chef and longtime Lagarde devotee who can’t seem to catch a break-until of course the hallowed chef “discovers” him. Together Jacky and Alexandre hatch a plan to save Cargo Lagarde. That familiar narrative-protege turns hero-has become a cliche in food films, but the subplots here make it slightly less derivative, as both men tend to their own botched personal relationships. Despite the flaws of Le Chef, directed by Daniel Cohen, foodies will still love its references to famous French dishes and poking fun at molecular cuisine-even though, like that style of cooking, Le Chef also borders on the absurd. (PG-13) NICOLE SPRINKLE Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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Life Itself For the last 25 years of his life, Roger Ebert was the most famous film critic in America. In his final decade-he died in April 2013-Ebert became famous for something else. He faced death in a public way, with frankness and grit. This new documentary about Ebert focuses perhaps too much on the cancer fight. This is understandable; director Steve James-whose Hoop Dreams Ebert tirelessly championed-had touching access to the critic and his wife Chaz during what turned out to be Ebert’s last weeks. It’s a blunt, stirring portrait of illness. The movie’s no whitewash. The most colorful sections cover Ebert’s young career as a Chicago newspaper writer, which included hard drinking and blowhardiness. Some friends acknowledge that he might not have been all that nice back then, with a nasty streak that peeked out in some of his reviews and in his partnership with TV rival Gene Siskel. Life Itself gives fair time to those who contended that the Siskel and Ebert TV show weakened film criticism. Ebert’s own writing sometimes fills the screen, along with clips of a few of his favorite films, yet this isn’t sufficient to explore Ebert’s movie devotion, which was authentic. Still, this is a fine bio that admirably asks as many questions as it answers. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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Snowpiercer Let me state that I have no factual basis for believing that a train would be able to stay in continuous motion across a globe-girdling circuit of track for almost two decades, nor that the people on board could sustain themselves and their brutal caste system under such circumstances. But for 124 minutes of loco-motion, I had no problem buying it all. That’s because director Bong Joon-ho, making his first English-language film, has gone whole hog in imagining this self-contained universe. The poor folk finally rebel-Captain America’s Chris Evans and Jamie Bell play their leaders-and stalk their way toward the godlike inventor of the supertrain, ensconced all the way up in the front. This heroic progress reveals food sources, a dance party, and some hilarious propaganda videos screened in a classroom. Each train car is a wacky surprise, fully designed and wittily detailed. (Various other characters are played by Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, and Song Kang-ho, star of Bong’s spirited monster movie The Host.) The progression is a little like passing through the color-coded rooms of The Masque of the Red Death, but peopled by refugees from Orwell. The political allegory would be ham-handed indeed if it were being served up in a more serious context, but the film’s zany pulp approach means Bong can get away with the baldness of the metaphor. Who needs plausibility anyway? (R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Friday, July 4, 2014

Tammy Melissa McCarthy has earned her moment, and it is now. After scaring up an Oscar nomination for Bridesmaids and dragging The Heat and Identity Thief into the box-office winner’s circle, McCarthy gets to generate her own projects. So here’s Tammy, an unabashed vehicle for her specific strengths: She wrote it with her husband, Ben Falcone, and he directed. Tammy is an unhappy fast-food worker who gets fired the same day she discovers her husband with another woman. This prompts a road trip with her man-hungry, alcoholic grandmother, played with spirit if not much credibility by Susan Sarandon. Grandma hooks up with a swinger (Gary Cole, too little used) whose son (indie stalwart Mark Duplass) is set up as a possible escort for Tammy. This is where the movie gets tricky: We’ve met Tammy as an uncouth, foul-mouthed dope, but now we’re expected to play along as emotional realities are introduced into what had been a zany R-rated comedy. That kind of shift can be executed, but McCarthy and Falcone haven’t figured out the formula yet. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

The Dance of Reality Bring on the legless dwarfs, cue the full-frontal nudity, and pass the peyote: Alejandro Jodorowsky has made a new movie. Born in 1929, Jodorowsky was already a veteran of wigged-out experimental theater when he devised El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973), films that crammed together intense violence, spiritual searching, and preposterous grotesquerie-guaranteeing their success as counterculture happenings. (Jodorowsky essentially invented the midnight-movie phenomenon.) His latest is an autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in small-town Chile. There’s something almost heartwarming about the fact that this movie is-for all its zaniness-almost a normal film. Jodorowsky himself appears as the narrator, a dapper man given to trailing aphorisms in his wake. His youthful self (played by Jeremias Herskovitz) is a sensitive lad, coddled by a Rubensesque mother (Pamela Flores, whose dialogue is entirely sung) and bullied by a hard-backed Communist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, the director’s son-he was the kid in El Topo). We witness the father’s macho child-rearing habits and his mission against Chile’s right-wing president, a cause that leads to a long and curious third-act detour including dog shows and political torture. Around this curved spine of plot, Jodorowsky brings in a carnival sideshow, sharp childhood observations, and frequent bouts of on-camera urination. Dance of Reality has its share of mystifying moments. But the overall impression is energetic and imaginative, suggesting that all his past insanity had done wonders for this octogenarian’s creative process. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Friday, July 4, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

The Dark Crystal Imagine if the world around Frodo and his LOTR company were created entirely by hand and the characters depicted were life-sized puppets! It took five years to create the 1982 Dark Crystal from the ground up, and although this approach leaves a bit to be desired in its story, the intricacy of the production is incredible. Two “gelflings” (like elves, only with Kermit’s fuzzy skin) embark on a quest to find a shard that will make an all-powerful amethyst complete. When the crystal cracked, two races were born: the evil, dragon-like Skeksis and the kind, hippie-like Mystics. The Skeksis rule with an iron claw as they draw power from the crystal, while the Mystics set out to battle them at a peaceful two miles-per-hour. Directed by master puppeteers Frank Oz and Jim Henson, who considered this to be his best film. Also plays 3 p.m. Sat. & Sun. (PG) ROB ANDREWS Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Friday, July 4, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Team America: World Police This gleefully gory, vulgar 2004 flick-co-written by South Park cranks Trey Parker and Matt Stone and starring “an all-marionette cast”-has some unexpectedly tender moments. Like the scene where WMD-amassing North Korean dictator Kim Jong II (voiced by Parker) bursts into song, dutifully mispronouncing his Ls and Rs, as he explains how “ronery” (lonely) his life can be. But, no surprise in an election year, Parker and Stone also open up a bipartisan can of whoop-ass. Sure, the jingoistic Team America may destroy half of Paris while pursuing some stereotypical Arab terrorists, but the movie also sends up bleeding-heart Hollywood liberals. It accomplishes what even the brilliantly bombastic Michael Moore-who has a memorable, unauthorized “cameo”-never will: an even-handed portrayal of dunderheadedness on both sides of the political aisle. (R) NEAL SCHINDLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Friday, July 4, 2014, 9:30 – 10:30pm

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Dr. Strangelove The 1964 Dr. Strangelove is now closer to the onset of the Cold War (the 1948 Berlin blockade) than we are today from its 1989 demise, when the Berlin Wall came down. The antic black comedy by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with Terry Southern, is a keepsake from an age when nuclear annihilation threatened to arrive each day with the morning papers. (So, too, is LBJ’s nuclear countdown “Daisy” ad from the same year.) Potential armageddon was just another daily fact of life. Today, 50 years later, no one worries about a rogue American general (cue Sterling Hayden) commandeering some A-bombs. And Putin’s Russia only cares about wealth and empire, not kilotons and megadeaths. All our modern worries come from small, smeared spots on the map-not like the majestic, high-tech clarity of the B-52 paths charted in Kubrick’s war room. With Peter Sellers playing three roles in the film, Dr. Strangelove reads almost like a farce from the dinosaur age: Were the planes really that big? Did we really employ former Nazis? Were women just playthings? And were we really that insane? The answer on all counts is yes. See GI website for showtimes. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Saturday, July 5, 2014

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Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait A year before the notorious 2006 World Cup head-butt that ended his career in disgrace, this documentary followed the famous Real Madrid midfielder through an entire match. It basically excludes his teammates (including Ronaldo and David Beckham) and ignores the score to focus on his fragmented states of mind and play. With occasional underscoring by Mogwai, the doc isolates him from every angle, amplifies and redirects the sound, plays with the speed and framing to emulate his (and our) subjective experience of the game. The 90-minute match becomes a trance film, and Zidane a sullen kind of performance artist who repeatedly spits, yells, argues with the refs, drags his toes in the turf-looking miserable, petulant, and incomplete until he touches the ball. Then, in one memorable run past three Villareal defenders that culminates in a perfect high left cross to Ronaldo, all that negative energy reverses itself into magic. His gift isn’’t just that one minute of inspired play, but to endure the other 89 minutes of anguished waiting. (Also screens at 7 p.m.) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Saturday, July 5, 2014, 3 – 4pm

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Masterpieces of Polish Cinema Martin Scorsese helped select this traveling archival program, which includes Andrzej Wajda’s 1972 The Wedding among seven other titles. See the NWFF website for full schedule and details. (NR)

Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Monday, July 7, 2014

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Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch’s vampire film is full-bodied and sneaky-funny, a catalog of his trademark interests yet a totally fresh experience. It’s his best work since Dead Man (1995). Eve (Tilda Swinton) is a denizen of Tangier, where she slouches around the atmospheric streets at night. Adam (Tom Hiddleston) lives in Detroit, where he creates arty rock music and collects guitars. Adam needs Eve, so she joins him for sessions of nocturnal prowling. One does not expect much in the way of plot; and when Eve’s reckless sister (Mia Wasikowska) comes to town, it almost seems like an intrusion. The pace has been so languid and luxurious until then, you might actually resent this suggestion that a story is threatening to break out. Why would vampires need a storyline? They live on without much change or growth, and can’t even look forward to an ending. So Jarmusch’s dilatory style actually suits their world nicely. The timeless vampires seem depressed about what has happened to the world. All one can do is cling to culture and wait out the decline, holding tight to the books and vintage LPs and centuries-old apparel that serve as markers of a better time. (Second show at 9:15 p.m.) (R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, July 7, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The Royal Tenenbaums (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by Magnolia (from Paul) on Wednesday. (R)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, July 7, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Thursday, July 10, 2014

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Movies at Magnuson Park This popular series begins with Grease. Gates open at 7 p.m. Movie at dusk. 1978’s most popular film cemented John Travolta’s movie superstardom, and gave Olivia Newton-John her only taste of it. And, make no mistake, Grease-despite the fact that everyone in the cast is obviously old enough to be running the P.T.A.-still looks like the stuff of which legends are made. When the T-Bird gang first calls out “Hey, Zuko!” and the camera zooms in to capture Travolta’s magnificent mug, you know you’re in the presence of a god. Zac Efron? As if. (PG-13) STEVE WIECKING Magnuson Park, 7400 Sand Point Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98115 $5 Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7 – 8pm

The NeverEnding Story The wondrous world of Fantasia takes over EMP’s massive Sky Church screen for an epic night of dragons, wolves, gnomes, and a warrior-child fighting to save the realm from destruction. 30 years after its release, The NeverEnding Story has become a cult classic. EMP Museum, 325 Fifth Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $12 Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7:30pm

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Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Friday, July 11, 2014

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Fremont Outdoor Movies This popular al fresco screening series begins with a free movie, courtesy of Talenti Gelato, which will probably be offering samples. Back in 2001, it wasn’t clear what kind of career Wes Anderson would enjoy after The Royal Tenenbaums; besides gathering what would almost become a repertory company of actors for him, the movie crystalized a number of key themes to recur in his later works. As in Moonrise Kingdom, there’s a longing for the protected cloister of childhood. As in The Grand Budapest Hotel, architecture provides a familiar embrace, a ritual-filled redoubt against the swift-running currents of time. As with Fantastic Mr. Fox, there’s the invigorating thrill of the caper-the illicit act, however small (like catching a ride on a garbage truck), that may not keep you young, but reminds you what it was like to be young. Made when he was only 31, Anderson’s third feature is permeated with the kind of nostalgic detail you’d associate with a man much older. Indeed, the period and place of Tenenbaums-like most of his other movies-are entirely imagined, not something he knew firsthand. You get the feeling Anderson identifies more with the regretful yet rascally old family patriarch (Gene Hackman) than the film’s younger characters (Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Luke and Owen Wilson). I suppose you could call the picture a comedy of disappointment. Other titles on the schedule, running mostly on Saturdays through August 30, include Rushmore, Wet Hot American Summer (presented with Three Dollar Bill Cinema), Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, and that perennial Fremont favorite, The Big Lebowski. Some screenings are 21-and-over events. (R) BRIAN MILLER Fremont Outdoor Cinema, 3501 Phinney Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $5 Saturday, July 12, 2014

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The Magnificent Andersons SIFF continues this unlikely pairing of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson with The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Tues.) and Punch-Drunk Love (Weds.) (R)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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The Magnificent Andersons SIFF continues this unlikely pairing of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson with The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Tues.) and Punch-Drunk Love (Weds.) (R)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Wednesday, July 16, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Film 22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again

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