Local & Repertory As You Like It This British film retrospective continues

Local & Repertory

As You Like It This British film retrospective continues with Father Brown (1954), with Alec Guinness as the titular cleric/detective, the hero of a popular crime series by G.K. Chesterton (NR)

Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63-$68 series, $8 individual, Thu., April 3, 7:30 p.m.

Breadcrumb Trail The history of the ’90s band Slint is related in this new doc by Lance Bangs. (NR)

Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Thu., April 3, 7 p.m.; Sat., April 5, 2:30 p.m.

Dive Bar Film Fest SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 21.

Fateful Findings This indie thriller, made by and starring Neil Breen, is being marketed as one of those “so bad it’s good” cult films a la The Room. You decide how awful-wonderful it actually is. (NR)

Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $7-$9, Thu., April 3, 8 p.m.

Labyrinth Before she was an Oscar winner and sex symbol for the Hubert Selby Jr. set, Jennifer Connelly was a 16-year-old ingenue starring opposite Kabuki-style, feathered-hair-metal goblin king David Bowie in Muppet master Jim Henson’s 1986 one-of-a-kind fantasy flick. This film is a loony artifact from the pre-CG era when the rights to Lord of the Rings were apparently still tied up. (Henson uses puppets instead of computers, of course.) It’s a fairy-tale take on pubescence, as reluctant babysitter Connelly rashly wishes her wee crying brother would be taken by goblins—which naturally occurs. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $6-$8, Fri., April 4, 7 p.m.; Sat., April 5, 3 p.m.; Sun., April 6, 3 p.m.; Mon., April 7, 7 p.m.; Tue., April 8, 7 p.m.

Music Craft: Thin Lizzy The British metal band is captured live during a 1975 concert in Dublin. (NR)

Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, nwfilmforum.org, $6-$11, Thu., April 3, 8 p.m.

Pump Up the Volume Radio host Christian Bale becomes a shock jock in this 1990 teen drama. (R)

Central Cinema, $6-$8, April 4-8, 9:30 p.m.

Red Renewal: Seattle’s Socialist Spring Newly elected city council member Kshama Sawant has brought socialism back to the national spotlight. Now there’s an entire film retrospective that will program titles (some still pending) looking back to our 1999 WTO protests, the great strike of 1919, and other touchstones of the left. See nwfilmforum.org for ongoing schedule. (NR)

Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11, Through May 1.

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A Room With a View The Merchant Ivory filmmaking team scored an international hit with this fairly beloved 1985 adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel. Helena Bonham Carter is the female object of attention between prim Daniel Day-Lewis and passionate Julian Sands. The film is being screened in connection with the upcoming stage musical adaptation at the 5th Avenue Theatre, running April 15-May 11. (NR)

SIFF Film Center (Seattle Center), 324-9996, siff.net, $6-$11, Sun., April 6, noon.

The Terminator vs. Lady Terminator James Cameron’s 1984 time-travel hit made an unquestioned star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger, spawning several sequels (with another possibly in the works). The object here, however, is to compare the film to an unauthorized Indonesian rip-off made in 1989. (R)

Grand Illusion, $7.50-$12, Fri., April 4, 9 p.m.; Sat., April 5, 9 p.m.

Terms and Conditions May Apply Taken as a whole, this Monet of a documentary leaves a terrifying impression of an odious Facebook Industrial Complex that has destroyed our privacy. It begins by parsing the fine print we all accept when setting up social-media accounts, and ends somewhere in the Utah desert at a secret government data farm. Director Cullen Hoback samples damning public statements from the gods of Silicon Valley and hops among continents to interview an eclectic set of experts, including Ender’s Game author Orson Scott Card, Wired editor Chris Anderson, and even Moby (?!?). Cullen is stronger with the allegations than the clarity. After seeing Terms and Conditions, you’ll probably find yourself thinking twice about your next Google search and Facebook status update. You just won’t know exactly why. (NR) DANIEL PERSON Keystone Congregational Church, 5019 Keystone Place N., 632-6021, keystoneseattle.org, Free, Fri., April 4, 7 p.m.

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The Thin Man/After the Thin Man William Powell and Myrna Loy starred as elegant married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles in a half-dozen Thin Man films between 1934-47. Based on the Dashiell Hammett characters, the pair were introduced in 1934, aided by their crossword-puzzle favorite of a pet, Asta. Cocktail swilling sophisticates during the height of the Great Depression, Powell and Loy are free of children or worldly cares—they’ve got money, and lots of it, so how better to spend their leisure time than solving crimes? The plot doesn’t matter terribly (the titular thin man is the murder victim, not Nick); it’s the married panache that Powell and Loy brought to their roles that you remember. See grandillusioncinema.org for screening schedule of both films (G) B.R.M. Grand Illusion, $5-$8, April 4-8.

Ongoing

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier—the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson. (R) ROBERT HORTON Ark Lodge, Guild 45th, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Lynwood (Bainbridge), SIFF Cinema Uptown, Big Picture, others

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The Great Beauty Paolo Sorrentino’s fantastic account of an aging playboy journalist in Rome casts its eye back to La Dolce Vita (also about a playboy journalist in Rome). Yet this movie looks even further back, from the capsized Costa Concordia to the ruins and reproachful marble statues of antiquity. “I feel old,” says Jep (the sublime Toni Servillo) soon after the debauch of his 65th birthday party. He’s been coasting on the success of his first and only novel, 40 years prior, content with his goal to be king of Rome’s high life. Jep is a dandy with thinning hair brushed back and a girdle beneath his silk shirt. False appearances are all that count, but it takes intelligence to deceive. Disgust—and then perhaps self-disgust—begins to color his perception of the whole “debauched country.” (NR) B.R.M. Sundance

The Lunchbox In teeming Mumbai, a network of Dabbawallahs delivers hot lunches to desk-bound bureaucrats like Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a lonely widower nearing retirement. His food is commercially cooked, while luckier office workers have wives back home who employ the same Dabbawallah delivery service. Somehow the lunches get switched, regularly, between Saajan and neglected housewife Ila (Nimrat Kaur). What’s worse, her distracted and possibly adulterous husband can’t even taste the difference! She’s hurt and offended, while Saajan is delighted with his misdirected meals. The Lunchbox is the simple story of their epistolary friendship. Saajan and Illa communicate by notes, and nowhere does writer/director Ritesh Batra seriously suggest his two leads will ever hook up. The Lunchbox merely describes an increasingly hectic, impersonal city, where two kindred spirits crave human connection. (PG) B.R.M. Harvard Exit

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I By titling his new project Nymphomaniac, and letting it be known that this four-hour, two-part picture includes marquee names and unsimulated sex, Lars von Trier is acting up again. There goes that old devil Lars, fanning the flames as always. Within a few minutes, there is little doubt about the filmmaker’s seriousness. Not that the film is without a playful side; droll Danish humor is abundant. But this is a real journey, recounted to us by a woman named Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who is discovered, beaten up, in an alley. Her rescuer, Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), listens intently to her account of a life in thrall to sex, but he also interjects his own spin on things. She is no mere slave to her libido, however—this story is about how Joe frames sexuality, uses it (to borrow a phrase from Pat Benatar) like a weapon, studies it, or succumbs to it. (Stacy Martin plays Joe as a young woman, in an impressive film debut.) Joe describes herself as a sinner, but is von Trier really going to take that at face value? (NR) R.H. Varsity