Local & Repertory
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure This 1989 time-travel comedy about two genial teenage ninnies struck an extended Reagan-era chord. Their sheer cluelessness, and affability, made them like chips off the old Gipper. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter may be dumb American teens, but they’re dumb American teens willing to learn a bit about history (just enough to graduate high school and preserve their band, Wyld Stallyns). Meeting Lincoln and Socrates, among other historical figures, may not make them wise. But at least they cheerfully embrace the idea of wisdom, instead of sneering at it. A 1991 sequel didn’t recapture the B&T magic, yet a trilogy—said to be in development—might work if the two characters were brought forward to early middle age, kids, wives, and mortgages. (PG) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 324-9996, siff.net. $7-$12. 11:55 p.m. Sat. & Sun.
Czech your Head Short films featuring puppetry and stop-motion from the Czech Republic are screened. (NR)
Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org. $5-$9. 1 p.m. Sun.
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Double Indemnity Barbara Stanwyck’s double-crossing Phyllis is perhaps the iconic femme fatale of film noir—a sultry schemer who, in Billy Wilder’s superior 1944 adaptation of the James M. Cain crime novel, seduces a sap (Fred MacMurray) and tricks him into murdering her husband. Walter’s pal and fellow insurance investigator (Edward G. Robinson) is the only figure of decency in the movie. And he warns Walter about what will inevitably follow the fatal train “accident” that Phyllis orchestrated: “Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later. And when two people are involved, it’s usually sooner.” (NR) B.R.M. Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684. $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Weds. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
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Goodbye to Language We haven’t seen it, and Jean-Luc Godard’s new 3-D movie may never open in Seattle for a regular engagement. So this is a rare opportunity, presented by Northwest Film Forum, SAM, and Paul Allen’s newly renovated Cinerama. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw calls it “an uncompromising and exasperating 70-minute cine-collage placed before us on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, composed of fragments of ideas, shards of disillusionment.” (NR)
Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave. Tickets: 448-6880 and cinerama.com. 7:30 p.m. Tues.
Leon: The Professional Long before she won her Black Swan Oscar, Natalie Portman starred with Jean Reno in this stylish, violent 1994 English-language picture from Luc Besson. The European cut verges on kinderporn, so we’re guessing this version favors bullets over January-November age-inappropriate romance between the European hitman and the 12-year-old orphan girl he takes under his wing. Extra bonus: the over-the-top corrupt New York cop played by Gary Oldman—just what kind of drugs is he on? (R) B.R.M. Central Cinema, $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Weds.
Lion’s Main Art Collective The group presents an evening of short films dedicated to LGBT themes by Northwest artists. (NR)
Central Cinema, $10-$12. 8 p.m. Thurs.
Saturday Secret Matinee Hosted by The Sprocket Society, this Saturday matinee series (through March 28) features the 1941 serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, preceded by various vintage cartoons and shorts. Total program length is about two hours. (NR)
Grand Illusion, $5-$9. 1 p.m. Sat.
Ongoing
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The Babadook How did this children’s book get into the house? Nobody seems to know. This one—it shares its title with the movie we are watching—is called The Babadook, almost an anagram for “bad book,” and that’s the effect it has on Amelia (Essie Davis) and her 6-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman). They’re especially vulnerable to its dark magic. Among other issues, the death of Sam’s father is very much in the background of this scary little tale. The Babadook himself is dark-suited and creepy-fingered, and he wears a cape and a Victorian hat, like a creature from an earlier era of horror. After a great deal of slow-burning buildup, the Babadook becomes real, and mother and son must wage battle (but then they have been all along). This is the debut feature of writer/director Jennifer Kent, who skillfully keeps us locked into the moment-by-moment thrills of a monster movie, but also insists that this Babadook is clearly a stand-in for the other problems that inflict the household: grief, guilt, depression, an unwillingness to live life. The Babadook may be a monster, but he’s the monster Amelia and Sam needed. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Sundance
Big Eyes The pancake-eyed-waif portraits of Walter and Margaret Keane became inexplicably popular during the ’60s. For director Tim Burton, at least, they still hold a kitschy fascination. As we see in this lighthearted, factually inspired account, the Keanes’ success was born from the beatnik Bay Area of the late ’50s, reversed at the 1964 World’s Fair, and collapsed during the Nixon end of the ’70s. The nation turned more cynical during that span, or developed more sophistication, but Burton isn’t interested in diagnosing the American mood or deciding why the Keanes’ art had its appeal. Big Eyes is a simple comedy of female vindication, and it’s enjoyable as such. Any film with Amy Adams (as the naive painter Margaret), Christoph Waltz (as her credit-stealing husband Walter), and Terence Stamp (as the critic who calls them out) is a film I want to see. Burton’s been down this road before with Ed Wood, also written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Yet if Margaret is a less colorful figure than Wood, and if we can laugh about her art today, we can never mock her. (PG-13) B.R.M. Pacific Place, Sundance, Lincoln Square, Oak Tree, Cinebarre, others
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Birdman A movie star in a career skid since he stopped playing a masked superhero named Birdman back in the ’90s, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is preparing his big comeback in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver stories, funded and directed by himself. Obstacles abound: Riggan’s co-star (Andrea Riseborough) announces she’s pregnant with his child; his grown daughter (Emma Stone) is his assistant, and not his biggest fan; a critic plans to destroy the play. And, in the movie’s funniest headache, Riggan must endure a popular but insufferable stage actor (Edward Norton, doing a wonderful self-parody) who’s involved with the play’s other actress (Naomi Watts). This is all going on while Riggan maintains a tenuous hold on his own sanity—he hears Birdman’s voice in his head, for one thing. To create Riggan’s world, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki present the film as a continuous unbroken shot (disguised with artful digital seams). And Keaton—the former Batman, of course—is a splendidly weathered, human presence. (R) R.H. Sundance, Pacific Place, Oak Tree, others
Foxcatcher The wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), who won gold in the 1984 Olympic Games, isn’t very bright. He’s got a puppy-dog earnestness; his ears have turned to cauliflowers after so much time on the mat; he’s accustomed to taking orders from his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), who also won gold in ’84. Yet Mark is suddenly on his own when he accepts the patronage of the eccentric multimillionaire John E. du Pont (Steve Carell). In Bennett Miller’s clinically chilly true-crime tale, the murderous outcome is never in doubt. One brother will perish and du Pont go to jail (where he died in 2010). Foxcatcher is uniformly well crafted and acted, though Carell playing the villain isn’t really the selling point. With his birdlike prosthetic nose, craned neck, and opaque, upper-toothed smile, Carrell’s du Pont remains a mystery, but not an interesting mystery. Meanwhile Mark—whom Tatum ably invests with inchoate currents beneath that bulging brow—becomes a clay-footed figure of inarticulate tragedy. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Lincoln Square, others
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The Imitation Game A ripping true story can survive even the Oscar-bait effect. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the brilliant English code-breaker Alan Turing as a borderline-autistic personality, a rude brainiac who during World War II fiddles with his big computing machine while his colleagues stand around scratching their heads. Turing’s homosexuality only gradually enters the picture, and even when he proposes marriage to fellow code-breaker Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), it isn’t treated as a really big deal. Even if the movie sketches simplistic conflicts among its principal characters, the wartime world is so meticulously re-created and the stakes so compelling that it emits plenty of movie-movie sparks. (Morten Tyldum, of Headhunters, directs.) But the real reason to like this movie is that it’s so diligently pro-weirdo. Especially in Cumberbatch’s truly eccentric hands, Turing stays defiantly what he is: an oddball who uses rationality to solve problems. (PG-13) R.H. SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Sundance, Kirkland, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Lynwood (Bainbridge), others
Into the Woods Cue the irony that this sly modern classic musical (songs by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine) has been taken up by Disney, history’s busiest purveyors of the happy ending. Its fairy-tale happy ending comes halfway through the action, then Cinderella and company must decide what to do next. Into the Woods presents a crowded roster, with Meryl Streep earning top billing as the Witch, the blue-haired crank who sets things in motion with a curse. (James Corden and Emily Blunt play the baker and wife who want a child; also on hand are Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, and Johnny Depp as various fairy-tale characters.) The blend of rustic locations and studio-built woods is eye-filling, especially when the characters cross the border from the realistic realm to the enchanted forest. In general, though, director Rob Marshall (Chicago) brings his usual clunky touch, hammering home the big moments and underlining subtlety with a broad brush. (PG) R.H. SIFF Cinema Uptown, Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Pacific Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Thornton Place, Bainbridge, Kirkland, others
Top Five If Chris Rock’s movies were as good as his interviews, he’d be racking up year-end critics’ awards right about now. The story unfolds over the course of a long day in New York, as a once-popular comedian named Andre Allen (Rock) desperately promotes his new movie. He’s talking to a New York Times writer (Rosario Dawson) throughout the day, a device that’s less about illuminating his character and more about highlighting their growing rapport. (Although one long slapstick recollection about a lost weekend in Houston keeps the movie 2014-level raunchy.) As for Rock’s performance, even playing opposite the lively Dawson doesn’t make him a more fluid actor. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of mixing comedy and Woody Allenesque introspection—I guess the comparison here is with Allen’s Stardust Memories, but that movie wasn’t especially strong, either. (R) R.H. Sundance, Pacific Place, others
Unbroken The greedy guy on a life raft who eats all the chocolate bars is surely going to die. That’s just one of the moral lessons in Angelina Jolie’s adaptation of the remarkable life story Unbroken, a recent bestseller by Laura Hillenbrand. Since indefatigable hero Louis Zamperini endured so much during World War II—surviving a bomber crash in the Pacific, 47 days on that life raft, then two years of brutal mistreatment in Japanese POW camps—Jolie needs to extract plenty of lessons, or at least uplift, during her very sincere, stolid movie. Flashbacks extend to Zamperini’s solid family upbringing during the Great Depression and Olympic running exploits, but most of the film consists of Louis (Jack O’Connell) stoically suffering. During the long imprisonment, sadistic warden Watanabe (Japanese pop star Miyavi) becomes slightly and slyly more interesting while Louis remains the same solemn martyr. As the movie grinds its way to victory, there’s the unpleasant sense that we’re prisoners, too, and Jolie our cruel captor. (PG-13) B.R.M. Sundance, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Kirkland, Bainbridge, others
Wild Though I have reservations about the fulsome emotional blasts of director Jean-Marc Vallee (like his Dallas Buyers Club), and though the adaptation by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, An Education) leans rather too hard on the death of bestselling memoirist Cheryl Strayed’s mother (played by Laura Dern), this is a movie that—like its solitary hiker heroine—cannot be stopped. Reese Witherspoon’s ironclad casting makes matters even more inevitable. Here is a woman who bottoms out—with men, drugs, and grief—then straightens out while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon, even without disavowing all her past actions. Wild is essentially a memory trip, presented non-sequentially. Yet don’t mistake Wild for a conventional healing narrative (though healing does of course come at the end). Rather, it’s more a coming-to-terms account. Or as our heroine puts it, “Problems don’t stay problems. They turn into something else”—in this case a book and surefire hit movie. (R) B.R.M. Guild 45th, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Big Picture, Ark Lodge, Pacific Place, Bainbridge, Kirkland, Meridian, Thornton Place, Lincoln Square, others
Winter Sleep The rustic hotel at the heart of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep is a strikingly unfamiliar place: Located somewhere in Turkey’s Anatolian countryside, perched on a rocky slope, the buildings seem to emerge directly from the stone of the hillside itself. In the course of 196 slow minutes, we discover the world of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), who inherited the inn. He also inherited a bunch of local rental properties, the income from which allows him to sit around penning op-ed newspaper essays while washing his hands of the economic woes of his tenants. After a brilliant opening hour, Ceylan falls out of rhythm. Two extremely long and talky sequences dominate the middle of Winter Sleep: Aydin and his sister (Demet Akbag) calmly engaging in a duel of mutual laceration; and Aydin and his younger wife (the superb Melisa Sozen) arguing over her charity work—he insists on “helping” her with things she desperately needs to do herself. Those scenes are precise and well observed, but the film has a hard time finding its stride again. (NR) R.H. Grand Illusion
