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Oddballs, Events, & Rep
Army of Shadows As allusive as its title, Jean-Pierre Melville’s all-but-unknown Shadows, a French resistance saga made—and tepidly received—in 1969, emerges from the mists of time in a new 35mm restoration as a career-capping epic tragedy. Adapted from Joseph Kessel’s wartime novel, Shadows follows a taciturn resistance agent (the bulky, self-contained Lino Ventura) through a series of arrests, escapes, and betrayals. Wearing glasses and carrying a briefcase, he looks like an accountant and thinks like a chess master. Ventura is reason made tangible, exuding a purity of purpose beyond mere action. Moving from rainy prison camps through sun-baked Marseilles and blitzed London to the bleak windswept towns of northern France, Shadows sustains an atmosphere of total paranoia, occasionally leavened with existential pathos. Only when Melville’s vision reaches its chilling conclusion is it apparent that the title is absolutely literal. This really is an army of shadows. They are, all of them, dead men. (21 and over.) (NR) J. HOBERMAN Big Picture, 2505 First Ave., 206-256-0572. $5 and up. Sat. Oct. 7-Thurs. Oct. 12.
Breaking the Silence Discussion follows this documentary screening about Israeli soldiers disgruntled with their experience in Hebron and the occupied territories. Accompanied by Combatants for Peace, which concerns exactly that—fighters from both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict now committed to dialogue. (NR) Keystone Church, 5019 Keystone Pl. N., 206-632-6021. Free. 7 p.m. Fri. Oct. 6.
Cineoke Have a drink, cue up a song, and make your friends fall out of their chairs in astonishment. 21 and over. (NR) Jewel Box Theater (Rendezvous), 2320 Second Ave., 206-441-5823. $5. 8 p.m. Mon. Oct. 9.
Donnie Darko It takes the average moviegoer at least three viewings to kinda understand what’s going on in Donnie Darko (originally released in 2001), so it’s with some skepticism that we greet 20 more minutes of Darko in the dreaded director’s cut format. What we know: the troubled teen protagonist (Jake Gyllenhaal) sleepwalks, which helps him avoid getting pulverized by a detached jet engine that crashes into his room; but outside, he encounters a hideous 6-foot rabbit who tells him that the world will end 28 days later. Over that period, Donnie commits startling acts of aggression in his waking dream state; these quasi-hallucinations, he learns, are tied to an old time-travel book written by a witchlike elderly local. This new Darko adds some take-’em-or-leave-’em family bonding scenes, but rookie writer/director Richard Kelly does succeed by intermittently displaying text from Sparrow’s The Philosophy of Time Travel, which illuminates identities and motivations without spelling everything out too literally. (R) ANDREW BONAZELLI Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 206-781-5755. $6-$9. Midnight. Fri. Oct. 6-Sat. Oct. 7.
Granito de Arena Schoolteachers in Oaxaca, Mexico try to maintain local control over their curriculum in this U.S-made documentary. Some 25 years of history and numerous strikes are explored. (NR) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 206-686-6684. Donations accepted. 6 p.m. Wed. Oct. 4.
Independent Exposure No advance information provided, but this monthly compendium of short films is usually worth the ticket, and you can wash them down with a few beers. (NR) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 206-686-6684. $5. 7 and 9 p.m. Wed. Oct. 11.
Madman From 1982, you’ve got your standard slasher-film premise of teenagers, dark and spooky woods, a murderous fiend (“Madman Marz”), and a plot that pretty much writes itself. Since Jamie Lee Curtis actually does not star in the movie, and because there haven’t been 13 sequels to date, you can judge Madman‘s obscurity accordingly. (R) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 206-523-3935. $5-$7.50. 11 p.m. Fri. Oct. 6-Sat. Oct. 7.
Night Editor Any film that makes heroes out of journalists has got to be good, right? Actually, this 1946 noir is about an adulterous cop (William Gargan) who witnesses a murder, then can’t come forward to solve the crime because he was with his honey (Janis Carter) at the time. (NR) Museum of History and Industry, 2700 24th Ave. E., 206-654-3121. $58-$65 (series), individual ticket price not provided. 7:30 p.m. Thurs. Oct. 5.
Open Screening Keep it under 10 minutes, on VHS or DVD, and be prepared for the thunderous applause of your filmmaking peers. Or the baffled silence of a bunch of philistines. (NR) 911 Media Arts Center, 402 Ninth Ave. N., 206-682-6552. $2. 8 p.m. Mon. Oct. 9.
Pom Poko From Studio Ghibli (although not directed by Miyazaki), this 1994 animated feature from Japan is almost certainly the English-dubbed version, in which clever raccoons struggle with urban sprawl encroaching upon their natural habitat. If this sounds like the basis for a half-dozen recent cartoon rip-offs from Hollywood, you would not be mistaken. But the raccoons are cute, and your small children will be entertained. (PG) Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St., Volunteer Park, 206-625-8900. Free. 1:30 p.m. Sat. Oct. 7.
Screenwriters Salon Local scribes talk shop. Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., 206-322-7030. $2-$5. 7:30 p.m. Wed. Oct. 11.
Taiwan Film Festival Many have heard of Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang; now this traveling program of eight contemporary titles from Taiwan offers a deeper peek into that island’s contemporary cinema. Documentaries look at the dance-mad prewar 1930s and the “White Terror” of the politically reactionary 1950s. Features deal with lesbian romance and a bakery worker playing neighborhood matchmaker, among other subjects. See Web site for full schedule and details. (NR) UW Physics-Astronomy Auditorium and Museum of History and Industry, 2700 24th Ave. E., http://2006tff.blogspot.com. Free. Thurs. Oct. 5-Sun. Oct. 8.
