FILM Opening Friday
HEIST Heat meets Speed in this high-speed thriller from Scott Mann (no relation to Michael) starring Robert De Niro, Dave Bautista, and Gina Carano. (R) Varsity LOVE THE COOPERS Jessie Andrews (I Am Sam) directs this Christmas-com with a cast too big for Santa’s bag: Amanda Seyfried, Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Olivia Wilde, Marisa Tomei, Ed Helms and more. (PG-13) Opens wide MY ALL AMERICAN Aaron Eckhart and Finn Wittrock star in a life-inspired football flick from Rudy screenwriter Angelo Pizzo. Expect tears, tackles, and touchdowns. (PG) Opens wide THE 33 Dramatizing the Chilean mining disaster (and rescue) of 2010, with hope, adventure, and survival. Antonio Banderas, James Brolin, and Juliette Binoche star. (PG-13) Opens wide
Local & Repertory CHASING SHADOWS There’s
RESISTENCIA: THE FIGHT FOR THE AGUAN VALLEY Director
Jesse Freeston will discuss his new documentary, about land reform in Honduras, with Honduran activists Berta Cáceres and Miriam Miranda. (NR) Grand Illusion, $10. 7 p.m. Sun. SAMURAI COP 2: DEADLY VENGEANCE Director Gregory
Hatanaka will introduce his new tongue-in-cheek action sequel. The movie stars Bai Ling and Tommy Wiseau (of The Room), though other cast members will be in attendance. (R) SIFF Cinema Egyptian, $7-$12. 11 p.m. Sat. ■ STRANGERS ON A TRAIN In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 suspense classic, tennis player Farley Granger and rich creep Robert Walker meet at random. They then agree, sort of, to exchange (“criss-cross”) murders in this bowstring-taut adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel. Walker’s an out-and-out psycho, but a seductive psycho, as the soft jock Granger discovers. The gay subtext just about subsumes the murder story as one man insinuates himself into the life and conscience of another. As is generally the case with Hitchcock, the sexual and the criminal are bound together with guilt—so you can almost imagine them as lovers before prissy Granger, in a panic, tries to end their sordid affair. BRIAN MILLER (PG) Central Cinema, $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat. & Mon.-Wed. plus 3 p.m. Sat. THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN From 1987, Danny DeVito’s
black comedy takes the Hitchcock favorite (above) as its premise. He and Billy Crystal attempt to swap murders, but to much broader effect. (PG-13) Central Cinema, $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Wed.
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ings in unheated rooms—exactly Spielberg’s cup of borscht. Nicely complicating the situation is the way Abel, the enemy, comes to be a sympathetic figure. The British stage giant Rylance gives a marvelously detailed performance as the kind of guy Spielberg appreciates—a schlub doing his job. ROBERT HORTON (PG-13) Sundance, Majestic Bay, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square, others ■ ROOM Joy (the excellent Brie Larson, from Short Term 12), we shall learn, was abducted as a 17-year-old. We meet her as the young mother of Jack (Jacob Tremblay, both of them confined to a garden shed/prison that forms the 5-year-old boy’s entire known universe. A skylight above, a few books, and TV cartoons blur into a magical realm for Jack; notions of what’s real and imaginary are just beginning to settle into his head. Adapted by Emma Donoghue from her 2010 novel, Room takes a big turn after an hour, Jack’s task, like Alice’s in Wonderland, is to understand the rules—or their absence—in two different realms. Lenny Abrahamson, of Frank, provides direction that’s both sure-handed and dry-eyed. MILLER (R) Guild 45th, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square SPECTRE 007 (Daniel Craig) is in disgrace as usual, while MI6 (still led by Ralph Fiennes’ M) is itself threatened by an upstart new spy agency. There’s also a self-satisfied new villain (Christoph Waltz) who goes by different names, and a new Bond girl, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), also trying to escape her past. Spectre has a signature look and operating system that reinforce the Bond brand: quality, familiarity, lack of surprise (though many delights), and a design consistency that leads inexorably to the next product launch. It looks back, beginning with the famous theme and gunbarrel intro, then swoops forward in a seamless one-take assassination sequence in Mexico City. The filmmakers must show they can keep up with the Bourne and Mission: Impossible pretenders breathing down their necks. To this Bond-ophile,
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Juliette Binoche in The 33.
Ongoing
■ BRIDGE OF SPIES In Steven
Spielberg’s true-life saga, New York lawyer James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is plucked from his profitable private practice to defend a Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), in the late 1950s. What pricks Spielberg’s interest is the way Donovan is ostracized for performing a constitutional task during the height of Cold War. A few years later, Donovan is given another difficult task: negotiate a prisoner trade for the downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. This section is all snowy East Berlin alleys and tense meet-
Spectre’s best moments after the Mexico City hit are familiar polish7710 ings of old 007 tropes. Boat chases helicopter, plane chases cars, Jaguar chases Aston Martin, and so on. This enjoyably overstuffed entertainment, also directed by Skyfall’s Sam Mendes, again has Bond reluctantly excavating more of his fraught/ repressed past. Yet amid these sticky snowdrifts of memory, one suspects that Ian Fleming would have little use for all the talk of wounded heroes and stolen childhoods. MILLER (PG13) Cinerama, Sundance, Big Picture, Majestic Bay, Thornton Place, Ark Lodge, others
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SEATTLE WEEKLY • NOVEM BER 11 — 17, 2015
BEATRICE AGUIRRE/WARNER BROS.
snow in the mountains, which means it’s time for the annual Warren Miller ski movie, with visits to the French Alps, Alaska, Utah, the Andes, and the Himalayas. Look for Crystal Mountain’s Ingrid Backstrom among other skiers and riders. (NR) Meydenbauer Center (Bellevue), warrenmiller.com. $22. 3, 6 & 9 p.m. Sun. DANGEROUS MEN Evidently a revenge-themed action flick filmed between 1989-2005 by Iranian-born John S. Rad. The log line makes it sound like Death Wish with a female star. (R) Grand Illusion, $5-$9. Fri.Thurs. See grandillusioncinema.org for showtimes. ■ FOUR BY TRUMBO With the Bryan Cranston-starring biopic Trumbo to open next Friday, here’s a chance to see a quartet of the blacklisted screenwriter’s greatest hits: Spartacus (an actor portrays Kirk Douglas in Trumbo), Papillon, Gun Crazy, and Exodus. All are worth seeing (and all play at least twice), though it would’ve been more interesting now to see the two movies for which Trumbo earned Oscars under a false name: Roman Holiday and The Brave One, the latter a bullfighting melodrama that doesn’t hold up too well. (NR) SIFF Cinema Uptown, $5. Fri.-Thurs. See siff.net for showtimes. ■ ROBERT HORTON Our eminent film critic is giving several free talks this week. “Before Ultron: Artificial Intelligence in the Movies” considers movies including 2001 and Her (Shoreline Library, 7 p.m. Thurs. Mercer Island Library, 1 p.m. Sun.). Then at Scarecrow Video (7 p.m. Mon.) he joins erstwhile SW critics Richard Jameson and Kathleen Murphy for a wide-ranging discussion—what they’ve seen and liked so far this year, and what lies ahead during the holiday and awards season. JAMES BOND-ATHON Showtimes aren’t given, so maybe these 007 movies are on continuous loop. This Sunday it’s the 1964 Goldfinger, with Sean Connery as Bond and Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore. Then there’s the timeless exchange between our hero, strapped to the table with laser aimed at his crotch. “Do you expect me to talk?” asks 007. “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” replies Gert Fröbe’s villain. (PG) King’s Hardware, 5225 Ballard Ave. N.W., 782-0027, kingsballard.com. Free. Sundays through Nov. 29. ■ NIGHTFALL Ida Lupino directs the film noir nugget The Bigamist
(1953) and plays one of two women— Joan Fontaine is the other—married to Edmond O’Brien. Interestingly, the plot is driven by infertility and the desire to adopt a child, while the movie toggles in flashback between L.A. and San Fran. (NR) Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $63–$68 series, $8 individual. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Dec. 10.
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7710 SE 34th Street 98040 | 206-275-7760 | Store hours: 10-7 Mon - Sat
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