A Long Weekend of Movies
When the film industry complains about the box office slump, they aren't talking about the growing public interest in indie films or documentaries; what they're really saying is, "Why didn't you all rush out to see Herbie: Fully Loaded last weekend?" The answer to that question is obvious, basically boiling down to "Because we don't pay $9 to watch crap---especially crap that has been digitally altered to downsize the protagonist's erstwhile monstrous mammaries."
Thankfully, there are many great films currently playing in theaters worth both your time and your hard-earned money. With a three-day weekend on deck (and a moderate chance for rain at least one of those days), you've got plenty of time to catch a movie or two. And drink some beer.
If you're hitting a theater for a first-run feature, you've got scads of good options, like:
· My Summer of Love and Heights at the Harvard Exit;
· March of the Penguins at the Egyptian;
· Crash and Cinderella Man at the Guild 45th;
· Howl's Moving Castle and George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (among others) at the Metro;
· Batman Begins, still at the Neptune;
· Ladies in Lavender at the Seven Gables;
· Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Catholic guilt-fest The Holy Girl, Rwanda post-genocide doc Shake Hands with the Devil, and the dark and dream-like SIFF award-winning Mysterious Skin at the Varsity;
· Up north (and for $3), the Crest is screening the criminally overlooked Millions, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Kung Fu Hustle, Kingdom of Heaven, and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy;
· And let's not forget about the truly wonderful, idiosyncratic, artsy-sans-pretense, awkwardly and delightfully charming Me and You and Everyone We Know, which opens today at the Uptown and is not to be missed.
In terms of all of the great local independent movie houses here in town, they've got quite the selection this weekend, too. The Northwest Film Forum has what sounds to be a real campy catch: "the world premiere of the fully restored, brand new print of the lurid soap-operatic classic Anna Lucasta," featuring Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis, Jr. and a score by Elmer Bernstein. This is the first film in the NWFF's Summer Camp series, which promises to be full of titillating, so-bad-it's-good movies "from the big-hair era of Hollywood melodrama."
The Grand Illusion is kicking off their birthday tribute to science-fiction special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad tonight, both of which run till next Thursday. Over the next three weeks, they'll be screening six films featuring Harryhausen's work, two per week. So be on the lookout for Jason and the Argonauts and First Men in the Moon (7/8-7/14), as well as 20 Million Miles to Earth and Mysterious Island (7/15-7/21).
Meanwhile, the Central Cinema is getting all noired out on early Kubrick, showing his fourth film The Killing, in which a well-organized heist (surprise!) doesn't go off exactly as planned. The film plays through July 3rd at 7:00 and 9:15pm, with a weekend matinee July 2nd and 3rd at 4:30pm.
And we hear that some little indie flick War of the Worlds came out this Wednesday. Though it's gotten some fairly good reviews, we're hoping to avoid it, since we don't like thinking of our money in the hands of closeted, certifiably insane, Scientology types.
