This Week in Seattle Cinema: Occupy Movie Theaters
Movies can transcend boundaries of class and education to deliver important messages of compassion and justice across the world (it has to be true, or else why would they say it before all of those Academy Award montages?) More importantly, it can also provide an easy way to shut out all the background noise and reflect in a time where screaming contests and aggressive, unflinching mobs of all credos dominate the main stage of political discussion. Remember that history has a tendency of rewarding cool heads above relentless, half-exhausted rhetoricians in the long run -- so stop yelling at your conservative family members for a second, give your picketing arm a rest and organize the next step against unchecked corporate greed over a thoughtful piece of film. This week in Seattle cinema offers a thought-provoking documentary on Detroit's burgeoning urban farm movement, a sweeping two-part adaptation of a Portuguese legend's literary masterwork, and a flamboyant, breathtakingly restored feat of classic musical escapism suitable for the whole family.
Detroit Wild City
Northwest Film Forum (10/8-10/9; 3:00 & 5:00 PM)
As Detroit's last Super Bowl commercial so elegantly communicated, The Motor City is going through a dramatic rebuilding period. Despite minor victories in locally-funded Robocop statue production, Detroit was arguably the American city most tested by the economic downturn, the sum effect of which draws hauntingly few eyerolls when being described as "post-apocalyptic." While that particular word might evoke homicidal raiders and grotesque super mutants for some, some of Detroit's unflappable denizens have taken the urban area's slow and seemingly unstoppable decay to start an agrarian revolution on top of the demolished husks of past industry. Not only a fascinating look into the plucky logistics of the urban farming movement, Detroit Wild City is a vibrant snapshot of American ingenuity, proving that even the most calamitous acts of fiscal irresponsibility from up high cannot crush the creative spirit of our nation's working class.
My Fair Lady
Cinerama (10/13; 9PM)
Hey, just because the human race is little more than an essentially cruel, irredeemable branch of this planet's biology, which has a destructive effect on nearly anything it touches, doesn't mean that you have to think about it all the time. Sometimes we wear really pretty hats! While Broadway musicals aren't usually my bag, they really are the exact sort of high spectacle that the ongoing Cinerama Film Festival was built for. Chances are that the family-friendly crowd have sat through kiddie catnip films like The Sound of Music or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hundreds of times already, so My Fair Lady should be a relatively fresh cinematic experience for most of you, made even moreso with Cinerama's 70mm presentation. With the unimitable swagger of Audrey Hepburn in her seasoned prime, the famed Pygmalion remake not only jumpstarted the prestigious "Actors Being Forced to Pretend That One of The Hottest Women In Hollywood is an Untouchable Freak" genre, but also stands as a film that I hear Seattlest's own Everett Rummage considers to be the best adaptation of musical theater ever committed to celluloid.
Mysteries of Lisbon (Pts. 1 & 2)
SIFF Cinema (10/8-10/13)
If My Fair Lady's 170 minute running time just isn't butt-numbing enough for you, SIFF Cinema will be playing the over four-hour-long adaptation of Portuguese Romantic icon Camilo Castelo Branco's earliest works, Mysteries of Lisbon. Mysteries of Lisbon is actually an annotated version of the transcontinental, six-episode epic helmed by Chilean director Raúl Ruiz for Portuguese television, following the lives of a countess, an orphan and a businessman as their lives intersect and clash across both Europe and South America. If you're looking for not just a film to sink your teeth into, but an intricate, lovingly crafted world to wrap your brain around for the better part of a day, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better option this week.
