This Week in Seattle Cinema: Dark and Dreary
Winter is coming. Seriously, it's thoroughly miserable out there, so you better not give me that "I just want to go outside" B.S. excuse this week: you should really see a movie. Here are three perfectly valid reasons to keep yourself huddled up for warmth in a dark room through the dismal overcast.
160 Scenes from a City's History: Notes From The Seat of Empire: Seattle, 1909-2009
Grand Illusion Cinema (Tonight, 9PM)
Unfortunately, timing didn't really allow me to plug Grand Illusion's First Annual Seattle Shorts Film Festival here, but there's still opportunity to check out the theater's locally focussed weekend with this ambitious tribute to Seattle history, landing square on the 160th anniversary of the Denny Party's arrival on the wyrd, treacherous shores of Alki Beach. Director and University of Washington graduate Shaun Scott's first film gives you an ideal chance to engage in your city's heritage of rich imagery and numerous sociopolitical struggles, all while supporting a bold new local voice for our community's future.
Inni
Northwest Film Forum (11/15, 7PM)
Fans of droning Icelandic post-rock outfit Sigur Ros will love Inni, the band's second feature-length tour film. As opposed to the more documentary-like Heima, Inni is more focused on making the most hypnotic, expressive presentation of Sigur Ros' live set possible. Experience the band that has created some of the most evocative rainy day music in recent history, polished up into a wistful sheen for your meditative pleasure.
Return to Oz
Egyptian Theatre (Tonight, Midnight)
Finally, if you still quite haven't gotten the Halloween bug out of your system, here's the criminally underappreciated exemplar of family film creepiness that haunted many a Millenial's childhood. Here, sprightly, naive Wizard of Oz enthusiasts looking for an uplifting continuation of their favorite Easter tradition were rewarded with the petrified corpses of The Tin Man and The Cowardly Lion as well as SCREAMING, DISEMBODIED HEADS. Fairuza Balk (yes, THAT Fairuza Balk) stars in the much darker, much less musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Oz series, whose perverse Wheelers and head-stealing witches might not have went over well with mainstream audiences, but it sure does make for pitch-perfect midnight movie fare.
