Most people currently living in Seattle are not from Seattle. One of the ways this plays itself out is in Seattle's landscape, where it seems that developers can write policy directly without the need for actual legislation. The city is their playground, to graft, raze and recreate as they see fit, largely because no one cares. So it is somewhat heartening to see Mayor Mike McGinn sign the new resolution creating a Downtown Historic Theatre District. more ›

There's not a lot going on tonight, but what there is, we can't recommend enough. What are you up to? more ›

SIFF's first full week is underway, so here's glimpse at some of the films coming up this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For all film screenings, the general/member ticket prices are $11/$9 (and matinees $8/$7), except for gala screenings and other special events, which of course cost more. Here's what jumps out at us from the SIFF catalogue: more ›

UK comedy Morris: A Life with Bells On has its last screening tonight at 7 p.m. at SIFF Cinema. Writer, producer, and actor Charles Thomas Oldham will be at the screening, along with all the local Morris dance fans you can shake a staff at. The event should produce a unique Venn diagram overlap of fans of PBS Britcoms and Christopher Guest mockumentaries. more ›

A reader writes: "$2 movies all week at the new Thornton Place cinemas by Northgate. And yet, almost all of the offerings are overpriced. (You'd have to pay me to see Pink Panther 2, for example.)" We found a Regal Cinemas press release that says the special $2 rate is good today, tomorrow, and Wednesday only. After that, you get a free popcorn and soft drink with paid admission, May 22-31. The Crest, of course, is showing $3 movies all the time. more ›

HAPPY WASHINGTON WINE HOUR: The Sorrento is marking the Washingtonization of The Hunt Club's previously Californicated wine list with a series of “Winemaker Happy Hours!” every Wednesday in March, with dueling winemakers, their wines, and appetizers--all for just $10. Tonight's guest vintners are Lantz Cellars (Yakima Valley, focus on Bordeaux and Rhone varietals) and Baer Winery (Woodinville, blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot). more ›

SIFF just opened a week-long showing of the Belgian film Ben X--it runs through March 5. It's a first film from Nic Balthazar, who wrote the novel the movie is based on. The thing about Ben X is that while its hero (played by Greg Timmermans) has Asperger's, it succeeds in stabbing in the guts pretty much anyone who suffered any high school ostracism and bullying. Asperger's just ups the insecurity stakes, because Ben can't tell easily who's a friend and who's not, what's normal and what's not. We spent most of our free time in the library freshman year, but no one tips Ben off to that safe haven. more ›

Every time we've seen Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player in the video store, we've glanced at it and put it back, unable to imagine how the Truffaut we know from Au Revoir Les Enfants would draw good work from a pulp crime novel. more ›

Through January 1st, SIFF Cinema is screening Francis Ford Coppola's masterpieces The Godfather and The Godfather II, and they've got newly restored, Coppola-approved studio reels. After the Xmas Eve and Day closure, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, both films will show back-to-back (Part II, which plays tonight at 8 p.m., includes a ten-minute intermission). New Year's Eve and Day are also double-feature days. Tickets are $10 ($7 matinee) for each film. SIFF Cinema is in McCaw Hall, on Mercer in lower Queen Anne. more ›

WHAT THE...?: Apparently you shouldn't go to Seattle School's Strikethough #7 Jennifer Zwick's performance of . It's at the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. more ›

HAPPY HOUR!: The Seattlest crew is clambering out of our darkened basements, adjusting our sun-starved eyes to the light of day, and exposing ourselves to our readers by showing up to the first ever Seattlest happy hour at Moe Bar, tonight from five to eight. Come, meet (and get hit on) by your favorite Seattlest contributor, share your feelings with us about how much you hate our reviews, or just plain use it as an excuse to wear tweed (you know you love it!) while you suck down $2 pints and wells from Moe Bar's happy hour menu. more ›

FACT: The Seattle Cinerama is not Seattle's original Cinerama. That'd be the Paramount, which sacrificed 1600 seats to fit the screen and three projection booths required. They screened Cinerama films from September 1, 1956, to January 26, 1958. The Cinerama we know and love today opened January 24, 1963, as the Martin Cinerama. (The Paramount twice installed and removed CineMiracle, a rival technology that never took off.) more ›

Many thoughts crossed our mind last night as we left the showing of Edward Curtis's , Curtis's work bears witness to the fact that early film sucked. The narrative is disjointed, the story thin and hard to follow. It really just proves that people (or at least Americans) love technical gadgetry for its own sake, and are willing to embrace an impoverished experience for the novelty. more ›

Last night the Northwest Film Forum had a line out the door with moviegoers eager for some classic European cinema. As previously mentioned, the Italian sex comedy Divorce--Italian Style (and its follow-up, Seduced and Abandoned) are showing in the small theater through tomorrow, leaving the big one to hold the main event, the NWFF's latest film series, Duel of the Cool. more ›

Girls Rock! is a documentary about a week-long summer camp in Portland where girls between the ages of 8 and 18 go to learn how to make music, form bands, and perform in front of a live audience at a showcase. Tonight it opens at SIFF Cinema. more ›

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Tonight's show deserves special attention because Reign of Terror is, to our knowledge, the only noir film set during the French revolution. NoirFan62 says:

The great Anthony Mann takes a film that would probably play mostly as a colorful, sweeping, epic piece dealing with the French revolution and turns it, with the help of cinematographer John Alton, into a dark, shadowy and claustrophobic film noir/adventure/spy/suspense tale period piece featuring excellent performances from a cast that includes Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl.

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SIFF Cinema's Noir City Festival has a double-feature not many of you have seen before: Moonrise / Night Has a Thousand Eyes. The festival benefits the Film Noir Foundation, whose mission is to find and preserve noir titles in danger of being lost or irreparably damaged. more ›

Tonight the documentary Inlaws & Outlaws opens at Central Cinema. It's about marriage, who's got it, who doesn't, who wants it. As it's showing at Central Cinema, it all comes with pizza and beer if you want to make a dinner documentary of it. more ›

Today SIFF hosts the Seattle opening of the documentary The Rape of Europa, about the efforts to save art stolen and/or desecrated by the Nazis in the runup to and during WWII. The Stranger loves it. The Seattle Times loves it. By all accounts, Seattlest shouldn't be as excited by this movie as we are, but we find something poetic about the preservation of culture in the face of war. For now we'll leave you with the trailer, which should convince you that learning about this little-known part of our collective history is worth both your time and money. more ›

Monday, Feb 4, 7pm more ›

We can guarantee that when you think of French New Wave cinema, a sultry feeling of cool washes over you. Suddenly, even if you can't name one French New Wave film, you're driven to wander forlornly down moodily lit city streets wondering where your lover has gone while an ultra-cool soundtrack plays in the background and your lover is trapped, desperately trying to reach you. more ›

Central Cinema, over at 21st and Union, is showing the Super Bowl on its big screen. This Sunday, 3pm. The biggest football you've ever seen. We've checked the Big Picture's website, and it looks like Central Cinema has this idea all to itself. more ›

When we looked at tonight's SIFF Cinema schedule, what first caught our eye was the first part of the double feature: 10 Years of Rialto Trailers. Thinking it would be a great way to figure out which noir films we should see during the rest of the festival, and get a crash course in the genre, we decided to check it out. Plus, we love trailers. more ›

So we're happy to see it turn up on local screens again this Sunday, at the SIFF Cinema. We could point you to a bunch of reviews that mostly tell you it's a great movie (literally so, in Ebert's case), and many of which are happy to point out the lessons we should learn about Iraq after watching this film. But we thought it'd be more interesting to quote Bosley Crowther from his 1967 NY Times review (oh: SPOILERS for history):

Essentially, the theme is one of valor—the valor of people who fight for liberation from economic and political oppression. And this being so, one may sense a relation in what goes on in this picture to what has happened in the Negro ghettos of some of our American cities more recently. The fact that the climax of the drama is actually negative, with the rebellion wiped out and its leaders destroyed, has immediate pertinence, too. But eventual victory for the Algerians — and therefore symbolic hope for all who struggle for freedom— is acknowledged in a sketchy epilogue.

George Franju's Eyes Without a Face includes one of the most horrifying sequences we've ever seen in a movie theater. It was #1 until Irreversible came along, and this is a different kind of horror, so don't let any lingering Gaspar Noe trauma dissuade you from heading to SIFF Cinema this afternoon. It's horrifying the way Psycho would've been horrifying if we hadn't been spoiled on that film's secrets long before we actually watched it. more ›

Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Jules Dassin, Federico Fellini -- thanks to distributor Rialto Pictures, their restored films are popping up in theaters around the country, and, happily, here in Seattle. more ›

Starting tomorrow night, SIFF Cinema is showing Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, a documentary that examines Hollywood's relationship and depiction of one of the 20th Century's defining events. more ›