The big movie news this week is the announcement of the Seattle International Film Festival lineup, but we still have awhile to wait before the country's biggest film festival begins. So make sure you get out to Translations, the biggest transgender film fest in the world; revisit the beautiful Miyazaki anime Kiki's Delivery Service; acquaint yourself with the indomitable RBG; or choose another worthwhile movie from our critics' picks below for your weekend entertainment. Follow the links to see complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers, and, if you're looking for even more options, check out our complete movie times listings or our film events calendar.
Note: Movies play from Thursday to Sunday unless otherwise noted.
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1945
World War II is over, and an Orthodox Jewish man and his son return to their village in Hungary, only to find that their land has been illegally confiscated and now belongs to their greedy, uneasy neighbors. Ferenc Török's stark black-and-white film has been praised for its beauty and subtlety in dealing with an agonizing transitional time in Hungary's history—particularly relevant now, as anti-Semitism resurges in the present-day state.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel’s attempt to put an exploding bow on 10 years of corporate synergy, is a lurching, ungainly colossus of a blockbuster, with far too many characters and storylines stretching across a series of planets that resemble 1970s prog-rock album covers. The thing is, though, while you’re watching it? None of these elements feel like debits. Sometimes, excess hits the spot. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo deserve a huge amount of credit for simply making sure all of Infinity War’s 5,000 performers hit their marks—but they also find room for most of these characters to get an honest-to-god character moment or two. The Russos aren’t exactly stylists, however, and there’s a flatness to the establishing scenes here that feels similar to Marvel’s first wave of films. A little bit of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther panache would’ve gone a long way. But once the action kicks in, the ridiculous scope of this thing takes over and sweeps away any quibbles. ANDREW WRIGHT
Various locations
Basket Case
The world wasn’t always as fun or right-on as it is in 2018. This 1982 under-classic—from the golden age of cheap, shitty, ugly, violent, revolting, misogynistic splatter horror exploitation films made to have a brief theatrical run followed by a long cable afterlife—is a revenge story about a guy who keeps the mangled, living remains of his formerly conjoined twin in a basket and how the two of them execute violent retribution against the surgeon who had the gall to separate them. Everything about the film is gratuitous, and, despite its essential humorlessness, it’s almost hilarious in a sidelong sort of way. With films like Ready Player One and TV shows like Stranger Things and The Americans keeping the 1980s revival racket grinding along, it’s good for someone to be showing Basket Case, if only as a reminder of how vile that decade really was. SEAN NELSON
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Thursday only
Black Panther
Because I do not want to spoil the experience of this movie, I will not describe the path of the film's plot to its core problem, which concerns the unification of black Africa with black America. Out of a comic book, director Ryan Coogler crafted an important concept about how, from the unification, a post-pan-Africanist global Africanism can emerge. It comes down to this: black Africans and black Americans have to admit their respective failings. (My feeling is that Coogler is much harder on black Americans than black Africans.) As a whole, Black Panther is lots of fun and will excite a lot of discussion and strong opinions. But the most revolutionary thing about Black Panther is its city. The capital of Wakanda has skyscrapers, a monorail, sidewalks of grass, green buildings, farmers markets, and no cars. The whole idea of private transportation is foreign to this fictional society. If this black African capital has anything to share with the world, it's its city planning. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations
Cambodian Rock 'n Roll: Film, Talk, and DJ Party
The music archivist ORO, aka Rotanak Oudom Oum, will offer an evening of film and Khmer music. The short film From ORO with Love chronicles the researcher's travels in Cambodia rescuing pre-Khmer Rouge pop music, much of which had been destroyed under Pol Pot's murderous regime. Stay on after for a talk and a dance party with ORO himself at the console.
Northwest Film Forum
Friday only
The Death of Stalin
From Armando Iannucci, the creator of Veep, and more importantly, the vastly superior British politics TV series The Thick of It (and the film it inspired, In the Loop) comes a film, The Death of Stalin, that recognizes that farce, not tragedy, is the operative mode of true fascism. At least in retrospect. This is one of the grimmest, most harrowing films to ever make you double over with laughter. The heavyweight cast includes Steve Buscemi (as Khruschev), Michael Palin (as Molotov), and Jeffrey Tambor (as Malenkov), all of whom prostrate themselves to appear devoted to the regime while frantically tap dancing for their own survival—and eventual seizing of power. They are abetted in their machinations by UK eminences like Andrea Riseborough, Paddy Considine, Simon Russell Beale, and Roger Ashton-Griffiths. There’s no missing the present day resonances in the depictions of a regime that is both totally corrupt and plainly mediocre, but Iannucci is keen to remind you that the distance between even a toad like Trump and Stalin—who ordered the actual murder of approximately 60 million of his own comrade countrymen—is important to remember. But if the best thing you can say about a leader is that he isn’t exactly Josef Stalin, well… This film’s grave, absurd, brilliant, and brutal historical context has a way of making the future look, if not hopeful, then at least familiar. SEAN NELSON
SIFF Cinema Uptown & AMC Seattle 10
The Endless
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead’s mind-unspooling sci-fi thriller The Endless is one of those strange films that feels lightweight while flirting with cosmic ideas. The writer-directors play brothers, imaginatively named Justin and Aaron, who escaped a UFO cult as teenagers. When the men receive a concerning videotape from the true believers at Camp Arcadia, Aaron demands that they drive back into the wild to find out what happened, and Justin reluctantly agrees. Surprisingly, they’re welcomed by pleasant sights: old friends who apparently haven’t aged, including the benevolent de facto leader, Hal, and the flirtatious Anna. But as their visit stretches on, an unseen presence creepily betrays itself. The tone of The Endless skids from time to time, as Benson and Moorehead’s broad banter makes it hard to take their sibling conflict too seriously. But visually, it succeeds with delicious, slightly Gothic weirdness, from psychedelic tweaks of filmic time to uncanny celestial phenomena to fun tricks with mirroring and repetition. JOULE ZELMAN
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
If you’re looking for an encyclopedic portrait of Jamaican dub-disco-funk diva Grace Jones, Sophie Fiennes’s Bloodlight and Bami ain’t for you. (And, yes, Fiennes is a member of the Fiennes Dynasty.) If you want to know what motivated a black Caribbean woman to cover one of history’s most unnerving, robotic synth-pop tunes (the Normal's “Warm Leatherette”), you'll be disappointed. But if you want explorations into Jones’s humble Spanish Town roots, her durable family bonds and traumatic history, and ability to navigate the world’s glitziest nightlife scenes while still making vital music in her 60s, this documentary delivers. Musical insights are scarce, however, as are observations about the film’s subject from her band members—including dub legends Sly & Robbie. Nevertheless, the concert footage (featuring exceptional versions of “Pull Up to the Bumper” and “Nipple to the Bottle”) and Grace’s dazzling costumes compensate for these voids. DAVE SEGAL
SIFF Cinema Egyptian & SIFF Cinema Uptown
Half-life in Fukushima
There are two types of Edens: Eden and Disaster Eden. The first was made by non-human nature, the second by human nature. The area near to the zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster (it was destroyed by a tsunami in 2011) has been almost entirely abandoned by humans. As a consequence, it’s become a human-made Eden. And if one man were to live in this disaster zone, we must see him as an Adam. And if a woman were to join him, we must see her as an Eve. The Disaster Eden of Fukushima happens to have the former, not the latter. His name is Noto. He is a farmer, he refuses to leave Fukushima’s red zone. He has nothing to do but encounter stranger things and stare blankly at human/nature. This is Adam, no? CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday
Isle of Dogs
Wes Anderson’s second foray into stop-motion animation—following 2009’s unassailably wonderful Fantastic Mr. Fox—is full of delectable visual treats. This time, the director’s grade-school diorama aesthetic floods your ocular circuits with a retro-futuristic version of Japan, where all the dogs of Megasaki City have been exiled to Trash Island following an outbreak of snout fever. Isle of Dogs is leaps and bounds more advanced than Fantastic Mr. Fox—the deliberate herky-jerkiness of that film has vanished, replaced by a refined style of stop-motion that’s breathtaking in its elegance, even as it depicts Trash Island’s mountains of maggoty, flea-ridden refuse. But Anderson’s depiction of Japanese humans in Isle of Dogs leaves something to be desired. In what initially seems like a clever tactic, the dogs all speak English while humans communicate in un-translated Japanese. While this pulls us inside the dogs’ world, it flattens the depiction of the Japanese characters. Anderson—and the audience—remain Western outsiders looking in. But all in all, Isle of Dogs is worth recommending. NED LANNAMANN
Various locations
Ismael's Ghosts
The French director Arnaud Desplechin makes tangled, pained family histories and casts splendid actors to bring them to life. In this case, Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace and a lot of better French films), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac), and Marion Cotillard (Inception and...a lot of better French films), play out the story of a film director, his new lover, and his long-vanished, suddenly returned wife. Amalric plays the titular Ismael, caught between woman as he makes his own film about a diplomat. This film has gotten fantastic reviews, but the actors alone make it worth catching.
Grand Illusion
Kiki's Delivery Service
In an unnamed European country, ambitious young witch Kiki hops on her broomstick and sets up a freelance delivery business in the city, but must grapple with the tribulations of finicky magical powers, working, and growing up. A sincere and gentle parable about overcoming self-doubt and depression with the help of your friends, featuring the cute talking kitty Jiji and one of the subtlest, most bittersweet endings you'll ever see in animation.
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday
Lean on Pete
At first glance, this film by Weekend and 45 Years director Andrew Haigh looks like it might simply be a story of inexpressive white males brooding meaningfully in the rural Pacific Northwest. In reality, however, it’s one of the most surprising and affecting stories about the isolation, agony, and resiliency of youth since The 400 Blows. Based on a novel by Portland musician/writer Willy Vlautin, the story is about the travails of a kid named Ray who lives on the edge of poverty with his unreliable dad. Circumstances lead him to a job with a low-rent racehorse owner (Steve Buscemi) and an unlikely friendship with the animal who gives the film its title. Together they see America in a way that threatens to swallow them whole. Please don’t miss this fantastically unlikely movie. SEAN NELSON
AMC Seattle 10
Love, Simon
If you're one of those people who only reads the first sentences of movie reviews, here you go: Love, Simon is FANTASTIC, and you should see it IMMEDIATELY. The best thing about it is Simon himself: A clever, kind kid with a loving family and good friends, he's having a hell of a time figuring out how—or if—he should come out. Not many YA protagonists feel as real as Simon, regardless of whether he's going through great stuff or drama. Simon's great stuff includes: a secret e-mail relationship with Blue, another closeted kid at his school. Simon doesn't know who Blue really is, and Blue doesn't know who Simon really is, but through hesitantly typed e-mails, the two find the beginnings of a relationship that's inspiring and complicated. Simon's drama includes: his dipshit classmate Martin, who stumbles onto his e-mails with Blue–and threatens to share them with everyone if Simon doesn't do what he says. Love, Simon thrums with heightened emotions, but it never feels false or silly; Greg Berlanti's smart enough to treat these kids like real, complicated people, and the result is a movie that feels both truthful and ridiculously engaging. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Meridian 16
A Quiet Place
This rural horror starring director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt is a fun, brawny horror flick with a surprisingly sugary heart and an ingenious gimmick. Human civilization is basically kaput and giant scythe-hand stealth-crab anthropoids roam the earth. They’re blind, but their huge, opalescent inner ears alert them to the presence of prey from miles off. A Quiet Place begins well after the creatures’ conquest. A man, his pregnant partner, and their son and daughter live in silence on an isolated farm, every aspect of their existence adapted to minimize noise: sand-covered trails, sign language, light and smoke signals, even cloth game pieces. But despite their ingenuity, the family must take increasingly drastic measures to protect themselves even as the pre-adolescent daughter, who’s deaf, rebels against her father. Their everyday yet all-important routines are a neat device for ramping up tension during the exposition. At the preview screening, we were all flinching when a lamp upended, shushing a character who cried too loudly. But it’s during the moments of crises—particularly when Blunt starts giving birth at a very inconvenient time—that Krasinski really shows he can twist your nerves in a way that shuts down your critical faculties. JOULE ZELMAN
Various locations
Rampage
Rampage is an expensive video-game movie about a giant ape and a flying wolf and a spiky lizard—and they all fight each other. It’s exceptionally dumb, exceptionally fun, and weirdly faithful to its 16-bit source material. Rampage the game was about monsters smashing buildings and eating people, and Rampage the movie is also about this. Dwayne Johnson plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist who works at a primate center full of awful millennials and, for some reason, at least one grizzly bear. When the titular rampage begins, the film earns its keep, as the three rowdy-ass monsters pulverize the streets of Chicago and tear through tanks, helicopters, gunships, and a Dave & Buster’s. BEN COLEMAN
Various locations
RBG
All hail Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Better known as “RBG” to her fans (and “Bubby” to her grandkids), at 85 years old, the US Supreme Court justice still has a fierce intellect, a duty to the law, and an immense inner and physical strength. Over the long course of her career, RBG repeatedly defended the rights of everyone to live free from bias, but, as Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says, Ginsburg “quite literally changed life for women.” And she’s still doing it. With intimate interviews with family and friends, as well as RBG herself, the film captures the life of a woman with a heart none of us wants to stop ticking. KATIE HERZOG
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Salesman
A devastating documentary portrait by the pioneering Maysles brothers (Grey Gardens), Salesman throws you into an ethical tug-of-war between four down-and-out door-to-door Bible salesmen and the poor Catholics they try to harry into buying their pricy holy books. A depiction of American misery, the film introduces you to "The Badger," "The Gipper," "The Rabbit," and "The Bull" as they scrabble to make a living.
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday
Suspicion (Part of "Alfred Hitchcock's Britain" Series)
Sure, with the exception of the modestly budgeted, black-and-white Psycho, Hitchcock is known for his lavishly Freudian Technicolor thrillers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. But the films he made in his native Britain are just as worthy of note—taut, intricate, their perversity more elaborately disguised. This week, the "Alfred Hitchcock's Britain" series will turn to Suspicion, about a young married woman who begins to suspect her husband of terrible motives.
Seattle Art Museum
Thursday only
Suspiria
The Italian horror classic about a young ballerina whose dance studio ends up being a coven of witches, full of blaring neon colors, improbably-colored blood, and continental Gothic sensibilities. Worth it for Goblin's thrumming, jangling score alone.
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday
Translations Film Festival
Here is something that Seattle should take pride in. We have the world’s largest trans film festival. Not Berlin, not London, not New York City—but Seattle. The festival is called Translations, and this year it features a bunch of films from places that do not have the largest trans film festival. One film that caught my eye immediately is Man Made, which concerns the only transgender men bodybuilding competition in the world. Of course, this subject opens and examines a society that, for the most part, has yet to come to terms with this significant group of its family. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations (mostly at Erickson Theatre)
You Were Never Really Here
Joaquin Phoenix's dazed masculinity is put to the service of Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of a novel by Jonathan Ames, about a veteran detective who tracks missing girls and becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy. Ramsay directed We Need to Talk About Kevin, and by all accounts, her collaboration with Phoenix is just as harrowing a portrait of the peculiarly American appetite for violence.
SIFF Cinema Uptown and AMC Seattle 10
Zama
Lucrecia Martel is one of the most fascinating filmmakers to come out of Argentina in the past few decades. Unfortunately for South American film buffs, she’s made only four features—her second most recent, The Headless Woman, came out in 2008. Ten years later, she’s shot a thought-provoking period drama, Zama, about a lonely Spanish judge in a South American colony in the 17th century who refuses to adapt, growing more and more hostile to the people he’s supposed to govern. This story of mental deterioration and alienation, reportedly slow but full of rich detail, is Martel’s statement on colonial ills.
Northwest Film Forum
Thursday only
Also Playing This Weekend
Our critics don't recommend these movies, but they're major Hollywood films.
Blockers
I Feel Pretty
Ready Player One
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