Seattle Screens: ‘Your Sister’s Sister’ and The Best of SIFF

Okay, so you missed one or two or so of the films that got the buzz or won the awards at SIFF this year? Then you want to know about The Best of SIFF, a collection of features, documentaries, and shorts from SIFF 2012 playing through the week at The Uptown. Among the films in the seven-day schedule are Any Day Now, which won the Golden Space Needle Awards for Best Film and Best Actor (Alan Cummings), reviewed on Videodrone here, and Megan Griffiths’ Eden, which won the Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision (presented by Women in Film/Seattle) and the Reel NW Award as well as the Golden Space Needle for Best Actress (Jamie Chung) (reviewed for Seattle Weekly here). The complete line-up is at the SIFF Cinema website here.

And speaking of the Best of SIFF, the opening night film Your Sister’s Sister opens in Seattle (and New York City, L.A., SF, Chicago, and D.C.) this weekend. Says Kat Murphy at MSN Movies: “Your Sister’s Sister warms the comedic cockles through sharp, largely improvised dialogue and quirky emotional connection among three not-quite-grown-up 30-somethings (Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt), friends, relations and lovers who accidentally come to share a cabin in the woods for a week or so.” More from Brian Miller at Seattle Weekly here.

Jan Svankmajer: The Surreal Puppet Poet offers six features and an anthology of shorts from the Czechoslovakian stop animation genius, all on 35mm. The series runs for a week at Northwest Film Forum. I wrote up a capsule for Seattle Weekly here.

Also at NWFF, on Friday, June 15, is another round of Framing Pictures, a conversation about cinema in and around Seattle with Robert Horton, Richard T. Jameson, and Kathleen Murphy. The discussion, with begins at 5pm, is free. More details from Richard Jameson at Straight Shooting.

Openings

Also springboarding from SIFF to release this weekend are three more films. The Woman in the Fifth, with Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas, is a Paris-set thriller from director Pawel Pawlikowski. Moira Macdonald reviews it for The Seattle Times: “The Woman in the Fifth builds up to a satisfyingly shocking revelation in its third act, but then seems to peter out rather than ending, telling us things we could have been shown.” At The Uptown.

Extraterrestrial from Spain is an alien invasion films about (in the words of director Nacho Vigaldondo) the 99% who aren’t taking fighting the aliens. In the words of film critic Jeff Shannon, writing for The Seattle Times, it is “a praiseworthy attempt to thwart expectations, but it’s also a marketer’s nightmare: How will sci-fi fans react when this alien-invasion scenario turns out to be a mildly amusing rom-com wannabe?” At The Uptown.

Guy Maddin’s Keyhole is “a cluttered ghost house of memory and regret, stuffed with curios, taxidermy wolverines, and a few recognizable stars,” writes Brian Miller at Seattle Weekly. SIFF Cinema at The Film Center.

“Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve with a deliberate, touching evocation of the French New Wave, Goodbye First Love is about dead-end passion as both a sign of life and an obstacle to happiness,” writes Tom Keogh for The Seattle Times. At Northwest Film Forum.

Last Days Here, a documentary about obscure cult heavy metal singer Bobby Liebling, plays for a week at Grand Illusion.

Also new this week: Lola Versus with Greta Gerwig (at Meridian and Sundance), Hysteria with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rupert Everett (Harvard Exit), Bel Ami with Robert Pattinson and Uma Thurman (Harvard Exit), and Turn Me On, Dammit! from Norway (Varsity)

Repertory

Possession, Andrjez Zulawski’s 1981 portrait of a divorce, is a different kind of horror film: a mix of David Cronenberg bio-horror and Rosemary’s Baby through the naked emotions of European art cinema. Cut by 45 minutes when it was originally released in the U.S., it was restored for home video a few years ago but for three days only, Grand Illusion is showing the director’s cut on a new 35mm print for the first time on Seattle screens. More in my capsule review at Seattle Weekly.

Plug & Play, an exploration of the world of artificial intelligence, plays free at SIFF Film Center on Wednesday June 20 as part of the “Next 50 Film Series” as part of the World’s Fair anniversary. Details at SIFF Cinema.

Late nights: Blue Velvet plays midnight on Friday and Saturday night this weekend at The Egyptian.

For more alternative screenings, read Moira Macdonald’s roundup at The Seattle Times.

Schedules and Showtimes

You can check your favorite independent cinemas, neighborhood theaters and multiplexes here.

Independent theaters:
SIFF Cinema
Northwest Film Forum
Grand Illusion
Seattle Art Museum
Central Cinema
The Big Picture
Majestic Bay Theatres
Cinerama

Multiplexes and Chains
Cinebarre
Landmark Theatres (Egyptian, Guild 45, Harvard Exit, Varsity and others)
Regal Cinemas (Meridian 16, Thornton Place and others)
AMC Cinemas (Pacific Place, Oak Tree, Alderwood and others)
Kirland Park Place
Lincoln Square Cinemas
Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas