October 2015 Reviews

Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson's The Forbidden Room.

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

The Factual Opinion: three-part Beat Connection podcast in which 
I join Nate Patrin and Marty Brown to look at music documentaries. Part Two - Underdog Films and Part Three - Movement Overviews.

The Stranger Film Openings: The Walk Isn't Perfect, But It's Thril-
ling and The Forbidden Room Is Like Guy Maddin’s Greatest Hits.

Slog/Film Opening count: 629 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Destroyer and Frog
Eyes, Atlas Sound and Deerhunter, and Shannon and the Clams,
Shopping, Gazebos, Nail Polish, and Underworld Scum.

Video Librarian: Black and Cuba, Finding Home - Sophorn's Story, Perfect Strangers, Six Days, Walking with Life - The Birth of a Human Rights Movement in Africa, George Strait - The Cowboy Rides Away - Live from AT&T Stadium, Life after Death from Above 1979, Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014 [Blu-ray/two-CD set], and Jeff Lynne’s ELO - Livein Hyde Park [Blu-ray].

Forbidden Room image from Kino Lorber.

September 2015 Reviews

Poster for John Magary's The Mend.

These are the reviews and other 
pieces I'm working on this month.

The Factual Opinion: Beat Connection podcast 011-1 in which I join Nate Patrin and Marty Brown to look at music documentaries. Part One - Legacy Films. Part Two (un-
derdog films and movement overviews) to come. 

Fandor: A Seattle Childhood - The Sting Remains (a review of Bret Fetzer and Matt Smith's My Last Year with the Nuns).

The Stranger Film Openings: Ben Kingsley Meets the Ultimate
WASP in Learning to Drive, What A Walk in the Woods Tells Us About Robert Redford, The Son of a Liberation Fighter Refuses to Take Sides in Borrowed Identity, The Mend Is a Wonderful Psychodrama, Sleep
ing with Other People Is More Amusing Than Sexy, The Mystery of Korla Pandit's Race Is Examined in Korla, and Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez Could Use a Little More Magical Realism.

Slog/Film Opening count: 627 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do (formerly Up & Comings): A Place to Bury Strangers, Grooms, and Depth and Current, Moon Duo, Kinski, and Shitty Person (Benjamin Thomas-Kennedy), Lætitia Sadier and Deradoorian, Shamir and Allie X, and Angel Olsen and Alex Cameron.

Video Librarian: Harlem Street Singer - The Reverend Gary 
Davis Story, I Dream of Wires, Judith - Portrait of a Street Vendor,  
Queens & Cowboys - A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo, No Evidence 
of Disease, Alto, Grey’s Anatomy - Season 11 [six-disc set], and The 
Goldbergs - The Complete Second Season [three-disc set].

The Mend poster image from Cinelicious Pics.

August 2015 Reviews

Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke in Mistress America.

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.





Portland Mercury (The Stranger's sister paper): Noah Baum-
bach and Greta Gerwig's Mistress America Is Cleverly Self-Critical.

The Stranger Film Openings: The Look of Silence Looks at Genocide from the View of an Optometrist, A Holocaust Survivor Returns from the Dead to Haunt Her Gentile Husband in Phoenix, Listen to Me Marlon Offers a Privileged View of a Legend's Thoughts, Noah Baum-
bach and Greta Gerwig's Mistress America Is Cleverly Self-Critical, and Orlando Bloom Has Other Things on His Mind in Digging for Fire.

Slog/Film Opening count: 620 posts/reviews since 2011. 

The Stranger Up & Comings: Circuit des Yeux, Marisa
Anderson, somesurprises, and Josh Medina & Paurl Walsh
and Thee Oh Sees, SSDD, Smiling, and Guests.

Video Librarian: Ghosts of Amistad - In the Footsteps of the 
Rebels, Hafu, OUT in the Lineup, They Are We, Revenge of the 
Mekons, Zero Motivation, Black Veil Brides - Alive and Burn-
ing [Blu-ray], Glen Campbell - I’ll Be Me, Can’t Stand Losing  
You - Surviving the Police [Blu-ray], I Am FEMEN, Baby It's You  
[Blu-ray], Heaven Adores You [Blu-ray], and Soaked in Bleach.



Mistress America image from Fox Searchlight Pictures. 

July 2015 Reviews

Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's The Tribe. 

These are 
the reviews 
and other 
pieces I'm 
working on 
this month.






The Stranger Film Openings: Aloft Is Drama with a Capital D, Attention Must Be Paid to The Tribe, Ian McKellen Shines in Mr. Holmes, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence Is Bas-
ically a Live-Action Comic Strip About the Absurdity of Modern
Life, Two Unplanned Pregnancies in Unexpected, and Robin
Williams Gives a Nuanced Performance in Boulevard.

Slog/Film Opening count: 615 posts/reviews since 2011. 

The Stranger Up & Comings: CROSSS, Gutless,
Homebody, and Big Priest, Vetiver and Sam Ami-
don, and Royal Headache, Dude York, and VHS.

For some reason, my Protomartyr U&C didn't make it to print:

Detroit quartet Protomartyr's Hardly Art debut, Under Color of Official Right, wasn't their first record, but it introduced them to their widest audience yet. Between Joe Casey's incantatory yelp and the band's post-hardcore attack, they recall the days when Midwestern giants like Hüsker Dü stalked the land (just add a little Gang of Four angularity to the equation). Though Greg Ahee, Scott Davidson, and Alex Leonard have what it takes to blow out your eardrums, they excel when they rein in that fury as on "Scum, Rise!," which threatens to explode, but never does, generating enough tension to power a stadium. Over the past year, they've recorded a split single with Kelley Deal’s R. Ring and a third album set for release this fall. Bring industrial-strength earplugs.

Video Librarian: Lost Songs - The Basement Tapes Contin-
ued [Blu-ray], Call the Midwife - Season Four [three-disc set],  
Finding Tatanka, Slash - Live at the Roxy 9.25.14 [Blu-ray],  
First Peoples, Béla Fleck - How to Write a Banjo Concerto,
My Prairie Home, Self Inflected, and Still.

Click here for The Tribe age-restricted, non-embeddable trailer.  

The Tribe image from Drafthouse Films.

June 2015 Reviews

Mia Wasikowska in Sophie Barthes's Madame Bovary.

These are 
the reviews 
and other 
pieces I'm 
working on 
this month.





The Stranger Film Openings: The Kidnapping of Michel Houelle-
becq Is Stranger Than Fiction, The Film Critic: Cynical Writer Meets Beautiful Kleptomaniac, Madame Bovary: Light Gradually Giving Way to Shadow, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Cancer, Friendship, and Art, and The Wolfpack: A Bizarre Family, Candidly Captured. 

Slog/Film Opening count: 609 posts/reviews since 2011. 

The Stranger Up & Comings: Rhett Miller and
Annalisa Tornfelt and Jacco Gardner and Calvin Love. 

Video Librarian: Deported, Once My Mother, A River
Changes Course, 2e - Twice Exceptional, Days of Grace, Ma-
hogany, When Calls the Heart - Trials of the Heart, Know
How, She Must Be Seeing Things, and Of Girls and Horses.

Image from Millennium Entertainment.    

May 2015 Reviews

R.J. Cyler and Thomas Mann in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

These are 
the reviews 
and other
 pieces I'm 
working on 
this month.







Seattle Film Blog: SIFF 2015 Documentaries Take on Music Stores,
Drum Machines, Dueling Pundits, and More! and SIFF 2015
Guests Include Jemaine Clement, Star of People, Places, Things,
and Marah Strauch, Director of Sunshine Superman

The Stranger Film Openings: Rich Iris Apfel Believes Fashion
Lives Everywhere, Even Dollar Stores and Good Kill Shows What
Can Happen When Humans Put Too Much Faith in Machines.

Slog/Film Opening count: 604 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger SIFF Notes: Spy, Banana, For Grace, Me and
Earl and the Dying Girl, Sleeping with Other People, I'll See
You in My Dreams, and Mr. Holmes. They used Angela Garbes's capsule of For Grace instead of mine. Here's what I wrote:

FOR GRACE
Documentaries about famous chefs, like Paul Liebrandt (A Matter of Taste) and 
Michel Bras (Entre les Bras), tend to play like promotional videos by showcasing 
restaurants as much as their founders. This one centers on photogenic Grace 
founder Curtis Duffy, who has a surprisingly grim back story, but the more 
charismatic subject is his business partner, Michael Muser, a burly Danny 
McBride character as imagined by David Mamet. (KATHY FENNESSY)

The Stranger Slog: A Unique Look at Beach Boy Brian
Wilson and Other Weekend Options and SIFF 2015 Week-
end in Review: There's More to Australia Than Mad Max.

The Stranger Up & Comings: The Rezillos and Kid Congo
Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds, Vaadat Charigim, Speedy
Ortiz, Alex G., Broken Water, and Amen Dunes & Ryley Walker.

Video Librarian: Don't Think I've Forgotten - Cambodia's 
Lost Rock and Roll, Hepatitis C - Causes, Symptoms, Pre-
vention, Treatment, The Milky Way, Mujeres con Pelotas, 
Kill Me Three Times, Shania - Still the One: Live from Las 
Vegas [Blu-ray], Boy Meets Girl, God's Slave, The Nun, 
and Transatlantic Sessions - The Best of Folk.  



Me and Earl image from Indian Paintbrush.  

April 2015 Reviews

Ben Stiller, Dree Hemingway, Naomi Watts, and Adam Driver in While We're Young.

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

The Stranger Film Openings: Call the Midlife—Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts Crush Out on Youth in Noah Baumbach's Painful, Funny While We're Young, Effie Gray Stars a Very Sad and Unloved Dakota Fanning, Rabbinical Court Rules No Infidelity Then No Divorce for Long-Suffering Woman in Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, Brazilian Actress Shines in New Coen Brothers-Inspired Crime Thriller Kill Me Three Times, Wim Wenders Documentary The Salt of the Earth Is About Photographer Sebastião Salgado, Melanie Griffith, Her Parents, and Her Siblings Deal with Some Badass Big Cats in Roar, Adult Beginners Says It's Time to Grow Up, Misery Loves Comedy Asks if Happy People Can Be Funny.

Slog/Film Opening count: 602 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Seattle International Film Festival: Work continues
on the 2015 program guide (I wrote five blurbs altogether). 

The Stranger Up & Comings: Disappears, Leon Russell, The
Soft Moon and Girl Tears, Lady Lamb, and Sleater-Kinney.

Video Librarian: Irreplaceable, The Red Tent, Low Down, Bob Marley & the Wailers - Easy Skanking in Boston 1978, Penton - The John Penton Story, Bill Maher - Live from DC, Love Hunter, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, A Borrowed Identity, Breakin'-
Breakin’ 2 - Electric Boogaloo [Blu-ray], and Whitney.



While We're Young image from A24.