August 2016 Reviews

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

The Stranger Film Openings: An Improv Troupe Faces the Future in Don’t Think Twice, You Really Must See Our Little Sister, Gentrification Is Not Easy in the Terrific Little Men, The Intervention Shows the Director Has Got the Right Stuff, R&B Star Usher Successfully Plays Sugar Ray Leonard in Movie About Panamanian Boxer, and Black Kids Rock Hard in Breaking a Monster.

Slog/Film Opening count: 666 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Marissa Nadler, Wrekmeister Harmonies, and Muscle and Marrow, Globelamp, Takashi Miyaki, DJ Mermod, and DJ Tomi, Parquet Courts, and Gap Dream (which was ultimately canceled). 

Video Librarian: Dugong & Din - A True Story of a Boy and His 
Sea Cow, Ní Aquí, Ní Allá, Shout Gladi Gladi, Dear Eleanor, Endgame [Blu-ray], The Wedding Doll, L’Attesa, No Men Beyond This Point, Songs My Brother Taught Me, Summertime, and Parched.

 
Our Little Sister image from Sony Pictures Classics. 

July 2016 Reviews

Royalty Hightower in The Fits.

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





The Stranger Film Openings: Royalty Hightower Illuminates the Coming-of-Age Tale The Fits, French Cowboys, Islamic Terrorists, and John C. Reilly in Les Cowboys, NUTS! Tells the Story of an All-American Nut, and A 100-Year-Old Woman in Older Than Ireland Attributes Her Long Life to the Fact She Never Ate a Vegetable.

Slog/Film Opening count: 661 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Puget Soundtrack:
Fungal Abyss Presents The Devils.

Video Librarian: The Damned - Don't You Wish That We Were Dead [DVD+Blu-ray], East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem, The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170 - Julius Cavero, Song of Lahore, The Winding Stream - The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music, A Sinner in Mecca, Wondrous Boccaccio, Cornbread, Earl and Me [Blu].



The Fits image from Oscilloscope Laboratories. 

June 2016 Reviews

Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig in Maggie's Plan.

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

Cinema Squabble: I guested on Episode #37 with podcast hosts Adam Gehrke and Sara Michelle Fetters to talk about Tickled, Neon Demon, Finding Dory, and other new releases.

SIFFBlog: SIFF 2016 Guests Include Shunji Iwai, Ti West, Martin Bell, and Erin "Tiny" Blackwell and More SIFF 2016 Guests: Megan Griffiths, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Paulina Obando.
 
The Stranger Film Openings: Talented Boxer Learns the Cost of Fame Is Your Soul in T-Rex, Rebecca Miller Loves Her Characters in Maggie's Plan, Kaili Blues Makes Magic Out of the Ordinary, Oriented Is a Timely Documentary About Muslim Gays in Tel Aviv, The Docu-
mentary Tickled Uncovers Emotional Pain, and A Stoic Dachshund Waddles Through the Casual Cruelty of Humanity in Wiener-Dog.

Slog/Film Opening count: 656 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Elysian 20th Anniversary Show (with the Gits, the Raveonettes, Black Lips, DJ Riz, etc.), Heron Oblivion, Boogarins, and Low Hums, Jessy Lanza, DJ Taye, and Jimi Jaxon, KEXP Rocks the Dock: Erik Blood, Telekinesis, Summer Cannibals, and DJ Evie, and Deerhoof, Skating Polly, and Scarves. 

Video Librarian: Life Is Sacred, Nefertiti's Daughters,  
Regarding Susan Sontag, Melody Gardot - Live at the Oly-
mpia Paris [Blu-ray], American Masters - Janis: Little Girl 
Blue, Alan Jackson - Keepin’ It Country: Live at Red Rocks,  
Golden Gate Girls, The Spoils Before Dying, Belladonna of Sad-
ness, No Home Movie, and Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words.



Endnote: Image from Sony Pictures Classics.

May 2016 Reviews

Schoenaerts, Swinton, Johnson, and Fiennes in A Bigger Splash. 

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

The Stranger Film Openings: Mad Tiger
Asks the Question: Is the Leader of Peelander-Z a Genius or Mad?, Tilda Swinton Plays a Rock Star in the Magnificent A Bigger Splash, The US Is Finally Ready for Eiichi Yamamoto's 1973 Erotic Anima-
tion Belladonna of Sadness.

Slog/Film Opening count: 650 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger SIFF Notes: The Memory of Fish, Sunset Song,  
Where Have All the Good Men Gone, The Violin Teacher, and As 
You Are. There may be more to come between now and June 12.

The Stranger already had a review for As You Are. Here's mine:

Miles Joris-Peyrafitte uses flashbacks and interrogation video to depict the friendship between two New York teens in the 1990s. The extroverted Mark (Charlie Heaton) meets the introverted Jack (Owen Campbell) when their parents (Mary Stuart Masterson and Scott Cohen) fall in love. They become a triangle when they befriend Sarah (Amandla Stenberg) with whom they hang out and get high. Then jealousy enters the picture, and it all goes to shit. Though Joris-Peyrafitte is only 23, this is an assured debut that recalls Gus Van Sant in teen-thriller mode, so it's too bad it falls apart at the end. (KATHY FENNESSY)
 
The Stranger Music Things to Do: Dungen with Boogarins, Cate
Le Bon with Mega Bog, Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop, and Elysian 20th
Anniversary Show with the Gits, the Raveonettes, Black Lips, etc. 

Video Librarian: Between Allah and Me (and Everyone Else), Pearl S. Buck - A Life, a Legacy, A Chance to Dress, College - The Other Costs, Feminism Insha'allah - A History of Arab Feminism, How to End Unhealthy Relationships, The Way We Talk, Live from the House of Soul - Antibalas, Theory of Obscurity - A Film about the Residents [Blu-ray], and Zydeco Crossroads - A Tale of Two Cities [Blu-ray].

A Bigger Splash image from Fox Searchlight Pictures. 

April 2016 Reviews

Ursula Parker and Logan Miller in Take Me to the River.

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






The Stranger Film Openings: Demolition Has Oscarless Jake Gyllenhaal Playing a Normal Guy, The Gimmick Excels in the Postmillennial Noir Too Late, Girl Must Sell Sex to Pay Debt in Sold, Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie Is About the Death of Her Mother, but It's Not Depressing, It’s Punks vs. Skinheads in Green Room, and Women Realize That Men Hold All the Cards in Fireworks Wednesday.

Slog/Film Opening count: 647 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Killer Mike, Bilal, Shaprece, and DJ El Mizell, Lush, and Tortoise and Life Coach.

Seattle Film Blog: Matt Sobel's Take Me to the River.

Video Librarian: Growing Apart - The Politics of Family Separation, Code Girl, I Smile Back, We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! [Blu-ray], Enrique Bunbury - El Camino Mas Largo [Blu-ray], American Masters - Carole King: Natural Woman [Blu-ray], and The Criterion Collection - A Poem Is a Naked Person. 



Endnote: Image from Film Movement. 

March 2016 Reviews

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

The Stranger Film Openings: Hello, My Name Is Doris Is Harold and Maude for Millennials, The Bronze Is a Good Film with a Very Acrobatic Sex Scene, and Very Old Christopher Plummer Goes After a Very Old Nazi in Remember.

Slog/Film Opening count: 641 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: 2016 John in the Morning at Night: The Dandy Warhols, Young Fathers, Battleme, and Guests.

Video Librarian: Big Dream, India's Daughter, Life After 
Manson, Slash - Raised on the Sunset Strip [Blu-ray], Por-
trait of a Serial Monogamist, The Dicks from Texas, Live 
from the House of Soul - Charles Bradley with the Men-
ahan Street Band, Women Aren’t Funny, Turn It Up!  
A Celebration of the Electric Guitar [Blu-ray],
and Miss You Already [Blu-ray].

 

Endnote: Image from Roadside Attractions.

February 2016 Reviews

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

KCTS 9: Screening films for the 2016 season
of Reel NW. Ti-
tles TBA.

The Stranger Film Openings: A Remarkable Life in Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words and Austerity Equals Impotence in Arabian Nights.

Slog/Film Opening count: 638 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Julia Holter and Circuit des Yeux, the Budos Band and Guests, Parquet Courts and Guests, Basia Bulat and the Weather Station, Audio Social Dissent 2016: Wolf Eyes, Tim-
my's Organism, Regression 696, and Video, and Dengue Fever, Branden Daniel and the Chics, and Kingdom of the Holy Sun.



Video Librarian: 1 Way Up - The Story of Peckham BMX, I Am 
Thor [Blu-ray], Semicolon; The Adventures of Ostomy Girl, This 
May Be the Last Time, Big Stone Gap [Blu-ray], and Honky.



Endnote: Image from Alt Film Guide (no photographer credited).