August 2017 Reviews

(c) 2014 SBS Productions - SBS Films - Close Up Films - Arte France Cinema

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

Seattle Film Blog: The On-the-Ground Cinema of Ferguson Documentary Whose Streets?

The Stranger and Portland Mercury Film Openings: 
Bless Their Little Hearts, The Glass Castle, and Racial Politics Sets Lemon Apart From the Rest.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: The Peacers, Lavender Flu, and DYED, and Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble and Heather Trost.

Video Librarian: In the Shadow of Women,
Inseparables, and I Am the Blues.

In the Shadow image from Time Out.

July 2017 Reviews

Photo by Julien Bourgeois.

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

The Stranger Film Openings: My Grandfather Was A Member of the IRA, So Why Didn't I Fall For the Film The Journey? and Great Performances and Dialogue Breathe Life Into Landline's Middle-Class Problems.

The Stranger Music Things to Do:
Blonde Redhead with Porcelain Raft.

Video Librarian: Starlight [Blu-ray], The Rolling Stones -
Olé Olé Olé! A Trip Across Latin America [Blu-ray], What the
Health, The Invisible Patients, Injecting Aluminum, Ovarian
Psycos, Sonita, Special Blood, Trapped, and Wrestling
Alligators - The New Seminole Wars.

Blonde Redhead image from bits LOUNGE.  

June 2017 Reviews

Director Lipitz and the lethal ladies of Step.

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

Seattle Film Blog: SIFF 2017 Week One Guests: Hirokazu Koreeda, director of After the Storm, and Amanda Lipitz, director of Step.

The Stranger Film Opening: The Suburban Pleasures of BMX Riding in Violet and The Comforts of Exile in Wartime-Era Stefan Zweig.

Slog/Film Opening count: 683 posts and/or reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do:
Hurray for the Riff Raff and Making Movies.

Video Librarian: Table Songs of Kakheti, 
Chapter & Verse, and The Ticket [Blu-ray].

My photo from the May 22 screening of Step. Opens on Aug 4.

May 2017 Reviews

Kikagaku Moyo at the Sunset Tavern, 5/19/17.

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

 

 Seattle Film Blog: SIFF 2017 Week One Guest: Jeffrey Schwarz, Director of The Fabulous Allan Carr. 

The Stranger Film Opening:
The Commune: A Movie for Seattle's Housing Crisis?

The Stranger SIFF Notes: The Fixer, The Farthest,
The Last Family, The Oath, and Landline

Slog/Film Opening count: 682 posts and/or reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: PJ Harvey,
Jessy Lanza with Kate NV, Kikagaku Moyo, Sugar Candy
Mountain, and Bod, and Woods and Golden Daze.

Video Librarian: June Bride - Redemption of a Yakuza,
Dare to Drum, Guido Models, I Think You Are Totally Wrong - 
A Quarrel, La Laguna, Love, Sweat & Tears, Nada's Revo-
lution, Painted Nails, and Saving Jamaica Bay.



Endnote: SIFF '17 continues through June 11. Kikagaku photo by me!

April 2017 Reviews

Adrian Titieni and Lia Bugnar in Graduation.

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

SIFF: Blurb for the 2017 program guide (Bertrand Tavernier's Journey Through French Cinema).

The Stranger Film Openings: In the Ruins of Socialism: Toxic Father and Brutalist Architecture in Graduation.

Slog/Film Opening count: 681 posts and/or reviews since 2011. 

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Sleaford Mods with Private Room, Jay Som and the Courtneys, Spiral Stairs, Pale Noise, and Mystic Soul Potion, and Laura Marling with Valley Queen.
 
Video Librarian: Becoming Johanna, Mimi and Dona,  
Who Am I To Stop It, SPLiT, Departure, Fragments of 
Love, Kiki - Love to Love, Gary Numan - Android in 
La La Land, and Before I Kick the Bucket.

Image from Why Not Productions.  

March 2017 Reviews

A kedi ("Gamzis") in Kedi.

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

The Stranger Film Openings: Cats Exalted in Turkish Film Kedi, Take a Break from Trump's America and Spend Five Hours with the Four Japanese Women in Happy Hour, Gael García Bernal Good; You're Killing Me Susana Not So Good, Middle-Aged Greek Doctor Enjoys Making Out and Dancing With Young People In Suntan, and The Ups and Downs of Life After Madonna’s Blonde Ambition Tour in Strike a Pose.

Slog/Film Opening count: 680 posts and/or reviews since 2011.

Seattle Film Blog: revamped versions of Lust in the Austere Dust - Silent
Light, Opulent and Radiant - Anatahan, and Protocols of Zion.  

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Black Mountain and zZz,
The Coathangers, the Birth Defects, and VHS, and
Teenage Fanclub and Britta Phillips.

Video Librarian: Bars4Justice, Growing Up Coy, Let's Get 
the Rhythm, Mission to Lars, Murder Rap - Inside the Biggie and 
Tupac Murders, My Love Affair with the Brain - The Life and Science 
of Dr. Marian Diamond, Arcade Fire - The Reflektor Tapes [two-
Blu-ray set], and Def Leppard - And There Will Be a Next Time: 
Live from Detroit [two-CD+Blu-ray].



Endnote: Image from Oscilloscope Laboratories. 

February 2017 Reviews

Sandra Hüller sings her heart out in Toni Erdmann.

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

Cinema Squabble: I guested on podcast #51 with hosts Sara Michelle Fetters and Adam Gehrke. We discuss Logan, Get Out, Kedi, and the Oscars.  

Seattle Film Blog: Toni Erdmann is a death clown, a life coach, and a big, hairy Bulgarian monster. It's also a fabulous film. Plus, revamped versions of Sophie Scholl - The Final Days and Oscar winning screenwriter Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy. 

The Stranger Film Openings: Oscar-Nominated Toni Erdmann Is Long but Manages Not to Wear Out Its Welcome. 

Slog/Film Opening count: 675 posts and/or reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Cherry Glazerr with Slow Hollows, Uniform with Guests, Meatbodies with Guests, and Ty Segall, Axis Sova, Gazebos, Nail Polish, Weird Omen, and Guests.

Video Librarian: Brad Paisley - Life Amplified 
World Tour and Gimme Danger.

 
Toni Erdmann image from Sony Pictures Classics.