This Week, The Grand Illusion Plays with Bugs, Pulls Weird Stuff from the Basement

Seattle came through for the Grand Illusion in the last two weeks--the theater's managed to scrape together (barely) enough funds to keep its doors open for a while. And given the wonderfully unique programming they're busting out in the coming week, fans of left-of-center film fare can rejoice.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Trailer from Myriapod Productions on Vimeo.

Anyone who's ever marvelled at the alien wonder of insects in general should find rapture in Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, screening at the GI today through August 5. One of the most popular docs to screen at SIFF 2010, it's about the Japanese fascination with insects as a source of mythology, adoration, study, and (in at least one case) income. Director Jessica Oreck explores this synergy between man and invertebrate with a poet's eye, concentrating less on the science and mechanics of beetles and butterflies and more on their visual elegance and magic, and the visceral awe that those armored and winged oddities engender in their human cohabitants.

If you're looking for a less zen and more overt avenue of strangeness, the Illusion's presentation of We Found It in the Basement (running July 30 and 31 in the 11pm late show slot) promises a heady dose of weird. The theater's volunteers raided the 16mm films stashed in the basement, and unearthed everything from a Disney-produced anti-drug flick to a British workplace scare documentary to an exercise in foot fetishism to Saul Bass's Oscar-winning short Why Man Creates to who the hell knows what else. There's no telling what's sitting in the theater's cabinet of curiosities, so this presentation promises to be a helluva trip.