Audrey Hendrickson

Wednesday, February 2nd

• From the director of Cinema Paradiso, Baaria runs through Thursday @ SIFF Cinema
• Rain City Tales & Tunes presents the roots music of Coyote Grace and "Bitter Single Guy" Greg Brisendine at their radio-show taping @ Empty Sea Studios
• Read silently in the company of Christopher Frizzelle and others @ the Sorrento

Thursday, February 3rd

• Soul songstress Bettye Lavette funks it up through Saturday @ Jazz Alley
• On-air personality is explored in Babs the Dodo (runs through Feb. 14) @ Washington Ensemble Theatre
• Paula Vogel's Pulitzer-winning How I Learned to Drive opens @ Downstage Theatre
• Paul Budraitis's (IN)STABILITY opens @ On the Boards
• Siberian virtuoso violinist Vadim Repin plays Symphonie espagnole with Seattle Symphony (also Feb. 5 & 6) @ Benaroya Hall
• Conor Grennan talks about Nepal's trafficked children @ Town Hall
• The Dutch film The Indian touches on cross-cultural adoption @ the Northwest Film Forum

Friday, February 4th

• Our friends at Sound on the Sound presents Ivan & Alyosha's CD release show, along with Curtains For You and If Bears Were Bees @ Columbia City Theater
• Against Me! sells out (or do they?), with local tattoo aficionado Fences @ Neumo's
• The Satori Group presents nationally recognized comedy duo The Bengsons @ the Satori Loft
• Babs the Dodo opens @ Washington Ensemble Theatre
• Vincent Delaney's 3 Screams opens @ Theatre off Jackson
• A concert dedicated to the memory of local pianist Tricia Woods @ Good Shepherd Center
• Travis Hay's Guerilla Candy celebrates their official launch party (hosted by Brent Amaker) with Hounds of the Wild Hunt, Hot Bodies in Motion, Hobosexual, and My Goodness @ the High Dive
• With Schubert, Britten, and Shostakovich, there's some chamber music for everyone @ Benaroya Hall

• ---

Casper Babypants plays last week's Children's Film Festival opening party @ NWFF

Saturday, February 5th

• The Sci-fi on Blu-ray series brings Serenity and Starship Troopers @ SIFF Cinema
• Grand Hallway pop orchestras it up with Birds & Batteries @ Chop Suey
• Indie rockers Mal de Mer celebrate their debut 7" release @ the Sunset Tavern
• Buñuel and Dali's L'Age d'or will freak your shit out @ the Grand Illusion
• Nouveau cabaret exponents the Can Can Castaways present their newest, SHOW PONY @ the Can Can
• Kids! Caspar Babypants plays @ the Mount Baker Clubhouse
• Simple Measures performs the music of Significant Others (Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, and more) @ Kenyon Hall 
• Tamale-making classes @ El Centro de la Raza

• ---

Sunday, February 6th

• Skip the Super Bowl for Showtunes: The Music of Irving Berlin @ the Moore
• The Most Awesome Variety Show Ever features comedy stunt man Matt Baker, three Guinness World Record holders, and "another person" @ the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater
• You can watch the Super Bowl at a bajillion places, but there's only one serving authentic Wisconsin Leinenkugel's (for just $3.50) @ the Bottleneck
• I sincerely doubt the wisdom of a festival launch party the night of the Super Bowl. But if you want the first word of who's playing Sasquatch this year and/or see The Thermals, Das Racist, Mad Rad, DJ Darwin, and comedian Todd Barry, head to Verizon Wireless store locations (6th & Olive, Northgate Mall, and Bellevue Square Mall) on Thursday for your free Sasquatch launch party tickets @ Showbox

Monday, February 7th

• Alien and Aliens burst out of your stomach onto the big screen @ Central Cinema
• There's another night of National Theater Live with Fela! @ SIFF Cinema
• Experimental musicians wire Tokyo for sound for you in We Don't Care About Music Anyway @ the Northwest Film Forum

• Like Glee! but with school uniforms: "Individual and combined Catholic High School Choirs perform in concert" @ Benaroya Hall

Tuesday, February 8th

• Karaoke butt-rock musical Rock of Ages opens (through the 13th) @ the Paramount
• Take a tour of "Ming Wong: Life of Imitation" and then stay for tea @ the Frye Art Museum
• Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People, talks @ Benaroya Hall

Back from Sundance, back to reality. Which means movies of fair to middling quality out on DVD. Let's take a look at the newest releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

Some of the biggest recent releases include AARP action flick Red, glorified Lifetime movie Conviction, and what is hopefully truly The Final Chapter of Saw. There's also the original Swedish version of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the adequate American take on Swedish vampire moodpiece Let the Right One In, Let Me In, and a lifeless Never Let Me Go. In happier news, you can now see Gareth Morris' DIY post-alien apocalyptic romantic road trip Monsters.

Get ready for the Academy Awards with Greece's offbeat Best Foreign Film entry Dogtooth. Do yourself a favor and skip the nearly three hours of Gasper Noe's Enter the Void. But see a young Aaron Johnson play a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy or Andy Serkis (that's right, Gollum) as Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Gerard Depardieu bloats it up for Claude Chabrol's final film, Inspector Bellamy. And two from last year's Sundance: Kristen Stewart as a bored lip-bitey stripper with James Gandolfini in Welcome to the Rileys and Philly black power in Night Catches Us.

---

In documentaries, resign yourself in disgrace to watch Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Almost as harrowing is the plight of children migrating from Mexico in the Oscar-nominated a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/which_way_home_2009/">Which Way Home, or a look at Portland roller derby in Brutal Beauty: Tale of the Rose City Rollers. Meanwhile, Eric Bana (yes, the Hulk) really likes his car in Love the Beast, Thomas Frank once again tries to figure out What's the Matter with Kansas?, and Bill Withers writes great songs (including "Lean on Me") in Still Bill. And be sure to catch one of the finest films of 2010, the portrait of mixed emotions of football player/Afghan war soldier Pat Tillman in The Tillman Story.

---

New to TV on DVD is season 2, volume 1 of Glee, and season 8 of British intelligence drama MI-5. You can also pick up the complete series of Zorro, and the complete collection of seminal '80s Civil War miniseries North and South. And you've got your pick of ripped-from-the-headlines made-for-tv movies: Jennifer Love Hewitt as a brothel madam in The Client List or mucho knocked-up high school in The Pregnancy Pact. 

Criterion has a big ol' box set out as of last week, with Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden's London Underground, featuring four post-war films from Criterion’s Eclipse series: All Night Long (1962),Victim (1961),Sapphire(1959), and League of Gentlemen (1960). Criterion also just released James L. Brooks' classic Broadcast News, and their version of The Double Life of Veronique is now available on Blu-Ray. Also new to Blu-Ray: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Color Purple, All About Eve, Pleasantville, and An Affair to Remember. Disney's (animated) Alice in Wonderland celebrates its 60th anniversary with a two-disc special edition, and while there can only be one, there are two Highlander films in that set. Meanwhile, TCM has several new entries from their Greatest Classic Film Collection: Legends, with Errol Flynn, John Ford, Jean Harlow, and--yes--Lassie.

In the grab bag, the plot of Alligator is fairly self-evident.  But I'm not sure what to make of air-drumming quirkfest Adventures of Power, with Jane Lynch and Michael McKean. And while Open Season 3 can be considered a semi-respectable release, the same cannot be said for Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.

Just a few final thoughts about Sundance, now that the fest is over as of today. Like I said earlier, there ended up being no one stand-out film, which the award winners reflect (full list after the jump). I was happy to see that one of the big awards (Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic) went to Like Crazy, one of my favorite films at this year's fest. And bringing it back to the Northwest, the other big jury award (Grand Jury Prize, Documentary) went to How to Die in Oregon, an assisted suicide doc, which I didn't see, but as you might expect, I heard it was heeeeaaaavvvy. All in all, it was a strong slate of films, many of which sold, so you can expect a goodly chunk of these movies to make it to independent art house cinemas, as well as SIFF come May.

I'm still left feeling that Sundance is such a special time and place. Even though there's a lot of attendees from NYC and LA, everyone has their guard down just a bit. Yes, there's still self-interested assholes and industry douchebags, but they're in the minority; there's a lot more people who are aware that we're all in this tiny ski town watching movies together, and they act accordingly. It's a shared experience, and maybe that's why folks are so much more polite than usual, saying "hello" and "good morning" to everyone from a festival volunteer to a film producer. And I just love being around other people who also love talking film.

If you want a little taste of Sundance, check out the video above by my film fest companion of six years running. He and I don't see all the same films, so this is your chance to catch his glimpse of Rutger Hauer after the screening of midnight movie extraordinaire, Hobo With a Shotgun.

---

---

2011 Sundance Film Festival Award Winners: 

The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to How to Die in Oregon, directed by Peter D. Richardson. In 1994 Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. How to Die in Oregon gently enters the lives of terminally ill Oregonians to illuminate the power of death with dignity.

The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to Like Crazy, directed by Drake Doremus; written by Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones.  A young American guy and a young British girl meet in college and fall in love. Their love is tested when she is required to leave the country and they must face the challenges of a long-distance relationship.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to Hell and Back Again, directed by Danfung Dennis. Told through the eyes of one Marine from the start of his 2009 Afghanistan tour to his distressing return and rehabilitation in the U.S., we witness what modern "unconventional" warfare really means to the men who are fighting it. U.S.A./United Kingdom

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to Happy, Happy (Sykt Lykkelig), directed by Anne Sewitsky; written by Ragnhild Tronvoll. A perfect housewife, who just happens to be sex-starved, struggles to keep her emotions in check when an attractive family moves in next door. Norway

The Audience Awards are presented to both a dramatic and documentary film in four competitions as voted by Sundance Film Festival audiences. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival Audience Awards are presented by Acura.

The Audience Award: Documentary was presented to Buck, directed by Cindy Meehl, for her story about the power of non-violence and master horse trainer Buck Brannaman, who uses principles of respect and trust to tame horses and inspire their human counterparts.

The Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to Circumstance, directed and written by Maryam Keshavarz, in which a wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession.

The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary was presented to Senna, directed by Asif Kapadia; written by Manish Pandey, about legendary racing driver and Brazilian hero Ayrton Senna, taking us on the ultimate journey of what it means to become the greatest when faced with the constant possibility of death. United Kingdom

The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to Kinyarwanda, directed and written by Alrick Brown, which tells the story of Rwandans who crossed the lines of hatred during the 1994 genocide, turning mosques into places of refuge for Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis. U.S.A./Rwanda

The Best of NEXT!: Audience Award was presented to to.get.her, directed and written by Erica Dunton about five girls who come together for one fateful night where anything goes. They all had secrets, but their friendship was the only thing they knew to be true.

Directing Awards recognize excellence in directing for dramatic and documentary features.

The Directing Award: Documentary was presented to Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, directed by Jon Foy. An urban mystery unfurls as one man pieces together the surreal meaning of hundreds of cryptic tiled messages that have been appearing in city streets across the U.S. and South America.

The Directing Award: Dramatic was presented to Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed and written by Sean Durkin. Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

The World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary was presented to Project Nim, directed by James Marsh, who explores the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who was taught to communicate with language as he was raised and nurtured like a human child.United Kingdom

The World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic was presented to Tyrannosaur, directed and written by Paddy Considine. For a man plagued by self-destructive violence and rage, a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker with a devastating secret of her own. United Kingdom

The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award was presented to Another Happy Day, directed and written by Sam Levinson, about a pair of reckless siblings who are dragged into a chaotic family wedding by their overwrought mother.

The World Cinema Screenwriting Award was presented to Restoration, directed by Yossi Madmony; written by Erez Kav-El, about an antique furniture restorer, who, aided by a young and mysterious apprentice, struggles to keep his workshop alive, while his relationship with his own estranged son, who is trying to close down the shop, begins to disintegrate. Israel

The Documentary Editing Award was presented to If a Tree Falls' Matthew Hamachek and Marshall Curry and directed by Marshall Curry. The Earth Liberation Front is a radical environmental group that the FBI calls America's “number one domestic terrorist threat.” Daniel McGowan, an ELF member, faces life in prison for two multi-million dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies.

The World Cinema Documentary Editing Award was presented to The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, edited by Göran Hugo Olsson and Hanna Lejonqvist and directed by Göran Hugo Olsson. From 1967 to 1975, Swedish journalists chronicled the Black Power movement in America. Combining that 16mm footage, undiscovered until now, with contemporary audio interviews, this film illuminates the people and culture that fueled change and brings the movement to life anew.Sweden/U.S.A.

The Excellence in Cinematography Awards honor exceptional cinematography in both dramatic and documentary categories:

The Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary was presented to The Redemption of General Butt Naked, directed by Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion; cinematographers: Eric Strauss, Ryan Hill and Peter Hutchens. A brutal warlord who murdered thousands during Liberia's horrific 14-year civil war renounces his violent past and reinvents himself as an Evangelist, facing those he once terrorized.

The Excellence in Cinematography Award: Dramatic was presented to Pariah, directed and written by Dee Rees; cinematographer: Bradford Young. When forced to choose between losing her best friend or destroying her family, a Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and endures heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.

The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary was presented to Hell and Back Again, directed by Danfung Dennis; cinematographer: Danfung Dennis. Told through the eyes of one Marine from the start of his 2009 Afghanistan tour to his distressing return and rehabilitation in the U.S., we witness what modern "unconventional" warfare really means to the men who are fighting it. U.S.A./United Kingdom

The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic was presented to All Your Dead Ones, directed by Carlos Moreno; written by Alonso Torres and Carlos Moreno; cinematographer: Diego F. Jimenez. One morning, a peasant wakes to find a pile of bodies in the middle of his crops. When he goes to the authorities, he quickly realizes that the dead ones are a problem nobody wants to deal with. Colombia

Two World Cinema Special Jury Prizes: Dramatic for Breakout Performances were presented to Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan for their roles in Tyrannosaur, directed and written by Paddy Considine. For a man plagued by self-destructive violence and rage, a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker with a devastating secret of her own. United Kingdom

A World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to Position Among the Stars (Stand van de Sterren) directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich, for his expose of the effects of globalization on Indonesia's rapidly changing society as it ripples into the life of a poor Christian woman living in the slums of Jakarta with her Muslim sons and teenage granddaughter. The Netherlands

A Special Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer’s Journey, directed by Constance Marks, an inspirational film that crosses cultures and generations

A Special Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to Another Earth directed by Mike Cahill; written by Mike Cahill and Brit Marling. On the eve of the discovery of a duplicate Earth, a horrible tragedy irrevocably alters the lives of two strangers, who begin an unlikely love affair.

A Special Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to Felicity Jones for her role in Like Crazy, directed by Drake Doremus; written by Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones.  A young American guy and a young British girl meet in college and fall in love. Their love is tested when she is required to leave the country and they must face the challenges of a long-distance relationship.

As announced on Tuesday, the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking was awarded to Brick Novax pt 1 and 2 (Director and screenwriter: Matt Piedmont). The International Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking was given to Deeper Than Yesterday / Australia (Director and screenwriter: Ariel Kleiman). In addition, the jury awarded Honorable Mentions in Short Filmmaking to: Choke / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Michelle Latimer); Diarchy / Italy (Director and screenwriter: Ferdinando Cito Filomarino); The External World / Germany, Ireland (Director and screenwriter: David O’Reilly); The Legend of Beaver Dam / Canada (Director: Jerome Sable, screenwriters: Jerome Sable and Eli Batalion); Out of Reach / Poland (Director and screenwriter: Jakub Stozek); and Protoparticles / Spain (Director and screenwriter: Chema García Ibarra).

On Tuesday Sundance Institute and Mahindra announced the winners of the inaugural Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, in recognition and support of emerging independent filmmakers from around the world. The winning directors and projects are: Bogdan Mustata, Wolf from Romania; Ernesto Contreras, I Dream in Another Language from Mexico; Seng Tat Liew, In What City Does It Live? from Malaysia; and Talya Lavie, Zero Motivation from Israel.

Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) on Thursday announced Cherien Dabis, director of May in the Summer, as the winner of the Sundance Institute/NHK Award honoring and supporting emerging filmmakers.

Another Earth, written and directed by Mike Cahill, is the recipient of this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. The Prize, which carries a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character.

Little Birds is the coming-of-age story of two girls who live near the Salton Sea (which is beautifully filmed, btw). Lily (Juno Temple) and Allison (Kay Panabaker) have been best friends since they were little kids, but now that they're fifteen, Lily is starting to act out, while Allison is still content being more child than woman. When Lily meets a skater boy from LA, she wants to run away to see him there, and Allison, being a dutiful friend, is bound to accompany her. Of course, excitement and trouble ensues. Writer-director Elgin James definitely knows the film's territory well (having been a street kid and a member of a gang himself) and he obviously has a great appreciation for strong women, but I know Thirteen and you, Little Birds, are not Thirteen.

Still from "Little Birds" (Photo: Justin Colt)

---

---

Little Birds was merely meh, but I Melt With You was just plain lousy...which I kinda expected. Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay, and Jeremy Piven (as per usual, playing Jeremy Piven) are college buddies who reunite once a year to catch up and act like they're back in college. Now that they're approaching age forty-five, they've all got their personal problems, but that doesn't keep them from cutting loose in Big Sur with a shit-ton of booze and drugs. And had this movie just been about a week-long bacchanalia, it would have been shallow but fun. However, about halfway through, the film's tone shifts wildly, and suddenly it becomes dark, maudlin, and self-important. What a joyless chore.

This year's Sundance is a peculiar beast. While it's a solid slate of films at this year's fest (the best in a while, which bodes well for 2011), there's no one outstanding OHMIGOD flick. No Winter's Bone, no Precious, no Little Miss Sunshine. Instead the audience raves and critical accolades are spread over several films: a year with the New York Times in Page One, sci-fi drama Another Earth, Formula One doc Senna. Of course, we're only halfway through the fest, so it's always possible, albeit unlikely, that a front-runner could still emerge.

As to what I've been up to over the last day, I caught the end of a performance by the Low Anthem, the Rhode Island band of multi-instrumentalists I fell in love with after seeing them at the Croc last year. They played several songs from their upcoming release Smart Flesh (out next month), and yes, they even broke out the bow and saw.

---

Photo by micro-scope, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Meanwhile in movies, Canada's newly Oscar-nominated Incendies is a visually stunning meditation on the legacy of anger and hatred over generations. When twentysomething Montreal twins Simon and Jeanne open their mother's will, they find that they must fulfill her dying wish: to deliver two letters, one to the father they thought was dead, and the other to the brother they never knew existed. The twins set off to Lebanon, and in their journey they discover their mother's life story and the shocking family secrets contained therein. With strong performances from the cast and dynamic sound design, writer-director Denis Villeneuve has adapted Wajdi Mouawad's play Scorched into something all his own. Incendies is a slow-burner that lingers long after the film ends.

---

This morning started off with Reagan, Eugene Jarecki's (Why We Fight) surprisingly disappointing portrait of the former President, both the mythical figure and the contradictions inherent to the man. While Jarecki is thorough as always and makes excellent use of archival footage, he unfortunately tries to do too much, and in covering Reagan's entire life, he gives short shrift to Iran-Contra (among other topics) that could be a film in and of itself. The pre-Presidential portion of the film, especially Reagan's time as the head of the actors' union and his six years as a GE spokesman-cum-man of the people are the most eye-opening, but Jarecki pulls too many punches for Reagan be an effective doc of either the man or the President.

But definitely the worst film I've seen at the fest this year is Lord Bryon. The title character is a pseudo-philosophical layabout who loves the ladies. Why they love this lumpy lazy-eyed pothead back is beyond me. Throw in a bunch of "quirky" friends and acquaintances and you've got the sad sack version of Napoleon Dynamite. Add some "experimental" filmmaking and--voila!--a fat man rolling around on the ground superimposed upon a televangelist shouting about "the abomination of desolation" for several minutes of my precious life. WOOF. 

Wednesday, January 26th

• The Curious Mystery, X-Ray Press, & Wah Wah Exit Wound @ the Sunset Tavern
• The Stranger's Adrian Ryan would like you to watch Pee-Wee's Big Adventure with him @ Central Cinema

Thursday, January 27th

• Pepper Rabbit & Ra Ra Riot @ Neumo's
• Happy Birthday, Mozart! Byron Schenkman and friends (soprano Linda Tsatsanis, violinist Ingrid Matthews, cellist Nathan Whittaker, and pianist Rachel Matthews) celebrate chamber Mozart @ Town Hall
• Arias from Aida to Turandot: Soloists and the Seattle Symphony Chorale present the "Opera Highlights Festival, Part 1" @ Benaroya Hall

Friday, January 28th

---

---

• Eric Elbogen is releasing a new album as Say Hi; with support from local pop charmers the Globes & Cataldo @ Neumo's
• SOLD OUT: Interpol, post-Carlos D, tours behind their forthcoming album with help from School of Seven Bells @ Showbox SoDo
• Karl Blau, the Pica Beats, & the Soft Hills @ the Sunset Tavern
• Missed Baaria at the opening of the Venice Film Festival? This expensive Italian film about a tough kid who grows up to be a communist run sthrough Feb. 3 @ SIFF Cinema
• The Seattle Children's Film Festival kicks off tonight and runs through February 6th with all sorts of family-friendly fare @ NWFF
• The amazing young violinist Marié Rossano joins the Lake Union Civic Orchestra for "Bruch and Bruckner" @ Town Hall
• Seattle Modern Orchestra goes "Strictly Strings" (Vivier, Xenakis, Adams) @ Cornish's PONCHO Hall
• Seattle Dance Project's "Project 4" features the works of female choreographers @ the Erickson Theater Off Broadway

Jacque Tati's "My Uncle"

Saturday, January 29th

• Your choice: "Backyard Beekeeping 101"or "City Chickens 101" @ the Good Shepherd Center
• The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger's bio reads like a riddle wrapped in an enigma of discarded metaphors filtered through a few layers of machine translation, but it's Sean Lennon's band with Kemp Muhl. Listen to their tiny desk concert, then see them for yourself @ the Crocodile.
• School of Rock presents the Best of Bowie (early); Emerald City Soul Club takes over later for Talcum @ Chop Suey
• FREE: Eleven-string archguitar hero Jon Mendle plays @ the Frye Art Museum
• Opera from Donizetti, Offenbach, Gershwin, and more: Soloists and the Seattle Symphony Chorale present the "Opera Highlights Festival, Part 2" @ Benaroya Hall
• Jacque Tati's My Uncle has "dozens of variations from Mon Oncle" (besides being in English). This rare alternate-universe Tati shows through Feb. 3 @ the Northwest Film Forum

Sunday, January 30th

• Pike Brewing invites you to the Annual Old Bawdy Vertical Tasting (vintages from 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010) @ the Pike Pub & Brewery's Museum Room
• Even if you haven't moved past Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil, Blake Schwarzenbach has, in the form of his new band Forgetters @ Vera Project
• Enjoy some of the best shorts from this year's Science Fiction and Fantasy film festival during their encore screening @ SIFF Cinema
• Superviolinist Itzhak Perlman plays Mendelssohn (and Dvorak's 8th) with the Seattle Symphony @ Benaroya Hall
• This would be a good time to catch the new 35mm print of African Queen (through Feb. 3) @ the Grand Illusion

Monday, January 31st

• Women in Film presents Jane Campion's Bright Star (the one about John Keats and Fanny Brawne) @ Central Cinema
• The latest Foodportunity networking event features celebrity cookbook author Kristine Kidd @ Tom Douglas' Palace Ballroom
  

Tuesday, February 1st

• Tennis, a married duo from Denver spent half a year on a boat and came out of the experience with a fuzzy rock record instead of a divorce, see them on dry land @ the Croc
• I Was a Fat Kid...I Was a Really Fat Kid!, the solo show from Portland's Nathaniel Boggess opens @ Annex Theatre

Yesterday, for the first time in my six years at Sundance, I finally saw festival founder Robert Redford. Sure, it was through a window from the street, as he was conducting an interview and/or Q&A, but that still counts. Cross that off the list, and call my mother.

Slightly more of a downer, my last film on Monday, Martha Marcy May Marlene, stars the Olsen twins' younger sister Elizabeth (who looks like a non-alien, healthy version of Mary-Kate and Ashley) as a young woman who has just escaped from an abusive cult in the Catskills, taking shelter at her older sister's summer home in Connecticut. Olsen gives a strong performance, fully embodying the fear and isolation of a damaged, brainwashed woman, and along with her other Sundance film (Silent House), she's quickly emerging as an indie It Girl.

---

Photo: Drew Innis

The cult leader is played by John Hawkes, who is in basically every movie at the festival and just got his first Oscar nom for last year's Sundance winnerWinter's Bone. Martha Marcy May Marlene could be tightened up just a little bit (see the title), but besides that, writer-director Sean Durkin has crafted an affecting thriller and a much more effective portrait of paranoia and anxiety than Black Swan.

---

Photo: Steve Arnold

This morning started with a brief snowstorm and Australian drama Mad Bastards, in which a rough-and-tumble dad tries to reconnect with his estranged thirteen-year-old son, in the hopes of keeping him on the straight and narrow. More than just one family's story, it's also a look at the troubles (drinking, violence, etc.) within Aboriginal communities in the country's northern Kimberly region. The film features lots of locals as actors and (best of all) the music of the Pigram Brothers. I caught most of their set at ASCAP's music cafe on Monday, and the band's folk-blues-rock was more than enough to get me interested in the movie. Suffice it to say to live performances are well-incorporated into Brendan Fletcher's quietly powerful film.

And then there was Like Crazy, which aims to be this year's 500 Days of Summer, in that it covers a youthful love story that only exists in fits and starts. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) meets Anna (Felicity Jones), a Brit, while they're both in college in LA, and they have an immediate, powerful romance...until they graduate, Anna's visa expires, and the couple has to figure out how things are going to work going forward. Unlike 500 Days of Summer, Like Crazy is told linearly, but it stretches over the course of years, as they're together and apart. The film smacks of the bittersweet truths of young love, both the good and bad, the tender moments and the stupid, ugly fights. It's not always comfortable, but it's a charmer.

If a film festival can mean larger things, then the U.S. economy is coming back strong. At least that's what the press releases I've been receiving would have you think. Compared to the past couple years, Sundance 2011 has a lot more money being thrown around, in the form of parties and celeb photo ops, as well as films selling at a brisk pace. Is that a good thing? As always, depends on the film. 

I rolled into Park City yesterday just in time for the Washington State film party, celebrating local films The Off Hours, Catechism Cataclysm, The Details, and The Oregonian. Of course local film luminaries Lynn Shelton, Ben Kasulke, Warren Etheredge, and STIFF programmers were there, as well as John Richards.

Leaving the party, I hit up my first movie of the fest: Elite Squad 2, which holds the title of Brazil's Highest Grossing Film of All Time (Yes, Even More Than Avatar). Don't worry if you didn't see the first (Berlin Golden Bear-winning) Elite Squad, as the sequel has some carry-over but remains self-contained.

Both films are based on Elite da Tropa, an only slightly fictionalized exposé of the corruption around the Rio special forces military police, the drug trade, and the dirty politicians who have their hands in it all. With Bus 174 director Jose Padilha at the helm, the film is in capable hands, and Elite Squad 2 ends up being a morally-driven action drama with the added heft of reality.  

---

This morning dawned bright and early with Higher Ground, the directorial debut of Vera Farmiga. The luminous actress also plays the lead, Corinne, a woman who struggles with her identity, her faith and doubt, and her family as part of a fundamentalist Christian sect.

Farmiga gives yet another fearless performance, lighting up the screen with her easy smile, and she ain't a bad director neither. The material isn't easy--how often do you see a reasonable, non-mocking portrayal of religion or spirituality in the movies?--but Higher Ground is a mature and graceful work, full of simple moments of beauty. 

---

Photo: Lion & Wheel LLC

Also featuring a beautiful moment or two was HERE, Braden King's Armenian road trip romance between a satellite map surveyor (think Google Earth), played by a bearded Ben Foster, and an Armenian ex-pat (Lubna Azabal). The film also stars Armenia itself, as the two meet cute and then traverse the country taking measurements and photos and dropping in on old friends and family.

It's not entirely a cohesive work and is sometimes slow and ponderous for the sake of being slow and ponderous, but the chemistry between the leads is palpable, and King's sense of place inspiring. 

Solar panels will be added to Woodland Park Zoo's historic carousel this month in partnership with Seattle City Light. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo

Wednesday, January 19th

• Crocodiles aptly play @ the Croc
• The Academy of Burlesque introduces the curious to the "Art of the Tease," a 2-hour workshop @ HaLo (500 E. Pike)
• Children of the Rain: A Night of Seattle Stories is a six-monologuist benefit show (Matt Smith, David Schmader, Keira McDonald, Troy Mink, Tina Rowley, Suzanne Morrison) @ Theatre Off Jackson
• The film Craneway Event (shot in the craneway of an abandoned Ford car factory overlooking San Francisco Bay) is a glimpse of choreographer Merce Cunningham's art @ NWFF

Thursday, January 20th

• Check out Low Vs Diamond lead singer Lucas Field trying out new solo material in his weekly January and February Thursday residency @ the Laadla Bar
• The FRED Wildlife Refuge opens with "Stay-Cation," a collaboration by artists Jason Wood and Sean M. Johnson @ FRED Wildlife Refuge 
• Celtic singer Colleen Raney holds a CD release party for her second album, Lark @ the Fremont Abbey
• The Women's Funding Alliance presents the panel discussion "In Our Own Backyard: A Closer Look at the Sex Trafficking of Local Girls" @ Town Hall
• Jeff Huston's abandonedsystems @ Project Space Available
• INCONCEIVABLE! Wallace Shawn is interviewed by Sean Nelson @ the Sorrento
• Otto Premingerfest! continues with Where the Sidewalk Ends @ SAM
• Spidermann, a musical opening and closing before Julie Taymor's Broadway monstrosity even opens @ the Satori Group's Loft

• ---

Friday, January 21st

• "Architecture 101: Windows on Seattle Style" is a 2-hour walking tour that starts @ SAF Gallery
• Hide your kids, hide your wife. Crispin Hellion Glover is in town for four nights, screening films and giving his trademark crazy slideshow @ NWFF
• The Thermals whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh @ Neumo's
• David Mamet's November @ New City Theatre
• The Bridge Project @ Velocity Dance Center
• Sage and Sons of Mothers @ Chop Suey
• It's Steve Zakuani's Birthday Bash @ the Vera Project
• John Beebe, MD is a Jungian, so he's qualified to talk about trauma and creativity @ the Good Shepherd Center

• ---

Saturday, January 22nd

• Video Games Live is back for a Bonus Round @ the Paramount
• Yes, the Official  Twilight Saga Fan Convention @ the Westin
• Friend of the SunBreak music writer Chris Burlingame celebrates his birthday with Viper Creek Club, Tea Cozies, Katie Kate, and Concurs d'Elegance @ Columbia City Theater
• It's the 2nd Annual Belgianfest (beers, not people) @ The Work Shop at Warren G. Magnuson Park
• The sex-positive Steampunk Exhibition Ball puts the exhibition back in...everything, really @ 2700 24th Ave E
• Ming Wong: LIFE OF IMITATION, by the Berlin-based Singaporean artist Ming Wong, opens @ the Frye Art Museum

Sunday, January 23rd

• Accordi-O-Rama IV takes the squeezebox to new heights @ Town Hall
• Japanese samurai horror classic Kuroneku @ SIFF Cinema
• If you saw last week's screening of Evangelion 1.0 (You Are Not Alone), be sure to catch Evangelion 2.0: (You Can (Not) Advance) @ the Grand Illusion
• The show-and-tell variety show "Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery" returns @ the Annex
• Wong Kar-wai’s beautiful In the Mood for Love screens @ the Frye Art Museum

Monday, January 24th

• Enemies of the People ruminates on the nature of good and evil in the shadow of the Killing Fields @ NWFF
• Old 97's and Langhorne Slim bring alt-Americana @ Showbox at the Market
• Drinking Lessons No. 17 is "Vodka...Blind," hosted by Liberty's Andrew Friedman @ the Sorrento's Fireside Room

Tuesday, January 25th

• So Percussion gets drummy @ Town Hall
• I've been dying to see The Postelles even before they played the show where a bird shat in Kings of Leon's mouth. The NYC pop-rock quartet make taut, tight tunes about girls and the city, and their Albert Hammond Jr.-produced debut has just a hint of the old Strokes swagger. They open for Free Energy @ the Croc
• Play around with MovieCat at the interactive movie trivia night @ Central Cinema

We are really in the thick of it. I just mentioned last week that there were a bunch of bad DVDs to come, and that is borne out with the new batch of releases. The biggest relatively high profile release is Ryan Reynolds' confined space thriller Buried, which I never saw, because I'm not into claustrophobia. Besides that, the terrible Photoshopped poster of Takers tells you everything you need to know about that one. And in Stone, Edward Norton continues to demean himself (this time with cornrows!) just to log some quality time with Robert DeNiro.

In the indie realm are several films I barely remember: YouTube high school raunch com The Virginity Hit; Freakonomics, which used the pop economists' book as the starting point for a disjointed multi-storyline ensemble piece; Paper Man, with Ryan Reynolds as Jeff Daniels' imaginary action hero friend; and Jack Goes Boating, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut. (Did you realize any of those films even existed? I did that from memory!) One film you should actually see: Animal Kingdom, the Australian crime thriller that just might get Jacki Warner a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nom. And if you didn't get enough Death Race, check out Death Race 2.

---

In TV on DVD, if you miss Comedy Central's airing of Denis Leary and friends in Douchebags & Donuts, it's out this week, with a portion of the proceeds going to Leary's firefighter charity. There's Justified's first season, Merlin's second season, and Anthony Bourdain has another disc of No Reservations out. And at long last you can own Hey Vern, It's Ernest!: The Complete Series.

---

It must be Jim Varney's best week ever, because a triple-feature DVD set is also out with Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Scared Stupid, and Ernest Goes to Jail. Shout Factory has another couple additions to their Roger Corman's Cult Classics series with Attack of the Crab Monsters / War of the Satellites / Not of This Earth and Up From The Depths / Demon Of Paradise. The Criterion Collection has a couple new titles: Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss. It's shaken not stirred via Volume 1 of the Sean Connery 007 Collection. And finally, you can prepare for the end of the world, thanks to 2012 Apocalyptic Prophecies and Inexplicable Phenomena.