It’s a great week for camp cinema, what with John Waters’s perfect Mother’s Day movie Serial Mom and the space sex romp Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy. There’s also the nation’s greatest amateur porn fest, the best of Dan Savage’s HUMP!, and plenty of serious cinema for those seeking it. Follow the links to see complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers, and, if you’re looking for even more options, check out our complete movie times listings or our film events calendar.
Note: Movies play from Thursday to Sunday unless otherwise noted.
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1945
There are conventional black and white films and then there is the odd sepia-toned effort, like Ferenc Török’s 1945, a masterful adaptation of co-writer Gábor T. Szántó’s considerably more streamlined 2017 short story, “Homecoming.” A train station in Hungary sets 1945‘s plot in motion when it dislodges two mysterious passengers dressed in black, Orthodox Jews (played with minimalist rigor by Iván Angelusz and Marcell Nagy) toting nailed wooden crates, who turn this provincial post-war village upside down simply by walking from one end of it to the other. While a wedding takes place in the foreground, the mob boss-like town clerk (a magnificently mustachioed Péter Rudolf) encourages his fellow citizens, a motley collection of troubled souls, to close ranks against the strangers who appear intent on reclaiming stolen property. As they walk, revelations of anti-semitism seep out along the margins before engulfing the entire town. KATHY FENNESSY
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel’s attempt to put an exploding bow on 10 years of corporate synergy, is a lurching, ungainly colossus of a blockbuster, with far too many characters and storylines stretching across a series of planets that resemble 1970s prog-rock album covers. The thing is, though, while you’re watching it? None of these elements feel like debits. Sometimes, excess hits the spot. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo deserve a huge amount of credit for simply making sure all of Infinity War’s 5,000 performers hit their marks—but they also find room for most of these characters to get an honest-to-god character moment or two. The Russos aren’t exactly stylists, however, and there’s a flatness to the establishing scenes here that feels similar to Marvel’s first wave of films. A little bit of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther panache would’ve gone a long way. But once the action kicks in, the ridiculous scope of this thing takes over and sweeps away any quibbles. ANDREW WRIGHT
Various locations
Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
Since its 1968 release, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella has remained a touchstone of trash-pop culture, inspiring numerous musicians (from Prince to Duran Duran) and much masturbation (Jane Fonda spends the majority of the film in a bikini and go-go boots). Here’s your chance to see the legendary space spoof—”a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future,” proclaimed Vadim upon the film’s release—on the big screen. DAVID SCHMADER
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Friday–Sunday
Black Panther
Because I do not want to spoil the experience of this movie, I will not describe the path of the film’s plot to its core problem, which concerns the unification of black Africa with black America. Out of a comic book, director Ryan Coogler crafted an important concept about how, from the unification, a post-pan-Africanist global Africanism can emerge. It comes down to this: black Africans and black Americans have to admit their respective failings. (My feeling is that Coogler is much harder on black Americans than black Africans.) As a whole, Black Panther is lots of fun and will excite a lot of discussion and strong opinions. But the most revolutionary thing about Black Panther is its city. The capital of Wakanda has skyscrapers, a monorail, sidewalks of grass, green buildings, farmers markets, and no cars. The whole idea of private transportation is foreign to this fictional society. If this black African capital has anything to share with the world, it’s its city planning. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations
The Death of Stalin
From Armando Iannucci, the creator of Veep, and more importantly, the vastly superior British politics TV series The Thick of It (and the film it inspired, In the Loop) comes a film, The Death of Stalin, that recognizes that farce, not tragedy, is the operative mode of true fascism. At least in retrospect. This is one of the grimmest, most harrowing films to ever make you double over with laughter. The heavyweight cast includes Steve Buscemi (as Khruschev), Michael Palin (as Molotov), and Jeffrey Tambor (as Malenkov), all of whom prostrate themselves to appear devoted to the regime while frantically tap dancing for their own survival—and eventual seizing of power. They are abetted in their machinations by UK eminences like Andrea Riseborough, Paddy Considine, Simon Russell Beale, and Roger Ashton-Griffiths. There’s no missing the present day resonances in the depictions of a regime that is both totally corrupt and plainly mediocre, but Iannucci is keen to remind you that the distance between even a toad like Trump and Stalin—who ordered the actual murder of approximately 60 million of his own comrade countrymen—is important to remember. But if the best thing you can say about a leader is that he isn’t exactly Josef Stalin, well… This film’s grave, absurd, brilliant, and brutal historical context has a way of making the future look, if not hopeful, then at least familiar. SEAN NELSON
SIFF Cinema Uptown & AMC Seattle 10
Half-life in Fukushima
There are two types of Edens: Eden and Disaster Eden. The first was made by non-human nature, the second by human nature. The area near to the zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster (it was destroyed by a tsunami in 2011) has been almost entirely abandoned by humans. As a consequence, it’s become a human-made Eden. And if one man were to live in this disaster zone, we must see him as an Adam. And if a woman were to join him, we must see her as an Eve. The Disaster Eden of Fukushima happens to have the former, not the latter. His name is Noto. He is a farmer, he refuses to leave Fukushima’s red zone. He has nothing to do but encounter stranger things and stare blankly at human/nature. This is Adam, no? CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum
Thursday only
Isle of Dogs
Wes Anderson’s second foray into stop-motion animation—following 2009’s unassailably wonderful Fantastic Mr. Fox—is full of delectable visual treats. This time, the director’s grade-school diorama aesthetic floods your ocular circuits with a retro-futuristic version of Japan, where all the dogs of Megasaki City have been exiled to Trash Island following an outbreak of snout fever. Isle of Dogs is leaps and bounds more advanced than Fantastic Mr. Fox—the deliberate herky-jerkiness of that film has vanished, replaced by a refined style of stop-motion that’s breathtaking in its elegance, even as it depicts Trash Island’s mountains of maggoty, flea-ridden refuse. But Anderson’s depiction of Japanese humans in Isle of Dogs leaves something to be desired. In what initially seems like a clever tactic, the dogs all speak English while humans communicate in un-translated Japanese. While this pulls us inside the dogs’ world, it flattens the depiction of the Japanese characters. Anderson—and the audience—remain Western outsiders looking in. But all in all, Isle of Dogs is worth recommending. NED LANNAMANN
Various locations
Ismael’s Ghosts
The French director Arnaud Desplechin makes tangled, pained family histories and casts splendid actors to bring them to life. In this case, Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace and a lot of better French films), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac), and Marion Cotillard (Inception and…a lot of better French films), play out the story of a film director, his new lover, and his long-vanished, suddenly returned wife. Amalric plays the titular Ismael, caught between woman as he makes his own film about a diplomat. This film has gotten fantastic reviews, but the actors alone make it worth catching.
Grand Illusion
Thursday only
Life of the Party
Life of the Party is more than serviceable—it’s wonderful! Melissa McCarthy plays Deanna, the fortysomething mom of a college senior, and when her husband unceremoniously dumps her for a blonde real-estate agent, she decides to go back to college at the same school as her daughter. The whole plot seemed obvious. Then there was a funny line. And then another. And then another fantastic supporting cast member rolled in with some subtly hilarious shtick. And before I knew it, I was doubled over laughing about… pretty much everything? What the hell? ELINOR JONES
AMC Pacific Place & AMC Seattle 10
Looking at the Stars
A portrait of artists on and off the stage, this documentary follows two dancers in the Fernanda Bianchini Ballet Company for the Blind of São Paulo. Geyza is a star, while young Thalia is balancing her passion with the boredom of middle school. The performances look gorgeous in this reflection on disability, artistic and aesthetic ideals, and daily life.
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday
Love, Simon
If you’re one of those people who only reads the first sentences of movie reviews, here you go: Love, Simon is FANTASTIC, and you should see it IMMEDIATELY. The best thing about it is Simon himself: A clever, kind kid with a loving family and good friends, he’s having a hell of a time figuring out how—or if—he should come out. Not many YA protagonists feel as real as Simon, regardless of whether he’s going through great stuff or drama. Simon’s great stuff includes: a secret e-mail relationship with Blue, another closeted kid at his school. Simon doesn’t know who Blue really is, and Blue doesn’t know who Simon really is, but through hesitantly typed e-mails, the two find the beginnings of a relationship that’s inspiring and complicated. Simon’s drama includes: his dipshit classmate Martin, who stumbles onto his e-mails with Blue–and threatens to share them with everyone if Simon doesn’t do what he says. Love, Simon thrums with heightened emotions, but it never feels false or silly; Greg Berlanti’s smart enough to treat these kids like real, complicated people, and the result is a movie that feels both truthful and ridiculously engaging. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Meridian 16
Lu Over the Wall
Lu is a little music-loving mermaid feared by nervous townsfolk and embraced by a trio of rockin’ adolescents in Masaaki Yuasa’s candy-colored, friendly fantasy. Yuasa’s known for Devilman: Crybaby and has worked on Adventure Time, so this might become another cult-classic, with hyperactive, daringly abstract sequences combining with beautiful detail.
SIFF Film Center & Meridian 16
Friday–Sunday
Moving History: Cassette Commander
For the sixth edition of Moving History, MIPoPS will bring oral history recordings, coupled with archival footage and photographs, from the Southwest Seattle Historical Society and Log House Museum, as well as a “Gay Camp Classic” from Scarecrow, selections from UW’s recently digitized Vi Hilbert Collection, and more.
Northwest Film Forum
Sunday only
Nordic Puget Sound
Get your hygge on by watching a time-lapse documentary that captures Norway in changing seasons, set to a live score by local prog rockers Postcard from the Badlands. You can also snack on Nordic treats.
Northwest Film Forum
Saturday only
A Quiet Place
This rural horror starring director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt is a fun, brawny horror flick with a surprisingly sugary heart and an ingenious gimmick. Human civilization is basically kaput and giant scythe-hand stealth-crab anthropoids roam the earth. They’re blind, but their huge, opalescent inner ears alert them to the presence of prey from miles off. A Quiet Place begins well after the creatures’ conquest. A man, his pregnant partner, and their son and daughter live in silence on an isolated farm, every aspect of their existence adapted to minimize noise: sand-covered trails, sign language, light and smoke signals, even cloth game pieces. But despite their ingenuity, the family must take increasingly drastic measures to protect themselves even as the pre-adolescent daughter, who’s deaf, rebels against her father. Their everyday yet all-important routines are a neat device for ramping up tension during the exposition. At the preview screening, we were all flinching when a lamp upended, shushing a character who cried too loudly. But it’s during the moments of crises—particularly when Blunt starts giving birth at a very inconvenient time—that Krasinski really shows he can twist your nerves in a way that shuts down your critical faculties. JOULE ZELMAN
Various locations
Rampage
Rampage is an expensive video-game movie about a giant ape and a flying wolf and a spiky lizard—and they all fight each other. It’s exceptionally dumb, exceptionally fun, and weirdly faithful to its 16-bit source material. Rampage the game was about monsters smashing buildings and eating people, and Rampage the movie is also about this. Dwayne Johnson plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist who works at a primate center full of awful millennials and, for some reason, at least one grizzly bear. When the titular rampage begins, the film earns its keep, as the three rowdy-ass monsters pulverize the streets of Chicago and tear through tanks, helicopters, gunships, and a Dave & Buster’s. BEN COLEMAN
Meridian 16
RBG
All hail Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Better known as “RBG” to her fans (and “Bubby” to her grandkids), at 85 years old, the US Supreme Court justice still has a fierce intellect, a duty to the law, and an immense inner and physical strength. Over the long course of her career, RBG repeatedly defended the rights of everyone to live free from bias, but, as Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says, Ginsburg “quite literally changed life for women.” And she’s still doing it. With intimate interviews with family and friends, as well as RBG herself, the film captures the life of a woman with a heart none of us wants to stop ticking. KATIE HERZOG
Various locations
SAAFF Best of Fest
The Seattle Asian American Film Festival will screen audience favorites from the festival earlier this year. They include the Best Short Films; The Island Soldier, about the death of a soldier from a remote Pacific Island; and The Apology, a documentary about three former “comfort women”—Chinese, Filipino, and Korean forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during WWII—seeking an apology for the travesties against them.
Wing Luke Museum
Saturday only
Serial Mom
The perfect Mother’s Day movie was directed by none other than John Waters. It’s about a wholesome suburban mom, played with enticing mischief by Kathleen Turner, who discovers a penchant for murder of town miscreants. Take your own sweet mama to the movies to show your appreciation for all she does for you.
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday
Stage Fright (Part of “Alfred Hitchcock’s Britain” Series)
Sure, with the exception of the modestly budgeted, black-and-white Psycho, Hitchcock is known for his lavishly Freudian Technicolor thrillers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. But the films he made in his native Britain are just as worthy of note—taut, intricate, their perversity more elaborately disguised.
Seattle Art Museum
Thursday only
Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood’s greatest movie about itself is a fearlessly dark-hearted psychodrama narrated by a dead man and built around one of the mind-fuckiest performances in cinema history. Gloria Swanson—a former silent movie star with limited luck transitioning to sound—stars as Norma Desmond, a former silent movie star with zero luck transitioning to sound who goes extravagantly insane, dragging a struggling young screenwriter along with her. DAVID SCHMADER
AMC Pacific Place
Sunday only
Translations Film Festival
Here is something that Seattle should take pride in. We have the world’s largest trans film festival. Not Berlin, not London, not New York City—but Seattle. The festival is called Translations, and this year it features a bunch of films from places that do not have the largest trans film festival. One film that caught my eye immediately is Man Made, which concerns the only transgender men bodybuilding competition in the world. Of course, this subject opens and examines a society that, for the most part, has yet to come to terms with this significant group of its family. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations (mostly at Erickson Theatre)
through Saturday
The Very Best of HUMP! 2008-2017
Depending on whether you’ve attended Dan Savage’s amateur porn festival from its inception or haven’t yet experienced the arousal/joy/laughs/vicarious embarrassment/shock/terror of watching explicit, omnisexual short films with a roomful of strangers, this screening (for which filmmakers resubmitted their movies) will resurrect your favorite sexy moments or introduce you to some kinks you’ve never seen before.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Thursday–Saturday
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is an engrossing fantasy about a teenage girl, Meg, who—despite her anxieties and faults, and with the help of some friends and three extra-dimensional beings named Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which—embarks on a cross-dimensional adventure to save her missing father from a terrifying monster of darkness and conformity named IT. Disney’s new blockbuster isn’t the A Wrinkle in Time I read as a child. Director Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th) has updated the story and placed it squarely in the now: There’s an extended roller coaster-esque flight scene over otherworldly landscapes, a multiracial cast, instructions for self-care, and Oprah. DuVernay doesn’t cut the weird without adding wonder. Her update to the three Mrs. W’s is particularly spectacular. Rather than the beak-nosed ladies they were in the book, these Mrs. W’s are luminous, ever-changing chameleons in couture gowns. There’s an informal pairing off—one child for each extra-dimensional being—and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) is predictably charged with the anxious Meg (Storm Reid), who, like many of Oprah’s followers, just needs a little boost of self-confidence before she’s ready to stand up to a universe-devouring evil. SUZETTE SMITH
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Friday–Sunday
You Were Never Really Here
Joaquin Phoenix’s dazed masculinity is put to the service of Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of a novel by Jonathan Ames, about a veteran detective who tracks missing girls and becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy. Ramsay directed We Need to Talk About Kevin, and by all accounts, her collaboration with Phoenix is just as harrowing a portrait of the peculiarly American appetite for violence.
SIFF Cinema Uptown and AMC Seattle 10
Also Playing This Weekend
Our critics don’t recommend these movies, but they’re major Hollywood films.
Blockers
I Feel Pretty
Ready Player One
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