Michael Haneke & Corneliu Porumboiu's new films at Landmark Theatres : Jan - Feb

Art returns to Seattle in 2010! Two major new pieces of cinema that premiered
at Cannes some six months ago now, are forthcoming at the Landmark, both opening
in January. The newest film from the current Romanian New Wave that brought last
year's harrowing "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and 2007's "Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
by the Cannes Jury Prize winning Corneliu Porumboiu; "Police, Adjective" - as a
investigation into law, language, interpretation, perception and moral conscience
in the context of the then-changing cultural/political climate of Romania. Also!
the highly-highly-highly anticipated, 2009 Cannes Palme D'or winner by Michael
Haneke; "The White Ribbon" - where Haneke creates his first period-piece as a
vehicle to explore his often addressed themes of the ambiguity of external
morality, societal culpability and the role of the individual. This one being
particularly curious as it's setting is pre-WWI Austria, the protagonists are
children, they are a religious youth faction indroctrinated in a new spin on
an old-world philosophy/morality and the film's subtitle when screened in
Europe is "A German Children's Story"; anyone who knows the work of
Michael Haneke will no doubt see the mischief in this!

Link to Landmark Theatres "The White Ribbon" site

Link to Landmark Theatres "Police, Adjective" site

Link to IFC's "The White Ribbon" Cannes 2009 site

Link to IFC's "Police, Adjective" Cannes 2009 site

30+ Films of the Decade: It's 2010, Do You Know Where Your Cinema Is?

Wong Kar-Wai "In the Mood for Love" / David Lynch "Mulholland Drive" / Terrence Malick "The New World" (Extended Cut) / Edward Yang "Yi Yi" / Michael Haneke "Time of the Wolf" / Leos Carax "Pola X" / Apichatpong Weerasethakul "Tropical Malady" /

Tsai Ming-Liang "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" / Predro Almodovar "Talk to Her" / Béla Tarr "Werckmeister Harmonies" / Lars Von Trier/Jørgen Leth "Five Obstructions" / Andrey Zvyagintsev "The Return" / Lucile Hadzihalilovic "Innocence" / Gaspa Noe "Irreversible" / Jia Zhang-Ke "Still Life" / Ilya Khrzhanovsky "4" / Hayao Miyazaki "Spirited Away" / Claire Denis "35 Shots of Rum" / Spike Lee "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" /  

Roy Andersson "Songs from the Second Floor" / Bong Joon-Ho "Memories of Murder" / Ulrich Seidl "Import/Export" / Hou Hsiao-Hsien "Three Times" / Aleksander Sokurov "Russian Ark" / Alfonso Cuarón "Children of Men" / Richard Kelly "Southland Tales" / Joel & Ethan Coen "No Country for Old Men" / Kiyoshi Kurosawa "Tokyo Sonata" /  

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang "Last Life in the Universe" / Yoji Yamada "Twilight Samurai" / Michel Gondry "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" / Hirokazu Kore-eda "Nobody Knows" / Park Chan-Wook "Old Boy" / Takashi Miike "Audition" / David Fincher "Zodiac" (Directors Cut) / Carlos Reygadas "Silent Light" /

New Films by Claire Denis, Ulrich Seidl and Lisandro Alonso at NWFF : Nov 5 - 19

Exceptional abundance of cinema all-at-once over the course of two weeks beginning Nov. 6
at the Northwest Film Forum! Firstly, the most recent film by "Trouble Every Day", "The Intruder"
and "Friday Night" director Claire Denis; "35 Shots of Rum" which, every review I've read, from
the Village Voice to Sight & Sound had good things to say, suggesting this may be her carrier best.
The most recent by Ulrich Seidl; "Import/Export", following on his Cannes Jury Prize winning "Dog Days"
with more beautifully shot, brutal depictions of life in a Eastern Europe and the Global labor
market's exploitation of the post-communism underclass.

Lastly, there's the work of Lisandro Alonso, whose series here, "At the Edge of the World: The
Cinema of Lisandro Alonso," includes his most recent trilogy of films, concluding with 2008's
"Liverpool". Much lauded by Film Comment, Alonso is considered one of the major new director
finds of the past decade, and has been advocated by many of the other major international cinema
publications, following awards in festivals, from Vienna to Oslo to Rotterdam to Russia. Despite the
accolades, his work is rarely seen (this marks his first-ever screening in Seattle), and an entire series
of his work is quite a cinema event. New ones by Denis, Seidl and a Alonso series, making for two weeks
of rarely seen, highly qualitative, new global cinema....And just in time to act as a respite from
the annual season of rain n' gloom that's descended!

Link to Northwest Film Forum "Import/Export" site

Link to Northwest Film Forum "35 Shots of Rum" site

Link to Northwest Film Forum "At The Edge Of The World: The Cinema of Lisandro Alonso" site

Parkins & Mori "Phantom Orchard" / Earshot Jazz Festival - Seattle : Oct 16 - Nov 8

Seattle's answer to an International Jazz Festival - Earshot is back this fall for its 21st installment.
Highlight for me this year, (and quite a surprise) is Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins "Phantom Orchard"
project who's 2003 release on the Mego label still stands as one of the finest fusions on improv
/electronics/electric instrumentation to be released in the past decade. Really. Fans of Evan
Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble, the Improvised Music From Japan movement, Mori's other
collab project; Death Ambient on John Zorn's Tzadik label, the Polweschel ensemble and the
whole UK Sound323 scene take note!

Another significant show, also hosted by Nonsequitur thouh not directly in Earshot, is that of
Rachel Grimes from the neoclassical chamber-ensemble Rachel's. - check the Earshot and
Nonsequitur sites for other noteworthy goings on throughout the months of October/November:

Link to Earshot Jazz Festival site

Link to Rachel Grimes on the Nonsequitur site

Link to Parkins & Mori "Phantom Orchard" on the Nonsequitur site

Lars Von Trier's new film "Antichrist" at Landmark Theatres : Oct 23

Lars Von Trier's Cannes-shocking newest is (finally!) opening in San Francisco, NY, LA
and Chicago in the month of October. Reports from both Cannes and the New York Film
Festival suggest "Antichrist" to be a return to form (and possibly a new twist or two on the
whole Psychological Horror genre) from the director that delivered one of the worst films of
the early 2000's in the form of "Dogville" and it's sequel, the nearly-as-abhorrent "Manderlay".
Right off, the look of "Antichrist" stands out for its stunning cinematography and intricately
detailed capturing of color and light - quite removed from the post-Dogme rigours of his
recent films. Let's not forget though that Von Trier is the mastermind behind an abundance
of incomparable cinema over the past few decades, as this is the director of "Element of
Crime", "Europa/Zentropa", "Breaking the Waves", "Dancer in the Dark", "The Kingdom"
and "Five Obstructions" that we're talking about - so you've got to cut the man some (a lot
of) slack for just *two* heinous misses in such a singular oeuvre. Check both the IFC and
landmark sites for release dates/cities as well as prominent article in this month's Film Comment:

Link to "Antichrist" article on the Film Comment site

Link to IFC Films official "Antichrist" site

Link to Landmark Theatres "Antichrist" screening schedule

Decibel Festival of Electronic Music : Sept 24 - 27

Now in it's sixth year, Seatte's Decibel Festival of electronic music and media is back
with an even more audacious and expanded lineup. Second in the U.S. only to Detroit's
DEMF as far as scope and scale, Decibel seeks to be a showcase for all things electronic,
regardless of genre in the most progressive, inclusive sense. Again this year, featuring
showcases curating genre and stylistic themes that introduce new forms to a larger
audience and redefine existing ones. Showcases of note include the three 'Optical' audio
-visual showcases featuring ambient, neoclassical and experimental musics, the two 'Decibel
in Dub' showcases of newdub, dubstep and electronic dub mutations, 'Decibel in the Park' at
Capitol Hill's beautiful Volunteer Park, 'Bass Lovers Unite' showcase of heavy-end dancefloor
Bass exploration and a opening gala Ghostly Records showcase to start the festival off right.

Highlights of the individual artists gracing Seattle for the festival include dancefloor mavens
Robert Hood, Alter Ego and Wighnomy Bros., splendorous ambient soundscapes from
Mountains, Sawako, Goldmund, The Sight Below, Frank Bretschneider and William
Fowler-Collins, nocturnal urban rhythms from Dubstep producers Benga, Pinch, Martyn
and Mala, grandious techno-dub hybrids from Echospace, Boxcutter, DJ/Rupture and
Move D along with nearly innumerable others, in various genres and styles, from the dance
-floor to the seated theatre, through the course of this four day, over 100-artist festival.

Check the Decibel site for full artist listings, bios and showcase descriptions and times.
Previous years have seen showcases at capacity (or even sell out the night of), so
purchase in advance for festival passes and individual showcase tickets is often:

Link to Decibel 'Optical' showcase site

Link to 'Decibel in Dub' showcase site

Link to 'Decibel in the Park' site

Link to Decibel 'Bass Lovers Unite' showcase site

Link to Decibel 'Ghostly Records' showcase site

Roy Andersson's new film "You, the Living" at SIFF Cinema : Sept 11 - 17

The fourth film in almost 30 years by Swedish auteur Roy Andersson caries on from the
macabre spectacle of the bizarre that made his "Songs from the Second Floor" so singular
in all of cinema. The fantastical surrealism of Fellini, the wide-open alien austerity of Kubrick,
the humor of Terry Gilliam and an impeccable sense of timing and Andersson's own particular
obsession for elaborate artifice (his sets!) which convincingly fool the mind and eye - that are
all his own. Where "Songs from the Second Floor" was a genre-film defying modern 'Living Dead'
tale about society's absurd yearning for 'end times', "You, the Living" is more concerned with the
'Dead, Living'. You know what I mean, we're witness to these people every day; the Dead, Living.

Link to Official Roy Andersson site

Link to SIFF Cinema "You, the Living" site

Claire Denis' new film "35 Shots of Rum" Opens : Sept 16 - NYC

Claire Deni's newest "35 shots of Rum" where her explorations of urban life are told through
images of everyday events; transportation, rest, work, home, social activity, quietude - depicting
the daily mundane as scenarios consisting of their fundamental beauty, light, sound and motion.
It also is a keen exploration of race and minority on the fringes of sprawling Paris, told through
the slowly revealed history of one family. Many of Denis' same visual techniques and concerns
are at play throughout "35 Shots...", but here they make for extended threads of compositional
interplay that are more perfectly aligned than any of her previous work.

Link to official "35 shots of Rum" site

SUNN O))), Pelican, Eagle Twin, The Accüsed - Southern Lord West Coast Tour: Aug 5 - 14

No need for me to get verbosely hyperbolic on this one. What is going to be *The Metal Show* of this year in
Seattle is happening over the course of two nights the first week of August. In particular, the quartet of Eagle Twin,
Pelican, Earth and SUNN O))) on Thursday. Considering the weight, volume and majestic Doom Metal virtuosity
to be on display by any one of these bands, the combined effect promises to be Truly Crushing. These west coast
shows should really be called: The Sonically-induced Structural Damage to Buildings Tour. SUNN O)))'s motto:
"MAXIMUM VOLUME YIELDS MAXIMUM RESULTS" to be realized in cities up and down the West Coast this summer:

Link to Southern Lord's SUNN O))) West Coast Tour site

Links to The Wire's "Monoliths & Dimensions" SUNN O))) interviews site

Ulrich Seidl's new film "Import/Export" Opens : Jul 31 - NYC

Ulrich Seidl's newest finally get's a (very) limited Us release, a year and a half after it's Cannes
premiere. Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson has described the work of Ulrich Seidl as "the
closest thing to hell that I've ever seen on film". His new one, "Import/Export" which premiered
at last year's Cannes, induced a state of late-night torpor (after eating 4 1/2 lbs of oranges all at
once) in me... but that have have been the oranges. Truly desolate. It was beautiful though, both
in the technique and the visual content of the landscapes the drama unfolds within. The 'Hell' of
post-Communism labor exploitation in set in the 'Heaven' of the Eastern European landscapes
(urban nightmare-slums aside). Nearly a decade late, inspiring to see Seidl continuing on with
the ideas first explored in his Jury Prize winning "Dog Days" of 2001.

Link to Ulrich Seidl filmography site

Link to official "Import/Export" site