I hope you brought your Lisa Frank pencil case, a brand-new Trapper Keeper, a few Peachies, and a three-ring hole punch, because this is back-to-school week at the movies. If not necessarily about school, I definitely sense a transition from the light-hearted summer fare to more serious September films. It’s time to hit the books!
This weekend’s most promising new release is Never Let Me Go – dir. Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo), starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan. I was initially skeptical about a film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s beautiful novel, but the trailer looks like it perfectly captures the tone of creeping nostalgia without becoming overly sentimental. Keira Knightly and Carey Mulligan seem perfectly cast as English waifs, and you know Charlotte Rampling as the head mistress is going to be fabulous. (I am a total Rampling whore.) If you like beauty with your heartbreak, this looks like it will deliver both.
Leave it up to America to produce some lighter back to school fare. Easy A looks to deliver a solid return to the cherished high-school-movie-based-on-a-work-of-classic-literature genre, this time taking its cue from my favorite 11th grade novel The Scarlet Letter. 1995’s Clueless truly set the gold standard in this genre. Then 10 Things I Hate About You had its fun moments, but after that it really started to go downhill. I wonder why it’s become so common that high school movies use the AP English syllabus in this way. I would offer that for most people high school is the last time one reads Austin, Shakespeare or Nathaniel Hawthorne (I can definitely agree on Hawthorne). What this film has going for it is a pretty respectable cast of young actors. Emma Stone leads, who I remember most in the surprisingly enjoyable House Bunny. The likably daffy Amanda Bynes co-stars, who’s 2006 She’s The Man was naturally based on Twelfth Night, and the smoldering Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) plays the love interest.
Also opening this weeked is Devil, directed by Drew and John Erick Dowdle and written and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, which is enough to keep me away. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directing debut Jack Goes Boating, in which he also stars, offers a tragicomic view of working class folks in New York City. Catfish, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, produced by Andrew Jarecki (Capturing the Friedmans) is getting excellent buzz as a mystery disguised as a point-of-view documentary. I’m definitely intrigued by the “Don’t be Diabolical” (give away the ending) tagline.
This week in Seattle
Central Cinema is definitely feeling the Back to School vibe with a full week of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) dir. John Hughes Friday at 7, Saturday-Wednesday at 7&9:30. Then it’s The Room (2003) dir. Tommy Wiseau Thursday 9/23, which truly has to be seen to be believed. Watch out though, Central Cinema seems hell bent on making this the new Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you might get plastic spoons and bouquets of roses thrown at you. Worse yet, you might be surrounded by fanboys quoting every line of ridiculous dialogue. You’ve been warned.
Harvard Exit is showing Mademoiselle Chambon directed by Stéphane Brizé 4:30, 7 & 9:20 and I’m Still Here directed by Casey Affleck 4:40, 7:10, 9:30 – which is a movie about an actor who thinks he’s more interesting than he actually is.
Midnight movie at the Egyptian is The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Friday & Saturday at midnight – Is this a cult movie now? Are there legions of Madeleine Stowe fans clamoring for this rerelease? I’m confused.
The charmingly surrealistic Bunny & The Bull is at Northwest Film Forum along side The French Project: The New Wave, Thus.-Sat. at 8, a mix of 60s-inspired chanson and short films inspired by the French New Wave – and hopefully enough humor to make sure it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
-Ryan Hicks
