This week is all about the horrors. Not just the cheap scares of knife wielding maniacs jumping out of dark corners (My Soul To Take), but also the really scary stuff – spandex leggings (Girls Just Want To Have Fun) and having children (Life As We Know It). I’m sure you’ll find something this week that will make you want to keep the night-light on.
New Releases
Life As We Know It, directed by Greg Berlanti (Dawson’s Creek) starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel. I’m going to unleash my radical queer rights activist alter-ego. He doesn’t come out that often, and he has a lot of pent-up rage. Lately there’s been a lot of attention focused on the queer kids who are made to feel worthless, because of persistent messages from home, school, the church and the media that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” that is inferior to heterosexuality. Good thing this movie came along to expose the shallow ambitions of your everyday, shrill and neurotic heterosexual coupling. Here’s an idea – Let’s gather all the lesbian, gay and tranny youth who’ve been bullied throughout their childhood, and take them to an exclusive screening of Life As We Know It. Afterwards we won’t have just demonstrated that it gets better, but it also gets much much worse for your tormentors. Maybe then, I’ll admit that something good came from this garbage.
There’s a different kind of horror story opening this weekend – My Soul To Take, directed by Wes Craven. Leave it to this horror queen to get all excited about a new Wes Craven film, the first one written and directed by the auteur since 1994’s New Nightmare (my girl Heather Langenkamp pictured at left). My Soul To Take features a group of teens who are being stalked by a serial killer, because they share the same birthday, which sounds a lot like the Nightmare on Elm Street premise. I’ll be the first to admit that Craven’s directed a few clunkers – has anyone seen Swamp Thing lately? But he’s also touched on greatness a few times too. The underrated New Nightmare is what Luis Buñuel would have directed if he’d ever gone horror (or if David Lynch were more traditionally entertaining), and 2005’s Red Eye unfolds like the best Hitchcock suspense. I’ll even go so far as to defend Last House on the Left, his most problematic and disturbing film for being just that – problematic and disturbing. It’s also based on Bergman’s fabulous revenge tale Virgin Spring (1960), so at least the guy knows his film history.
Speaking of revenge fantasies, I Spit On Your Grave: Unrated, a remake of the “feminist” classic aka Day of the Woman, also comes out this weekend. Why must Hollywood continue to mess with genius? Whenever I hear the title of this film I think of the marquee of Elmer Fishpaw’s porno theater in Polyester (1981), where of course it would be shown. Leave it to John Waters to appreciate fine art.Also opening this weekend: Disney’s Secretariat starring Diane Lane – Outside of Kentucky, where I grew up, it’s hard to find people who are terribly excited about horse racing. I’m sure many Seattleites see it as a modern day anachronism – much like the South itself.
Film Happenings in Seattle
Jason Miller’s Bad Movie Art returns to Central Cinema on Monday for a very spooky Halloween screening of Girls Just Want to Have Fun from 1985. Something eerie is happening when Janey moves to town. She looks like Sarah Jessica Parker, but something about her face is “different”. Likewise you’ll find the theme song familiar, but that’s not Cyndi Lauper singing. When Janey befriends Lynn (Helen Hunt) it’s nothing but an unholy alliance of the damned. And Shannon Doherty’s appearance as Maggie can only mean one thing: EVIL. 
There’s a Hitchcock double feature all week at Grand Illusion. Up first is The Birds (1962) at 6:30 starring Tippi Hedron. Watch out! Those aren’t ordinary birds; they’re metaphors. Followed up by Frenzy (1972) at 8:45 the story of a man wrongly accused of murder who must prove his innocence, the same plot as 90% of Hitchcock’s films. The late night show is Howling II…Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985). (The incomparable Sybil Danning pictured at left.) As Shakira says “Darling this is no joke, this is lycanthropy.”Finally I’d like to make an announcement to all Francophiles, first-year film students and college girls who wear scarves, the Egyptian is showing Breathless, Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1960 masterpiece all week at 7:30 and 9:45. No movie has ever made smoking look so sexy. The tobacco industry owes Belmondo big time.
Ryan T Hicks is a small business consultant, sponsorship manager for Three Dollar Bill Cinema and cinephile. Shameless plug: Download the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival iPhone App October 15-24, 2010!
