Wonderful World: This one played at SIFF last year, and I totally missed it. Matthew Broderick plays pessimist Ben Singer; divorced, jobless, and completely hopeless. When his roommate gets sick, hot sister Khadi arrives and shakes up Ben’s world. Sounds pretty formulaic, I know, but I’m interested.

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Local movie house, Northwest Film Forum, will be screening the stunning Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight, 1970 film this weekend.

Due to poor planning, the festival itself quickly turned ugly and many of the artists were heckled and booed off of the stage. With things well on their way to chaos, Cohen was awoken in the middle of the night to perform his set. Ever charismatic, he instantly calmed down the audience and performed a mesmerizing set of songs from his first two albums (Songs of Leonard Cohen and Songs from a Room). He also performed a few songs from his next album (Songs of Love and Hate) that wouldn't be released for another year.

This Friday and Saturday, 03.12.2010 and 03.13.2010, you have the opportunity to see this concert documentary on the big screen. The show starts at 9:00 p.m. both evenings. As a massive fan of early Cohen material, I highly recommend it. Tickets are $6.00 for members and $9.00 for general public.

Up in the Air: The ever-adorable Clooney seems tailor-made for the role of Ryan Bingham – a charming, smart-ass loner in fear of losing the job he LIVES for. An expertly clever take on a story told many times over, Reitman elevates this to perfection, with the two female leads (Anna Kendrick & Vera Farmiga) rockin’ it to the extreme. I’m definitely adding this one to my collection.

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Avant-indie rockers Animal Collective seem to elicit either a "YAY" or "nay" response from people. You either love 'em or hate 'em. I happen to fall in the head-over-heels category, and was super interested to hear of their collaboration with filmmaker Danny Perez on a feature film entitled ODDSAC.

Perez is no stranger to weirdo musicians, having worked with the likes of Black Dice and Panda Bear. The film stars the members of Animal Collective, and features an original score by the band and visual projects and art from Perez. ODDSAC is a supposed visual album, with all the songs original and exclusive to this film release. It walks the line between music, digital art and really explores the relationship between sound and visual images during the course of an album.

Screenings are scheduled for several US cities, including Seattle, and will feature members of the band and Danny Perez available for questions. The film will be officially released on June 29th, but don't wait until then to get a peek at this groundbreaking project! It's sure to be strange, intensely beautiful and certainly not for everyone.

More information and pictures can be found at www.oddsac.com.

Screenings:

March 17th   Chicago IL, USA  --  Music Box Theatre  $15  7pm, 9pm

March 20th   Minneapolis MN, USA -- The Cedar  $15  7pm, 9pm

March 22nd   Los Angeles CA, USA -- ArcLight Cinerama Dome  $15  7pm. 9pm

March 25th   San Fransisco CA, USA -- Sundance Kabuki Cinemas  $15  6:30pm, 8:30pm

March 29th   Portland OR, USA -- Cinema 21  $15  7pm, 9pm

March 30th   Seattle WA, USA -- The Egyptian Theatre  $15  7pm, 9pm

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{Alice in Wonderland opened in Seattle Friday, 3/5, and is playing at The Neptune, The Meridian 16 and the IMAX}

I love pretty much everything Tim Burton does (outside of Planet of the Apes), but I admit: I was a little worried about this based on the previews. I went in expecting an over-the-top slap-sticky version of Alice, and ended up being pleasantly surprised. Except for one dance scene that takes place at the end, as a whole I thought it was pretty great.

Taking place 13 years after she originally falls down the rabbit hole, a quirky doesn’t-quite-fit-into-Victorian-England-19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska, who was clearly born to play this part) stumbles into Wonderland, or Underland, as the residents call it, while fleeing from an arranged marriage to a floppy aristocrat.

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Where the Wild Things Are: Love it or Hate it, you have to give a movie props for causing so much debate. I’m personally in the LOVE category, totally in awe of the special F/X, and the way in which it made me remember my childhood struggles with emotional fondness. If you’re at all curious, give it a watch and see how it affects you.

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The Crazies @the Metro and Meridian: Normally I wouldn’t recommend anything with Timothy Olyphant, but since I’ve had a years-long crush on Radha Mitchell, I’m hoping she’ll balance it out. Also, I’m partial to a film called The Crazies – because it just puts it out there. No mystery. It just is. Let’s see: small town, sudden insanity, murder, and possible buckets of splatter? I say yes (Amazingly I have never seen the original 1973 Romero film – need to remedy that before I see this one!).

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The September Issue: I’ve been dying to see this (although I totally hate that they're selling it as "the REAL Devil Wears Prada"), since I missed its short run in Seattle last year. A chance to see the mysterious and iconic longtime editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, putting together the biggest issue of the year? Yes, yes and yes. I have a serious love/hate relationship with the fashion & beauty industry, so I’m curious as to which way this will sway me….even if I think I already know the answer.

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{Creation opens in Seattle today, 2/19/2010, at the Metro}

Based on the book "Annie’s Box", written by Charles Darwin’s great-grandson Randal Keynes, Creation tells the story of Darwin’s life pre-publication of "The Origins of Species".

You’d think a movie that includes the line "You’ve killed God, sir." would indicate that the film would mostly examine Darwin’s epic struggle between science and religion as a way of talking about Creation Vs. Evolution and how they could symbiotic.... but it doesn’t, really. The bulk of Creation is about watching a sickly, mostly-bald, laudanum-addicted Charles Darwin hallucinating and talking to the ghost of his dead daughter Annie while struggling to write his book.

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On Thursday night February 18, the Northwest Film Forum will be showing the documentary For The Love Of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. It's a straightforward, succinct accounting of the history of movie criticism since its inception, starting with a critic who wrote hype sheets and blurbs and ended up helping D.W. Griffith craft The Birth of a Nation and other early classic cinema. Through the underdog aesthetics of Manny Farber at the Nation in the mid-20th century, to the dialectical sparring between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris (chief film reviewers for the New Yorker and the Village Voice and New York Observer, respectively), you can see what inspired the early rock critics into taking sides and styles that helped evolved that art form.

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