Notes From The Program Director | Week of June 9th, 2023

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Notes From The Program Director

Week of June 9th, 2023

Melissa Tamminga

Rich Text

Newsletter for June 9-June 15, 2023

Hello, friends!

The warm, incisive, moving, and hilarious You Hurt My Feelings continues this week, as does the jaw-droppingly creative Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Even if you don’t see yourself as someone who normally enjoys animated films, I’d urge you to check out Across the Spider-Verse, which is not only sure to pick up an Oscar nomination (some have even speculated this may be the year an animated film nabs a Best Picture nom), but it is also one of the most innovative films ever within the artform, and it’s not to be missed on the big screen. It’s simply stunning: the gorgeous mix of animation styles, the breathtaking action, the eye-popping colors. In fact, a woman in the row behind me at the screening I attended kept gasping, over and over, when the film ended, “that was the most beautiful movie I’ve ever seen, that was the most beautiful movie I’ve ever seen, that was the most beautiful movie . . .” And I tell you, I felt every single bit of her awe and delight!

And new to our screens, equally breathtaking but in a wholly different way, the 2022 Cannes Jury Prize winner The Eight Mountains from husband-wife directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, the same team who brought us the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated, audience favorite The Broken Circle Breakdown. The Eight Mountains is a tale of friendship, spanning a couple of decades and set in the awe-inspiring Italian Alps, a setting sure to catch at the hearts of anyone who loves the mountains, like those of us in the Pacific Northwest, and featuring cinematography to die for. The story begins when a city boy spends a summer in the Alps with his family, and he meets another boy who grew up in the mountains. They form an immediate connection, the mountains become their joyous playground, and that youthful connection and joy forms the basis of a lifelong friendship, grounded in the bonds of childhood and in a mutual love of the freedom of outdoor space. And, as Manohla Dargis notes in herNew York Times review, “one of the movie’s pleasures is that it takes male friendship seriously. There’s an expressly erotic dimension to the men’s love for each other, as can be the case with intimate relationships, though not an explicitly carnal one. They love and sustain each other” and do so in ways that are rarely depicted so beautifully on screen. It’s a film that is as emotionally resonant as it is soaringly majestic, and I suspect it will have viewers thinking about their own closest and deepest friendships as much as it will inspire a longing to get out into the beautiful mountains that surround us. Truly one of the best films of the year, I’m delighted we have this chance to put it on our screens.

We’ve also got several special events this week:

Kid Pickford and $6 tickets return with The Mitchells vs. the Machines playing on Saturday (1:30 pm) and Sunday (10 am). Produced by the same team that’s brought us the Spider-Verse movies, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe (both known for Gravity Falls), and featuring the prodigious acting talents of Abbi Jacobsen, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Fred Armisen, Eric Andre, and Olivia Colman, Mitchells vs the Machines is an absolutely delightful, queer-friendly family film, a high-energy, sci-fi adventure that celebrates the unique quirkiness of every family and explores the new world of AI in which we live, doing so with lots of heart and laughs. Mitchells vs. the Machines was one of those pandemic films that never had the proper theatrical release it deserved when theaters were closed, so this is a unique opportunity to see it on the big screen!

Our Pride Month series of Transcendent Love Stories continues, too, with the third film in our series, the swoon-worthy Portrait of a Lady on Fire playing Thursday, June 15, 7:45 . The original run of Portrait of a Lady on Fire here at the Pickford was rapturously received but, sadly, cut abruptly short when we closed in March of 2020, so here’s a chance to see it in all its big-screen glory. Celine Sciamma, whose gentle and lovely Petite Maman also warmed our Pickford hearts, is proving to be one of the best filmmakers working, and indeed, in the most recent, once-a-decade Sight and Sound list of the best films of all time, Portrait of a Lady on Fire sits at #30 out of 100. Some grumps complained that it was “too soon” to canonize a film made as recently as 2019, but there’s an undeniable magic to the film that I can’t help but think will absolutely stand the test of time. As Moira Macdonald wrote in herSeattle Times review: “There’s a minimalism to the film — the few words, the spare design of the sets and costumes, the isolation of the characters — that makes every detail resonate. In this tiny world of women, the future holds no promise, so they cling quietly to each other, grasping love however briefly they can. “Do all lovers,” wonders Héloïse in a passionate moment, “feel as though they’re inventing something?” Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a bittersweet celebration of passion and art, feels like that; you’ve never seen another movie quite like this. In its quiet gaze, love becomes art — and vice versa.” Love intermingled with cinematic art -- what could be better than that?

Finally, we’ve got this month’s National Theatre Live program withBest of Enemies, an award-winning political thriller, filmed live in London’s West End, directed by Jeremy Herrin, inspired by the documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon, and starring David Harewood (Homeland) and Zachary Quinto (Star Trek). It’s hard to think of a historically-based production that might be more relevant to our political and media landscape today: “In 1968 America, as two men fight to become the next president, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the unruly liberal Gore Vidal. During a new nightly television format, they debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation. As beliefs are challenged and slurs slung, a new frontier in American politics is opening and television news is about to be transformed forever.” It’s in looking at our past that we are often able to better understand our present, and it’s a rare privilege when the theatrical arts give us that opportunity. Best of Enemies will screen twice: this Wednesday evening, June 14, 7 pm, and the following Sunday morning, June 18, 11 am.

See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa