Scene from Paris Vu Par, courtesy SIFF

• As regular readers are fully aware, I’m terribly fond of the French New Wave and will plug showings of films in this genre any chance I get. If you’ve always wondered what the big deal is, Paris Vu Par, starting Friday at SIFF Cinema is an excellent introduction to this very influential movement in the form an anthology of stories about Paris during the 1960′s with contributions by such major directors as Godard, Chabrol, and Douchet presenting romance, comedy, suspense, and dark drama.
• NWFF presents another view of the 1960s with Monks, a documentary about the Monks, a pre-punk band formed as a conceptual art piece in the form of a pop group labelled the “anti-Beatles”. Five American GIs stationed in Germany formed a band attired in black robes and Franciscan monk haircuts who played music “heavy on feedback, nihilism and electric banjo”. Starts Friday.
• Also starting Friday at NWFF: The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, Eric Rohmer’s latest lyrical romance, a beautifully filmed adaptation of a 17th century French novel of romance and sensuality.
• Friday kicks off The Grand Illusion’s offering of a double shot of classic Jack Arnold sci-fi/horror flicks from the 1950′s. The Creature from the Black Lagoon made a splash on its original release with its nifty 3D optical effects, but the movie doesn’t need gimmicks to entertain you with its story of the titular monster and his murderous attempts to get his scaly hands on a hot female scientist. An amateur astronomer and his fiancee see a mysterious creature emerge from a spaceship that’s just crashed in the desert in It Came from Outer Space, but no one believes him, at least at first. Based on a story by sci fi legend Ray Bradbury, It Came from Outer Space has been called “campy” and “cliched” but its treatment of the alien concept is extremely unusual for its time and earned a film a spot in the list of sci fi film classics.
• Midnight at the Egyptian this weekend: Outlaw roadtrip Thelma and Louise. Somewhat controversial at the time of its original release, the much-hyped violence in the film was tame even for its time and made notable only by the lead characters being women. All these years later that’s not quite as startling but the movie remains entertaining and the characters sympathetic.
• With all the rain we get around these parts, it can be hard to remember sometimes that there’s a global water supply crisis. Flow, opening Friday at the Varsity is a documentary that exposes the issues tied to this crisis and suggests that we’re heading for a time when only those who can afford to buy water will survive.
• Hank and Mike are downsized Easter bunnies who discover that they’re not very good at anything else so they’d better fight to get their jobs back. Starts Saturday at Central Cinema.

Frances Farmer in a Paramount publicity still

Frances Farmer was a beautiful and talented actor born in Seattle back in 1913. After studying drama at the UW, Farmer tried for a theater career in New York but ended up in the movies in Los Angeles. With her elegant good looks and charismatic acting style, Farmer was soon a star who did her best to buck the oppressive studio system of the day, but she’s remembered most these days for her tumultuous personal life which included years of involuntary committment at Western State Hospital.

The Admiral Theater in West Seattle, where Farmer once worked, is presenting Frances Farmer’s Revenge, a two-day festival on Friday and Saturday, that pays tribute to the “Bad Girl of West Seattle” with a cocktail reception, a talk on sensationalized biographies of the actor, and screenings of Farmer films Come and Get It and Rhythm on the Range, along with a screening of biopic Frances, with Jessica Lange in the title role.