• Zeitgeist Films is an independent film distributor that for 20 years has been presenting the best of world cinema, reviving the movies of established master filmmakers like Jacques Demy and Derek Jarman, as well as providing a launching pad for current creative artists like Todd Haynes and one of my favorites, Guy Maddin. SIFF Cinema pays tribute to Zeitgeist with two weeks of their films, starting this Friday with the lovely Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the complicated romantic musical that established a young Catherine Deneuve as an international star for her turn as a young woman whose seemingly simple love affair creates complications for everyone in her orbit. Saturday sees screening of Guy Maddin’s deliriously fun Careful along with two of his short films, The Heart of the World and My Dad is 100 Years Old. Naturalistic documentary Into Great Silence, about an austere monastery in the French Alps, and film-within-a-film satire on French cinema Irma Vep play Sunday and Monday. Tuesday is Manufacturing Consent, an examination of the ideas of Noam Chomsky, Wednesday is Climates, a film about loneliness, loss, and love gone awry on the beautiful Aegean coast, and Thursday brings Francois Orzon’s nailbiting thriller, See the Sea, particularly recommended to anyone who enjoyed his Swimming Pool and Under the Sand.
• SIFF’s Films4Families series continues Saturday morning with To Kill a Mockingbird, the classic film rendering of Harper Lee’s classic novel, starring Gregory Peck in a masterful performance as a man driven to do the right thing no matter the cost. This is an exceptionally good movie choice for parents of kids in the upper years of grade school or the early years of junior high who will find the film an excellent springboard for discussions about morality and manners.
• NWFF kicks off their own excellent film series on Friday night with a reception for their Festival of New Cinema from Spain. In recent years, Spain has become a true hotbed of cinematic creativity with a host of artists pursuing a wide variety visions and challenges. An eclectic selection of films includes opening night feature Under the Stars which combines family drama with a depiction of the surprising friendship between two completely different people. Other films in the series include a surreal exploration of the self in Me, a struggle to dust off the relics of the past and transform them into a brighter future with Seven Billiard Tables, a collection of refreshingly original shorts, the ineffable joy of falling in love In the City of Sylvia, and more.
• Halloween’s been over for a while now, but horror fans can still get some thrills at The Grand Illusion with a pair of Stuart Gordon flicks from the 80s: The Re-Animator and From Beyond, both adapted from HP Lovecraft stories and best appreciated by those with a strong stomach for gore.
• Swing by the Grand Illusion late nights this weekend for 1976 “blaxploitation” shocker Dr. Black & Mr. Hyde, both cheesy and creepy.
• Who you gonna call late night at the Egyptian this weekend? Ghostbusters, of course. Oh, sure, the special effects that seemed so nifty at the time of its original release look majorly schlocky now but the goofy charm remains as strong as ever in this movie where every character is perfectly played.

• 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.

Celebrate Halloween with a spooky film:

• The Grand Illusion presents the comedy-horror Return of the Living Dead at 7 and ooky 1962 sci-fi horror The Brain that Wouldn’t Die at 9pm; go to both for a brainy double-feature. They’ve also got an 11 pm late night screening of Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell, a 1968 Japanese horror film featuring a bloodthirsty space vampire.
• Another comedy-horror combo is Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, this weekend’s Midnight at the Egyptian flick.
• Fears of the Dark is a new animated film about nightmares, fears and phobias, created by six top graphic artists and cartoonists including Lorenzo Mattotti and Jerry Kramsky; it opens Friday at the Harvard Exit.
• SIFF Cinema continues its “Dark Nights” series with Tod Browning’s controversial Freaks on Halloween night and again Saturday and a film that inspired years of childhood nightmares for me, Rosemary’s Baby, starting Saturday. If you’re looking for a film you can show your children, put aside the horror for a while and visit SIFF Cinema Saturday morning for The Karate Kid.
• NWFF celebrates 25 years of “Thriller”, the groundbreaking Michael Jackson video that catapulted Jackson from mere internationally known pop singer into internationally known pop culture phemonenon. In addition to a full length screening of the long form video, NWFF presents an hour long TV special–”The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” and other videos and performances.

• One of the best-known, best-loved children’s films ever is E.T The Extra-Terrestrial and it’s playing at SIFF Cinema as part of their Films4Families series Saturday morning, October 18th. Go relive your childhood or share the film with kids who were years away from being around when the movie first became a pop culture phenomenon.
• Back in 1958 photographer Bert Stern considered taking photos at that year’s Newport Jazz Festival but decided to try filming the event instead. The result was Jazz on a Summer’s Day, a striking and charming film that highlights the performances of legendary jazz artists like Louis Armstrong, Anita O’Day, Mahalia Jackson, and Thelonious Monk and illustrates the picturesque streets and beaches of the wealthy playground of Newport. SIFF Cinema is showing a 50th anniversary celebratory new 35mm print of a film idea for lovers of jazz and American history. Starts Friday.
• The Grand Illusion brings back its most excellent “All Monsters Attack!” series October 17 - 23 with the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1988’s They Live, two well-directed stories of alien invasion as analogy for paranoia, invasion from within, and government conspiracy. Stick around late nights on October 17 and 18 for 1981’s Galaxy of Terror in which an evil, omniscient alien uses its mental powers to go to war against the crew from a spaceship responding to a mysterious distress call.
• Friday the 17th marks the opening night of the 13th annual Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, a week of shorts, documentaries and features both old and new at venues all over town, see site for complete details.

• Opening night of Local Sightings at NWFF kicks off Friday night with a program of short local films followed by a party. If you happen to be Carol Marquess, you get to go for free, courtesy of NWFF and Seattle Metblogs.
• SIFF begins a week of politically themed films Friday night with The Parallax View, a conspiracy-theory thriller starring Warren Beatty. The early 1970s view of the Space Needle, scene of an opening segment assassination, is almost reason enough to watch on its own, but the twisted thriller is rather exciting, too.
• Saturday the 4th is an excellent day to spend at SIFF Cinema: the day begins with a 10:00 am showing of 1982’s The Black Stallion, an optically arresting adapation of the classic children’s novel about a boy and the titular horse stranded together on a remote island after a shipwreck. Go back at 1:00 pm for The Meaning of Tea (part of the first annual Northwest Tea Festival, going on all weekend at the Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms) and return again in the evening for a double bill of Gabriel Over the White House, a hard-charging pre-Hays Code film depicting a US President bent on shaking up the nation, and the brilliant A Face in the Crowd about a charming, cynical man’s rise to political power that remains as on target today as it was on release back in 1957.
• Midnight at the Egyptian: Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. If there’s anyone left who still thinks cartoons are nothing but kids’ stuff, I strongly recommend you check this film out–it’s as serious, intense, and even scary in parts as any live action film.
• Late night at the Grand Illusion is the odd but excellent Repo Man but stop in earlier to see My Father, My Lord, David Volach’s dramatic contemporary retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac.
• Fans of Joel and Ethan Coen will want to spend some time at Central Cinema for their screening of Blood Simple, the 1985 neo-noir that marked their directorial debut.

Not only do love watching movies here in the Northwest, we love making them, too. Local Sightings is an entire festival of Northwest films, brought to you by Northwest Film Forum.

The festival kicks off this Friday night, October 3, with a package of short films at 7pm, followed by an opening night party at 9. As is appropriate for an opening night, Friday’s package is entitled “Stories of Reach”. In Seattle director Curtis Taylor’s Bachianas No. 5, three women dream about love in a Tacoma Strip Bar. A.J. Eaton from Boise bring The Mix-Up, about a retired construction expert whose TV Mr. Fix-it job turns out to be a little different than he expected. Vancouver, BC’s Jennifer Halley asks “What do you do when the little voice in your head is not so little?” with her film Sarah in the Dark. Four other films–Skies Falling, Orbita del Verano, 30-Love, and Stumble and Fall complete the set.

You can win a pair of tickets to Opening Night at Local Sightings. Just send an e-mail indicating your interest to seattle.metblogs@gmail.com no later than Thursday, October 2, at 5pm, with your full name. Winner will be notified that night.

There’s still plenty more to come after opening night. Saturday includes another shorts package - “The Rose City Revue” - a series of new works by filmmakers from, you guessed it, Portland. Popular at this summer’s SIFF Festival, Good Food is a film about the comeback of family farms as part of a focus on sustainable food growing practices and it screens at 7pm Saturday, as does GPS, a thriller about a group of college friends on a GPS treasure hunt turned seriously creepy. Later that night are two more shorts programs: “Stories of Circumstance” and “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control”. The latter includes a film called Aerogeddon, a homemade retelling of the blockbuster film Armageddon, filmed in less than 30 days and for less than ‘$100.

Sunday features a panel discussion on works in progress, a presentation by Jim Ball about his Post Alley micro theater where he screened independent and experimental films back in the 1970s,
the documentary High and Outside, and shorts program “Movement in Place”.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday bring still more shorts, features, documentaries and discussions. Highlights for me include: Arid Lands on Monday, a documentary about the Columbia Valley, and Wednesday’s March Point, a film in which three teens from the Swinomish Tribe named Cody, Nick, and Travis, want to make a gangster movie but instead end up making a film about the impact of two oil refineries on their tribal community. Reluctant investigators who join the project initially because it sounds like more fun than drug court, the trio eventually come to understand a lot more about themselves, the environment, and the threats to their environment and their people from the refineries.

For full schedule, check out the website and don’t forget to enter to win tickets for Friday night.

If you live in the Northwest and enjoy tea, this is a very good week for you as the Northwest Tea Festival opens this week at local restaurants, SIFF Cinema and the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center.

Thursday, October 2, is the opening tea dinner for the festival, held at 94 Stewart Restaurant. The festival proper starts on the 4th at 10:00 a.m. and runs through Sunday, October 5th at 4:00 pm. At the festival, you will be able to sample teas from all over the world, participate in cooking with tea demonstrations, take tea-related classes, check out tea-related art, learn about the history of tea and more. Some of the special events happening include the instructional “Tea 101″, led by Ken Rudee of Barnes & Watson Fine Teas, “Putting on an Afternoon Tea” by Julee Rosanoff of Perennial Team Room, and “Teas of Taiwan” by Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves Tea.

SIFF Cinema gets in on the act by hosting two films: Saturday’s The Meaning of Tea and Sunday’s All In This Tea. Panel discussions follow both panels.

The festival concludes Sunday night at Wild Ginger with a closing tea dinner.

Besides water, tea is the world’s most popular beverage and is a big part of culture all around the world, except in America where it is generally considered an afterthought of a beverage by the general population. The NW Tea Festival hopes to change that perception by offering up the opportunity to get to know tea a whole lot better. The festival certainly appeals to those of us who are already tea lovers but the festival seeks to do more than simply preach to the choir. The programming is designed to appeal to all levels of tea knowledge, including none, so that even those people whose only experience with tea is the random cup made with Lipton or Red Rose tea bags will find the festival instructive and fun.

The festival is free to the public; a $5 donation is requested and I strongly suggest paying it since you’re going to get way more than $5 worth of value at this festival.

• Northwest Film Forum’s run of Momma’s Man, Azazel Jacob’s film about a man who retreats to an approximation of childhood when being a grown up proves overwhelming continues this weekend, ending on Monday the 22nd. Opening this weekend is The Universe of Keith Haring, a documentary about the life and art of the noted artist whose brightly colored and accessible artwork is recognizable even to people who don’t keep up much on modern art.
• Central Cinema screens Outsourced, a comedy in which a Seattle man is forced to travel to India to train the outsourced replacement taking his job and learns a heartwarming lesson about himself, India and America.
• At the Grand Illusion this weekend: Viva is a bored housewife who gets drawn into the myriad “scenes” of the so-called sexual revolution back in 1972 in this tribute to sexploitation films, and, Ten Nights of Dreams, an omnibus film in which ten directors tell ten different stories of adventure from the noted Meiji-era novelist Soseki Natsume.
• The Human Condition trilogy concludes at SIFF with A Soldier’s Prayer. In the final piece of Masaki Kobayashi’s epic saga of the life and times of Kaji, the socialist turned reluctant soldier during the second world war, the protagonist’s brigade is captured by Russians and Kaji must fight against the idealogical battle of his Soviet “liberators”. [Don't forget to go down to SIFF on Sunday, too, for Red Heroine.].
• Seeing as how The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies of all time and how I devoted a portion of my childhood to reading all of Baum’s Oz books, I’m not quite sure how I managed to miss knowing that someone made an Oz movie that I don’t remember ever hearing about. Released in 1985 and starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy, Return to Oz is this weekend’s midnight movie at the Egyptian, hands-down the best place to see an Oz-movie, ever.

As we all know, Bumbershoot can’t go on forever. Below, find some suggestions on how to plot out your last day of the festival (a.k.a. Death Cab Come Home Day) before it even begins. TIP: don’t forget to get an elephant ear. It’s the end of the summer and you haven’t had even one yet, have you? Don’t spend the long dark winter dwelling on regrets, OK?

As usual, glance through the official lineup and don’t hesitate to loudly tell us what we forgot to mention.

All the picks (and, at least one pan), after the jumpcut.

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For those brave enough to return to Bumbershoot for the tricky “middle day”, Team Metblogs salutes you. Several of us will be there, scribbling and snapping the say away. Below, is a slate of recommendations to get you started. Let us know what else from the full lineup you’ll be seeing.

The Sound of Young America Live!: Honestly, Sunday looks like the weakest of the three days at Bumbershoot, so this is the day you should check out a live taping of public radio’s redheaded stepchild The Sound Of Young America. (It’s playing all three days at the same time.) In a world where twentysomethings give to public radio pledge drives, TSOYA would have a prime spot on KUOW instead of that one-off appearance on KXOT. (I mean, honestly, KUOW, do we need yet another tired talk show aimed at the middle-aged, middlebrow former hipster? You have 16 of them already on Sunday alone.) Jesse Thorn is funny, a great interviewer, bipedal, and mostly water. [dylan] 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM, Charlotte Martin Theatre (all three days)

After the jump, plenty of other reasons to make a return to Bumbershoot on Sunday.

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