For its 40th, the Seattle International Film Festival is again raising the bar on itself, this year offering a whopping 435 films including 198 feature films, 60 documentaries, and 163 short films from 83 countries. Of those, 44 are world premieres, 29 North American premieres and 13 US premieres. All this amongst a slew of festival favorites from this year and last. Let’s just say that the odds of seeing them all just got that much slimmer.
Post Travel Photos From the Road, & Win Your Own Adventure.
It’s that time of year when cruising with windows down and music blaring just feels right. Road trip season is upon us, and frankly, we couldn’t be happier. It seems we’re not alone with these Kerouac-esque cravings; at this very minute, some lucky road-trippin’ bloggers are living the dream—and bringing us along for the ride.
Enter to win a Canadian adventure.
In a brilliant new marketing scheme, Tourism Victoria has launched a campaign intended to lure Pacific Northwest folks up to its beautiful, welcoming city. A new online game—“Victoria Calling”—lets participants explore their personal “travel type” through a playful quiz that comes along with exclusive offers.
Even with a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 7.2 on IMDB, and a 66 on Metacritic, it’s almost universally agreed that The Amazing Spider-Man was mostly garbage. Despite electric chemistry between stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, the story bowed to the whim of the bizarre and childish, painting a doltish picture that recycled much of Sam Raimi‘s 2002 original. That is when it wasn’t involved with a villain’s pea-brained attempts to turn the residents of NYC into lizards. It was so inexplicably dumb that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finds Harry Osborn – as a penitent mouthpiece for director Marc Webb – pointing out the absurdity of the reboot’s web-footed plotting. Thankfully this latest iteration will leave children and adults stupefied for a (mostly) different reason.
Every once in a blue moon an unsung talent breaks out of their wheelhouse to extraordinary results. Quentin Tarantino famously emerged from a video store, learning his craft at the film school of VHS rentals. Ron Howard was a can-kicking child actor before stepping in to direct acclaimed films like Apollo 13, Rush and Academy Award winner A Beautiful Mind. Even Japanese auteur and samurai-lordship himself Akira Kurosawa trained as a painter before ever stepping behind a camera. The lesson is: great directors can come from pretty much anywhere. Wally Pfister, longtime cinematographer for Christopher Nolan (another cinebuff who did not receive formal film school education) and head hancho of Transcendence, has spent the better part of two decades behind a camera. But this is the first time he’s sat in the black foldout chair etched with the word “director.” In this 100 million dollar dry run of his, he’s all but sullied the name.
When I’m not skipping from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of the best of-the-moment baked good (cronuts, macarons, baguettes, oh my!), I’m scrolling through hours’ worth of foodie blogs. Imagine my excitement when I discovered homemade sweets and bloggy pleasures will meet on Saturday, April 19th with The Broken Bread pop-up shop.
If you follow Seattle’s thriving music scene, chances are you already know this name. And if you don’t, well, you really should. Though Kenyan-born Naomi Wachira has already made some major waves around the Pacific Northwest (Seattle Weekly coined her the city’s “Best Folk Singer” last year), it seems just a matter of time before this soulful talent is truly discovered.
Scotty Browns opened in Bellevue at the beginning of February this year at the Elements building in Bellevue downtown. The menu is comfort food inspired with North American and West Coast influences. They offer lunch and dinner daily and brunch on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The patio has comfortable seating and is a good distance
Growing up in the 1940s gives Steve Rogers an excuse to not understand the mechanics of speed dial. But when neo-Nazi’s threaten the freedom of the entire world, you have to wonder why he’s not more focused on contacting his nuclear suit-wearing chum, Tony Stark, or the bad Shakespeare in the park actor/Norse God, Thor. Unless he’s gone on some spirit journey to be explained away in extra Blu-Ray bonus material, Tony’s probably just shambling around Stark Towers in his drawers. His billionaire skyline must be literally cast in shadow by the helicarriers of doom that Captain America’s trying to take down with the only weapons at his disposal: record-breaking sprinting skills and a shield. The fate of the entire world is at stake and here’s good hearted Steve clearly taking a hell of an ass-whopping and he still doesn’t see fit to call up his Avengers pals? Or at least try? I’m sorry but you lost me there.
V. Contreras Releases Her First Full-Length Album.
This spring brings much excitement for Seattle’s star-on-the-rise Victoria Contreras, as she performs at The Triple Door April 11 and releases her first full-length album April 15 . Her website description reads: “The love child of Dusty Springfield and Nancy Sinatra with a splash of The Ronettes.” Okay, we’re intrigued; aren’t you?
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