Notes From The Program Director | Week of February 28th, 2025

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Notes From The Program Director

Week of February 28, 2025

Melissa Tamminga

Rich Text

February 28-March 6, 2025

Hello, friends!

It’s an exciting week this week with the much-anticipated Oscars ceremony this Sunday, where we’ll get to see which films the Academy believes are the best films of the year. It’s a particularly interesting year this year in that prognosticators are more unsure than usual which film will be taking home the top prize: for much of the season Emilia Perez was (bafflingly) the favorite (its chances now appear to be tanked for many reasons but especially because of the lead actress’s reprehensible remarks); then, The Brutalist seemed to be gaining steam and favor; then, Anora seemed to be on the clearest path to victory with its wins at the DGA (Directors Guild) and PGA (Producers Guild) . . . until Conclave tookBest Ensemble at the SAG Awards. At this point, it could be anybody’s ballgame though I don’t think my personal favorite of the Best Picture nominees – I’m Still Here – has any chance of winning.

It should be, in any case, a sensational night, and I think we are all probably in for more than a few of the usual Oscar-night pleasant surprises and shocking upsets!

In light of the Oscars ceremony, we’re again offering a veritable Oscars-buffet this week at the Pickford, with lots of chances to catch up with the buzziest and the best:

Conclave plays on Friday (3:05 pm), Tuesday (7:45 pm), and Thursday (11:15 am)

Anora plays on Friday (5:45 pm), Monday (5:40 pm), and Wednesday (2:35 pm)

Dune: Part Two plays on Friday (7:45 pm) and Wednesday (7:40 pm)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat plays on Saturday (10:25 am)

Wicked plays on Saturday (12:10 pm), Tuesday (2:20 pm), and Wednesday (5:35 pm)

The Substance plays on Saturday (3:55 pm) and Monday (7:45 pm)

The Documentary: Oscar shorts program plays on Sunday (10 am)

A Complete Unknown plays on Sunday (10:40 am), Tuesday (5:45 pm), and Thursday (11:00 am)

Nickel Boys plays on Sunday (1:20 pm), Monday (2:40 pm), and Thursday (3:00 pm)

Oz Perkins’s The Monkey – a zany, cartoonishly gory, and hilarious Looney-Tunes ride – also continues, and I’d recommend reading this wonderful and quite poignant interview with Perkins: “The Monkey Director Oz Perkins on His Unusual Relationship to Horror, the Genre He Was Born Into.” While his film is a comedy-horror film (with an emphasis on the comedy), he is no stranger to real tragedy: his father, actor Anthony Perkins, dying of AIDS, and his mother dying in the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11.

And while the film is over-the-top comedy in so many ways, there is an undeniable layer of real poignance lying underneath it all. It’s impossible not to interpret the film through the lens of Perkins’s own real life horrors, his parents suddenly taken from him in perplexing and sudden ways, and the film is clearly grappling with the capricious and meaningless nature of death. I’d also recommend British film critic Mark Kermode’s discussion of the film on his weekly show; Kermode, a long time fan of horror, speaks quite movingly about The Monkey, noting its camp-level hilarity while also emphasizing how Perkins is using the film, in the ways artists so often do, as a kind of catharsis for his own life’s circumstances.

I’ll also briefly note three very unmissable events we’ve got this week:

First, we’re honoring the great David Lynch with two screenings of his masterpiece Mulholland Drive on Saturday at 3:30 pm and 6:40 pm. There was truly no one like Lynch, and we love him so much (and Bellingham clearly does, too) that in April, we’ll also be playing Lynch’s wonderful feature film debut, a film that instantly became an iconic classic – Eraserhead (April 3, 7:45 pm). Be sure to snag tickets for this week’s Mulholland Drive and also for Eraserhead before they sell out!

Second, on Thursday at 5:30 pm, our friends at CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival will be presenting the film Lilly, starring the great Patricia Clarkson. Lilly tells the story of Lilly Ledbetter, the American activist and hero, whose fight for equal pay for women changed U.S. law. There will also be a live, virtual Q&A after the film with the film’s director, Rachel Feldman, and led by Maria McLeod, associate professor of journalism at WWU and CASCADIA Advisory Board member. Don’t miss it!

Last – and I’ll have more to say about this next week when it officially opens – we’ve also got a sneak-peek preview of Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho’s much anticipated follow-up to Parasite, which was a hit at the Pickford and across the nation in 2019, and which won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature at the Oscars that year. Bong’s unique sensibilities and style, his signature themes, are all on display here in his new film (which is perhaps most akin to Okja), but I won’t say more for now, except to recommend this truly delightful interview with Bong (and his wonderful interpreter) on the Late Show with Colbert (starts at 28:24): https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/7hzhBJxoa4PfIDN4y6UV246fwCHwPxsf/

Join us on Thursday at 8:15 pm for this new film from a fabulous Korean auteur!

See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa