Notes From The Program Director | Week of October 3rd, 2025

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Notes From The Program Director

Week of October 3rd, 2025

Melissa Tamminga

Rich Text

October 3-9, 2025

Hello, friends!

And happy October! It’s the time of year that brings us both spooky delights and documentary treasures all month long, although we’ve also got plenty of other cinematic pleasures as well. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale continues at Bay St. for one final week, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great continue on Grand Ave., with Anderson’s electrifying film selling out one show after another. (Get your tickets early for One Battle; you don’t want to miss it on the big screen!)

The Smashing Machine, the new film from the multi-talented writer-director-actor Benny Safdie, opens this week at the Grand, featuring a performance from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which has some critics already talking Oscars. As Maddy Mussen writes in The Standard, “The Smashing Machine is the film that will rewrite the history of Dwayne Johnson’s acting career. The Smashing Machine might even earn Dwayne Johnson an Oscar nomination.” The performance is, indeed, unlike anything we’ve seen from Johnson before. It’s been clear for some time that the wrestler-turned-actor has acting chops--and an often brilliant comedic sensibility in the lighter roles he’s taken--but this is perhaps the first role that Johnson has shown how much range he really has. Johnson plays the real-life Mark Kerr, a former wrestler and mixed martial artist, who experienced the height of success as a two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion but also experienced the lowest of lows with an opioid addiction. As such, Johnson’s performance must range from the quietly internal to intensely physical, and he’s simply riveting in every moment.

The film is not worth seeing only for Johnson’s performance, however; the overall film is a true pleasure to watch, particularly in that it does not fall into the often predictable beats of a sports movie. While Safdie’s narrative is propulsively hinged on each of the fights Kerr faces and there’s a real sense of tension in each about which fighter in the ring will be victorious, its emotional center most often circles around Kerr’s relationship with his girlfriend Dawn, played by a wonderful Emily Blunt. The centrality of the relationship adds texture and nuance to the film in a way that sports movies often don’t have, and the film is less defined by the wins and losses of Kerr’s sport than it is by a keen sense of Kerr as a fully complex human being.

The film’s story is also beautifully enhanced by the presence of people from the real world of MMA, a terrific Ryan Bader (who plays Kerr’s friend and fighting rival), Satoshi Ishii, James Moontasri, boxer Oleksandr Usyk, and Bas Rutten. And even if you, like me, didn’t know these names before seeing this film, their participation in the film lends a deep authenticity to the story that any viewer will instantly feel.

It’s not often that we bring a pop star concert film to the Pickford, but we’re joining in the Swiftie fun this time with Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. It’s something of a love letter from Taylor Swift to her passionate fans, offering them a chance to be the first in the world to see the music video “The Fate of Ophelia,” along with other new videos and personal reflections from Swift herself -- and to see it together in theaters. It’s the sort of film that is un-reviewable, for there are few things like the joy of loving a musical artist together with other fans and letting the music and emotions of the communal event sweep you away. I’m not a Swiftie myself, but I’m half tempted to peek into the theater this weekend, if only to get something of a taste of the joy I know the true Swifties will experience together.

The Official Release Party of a Showgirl plays just Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so catch it while you can -- or make sure the Swifties in your life know the party is at the Pickford!

Alongside Taylor Swift, we’ve got another pop star on screen in the newly restored and remastered re-release of the groundbreaking 1997 anime film, Perfect Blue, from master Japanese filmmaker Satoshi Kon, who would later go on to make Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, and Millenium Actress. It’s a much darker film than the joyous frothiness of a Taylor Swift experience, however, with some graphic content that may be tough for some viewers. (If you’ve never seen it, I’d recommend reading a bit about it before taking the plunge.) Told in a surreal, non-linear fashion and beautifully edited, it follows the story of Mima, a pop singer who decides to become a serious actress. As she takes on increasingly darker roles, immersing herself in new characters and violent stories, she begins to lose a grip on reality, while simultaneously becoming haunted by obsessive fans -- and by her former pop self. It’s a dizzying, immersive sort of narrative, creating an intense psychological and emotional experience for viewers and offering pungent prescient commentary on fandom, online obsession, and the impossible intersections of identities celebrity creates.

And, of course, this week, we have a rich line-up of Doctober films that I’m so excited for you all to experience. It’s difficult to choose just a few favorites to highlight for you from this line-up--I love each film dearly, each for unique reasons--so instead, I’d like to recommend you prioritize coming to at least one of our films where we have a visiting filmmaker. One of my very favorite things about Doctober is getting the chance to talk to the incredible artists who made these films, some of whom have spent years making them. There’s nothing quite like the live, unscripted conversations that can happen after a film ends, when we, as an audience--in that one fleeting and unrepeatable moment in time--get to hear the story behind the story of the film from the storyteller him or herself.

This Saturday, for the Shorts Program, director Maria Munro and producer Ross Munro will be here with their film, “Sisters,” a film that tells Maria’s own incredible, moving story of finding a sister she never knew she had. Also for the Shorts Program, director Christian Sorensen Hansen will be here with his gorgeous doc about stunning architecture, “Counterweight,” and director Bryan Tucker will be here with his film, “Style: A Basketball Story.” I know many of you already know Bryan’s work, as he co-directed one of the most popular documentaries in Pickford history, Lynden! Many of you may remember Wes Hurley, too, who came to the Pickford a few years ago with his wonderful film, Potato Dreams of America; he’ll be here with his short film, “Shelly’s Leg,” a fascinating and imaginatively-told slice of Seattle history.

I’m also equally excited to talk to Billy Ray Brewton, the producer for the utterly fascinating Coroner to the Stars, who will be here on Saturday, and we’re thrilled to welcome back Alexandre Phillipe, who will be here with his film Chain Reactions, which examines the power of one of the most influential horror films ever made. Both Billy Ray and Alexandre are passionate movie lovers as well as filmmakers, and the joy of hearing their insights will be hard to match this month. On Sunday, director Ian Bell will be joining us for his incredible telling of the 1999 Seattle protests in WTO/99, a film composed entirely of archival footage, a feat of phenomenal editing. Talking with Ian about his achievement in bringing us all back into those days in 1999 in such a powerful way will also prove to be one of the highlights of the festival this year.

Join us for one (or more!) of these Q&A’s, and consider if there are questions you might have for the filmmakers yourselves, as there will be time in each session for audience questions as well.

Our Halloween series, 70’s Horror Classics, also continues this week Wednesday evening with the 1979 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There are few remakes that exceed or even match their predecessors, but this 1978 Invasion, a remake of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is one of them. With an incredible cast featuring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, and Veronica Cartwright (whom you may remember visited us for our very special screening of Alien and who will also be making an appearance in The Birds this month!), Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the kind of film that gets under your skin and haunts your dreams. Full of 1970s paranoia and pulling no punches, it’s simply delicious. And that final shot? Well, it’s one for the ages.

Finally, don’t miss our preview screening on Thursday of the new crime comedy-drama starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, Roofman. It tells the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, an Army Ranger, who couldn’t quite find his place in the post-Army world, made the extremely poor choice of robbing a few McDonalds restaurants, was caught and put in prison, escaped prison, and then holed up in a Toys R Us for months, with the baffled police none the wiser. I’ll have a bit more to say about this one next week, but for now, I’ll just say the film charmed the socks off me, largely due to Tatum himself, who’s one of the few actors, I think, who is completely believable as a wonderfully sympathetic criminal. It’s reminiscent of the Richard Linklater film, also based on a true story, Bernie, and the similarly charming Jack Black. I’m also something of a sucker for the based-on-a-true-story films, where we get to see a bit of the real people behind the fictionalized characters at the end of the film -- and this film does not disappoint. Be sure to stick around through the credits!

See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa