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South Sound Cinema
Christopher Wood on December 3rd, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient entertainment?
South Sound Cinema
Christopher Wood on November 27th, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient entertainment? Every Tuesday, "Check
South Sound Cinema
Christopher Wood on November 19th, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient entertainment? Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends
South Sound Cinema
Christopher Wood on November 12th, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient entertainment? Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at
Arts
Christopher Wood on November 6th, 2013
Tara Reid, Bram Stoker, the Olympia Film Festival. Admittedly an odd list to kick off any conversation, even for me, but trust me when I say they all have one thing in common. Thanks to my tireless fact-finding, I've uncovered a startling truth: T-Reid, the Stokes and OFF each turn
South Sound Cinema
Christopher Wood on November 5th, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient entertainment? Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at any of the
Arts
Christopher Wood on October 2nd, 2013
Seahawks fans, assemble! Now let's make sure we have everything: Tickets? Yep. Snacks? Check. Autograph book? (You never know) ... Got it.
OK, good. Just one more question - Y'all ready for some film-ball?
(confused silence)
Come, come people ... this time of year stands for more than pigskins, touchdown wins and 12th
We Recommend
Christopher Wood on October 1st, 2013
"I want to get Tacoma, the film community, and the Latino community educated," local actor Melinda Raebyne tells me. If you haven't yet seen her in a South Sound movie, she spends the rest of her time behind the scenes on multiple film events, like the upcoming Tacoma Film Festival,
We Recommend
Christopher Wood on August 16th, 2013
Don't be misled by the "new" in The Grand Cinema's 25 New Faces film festival (which opens today and runs until August 22nd). Though the word may imply a lack of experience, many of the moviemakers receiving recognition for their freshness and originality have already spent years honing their craft.
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Christopher Wood on August 15th, 2013
Ah, the dog days of August. The sun still shines, but summer seems to be fading fast. Most of the biggest and shrillest Hollywood releases have come and gone by the time the last July 4th firecracker has petered out.
Leave it to The Grand Cinema to fill this void with
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Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on November 13th, 2014
The man was adding new movie titles to the Capitol Theater's glowing marquee when I arrived Wednesday night. Apparently later in the 31st Olympia Film Festival's run I could watch NATURAL LI E and DI DE CON CO, so either filmmakers these days really dig inscrutable names for their movies,
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on November 11th, 2014
Once upon a time, the city streets in movies belonged to Dustin Hoffman. See him in Midnight Cowboy, his hobbling Ratso bellowing "I'm walkin' heah!" to a careless downtown cabbie; cradling his injured son while sprinting blocks to find the nearest ER in Kramer Vs. Kramer; emerging for the first
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on February 7th, 2014
Writer's note: This will be my last installment of recommmended films you can find at local libraries. Enjoy.
If you still wonder why Iron Man 3 felt like a movie straight out of the '90s (this film opened with Eiffel 65's "Blue" and dressed a character as Vincent Vega from Pulp
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on January 17th, 2014
Every Tuesday, and sometimes on Friday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at your friendly local library. So you can satisfy your next film fix at the place with the books.
If Hollywood in the '60s needed an "issues film," Stanley Kramer was usually the man for the job.
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on January 7th, 2014
Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at your friendly local library. So you can satisfy your next film fix at the place with the books.
Before all the salad dressing and philanthropy, Paul Newman didn't always play the nicest of guys onscreen. Early in his long career,
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on December 31st, 2013
Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at your friendly local library. So you can satisfy your next film fix at the place with the books.
"Drama is life with the dull bits left out," the wise Hitchcock tells us. So what excitement could one possibly find in
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on December 24th, 2013
Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at your friendly local library. So you can satisfy your next film fix at the place with the books.
I once read an essay on Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo (currently poised at the top of my favorites list) in which the
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on December 17th, 2013
Every Tuesday, "Check This Out" recommends movies available at your friendly local library. So you can satisfy your next film fix at the place with the books.
You must think me quite the Scrooge this week, thumbing my nose at this computer-animated adaptation of Dickens's classic mere days before
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on December 12th, 2013
Some days you just don't feel like paying for another Redbox rental, and the next movie on your Netflix queue takes FOREVER to arrive in your mailbox. And recession or no, who can pass up free, convenient
Walkie Talkie Blog
Christopher Wood on October 10th, 2012
I witnessed some great talent in Tacoma last night. And I don’t mean The Beebs.
I managed to avoid the gridlock crawling towards the Mecca-like Justin Bieber concert, heading north instead for Day 6 of The Grand Cinema’s Tacoma Film Festival. This particular evening’s selection called itself Grit City Flicks,
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Recently Reviewed Movies
Christopher Wood on September 30th, 2013
Hands clasped, heads bowed, clusters of the faithful have gathered in a small room to pray. Then comes the Scripture, torrents of it flying from the mouths of the young people present. They recite such long passages at such ludicrous speeds; it almost resembles speaking in tongues. I'd call this
Christopher Wood on March 30th, 2011
Independent cinema serves as a refuge for many, a means of expression for those marginalized groups that otherwise wouldn't have a voice (or willing listeners for that matter). Mainstream media cannot hope to cover all viewpoints of an issue; sometimes the only way the rest of us even know a
Christopher Wood on October 26th, 2012
It looks like any office lobby in any corporate high-rise - a receptionist's desk with computer and keyboard, a few chairs for visitors to wait in while leafing through generic coffee table books. But Doug Stapleton has sinister plans for this place, oh yes. Last weekend it transformed into the
Christopher Wood on September 15th, 2010
One of cinema's main attractions involves its promise to carry us off and into worlds beyond our everyday living and imagining. Much of the eclectic lineup scheduled for this year's Tacoma Film Festival (Oct. 7-14) takes place in different states, on different continents, and a few emerge purely from their
Christopher Wood on July 12th, 2011
No one likes it when a party has to end. Cinegeek that I am, every year when the Tacoma Film Festival wraps I want it to start all over again, not only to replay the movies I did see, but to catch what I missed the first time.
In a way
Christopher Wood on April 4th, 2012
My birthday, January 2008: Laughing nervously as a crazed Daniel Day-Lewis delivers his now-classic line, "I ... drink ... your ... MILKSHAKE!" in the finale of There Will Be Blood.
Summer 2007: Marveling at the sheer scope of Danny Boyle's sci-fi spectacle Sunshine.
Fall 2005: (Over)acting all over the UWT campus in
Christopher Wood on October 5th, 2011
How about a magic trick? Most films perform one; they conceal as much as they reveal. They have us so mesmerized by the world flashing onscreen that we barely tune in to that other world just beyond the frame, that of the film's creators. They cover up their own tracks
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