PETERSON REVIEWS
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The Family That Stays Together
‘The Monkey’ and ‘Vermiglio,’ reviewed.
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Outgoing Grand Cinema Leader Philip Cowan: ‘I’m Ready to Step Away’
For South Sound: Retiring later this year after nearly 20 years in the role, the executive director of the Tacoma organization discusses the accomplishments he’s most proud of, favorite memories, and why he wouldn’t necessarily call himself a film buff.
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‘Antiporno’’s Productive Unsexiness
Sion Sono’s sui-generis 2016 feature abrasively and abstractly critiques the cultural and cinematic limitations — particularly as they relate to sexual expression — placed on women.
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‘Lisa’ is a Hidden Slasher-Movie Gem
The lived-in mother-daughter relationship at the center of co-writer and director Gary Sherman’s 1990 movie eclipses its conventional slasher-movie B plot.
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‘Habit’ Isn’t Your Average Vampire Movie
The 1997 not-quite-horror film, written, directed, and edited by star Larry Fessenden, is intriguingly slippery.
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Short Takes: ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,’ ‘Universal Language,’ and ‘Paddington in Peru’
For South Sound: New movies from Michael Morris, Matthew Rankin, and Dougal Wilson, reviewed.
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‘The Fourth Man’’s Stylish Misdirections
On the cusp of his American breakthrough, Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s 1983 movie is a stylish, quasi-parodic precursor to his own ‘Basic Instinct.’
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The Stupid Pleasures of ‘Malice’
Though this twisty-turny domestic thriller gets increasingly ridiculous, it’s never boring.
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Poulsbo’s New Film Challenge is Putting Local Creatives to the Test
For South Sound: The husband-and-wife duo behind the Poulsbo Film Festival and the Away with Words bookstore is kicking off the 47.7-Hour Film Challenge on Feb. 28.
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‘The Perfect Guy’ Goes Through the Erotic-Thriller Motions
Sanaa Lathan is stranded in David M. Rosenthal’s lethargic ‘Fatal Attraction’ knockoff.
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‘I’m Still Here’ is a Devastating Family Drama
For 425: Fernanda Torres is outstanding as a matriarch coming to terms with a cruel truth.
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Delirium
Increasingly reappraised after it was tepidly received in 2003, Jane Campion’s ‘In the Cut’ potently flips the script on the typically straight male gaze-dominated erotic thriller.
SEPTEMBER 2026
The Theme is ‘Based on an Article’
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The Harrowing, Empathetic ‘Streetwise’
Martin Bell’s landmark movie about teenage runaways and outcasts getting by in downtown Seattle is a haunting group portrait.

August 19, 2026

May 25, 2026

May 13, 2026

Strong, Stoic Types
Director-star Paul Newman’s 1971 treatment of Ken Kesey’s ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ perceptively observes the corrosiveness of toxic masculinity.
August 7, 2026
Working Girls
‘Broken Mirrors,’ Marleen Gorris’ 1984 follow-up to her still-transcendent feminist drama ‘A Question of Silence,’ expands on its predecessor’s themes while dramatically improving on its writer-director’s aesthetic command.
July 9, 2026


Found Connections
Donna Deitch’s ‘Desert Hearts’ was a breakthrough for lesbian representation in cinema. It also achieves another rarified thing: Characters who feel like they exist outside a screenplay’s bounds.
June 30, 2026











