While everyone else is watching the latest big-budget, sci-fi, action-laden, poorly written, badly acted, ineptly directed, over-marketed summer blockbuster in which someone like Bill Paxton saves humanity from a swarm of giant robot locusts controlled by Christopher Walken, The Grand Cinema presents a week of documentaries. See a movie whose dialogue consists wholly of transcriptions of actual cockpit recordings, most of them from flights that ultimately crashed. Find out which pharmaceutical keep-away perpetuated the AIDS emergency in Africa and elsewhere.

The Grand's inaugural Documentary Week will run March 21-27. According to a news release, the series will showcase "seven critically acclaimed, first-run documentaries that will all be screening for the first time in the South Sound. Each film will be screened four or five times each throughout the week.The seven selections explore a wide variety of subjects including politics and philosophy, music and theater, sailing and exploration, wildlife, and culture and self-expression."

The Grand Cinema's "Documentary Week" Selections

IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY?

A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation. Trailer and Ticket Link

Fri 3.21: 2:00  |  Sat 3.22: 8:45  |  Mon 3.24: 6:30  |  Tue 3.25: 8:45   |  Thu 3.27: 4:15

THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE

A cinematic documentary that illuminates the lives of individual animals living within and rescued from the machine of our modern world. Trailer and Ticket Link

Fri 3.21: 4:15  |  Sun 3.23: 6:30  |  Mon 3.24: 8:45  |  Wed 3.26: 6:30

MAIDENTRIP

14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. Trailer and Ticket Link

Sat 3.22: 11:45am  |  Sun 3.23: 4:15  |  Tue 3.25: 2:00  |  Thu 3.27: 8:45

ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME

The uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner is showcased both on and off stage via rare archival footage and intimate cinema vérité. Trailer and Ticket Link

Fri 3.21: 8:45  |  Sat 3.22: 2:00  |  Mon 3.24: 4:15  |  Wed 3.26: 2:00  |  Thu 3.27: 6:30

CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO

A stage documentary derived entirely from 'Black Box' transcripts of six real-life major airline emergencies. Trailer and Ticket Link

Sat 3.22: 4:15  |  Sun 3.23: 2:00  |  Tue 3.25: 6:30  |  Thu 3.27: 2:00

FIRE IN THE BLOOD

An intricate tale of "medicine, monopoly and malice", FIRE IN THE BLOOD tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of the global south in the years after 1996 - causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths - and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back. Trailer and Ticket Link

Fri 3.21: 6:30  |  Sun 3.23: 11:45am  |  Mon 3.24: 2:00  |  Wed 3.26: 4:15

I AM DIVINE

How Divine, aka Harris Glenn Milstead, became John Waters' cinematic muse and an international drag icon. Trailer and Ticket Link

Sat 3.22: 6:30  |  Sun 3.23: 8:45  |  Tue 3.25: 4:15  |  Wed 3.26: 8:45