Recent Stories with tag nwff

Regina Spektor's Live in London concert movie gets screened in just 15 U.S. cities this weekend, and the Northwest Film Forum is the Seattle venue, with just one showing on Sunday at 8 p.m. It's just $5, so if you missed her Paramount show--All night, between songs, it had been "Regina, I love you!", "Regina, I love you more than that first girl!", and a baritone howl of "Regina, I want to have your babies!" Spektor, in contrast, traveled imperturbably from song to song, though the "babies" brought her up short. "All tour," she said, "it's been babies. I guess...thanks?"--you can make up for lost time. The live album hits on November 22. Consequence of Sound has the track lists.

That's the subject line of an email I received yesterday, promoting a tweetup this Monday morning with the monumental German director/intellectual madman himself. Ostensibly, it's an event to drum up interest in First Look Studios' upcoming DVD release of My Son My Son What Have Ye Done, Herzog's collaboration with David Lynch, which played at the Northwest Film Forum this spring.  But really, this is an opportunity to throw your thoughts at Werner and get one of his trademark dry-witted replies.  Animal-related questions encouraged, for sure.

Herzog will respond in real-time to questions tweeted to the First Look Studios' Twitter account, @1stlookstudios, with his responses posted on the First Look Studios' YouTube channel. Though Herzog himself is not a member of Twitter, his persona is quite popular on the social network, as seen through the popular trending topic #WernerHerzogvsChuckNorris, where users weigh in on who is tougher, Werner Herzog or action star Chuck Norris.

Tweeting to Werner commences Monday morning, so send your questions @1stlookstudios by August 23rd at 9:45 a.m. PDT.  Full press release after the jump.... (more)

To fans of emerging bands, particularly of artists whose skyrocketing careers mean that each subsequent tour is likely to take place in a venue less intimate than the one before, the immediacy of these films is a revelation that inspires held breath and exploding hearts. With their distillation of musical experiences to their most pure and creative, they are consistently among the best things on the internet.

Starting Friday evening, the Northwest Film Forum dedicates an entire week to the work of Vincent Moon (real name, Mathieu Saura), bringing the director to town to talk about his movies, conduct a workshop on music filmmaking, and to film some Seattle bands in takeaway shows of their own. As someone known to breathlessly await the arrival of the next installation from La Blogotheque, I have similarly been eagerly anticipating this series since it was first announced.... (more)

This weekend the Safdie Brothers, Josh and Benny, were in town for their new film Daddy Longlegs, currently showing at the Northwest Film Forum.  During their time here, they also taught a class entitled "Emotionally Sloppy: A Crash-Course in Cinema of the Gut," which gives you a window into what the film is like--mumblecore meets Cassavetes in its loose, shaggy style and an emphasis on exploration of character over plot.  Taking place in a quasi-timeless New York City, the Safdies' second feature is a semi-autobiographical look at a dad, played by Ronald Bronstein, who is wildly incompetent but brings a lot of chaotic fun to his two grade school-aged sons' lives during the two weeks of the year when he has custody. 

The SunBreak has three pairs of tickets to Daddy Longlegs to give away during the rest of its Northwest Film Forum run.  We'll be drawing three winners on Tuesday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

Either you're interested in a movie directed by Werner Herzog and produced by David Lynch, or you're not. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is the first collaboration between the two weirdo auteurs, and it shows.  For the Lynch fans, yes, there is a midget; for the Herzog fans, yes, there are odd interactions with animals (in this case, flamingos and ostriches) and a long tracking shot of a can of oatmeal rolling into the street. 

The film is loosely based on Mark Yavorksy's murder of his mother with a three-foot-long antique saber, which seems to have been inspired by the Greek tragedy of Orestes.  But Herzog and Lynch are less concerned with the murder itself--here the protagonist is called Brad McCullum, played by the nearly-ubiquitous, talented dog-faced actor Michael Shannon--than with the why of the killing.  As such, most of the film is told in flashback, as San Diego detectives (played by Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena) interview McCullum's friends and loved ones (Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier) to get some insight into what would make a man commit such a psychotic act.  As it's a Herzog-Lynch film, there's no clear answers (though hanging out with hippies in Peru plays a part), but the journey is a wack-a-doodle, lovely, lonely one.

• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done plays at the Northwest Film Forum today through next Thursday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.  Tix are $9 GA/$6 members, $4.50 GA/$3 members on Monday.

For the past week, the Northwest Film Forum has been running 45365, a "poetic" non-narrative feature about small-town Ohio that's more in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi than your standard documentary.  Now things stay small-town, but get a little more conventional at the NWFF with October Country.  The debut collaboration of filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, the film is a look at three generations of a dysfunctional family in Ilion, New York. 

These are small-town, working-class people, and it shows, with Mountain Dew and Newports acting as signifiers.  Grandfather Don never got over Vietnam and has shut out everyone else, including his wife Dottie; daughter Donna got knocked up young and dated a string of abusive men; oldest daughter Daneal followed in her mother's tracks, while her youngest, Desi, just thinks all the women in her family are "retarded," though it's not clear she'll escape the cycle either.  Meanwhile, Don's estranged sister Denise is a witch (literally) and spends most of her time talking to ghosts in the cemetery or decorating her house with unicorns and wizards (ditto).  What is never mentioned is that director Donal Mosher is Don and Dottie's son too.... (more)

The Red Riding Trilogy is the British TV adaptation of David Peace's book series about power and corruption in Northern England in the context of several true-crime sprees (including that of the Yorkshire Ripper). Peace's four books have been turned into three episodes: 1974, 1980, and 1983. Why 1977 was skipped we'll never know.

Each episode runs about an hour and a half, featuring a different director and medium. 1974 was shot on 16mm by Julian Jarrold; 1980 was shot on 35mm and has more of a documentary feel, thanks to Man on Wire director James Marsh; 1983 was shot using a Red digital camera by Anand Tucker. After running on Channel 4 a year ago, they're getting the big screen treatment on this side of the pond.

There's recurring characters across the series, and like The Wire--though it's by no means as good as The Wire, duh--the focus is on the frustrations of conducting a police investigation, the frustrations of being a journalist, and the frustrations of living in an economically depressed area. And like The Wire, the Red Riding Trilogy badly needs some subtitles. I can barely understand your "English," Leeds!... (more)

Much like Joe Camel and smoking, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes has corrupted generations of young people by giving them the idea to become dancers. The romance! The beauty! The ruined bodies, lack of steady pay, and short career that leaves you with few options other than to become a yoga instructor! Well, I may be being hyperbolic (actually I'm not), but whatever the case, the film's a gorgeous classic, wrapping the story of a young ballerina making it big around Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale about an enchanted pair of ballet slippers. There are three more chances to see it this week at the Northwest Film Forum--if you can get tickets at the door. They're sold out online.

Back in November, I attended a wonderful short film festival called Couch Fest. Tomorrow, they will be holding a 90-minute screening of their best films at Northwest Film Forum.

The premise of Couch Fest is pretty simple: a few brave souls open up their homes to a slew of random strangers and show a series of short films. They vote for their favorites and sit next to each other in awkward silence or sharing timid conversations. Every hour, the strangers leave and a new batch strolls in.

For socially chilly Seattle, the festival is quite a departure from the stereotypical norm. Even this native Washingtonian found himself chatting with strangers about the short animation that just blew our minds or the awesome one-minute film of a lion roaring. For some reason, sharing a couch in a stranger's house (or garage) with a bunch of other strangers makes us a little less estranged.

To get a taste of how awesome this festival is (minus the couches), stop by the Northwest Film Forum at 1515 12th Ave, this Sunday at 3 p.m. Admission is free.

The documentary New Brow, showing for one more night at the NWFF (7 p.m., 9 p.m.), is an enjoyable if somewhat amateurish fan letter to the Juxtapoz scene. Shot on cheap-looking digital video with tinny sound quality (or maybe it was NWFF's system?), this series of effusive artist testimonials about why they like their own work features copious footage of their distinctive and weird paintings, short and funny cameos by the movement's primary stars--particularly Robert Williams, hilarious and ornery as always--and brief appearances by local luminaries Kirsten Anderson of Roq La Rue, Larry Reid of Fantagraphics, and Seattle's best porcelain weapons manufacturer Charlie Krafft.... (more)

With this week being so wet and dark, it seems like a good time to take a trip to South America, via our good friends at the Northwest Film Forum.  They're currently showing two movies made in the other America to the south. While the films have different locales, formats, and time periods, they do have one thing in common: they like to take it sloooooooooooowww.

If you miss the warm weather, soak up the sun with the restored print of Margot Benacerraf’s 1959 black-and-white "tone poem" documentary Araya.  It's a look at twenty-four hours in a small Venezuelan village dependent on the sea for its fish and salt.  There's a lot of back-breaking work (you will come to understand the true meaning of "back to the salt mines"), which means a lot of tan shirtless hunks of men.  As always, the village's men may do the majority of the manual labor, but the ladies still bear the brunt of the work.  While a man may have to put the nets in the ocean at night, pull them out in the morning, and untangle the fish, a woman has to then take those fish to another village, sell them, come home, nurse her baby, take care of the household chores, and feed her tired and hungry husband.  It just ain't fair. 

Meanwhile, there's no sweating in Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool, because he's made a narrative feature with non-professionals in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, right near the tip of Argentina.  Alonso's process is almost more interesting than his films (see the making-of video below): he goes to a place he finds intriguing with his tiny crew, he meets the locals, and he convinces them to be in a movie. There's very little by way of script, which is to say there's very little by way of story.  Liverpool is more of a feeling--loneliness, isolation, um...being cold.  Both films invite the viewer to see these disparate, exotic landscapes for themselves, not to do the hard work, but to discover if it's as brutal there in real life as it is in the movies.  I want to go to (both of) there.

• Araya and Liverpool both show at the Northwest Film Forum tonight at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.  Tickets are $9 non-NWFF members, $6 members.

Fun fact: France has black people! This is something I learned from Claire Denis' new film, 35 Shots of Rum.

The film moves slowly, deliberately through the lives of a commuter train conductor, his college-aged daughter, and the other people in their suburban Paris apartment building who act as an extended family. It's a simple story, but Denis infuses it with lovely camerawork, oscillating between long, drawn-out wide shots and tactile, handheld close-ups. The acting is strong all the way around, with Alex Descas and Mati Diop giving realism to the complexities of the relationship between a parent and a grown child. Like Denise Richards (colon), it's complicated.

• 35 Shots of Rum plays at the Northwest Film Forum twice daily (7 p.m., 9 p.m.) through Thursday. Tickets are $9 non-members/$6 members; $4.50/$3 at the door on Happy Mondays.

Somebody needs to tell director Andrew Bujalski that not everything needs to be a movie. True, that's kinda the point of the mumblecore movement, which focuses on "real life" and at least semi-non-scripted scripts. After Mutual Appreciation and Funny Ha-Ha, his latest feature-length film Beeswax is yes, a more mature effort, as it covers late-twentysomethings' business dealings, as well as the requisite friendship, family, and romance. In the end, nothing much happens. Just like real life, I suppose, but most filmgoers use movies as an escape, not to deal with the same ol' boring minutiae of the day to day.

That's not to say the film isn't worth seeing. Bujalski of course captures naturalistic, organic performances from non-actor actors (and real-life twin sisters) Tilly Hatcher and Maggie Hatcher. And the chemistry (and awkwardness) between characters is palpable. I just want a little more by way of forward movement the next time around.

• Beeswax plays at the Northwest Film Forum twice daily (7 p.m., 9 p.m.) through Thursday, November 5. $9 non-members, $6 members.  Happy Monday tickets available at the door tonight for $4.50 non-members, $3 members.

A couple years ago, way back in 2007, R.E.M.--the seminal Athens, Georgia-based band that's as old as I am--was working on their upcoming album.  A key part of their process this time around was five nights of trial-by-fire live performances of the new material ("working rehearsals") in front of sold-out audiences of fans, friends, and family members.  Way to use the method, guys, even if it was an "experiment in terror."

The result was their acclaimed 2008 return-to-form release Accelerate, as well as the double album R.E.M.: Live at the Olympia, and now the documentary This is Not a Show. The film features concert and backstage footage from noted live music director Vincent Moon.  If you know his work with La Blogotheque, you know that he captures great, spontaneous performances from unknown indie bands and living legends alike.  Check the trailer above for just a taste.

• This is Not a Show plays at the Northwest Film Forum October 23-25, daily at 8pm. Tickets are $6 NWFF members, $9 non-members.

Tonight's your final chance to see The BQE, Sufjan Stevens' forty-minute opus to Brooklyn and Queens, at the Northwest Film Forum.

Commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The BQE was originally performed in the Howard Gilman Opera House in celebration of the 25th anniversary Next Wave Festival in October of 2007. The BQE is a hand-made home-movie, exhibiting all the architectural colors of Brooklyn and Queens, fabulously intersected by a ramshackle artery of highway traffic.

The mini-movie gets a lot of comparisons to Koyaanisqatsi, considering it's also about the beauty to be found in the banalities of modern life (which is to say, traffic can be pretty when it's sped up and you're not sitting in it). But did the Qatsi trilogy have girls and hula hoops?  I think not.  Plus the former films had creepy old Phillip Glass' steely scores, while The BQE features Sufjan's sweeping orchestral ditties.

• The BQE closes out its NWFF run with two screenings tonight: 7pm and 9pm.  Tickets are $9.

After wrapping up the film festival in June, SIFF Cinema went on hiatus, because of the economy and the monies and so on and so forth (see: the Northwest Film Forum scrambling for cash last month). But now that summer is over, the Cinema is opening up again, starting tonight with You, the Living, the latest from absurdist Swedish director Roy Andersson.  I haven't seen it just yet, but it sounds as if it's a vignette-a-palooza:

Only the fourth feature from the great Swedish auteur Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor), You, the Living is, like its award-winning predecessor, comprised of a series of meticulously wrought tableaux that illustrate the human condition. Both comic and sad, it’s above all a film about the vulnerability of human beings. The characters represent different facets of human existence. They face problems, large and small, that range from issues of day-to-day survival to the big philosophical questions.

Linked by recurring lines of dialogue and situations, the tableaux show...

About five minutes into her dance film Holding This For You, Marissa Rae Niederhauser throws herself against the wall, slides to the floor, and begins trying to untie a key knotted to the front of her dress. But Ben Kasulke's camera stays trained to her face; she squints a little as she works, purses her lips before biting the lower one, and only when she's mostly worked her way through the knot and closed her eyes does the camera trail down to her breast as she pulls the key off the ribbon. She holds it tightly in her hand for a long moment, her face, turned from the camera, slightly out of focus, and then drops it.

"Different stories work better onstage, and different stories work better on film," explained Niederhauser last week at Smith, near her home on Capitol Hill. "And I'm particularly drawn to small facial gestures and physical details. Onstage, dance is great to have these big, sweeping spacial patterns and geometric forms, kind of like a kaleidoscope. But this was kind of more a psychological drama,... (more)