Calendar
Interview Me
A Sound Installation by Artists Curry/Dillon
Dec 09 - Jan 31
Throughout the months of December and January, Northwest Film Forum will host a sound installation entitled Interview Me (excerpt) by artists Laura Curry and Lori Dillon. Interview Me – which will be installed in the two bathrooms at the Film Forum – presents the interviewees’ unedited responses.
Four Boxes
Director in attendance!
Dec 09, 2010
(Wyatt McDill, USA, 2010, DigiBeta, 85 min)
Like The Usual Suspects, or Memento, Four Boxes thrills and twists until the very last frame. The film is part thriller, part dark comedy, part social satire.
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Seattle premiere!
Dec 03 - Dec 09, 2010
(Vikram Jayanti, USA/UK, 2009, DigiBeta, 102 min)
Partly an ode to what Spector called his "Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for kids," and partly a stage for megalomania that alternates between charming and creepy, Agony is an always-riveting inquiry into a man and his music.
"A Top-40 opera" —Seattle Weekly
The Portuguese Nun
Seattle premiere!
(Please note updated showtimes)
Dec 03 - Dec 09, 2010
(Eugene Green, Portugal/France, 2009, 35mm, 127 min)
In this highly stylized, subtly funny and gradually mesmerizing composition, director Eugene Green (Pont des Arts) presents Julie de Hauranne (Leonor Baldaque), a young French actress of Portuguese descent. She comes to Lisbon to shoot a movie adaptation of the 17th-century epistolary novel Letters from a Portuguese Nun, and to learn about life, love and the possibility of choosing one’s destiny.
"An unconventional, engrossing odyssey of self-discovery" —Seattle Times
Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Dec 10 - Dec 16, 2010
(Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara, USA, 2010, HD, 82 min)
Strange Powers draws on co-director and fan Gail O’Hara’s ten years of filming the band, creating an intimate portrait of Merritt, the man and the songwriter. The film, cleanly and forcefully shot by Paul Kloss is expertly recorded and mixed to showcase the remarkable range of acoustic instruments used by the band.
"Such knowledgeable wit and the “strange power” to attract and fluster the attention of so many smart people, who help him play or listen to his songs, is probably why Merritt’s a perfect choice for such a doting, delighted documentary. And it’s delightful viewing, even with the occasionally sharp pricks (from bon mots and quips)." —KEXP Blog
"The thing that makes you really want to watch a Magnetic Fields documentary—aside from the fact that it’s about a brilliant band (start with 69 Love Songs if this is news to you)—is that the genius behind Magnetic Fields, Stephin Merritt, is so prickly, capricious, weary, and mean in interviews that no journalist has ever gotten an accurate picture of him." —
New Animated Work
Local animators Tess Martin and Stefan Gruber present new work
Free!
Dec 11, 2010
Tess Martin and Stefan Gruber are two local animators and members of SEAT, Seattle Experimental Animation Team. They both value receiving feedback from the public about their work, but often find it hard to receive honest feedback in a normal screening environment.
Raging Bull
Dec 10 - Dec 15, 2010
(Martin Scorsese, USA, 1980, 35mm, 119 min)
Taking the "New Hollywood Cinema" movement roaring into the 80s, Martin Scorsese's blowtorch boxing biopic Raging Bull charts the rise and stunning fall of middle-weight champion boxer Jake La Motta (played, of course, by Robert DeNiro) whose uncontrollable temper made him a force to be reckoned with in the boxing ring but a dangerous beast outside of it.
Holiday High Notes
Dec 12, 2010
(Various directors and countries, 50 min)
Watch as ghosts of holidays past are brought to merry new life through the exquisite vocals of the Northwest Choirs. The Pacific Northwest’s premier boys' choir returns to Northwest Film Forum for our fifth annual holiday concert.
Hitchcock Masterpieces
November 23rd class has been postponed due to weather. (Class will now go an extra week to make up the missed date.)
Nov 02 - Dec 14, 2010
As a detailed investigation into one of cinema's landmark directors, this class will look at films from three periods of Hitchcock's remarkable career: The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, which crowned his early British period; Notorious, which culminated his American work of the 1940s; and his astonishing succession of classics from 1956 through 1964, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.
Alice Gosti's Spaghetti CO.: Something Just Happened at 1:19pm
Dec 16 - Dec 18, 2010
Investigating the relationship among individuals and families with food, choreographer and food-lover Alice Gosti makes a beautiful multimedia feast for our senses, sitting at a table eating a large bowl of spaghetti rather than talking, eating rather than answering questions, stuffing her mouth instead of enjoying food and company.
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
Seattle Theatrical Premiere! Featuring Pique-nique, a new partnership with Cafe Presse!
Thursday Dec 23 7pm show free for members
Dec 17 - Dec 23, 2010
(Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea, France, 2009, 35mm, 97 min)
So astonishing were the rushes of Inferno that Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages Of Fear, Diabolique) submitted to Columbia Pictures in 1964, the French director was granted an unlimited budget. Yet after only weeks of shooting, the lead actor packed his bags and Clouzot, who had seemingly descended into madness himself, had a heart attack. Co-directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier reconstruct what the film might have been, while chronicling the disintegration of Clouzot and the production.
The Annual Holiday Party
Free!
Dec 20, 2010
Your favorite film luminary as Santa…The annual Nog-Off egg-nog championship…Back alley dreidel games…Dancing…Good cheer… It must be our annual holiday party!
Nine Nation Animation
Jan 01 - Jan 06, 2011
(Various directors, various countries, 85 min, 35mm)
The World According to Shorts presents a selection of recent award-winning animated short films from the world’s most renowned festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Annecy and Clermont-Ferrand.
"SW Pick: The kids can have Tangled, but the 85-minute compilation Nine Nation Animation offers grown-ups a superior array of cartoon styles." —Seattle Weekly
Every Man for Himself
New 35mm Print!
Jan 07 - Jan 12, 2011
(Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1980, 35mm, 87 min)
Godard called Every Man For Himself "my second first film." Every Man For Himself focuses on recognizable urban types grappling with midlife crises and existential ennui: Jacques Dutronc (as “Paul Godard!”) and Nathalie Baye play TV producers stuck in a dissatisfying affair.
"Godard finally gets it right...Don't be afraid to go inside. It is not boring." —Seattle Post Globe
"Godard is to cinema what Ornette Coleman is to jazz." —The Stranger
Guy & Madeline on a Park Bench
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3FM
Jan 07 - Jan 13, 2011
(Damien Chazelle, USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 82 min)
Godard meets Cassavetes with a little Miles Davis thrown in for good measure in this fresh take on the musical, by first time director Damien Chazelle.
"SW Pick: Delightful...At once fresh and retro. No movie I saw last year has given me more joy." —Seattle Weekly