Speaking of conversations that tie film to the outside world, on Sunday, March 13, the illustrious film critic Robert Horton will sit down with painter Joseph Park for a no-holds-barred conversation about how moving pictures have influenced his work. Park's paintings are characterized by intimate dramas in cinematic spaces, and his inspirations range from Japanese film, French painting, and anime. Horton will up the ante by spinning the conversation around the Matrix, the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, and TV's Get Smart. Can't wait to see what happens after that.
VISITING FILMMAKER ALERT!: Cory McAbee is the man behind the musical space western The American Astronaut, and also the driving force behind the quirky musical stylings of the Billy Nayer Show. Fans of one can experience the other when McAbee brings his band to town to promote the DVD release of the film. On Monday, March 14, the band will play a free in-store at Enterruption and the Electric Heavyland (252 NE 45th St) at 7:00 p.m., where they'll also show some of the DVD extras. The next day they'll do the same thing at Tower Records (701 Fifth Ave N) at 5:00 p.m., before heading over to the Rendezvous for a 7:30 p.m. screening of the movie. After the screening Cory will host a Q and A and then the band will perform. This charming film gets even better on repeat viewings, so I recommend buying a copy, and I've seen the band play before and they're great.
Plenty more good stuff happening this week. Thursday, March 10, is the final night for the Ozu series at the Northwest Film Forum, and they're going out with a bang. The multitalented Carla Torgerson (most famous as part of the Walkabouts) will be performing a live score for Passing Fancy, the story of a dimwitted day laborer who tests his relationship with his son not just because of his drinking, but because of his infatuation with a young girl.
Consolidated Works is busting out a movie about September 11, but not the date you may be thinking of. With the continued upheavals in South America, Patricio Guzman's 30-year-old documentary The Battle of Chile remains compulsively relevant. On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende's democratically elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet. What makes this even more fascinating is that, instead of this being made after the fact, the movie was started nine months before the coup so you can see everything leading up to that country's tragedy.
Finally, 911 Media Arts Center continues an unofficial Thursday series of movies. On March 10 they're showing The End of Suburbia, which looks to me like knee-jerk lefty politics. But hey, you might like that stuff. The next week they're showing Rooftop Shorts, which promises everything from brain-damaged monkeys to Richard Simmons, the Israel/Palestine conflict to sharks. That looks like more fun.
