Memories
Canyon Cinema is the West Coast counterpart to New York’s Film-Makers’ Cooperative, where prints of experimental films are housed and distributed. With money from each rental siphoned back to the filmmakers themselves, it’s obviously an organization that was founded by filmmakers for filmmakers and film lovers. As it turns out, all of Canyon Cinema can be traced back to backyard screenings of Bruce Baillie, who is a filmmaker now residing in the Northwest. An influential filmmaker in his own right, his poetic films rely on beautiful images, superimpositions, and an awareness as to how sound can affect your viewing.
911 Media Arts is going to be hosting a retrospective of his work on Friday, August 22. The movies are reason enough to go, but there’s a good chance Baillie himself may make it out from his Camano Island home to host the screening, health permitting. He’s a trip, and definitely adds a performance value to his screenings. I had a chance to see him at a rare screening earlier this year and he was hilarious. Taking place in an underground venue, the screening was fraught with technical difficulties, but none of it fazed Mr. Baillie, making for a memorable experience.
Apparently, the first time Absolute XTC played at the Rendezvous, it was memorable (and popular) enough for all involved to bring it back. This will also be taking place on Friday, August 22. Professor Korby Sears will guide the audience through rare promotional videos, television appearances, and puppet shows from XTC, the new wave combo that formed in the ’70s and helped define music in the ’80s. There will also be live music by Subpoenaed Lemur, party favors, and other treats.
Those who are hooked on the collision of music and movies should make their way to the Sunset in Ballard on Monday, August 25, for Gene Simmons’ birthday. In honor of that, they’ll be showing KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, a brilliantly bizarre made-for-TV movie about an evil scientist in an amusement park who is creating an army of evil robots. Not only are KISS scheduled to play a show in the park, but they are presented as superheroes with magic powers. It’s pretty awesome.
Last but not least, Warren Etheredge brings his Distinguishing Features series back to the Seattle Art Museum on Tuesday, August 26. This month’s film from the Northwest is Alex and Andrew Smith’s The Slaughter Rule. The great David Morse stars as a coach of rural six-on-six football scrimmages who must deal with the stigma of being gay in a small town. I skipped seeing this at Sundance 2002 because I thought it was going to be yet another coming-of-age film. There’s that element, sure, but when I finally caught up to it, I found it to be a lot better than I initially expected, and so I have no bones about recommending it.