Reel Music Festival: Celebration of Music & Film | January 9 – February 1
January 4, 2009 — PDXPIPELINEJanuary is the slowest month in Portland for events. Luckily, that gives you plenty of time to catch up on some movies and NW Film is bringing the heat.
From Jessica Lyness:
The Northwest Film Center presents the 26th annual celebration of music and film. This year's line-up includes something for everyone, including jazz, rock, reggae, bluegrass and nerdcore— a myriad of ways in which sound and image, music and culture, intersect to reflect human experience.
This mixture of new and old, familiar and strange, inspiration and discovery kicks off January 9 with ANVIL, a Canadian rock metal group and wraps up February 1 with ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST featuring Ennio Morricone's greatest score.
Highlights also include THE WRECKING CREW, THE NIGHT JAMES BROWN SAVED BOSTON and BLUE NOTE: A STORY OF MODERN JAZZ. Â Our special thanks go to Willamette Week and Music Millennium for helping us make it all happen.
Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum: 1219 SW Park Ave., Portland, Oregon 97205
Admission Prices: $8.00 General, $7.00 Members, Students, Seniors
Complete list of films:
JAN 9, 10 FRI 7 PM, SAT 9 PM
CANADA 2008
DIRECTOR: Â SACHA GERVASI
At 14, Toronto school friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. They called their band Anvil, and went on to become the "demigods of Canadian metal," releasing one of the seminal albums of metal history in 1982: "Metal on Metal." The album influenced a musical generation, including Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax. But Anvil's career took a different path —straight to obscurity. Gervasi has concocted a wonderful and often hilarious account of Anvil's last-ditch quest for elusive fame and fortune. "Yes, they do have an actual ‘11' setting on the volume knob. However, their stamina, even while hanging onto their day jobs, makes Anvil the real deal, and this the rock doc of the year." —Sean Farnel, Hot Docs. (85 mins.)
JAN 9, 10 FRI 9 PM, SAT 7 PM
GREAT BRITAIN 2007
DIRECTOR: ANTHONY WALL
Drawing on a mind-boggling wealth of news and television archives from 1977, mixing in Marley's music and words, director Wall (THE BRIAN EPSTEIN STORY, ONE IRISH ROVER) magically evokes a pivotal year in the life of this great artist. Time Magazine voted "Exodus"—which took reggae and the message of Rastafarian culture to audiences world-wide—Album of the Century that year, and Marley took up residence in London after an attempt on his life in Jamaica. He exploded with a creativity and force that made his true peers Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela, Â just as much as Bob Dylan and the Beatles. (90 mins.)
JAN 11 SUN 4 PM
AUSTRALIA/US 2008
DIRECTOR: SCOTT HICKS
"I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it." — Philip Glass. One of the most influential composers of his time, Philip Glass is widely credited with bringing art music to the masses. The film follows Glass across three continents: from the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster, to an opera premiere in Germany, to a performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia. Hicks explores his creative process in opera, concert, and film (Errol Morris, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are among the interviewees), and offers a uniquely intimate view of an inquisitive and deeply spiritual man. (119 mins.) Sponsored by Third Angle New Music Ensemble.
Third Angle New Music Ensemble will perform a Phillip Glass piece following the show.
JAN 11 SUN 7 PM
US 2007
DIRECTOR: VINCENT KRALYEVICH, JOANNE FISH
In the 1950s, Wanda Jackson kicked the door open for women in rock ‘n' roll, and empowered female rockers to be in control, to be sexy, and to write their own songs.  The film takes the audience from the beginning of Jackson's career at age 16 to the present day: Jackson, at 70, still tours nightly.  SWEET LADY features never-before-seen footage of Jackson's concerts with rock icons Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Among those interviewed are Elvis Costello, Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen, Lemmy, Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) and her mentor, the late Hank Thompson. (80 mins.)
JAN 14, 16 WED 7 PM, FRI 9 PM
US 2008
DIRECTOR: ETHAN HIGBEE AND ADAM BHALA LOUGH
Some people call Lee "Scratch" Perry a prophet; others claim he's a madman. Seeing him in the opening scenes—spinning in circles in his plaid shorts and oversized sunglasses, spouting the praises of Jah Rastafari—you could conclude he's a little bit of both. Kicking off in rural Jamaica, UPSETTER looks into Perry's youth before segueing to the days of his musical peak in Kingston, where he mentored a young Bob Marley, shaped the reggae sound as we know it today, pioneered a new genre called "dub" and invented what would become "the remix." A valuable document of music culture and a unique character study of a man once called "the Salvador Dali of Reggae," UPSETTER bears witness to the frenzied life of a legend. (90 mins.)
JAN 14 WED 9 PM
US 2008
DIRECTOR: WAYNE COYNE, BRAD BEESLEY, GEORGE SALISBURY
Seven years in the making, this wild science fiction extravaganza features original music by psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips and performances by all the band's members. It's Christmastime, and the colonization of Mars is underway. When an oxygen generator and a gravity control pod malfunction, Major Syrtis (Steven Drozd) and his team (including Michael Ivins) fear the worst. Meanwhile, a compassionate alien superbeing (frontman Wayne Coyne) arrives, inspiring and helping the isolated astronauts. (82 mins.)
Sponsored by KPSU, Portland's College Radio.
JAN 15 THUR 7 PM
US 2007
DIRECTOR: SASCHA PALADINO
THROW DOWN YOUR HEART follows Nashville banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on his journey to Africa to explore the little-known African roots of the banjo and record an album. Fleck's boundary-breaking musical adventure takes him to Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia and Mali, and provides a glimpse of the beauty and complexity of Africa. Using his banjo, Fleck transcends barriers of language and culture, finding common ground and forging connections with a dizzying array of musicians who vary in skill and prestige, from superstars like the Malian diva Oumou Sangare, to humble families that make and play their own makeshift banjos, to a musician who has mastered a 12-foot xylophone.  (97 mins.)
JAN 15 THUR 9 PM
US 2007
DIRECTOR: STEVEN SEBRING
Forty years ago Patti Smith got on a bus headed for New York City, leaving behind her family and New Jersey home. Obsessed with  late 19th-century symbolist poets Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake, and ignited by late 20th-century beat and counterculture, she burned with a dream of finding her own muse. Nearly twelve years in the making, Sebring's film captures the artist's passionate search through the decades, as she enjoyed critical acclaim for her music, struggled as a mother and housewife in suburban Detroit, and reemerged as a political activist illuminated by loss and hope. With Sam Shepard, Philip Glass, Tom Verlaine, Flea. (109 mins.)
You can view them all here
January 10, 2009 at 08:20
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