Winner, Best Actor, Golden Globe

"Every detail of Jeff Bridges' performance in Crazy Heart is so delicious you want to sop it up with buttermilk biscuits.” Slate, Dana Stevens

The critical hosannas have flown fast and furious (but the line above that includes buttermilk biscuits gets my vote) since Crazy Heart’s release date was moved from Spring 2010 to a December Oscar-qualifying release. It’s not difficult to understand why--Jeff Bridges is not only assured a nomination for his role as Bad Blake, a battered and bruised Country singer who is running on empty, but is the odds on favorite to finally nab a golden statue, a feat that seems impossible if he hasn’t managed yet--from his breakthrough role in The Last Picture Show, to everyone’s favorite stoner, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Bridges presence can be mercurial (think Thunderbolt and Lightfoot) or unbearably poignant (Fearless, The Fisher King, among others).

When Maggie Gyllenhaal’s reporter Jean shows up, she brings with her the threat of a second chance of love for Bad (or is it a third or forth? His weariness suggests this is the last chance, regardless). They fall, hard and believably, for each other, and continue a long distance romance while he tours (to ever more depressing venues).  It’s not until an injury on the road forces Bad to confront his voracious appetites for drink and drugs, and his need for Jean. Whatever country clichés might be conjured up with this brief abstract blow away when Jeff Bridges inhabits this character, sings his songs (written for him by the great T-Bone Burnett), and drills down to the honest truth of this man. Bridges receives excellent support from Robert Duvall, Gyllenhaal and a surprise turn in by Colin Farrell as popular country singer Tommy Sweet.

"With a few brushstrokes, Sebastian Silva communicates the complicated social and moral dynamic involved in having a live-in maid. His talent for incisive detail is apparent from the opening minutes of his new film, in which we see an upper-middle-class Chilean family celebrating the birthday of Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), who has lived with them for 21 years.

In "The Maid," Raquel is family, but she's not family. The family appreciates her, but they feel sorry for her. They want to be nice to her, but her conversation is limited, and she's definitely the least intelligent person in the house. Everyone else has a life, an identity and a future that goes way beyond those rooms, but Raquel's work life, her quasi-family life and her future are confined and defined by that house. Everyone knows this, and it infects the celebration. The kids can barely sit still, and the father excuses himself within minutes." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, Review continues here.

The deserving winner of the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Michael Haneke's period political epic tells the lacerating saga of collective brutality and guilt in a northern German village two decades before Hitler would take power. The town is troubled by seemingly random acts of violence on animals, property and a few local children. What's happening? Who's to blame? Perhaps everyone, as we discover by following the lives of five prominent families. A kind of mashup of Our Town and Village of the Damned, the film is both draining and enthralling. Other movies don't even consider the enormity of a society's power to crush its people's best instincts. This one said: Don't look away. Look here” (Richard Corliss, Time).

Shimizu’s films have only recently become available to Western audiences.  In this haunting and funny film, a young soldier (played by Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) injures his foot on a hairpin while in a hot spring at a mountain resort.  When the hairpin’s owner (played by the great actress Kinuyo Tanaka) comes to apologize for this accident, others at the resort try to push this chance encounter into something more. Sponsored by Western Libraries and United States-Japan Foundation.

Tickets for all Operas on sale at Brown Paper Tickets:


Or Call: 1-800-838-3006
Tickets Available DAY OF SHOW at The Pickford Cinema 

In honor of Puccini's 150th birthday, La Scala’s Il Tritico comes to stage and screen in a sumptuous production. Il Trittico (The Triptych) is the title to a collection of three one-act operas: Il Tabarro, is a dark and brooding tale of clandestine passion, full of violence and grit associated with verismo opera.  Suor Angelica starts with the deeply personal sacrifice of a nun and ends as a sublime tale of religious redemption. Gianni Schicchi is a gleefully comedic farce on greed and corruption that unfailingly sends its audience away with smiles on their faces. Performed at La Scala, March 2008.

Brown Paper Tickets

Back on the Pickford schedule--it's coming, we swear!

"Some films aren't revelations, exactly, but they burrow so deeply into old truths about love and loss and the mess and thrill of life, they seem new anyway.

"A Single Man" is one such film, one of the best of 2009. It's subtly heartbreaking. In adapting Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel to the screen, first-time feature filmmaker Tom Ford has put his admiration of the source material, a groundbreaking text in the pre-Stonewall era, to excellent results. Ford also has facilitated a career best for Colin Firth, one of the screen's great and subtle portraitists. Firth is nearly always exemplary in his efforts; here, though, he opens up to new areas of artistry as well as subtlety. Early in "A Single Man," the protagonist George Falconer learns of his longtime lover's death in a car accident. George receives the news by telephone. (The story takes place in Santa Monica in 1962.) The camera stays on him a long time, as he soldiers through the niceties, holding back his emotions as best he can while thanking his caller for the information. It is a stunning piece of acting and in this one shot, Ford---a legendary fashion designer for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent---proves himself an instinctual colleague." Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Sci-Fi classic watchers might notice shades of THEM! coloring this one, since insect mutations are a common theme of '50's sci-fi. Here, a gigantic praying mantis finds its Arctic home, destroyed by an earthquake, and it sweeps south toward New York City while scientists work feverishly to stop it. Today’s audiences will especially enjoy the sight of the mantis chewing up most of Washington DC before the end--it’s not exactly serious stuff here, but B-movie lovers will find much to enjoy.

Meet Filmmakers Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin

“Truly independent films are made from the gut. One day I bought a filmmaker friend lunch. Instead of owing me lunch, why not make a film for that same money? We made a napkin contract with “rules” to follow. Now 50 lunchfilms have been commissioned (this is the second group of shorts to go on tour). Like a menu, the series has a wide variety of tastes and styles, from languid, real life documents to vibrant fiction to pure art. The metaphor here is it’s easy to support a filmmaker, do what you can. A little goes a long way.” Mike Plante

$29.51 made by Nick McCarthy. (aka "Chinese Box", 2009, 10 minutes)

$35.44 made by Kelly Sears. (aka "Jean", 2008, 3 minutes)

$43.43 made by David Fenster and David Nordstrom. (aka "The Call", 2009, 10 minutes)

$27.73 made by Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin. (aka "Whiskeypriest 1", 2009, 16 minutes)

For all the filmmakers (and their lunch tabs), visit Lunchfilm.

Based on a true story, North Face is a suspenseful adventure film about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. Set in 1936, as Nazi propaganda urges the nation’s Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif — the Eiger — two reluctant German climbers begin their daring ascent.

Celebrate Earth Day 2010 early!

"The new documentary by Robert Stone (Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst) is a rapturous and enlightening look at the history of the environmental movement in America. Stone talks to a number of the men and women who elevated the issue into a cause, taking us back to a time before the desire to ?conserve the planet's resources carried leftist associations. The film captures how the first disseminated photograph of Earth from outer space revolutionized our collective sense of how vulnerable the planet was. After the activist '70s came three decades ?of tree-hugger–versus–drill baby drill! debate.? But Earth Days looks at truths that are no longer so inconvenient. A"  Owen Gleiberman, EW

FREE SCREENING!

The Mountain Goats in solo and duo performance at Pomona College. In this film by Rian Johnson (Brick, the Brothers Bloom), John Darnielle performs The Life of the World to Come on piano and guitar. Shot in the same building where, as an eight-year-old piano student and new transplant to Claremont, he performed Bach minuets for the state examiner, The Life of the World to Come takes the songs from the album and restores them to their raw original states: skin, blood, and bone.

For more information about the Mountain Goats, please see: 
http://www.mountain-goats.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mountain-Goats/17314008126
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/115150-get-holy-an-interview-with-john-darnielle/

A legendary teen rebellion film of the 50s (a genre known in Japan as “sun tribe” films), Crazed Fruit is the story of two brothers vying for the same mysterious woman, resulting in a shocking climax.  Scripted by future Tokyo mayor Shintarô Ishihara and starring his brother, teen-idol Yujirô Ishihara, the film also features a score by the great composer Tôru Takemitsu.  This film was a particular favorite of François Truffaut. Sponsored by Western Libraries and United States-Japan Foundation.

Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Stage Director: Gilbert Deflo

Verdi’s Il Trovatore, or “the troubadour,” is the story of star-crossed lovers, mixed-up infants, and acts of vengeance. Count Di Luna and Manrico, the wandering minstrel or “troubadour” of the title, are rivals for Lady Leonora’s love. When Leonora declares her love for Manrico, the two men duel. Although Manrico has the chance to kill Di Luna, a mysterious force from within him stays his hand and allows Di Luna to live. And then things get really crazy. Performed December 22, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Spain.

April's Leopold Classic

In bringing together the screen’s queen of sadism, Bette Davis, and queen of mas- ochism, Joan Crawford, for this slice of over-the-top camp horror, director Robert Aldrich created a Grand Guignol Hollywood classic. The Hudson sisters (Davis and Crawford) are aging actresses who live in a rotting L.A. mansion. As a child, Davis had been a vaudeville headliner; Crawford had a successful career as an adult glamour girl, until she suffered a career-ending accident for which Davis was seemingly responsible. (TV Guide). Sponsored by The Leopold, Independent and Assisted Retirement Living, 360/733-3500.

Whatcom Humane Society Presents Mine, a documentary with four legs. The feature will be preceded by Last Stop, New Start, a short documentary that tells the story of Hurricane Katrina rescue animals who found their way to Whatcom County. As the last stop of several rescue caravans, the Whatcom Humane Society took in the animals everyone else had turned down--still homeless, some even two years after the disaster and all in bad shape.

A review of the main feature, Mine: "One from the heart, the documentary “Mine” relates yet one more wrenching, infuriating story about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation wreaked both by the storm and by human error and indifference. While many victims in the movie will look familiar — whether waving from their New Orleans rooftops after the levees broke in 2005 or talking about their ruined lives and homes afterward — the majority of the victims here have usually been seen only in the background, forlornly howling and wagging their tails." Full review here.

15% of all ticket proceeds will be donated to the Whatcom Humane Society

Pickford Exclusive--the biggest European hit of the year (and highest grossing Swedish film in history) comes to Bellingham April 23--a brilliant adaptation of bestselling novel.

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and the tattooed and troubled but resourceful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vanger’s are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

One of the many Mizoguchi films about a woman sacrificing herself for a man The Downfall of Osen was an early triumph for the great actress Isuzu Yamada.  In this special presentation, Osen is presented with benshi narration.  In Japanese silent film, narrators, or benshi, provided live commentary during the film, providing dialog and making observations about the story.  This is a rare opportunity to experience film as Japanese audiences would have experienced it in the silent era. Sponsored by Western Libraries and United States-Japan Foundation.

With Falstaff, Verdi bid a magnificent farewell to opera. He chose, however, a genre that he wasn’t familiar with: the comic opera. Verdi brought something new to opera at a time when his prior works had already become classics. This last Verdi opera was first played in front of an enthusiastic Milanese public and ended Verdi’s work on a happy note. Performed at Opéra Royal De Wallonie, Liège, Belgium.

Part of the 2010 Bellingham Children's Film Festival - Oscar Nominee, Best Animated Feature

"A Tour-de-Force!" "Absolutely luscious to behold!" - Variety

Young Brendan lives in a remote medieval outpost under siege from barbarian raids. But a new life of adventure beckons when a celebrated master illuminator arrives from foreign lands carrying an ancient but unfinished book, brimming with secret wisdom and powers. To help complete the magical book, Brendan has to overcome his deepest fears on a dangerous quest that takes him into the enchanted forest where mythical creatures hide. It is here that he meets the fairy Aisling, a mysterious young wolf-girl, who helps him along the way. But with the barbarians closing in, will Brendan's determination and artistic vision illuminate the darkness and show that enlightenment is the best fortification against evil?

Conductor: Riccardo Muti
Directed: Stephen Langridge

Verdi’s last tragic opera Otello, like Shakespeare’s play, is a shattering psychological drama. The new production for the Salzburg Festival is directed by Stephen Langridge, who in 2006 attracted attention with his production of Offenbach’s Bluebeard in Bregenz. Riccardo Muti, one of the best Verdi conductors of our time, is returning to Salzburg. Alongside to the Spanish baritone Carlos Álvarez as Jago, two rising international singers of the younger generation can be heard as Otello and Desdemona: the Latvian spinto tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and the Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya. Performed at Salzburg Festival 2008.