Northwest Film Center’s summer of classics

David Lynch Retrospective, Classic French Cinema, Northwest Tracking, Rooftop Cinema

Missed the Constructing Identity series? Northwest Film Center is showing a ton of great movies all summer long.

David Lynch: A Retrospective

They’re playing every damn David Lynch movie this summer, even those super bizarre early short films about vomiting statues and grandma golems and whatnot. This writer is especially excited to see the squeaky clean Straight Story playing the same nights as the super fucked up Lost Highway. Several other über-classic films screen as part of this little festival, all of them connected in one way or another to Lynch’s complex vision: Kubrick’s 2001 and Lolita link cosmic and domestic forms of abuse and manipulation, which will surely remind us all of those creepy-as-fuck last few episodes of Twin Peaks; Wild at Heart screens back-to-back with its inspiration, The Wizard of Oz (which is, I guarantee you, a way better film than you remember); films of Fellini, Tati and Hitchcock round out the bill.

Screens July 7 through Sept. 2.

Classic French Cinema

If you catch Jacques Tati’s M. Hulot’s Holiday as part of the Lynchfest (Do it! It’s a great movie) and find yourself craving more Gallic sophistication, you’ll want to follow up with masterpieces by Tavernier, Bresson, Melville, Carné, Autent-Lara, Sautet, Becker, Duvivier and Renoir.

Screens July 15 through Aug. 29.

Northwest Tracking

Don’t care about hipster auteur cinema? Don’t know French and don’t want to read a bunch of subtitles? Want to get your movie locavore groove on? Well, get into some Pacific Northwest filmmakers with this series of documentaries, dance films and experimental collaborations.

Screens July 12 through Aug. 23.

Top Down: Rooftop Cinema

Every year, Northwest Film Center takes over the rooftop parking lot of downtown’s Hotel DeLuxe and shows a handful of movies, mostly cult classics. This year’s lineup includes Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth, Gordon Parks’ Shaft, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead sequel Army of Darkness, Rob Reiner’s foundational mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap and Harmony Korine’s provocative Spring Breakers. Sally forth!

Screens Aug. 3 through 31.