NW Film & Video Festival

[November 7th, 2007] Our favorite entries from the opening week of the NW Film Center’s showcase of regional talent:

Shorts I

By far the best of three short-film programs at the festival, if only because it includes By Modern Measure , a Nehalem-filmed parody of the French New Wave starring the children of the perpetual war and Mountain Dew. The slate is also highlighted by Patterns 2 and Patterns 3 : A psychological horror flick and a musical, respectively, both focused on the same dysfunctional couple and their communication through Chinese food. It’s a lot better than it sounds, and it culminates in what is certainly the world’s only nosebleed dance number. AARON MESH. 7 pm Friday, Nov. 9.

Arid Lands

During World War II, the feds decided a huge isolated desert “wasteland” with an “expendable” native population in Eastern Washington would be a perfect spot to cook up plutonium. And, almost overnight, 50,000 pasty folk showed up at the now-abandoned Hanford site to produce a laundry list of humanitarian widgets, chief among them the radioactive guts of the bomb that wiped out Nagasaki. Grant Aaker and Josh Wallaert’s film is a smart, comprehensive and beautiful film that tells this strange story of an environmental emergency still happening right in our backyard. LANCE KRAMER. 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 11.

High and Outside

As a longtime Boston Red Sox fan, I couldn’t be happier with the club’s new tradition of winning World Series (it really does beat losing them in heartbreaking fashion), but I hope the team doesn’t break its old habit of acquiring eccentrics like Bill “Spaceman” Lee. A pitcher with a unique sinker and even more singular opinions, Lee was dedicated to unionizing, marijuana use and his own legend. Seattle filmmaker’s Peter J. Vogt’s work is clunky and makeshift, but it contains plenty of Lee’s monologues—always a pleasure, whether he’s discussing the violent death of his pet rabbit, Alice, as a metaphor for baseball victory, or recollecting his own dark days. “I had a Venezuelan drug dealer living in the basement, named Gustavo,” he recalls. “Yeah, it was a tough time.” AARON MESH. 6 pm Sunday, Nov. 11.

Outsourced

Novelty-product salesman Josh Hamilton is sent to India with orders to train call-center employees to “sell kitsch to rednecks.” The story is fairly kitschy itself: Not a single expectation is subverted as Hamilton’s peeved Todd Anderson expands his consciousness through foreign travel. Yet Seattle director John Jeffcoat’s Outsourced is doggedly likable. While I’ve seen better movies this year, I haven’t seen any that made me feel this happy. AARON MESH. 8:30 pm Monday, Nov. 12.

Finding Normal

Coming straight out of prison or detox, recovering addicts struggle to stay clean and sober in the city of Portland. Thanks to the Recovery Mentor program, some will clean up their lives, but as this candid documentary reveals, it is not an easy process. Local filmmaker Brian Lindstrom is as uncompromising in his study of recovery as are the mentors who have rebuilt their lives and are now committed to helping others. DAVID WALKER. 8 pm Tuesday, Nov. 13.