nwFilmCenter

Top Down: Rooftop Films

Join us on the panoramic parking rooftop at the deluxe Hotel deLuxe, SW 15th at Yamhill, for some warm starry nights of entertaining films, culinary treats, a little live music and spectacular city views. The evenings begin at 8pm with live music and refreshments. Gracie's Restaurant will offer easy-to-juggle meals, snacks and cocktails, and additional beverages will be available from TAZO and Sierra Nevada Brewing. The screenings start at dusk—around 9pm depending on the light. Bring your favorite portable chair or blanket, but please, no pets or outside food and drink. Admission $7. Thanks to our sponsors: Hotel deLuxe, Willamette Week, ZipCar, 94/7FM Alternative Portland, KPSU Portland's College Radio, TAZO and Sierra Nevada Brewing.

Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 8 PM	BIG TIME DIRECTOR: CHRIS BLUM US Drawing from his early albums, "Swordfishtrombones," "Frank 's Wild Years," and "Rain Dogs," this surreal musical cabaret/concert film is a must for confirmed Tom Waits fans and a charming dinner party of an introduction to the legend. Shifting through his many styles—vaudeville, burlesque, minstrel man, lounge performer, soulful balladeer—and a series of dream sequences revolving around Frank, a troubled man on the run who has finally settled down as the caretaker of an old theater, Waits fashions what ROLLING STONE once called "the best concert film of its time." ( 88 min ) Live music pre-show by Love Menu. ^ Top
Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 8 PM	HOT RODS TO HELL DIRECTOR: JOHN BRAHM US "Call them punks...call them animals...but you better get out of their way!" Impotent Dad (Dana Andrews) decides on a career change that takes his emasculating, supportive wife (Jeanne Crain), their jailbait daughter, and pre-pubescent son on a cross-country road trip to a new beginning as moteliers in California. But said daughter turns the eyes and pistons of a gang of hot rod hoodlums bent on terrorizing the family and neutering its patriarch. ( 92 min ) Live music pre-show by The Rainy States. ^ Top
Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8 PM	FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR DIRECTOR: RANDAL KLEISER US Twelve-year-old David is knocked unconscious falling down a ravine in his neighborhood and wakes up eight years later with few clues to what has transpired. The world has aged, but not David. His younger brother is now older than he is and Mom and Dad are a bit befuddled by what to do with the kid they thought long gone. NASA scientists step in to solve the mystery of what robbed him of his childhood and what may be the key to getting it back. Bring the kids for this clever alien sci-fi adventure featuring a young Sarah Jessica Parker and the voice of Paul (Pee Wee Herman) Reubens. ( 90 min ) Live music pre-show by Eskimo and Sons. ^ Top
Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8 PM	THUNDER ROAD DIRECTOR: ARTHUR RIPLEY US Robert Mitchum, who produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, wrote and recorded its hit song, and is rumored to have even directed much of it himself, stars in this cult classic about running moonshine in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1950s. Filled with high-rev car chases in Mitchum 's juiced-up Fords, the film also features a rare dramatic performance by Keely Smith as a roadhouse songbird who tries to tame the wild bootlegger. "With T-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead, the mountain boy took roads that even angels feared to tread."—The Ballad of Thunder Road. ( 92 min ) Live music pre-show by Highway. ^ Top
Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 8 PM	WILLIE DYNAMITE DIRECTOR: GILBERT MOSES US Pitiful pimp Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman, who played Gordon on TV 's Sesame Street) is having a bad week. Rival pimps are putting on the squeeze, cops are on his tail, the IRS is sniffing around, a reformed prostitute (Star Trek 's Nichelle Nichols) is trying to unionize his girls, his sweet purple Cadillac Eldorado keeps getting towed and his fur-lined phone is ringing off the hook. Good thing his tailor has him threaded up in an outrageous wardrobe that will knock your socks off. ( 102 min ) Live music pre-show by Newspapers. ^ Top
Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 8 PM	SUPER ARGO AND THE FACELESS GIANTS DIRECTOR: PAOLO BIANCHINI ITALY Our professional wrestler turned suave superhero/spy, Ken Woods (Giovanni Cianfriglia), wearing mask and tights, drop kicks a mad scientist 's (Guy 'Wild Bill Hickock ' Madison) plan to kidnap the world 's great athletes and "robotize" them into lumbering, metal-clad henchmen. The acrobatic tumbling runs, super-style bachelor pads, sport cars and knockabout women, along with the seemingly improvised Italian to English dubbing, supplant any will for disbelief. ( 102 min ) Live music pre-show by Will Carpenter 's Towering Trees ^ Top