Last night (Saturday night actually), shambling back from Old School Frozen Custard, my date and I didn't feel quite done with the night. We decided to stop in at the Northwest Film Forum, which is right around the corner from the ice cream shop, to see what was playing. (We'd checked the SIFF choices and the multiplex choices earlier in the day and didn't find anything good.)

NWFF was playing a movie by a local director named Linas Phillips called Bass Ackwards. We made it just in time for the 9 0'clock show. Perfect.





Bass Ackwards is a slow-paced, elegant road movie that gets its energy from a team of character actors who light up each vignette with their lonely quirks, as the morose main character, played by Phillips, retreats (via a clunky '76 VW van) from a heartbreak in Seattle to crash at his parents' house back East.

Could be pretentious, but Linas has a playful touch that lures you into every scene and sucker punches you with a wallop of hope.

Great music too, including a Simon & Garfunkel's-Greatest-Hits-worthy number by the Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold.

It's playing at NWFF through Thursday.