Badlands

Even hardcore Terrence Malick fans (“Terry-heads”) have to admit that lately, the singular auteur has wandered just a little off-target. (“I GOT SOME URANIUM!” Val Kilmer shouted in 2017’s unseen Song to Song. “I BOUGHT IT OFF MY MOM!”) But the Northwest Film Center is happy to provide a refresher on why the reclusive weirdo remains so vitally important to cinema, even as he bumbles around doing... whatever he wants to, I guess? Thanks to the Film Center, Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1979), and The Thin Red Line (1998) are all getting the big-screen treatment (well, the Whitsell Auditorium’s medium-screen treatment), and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything better—anything more heartfelt, more strange, more melancholy, more ambitious, more jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly beautiful—showing anywhere else in town.

by Erik Henriksen