Film Exhibition in Baltimore (April 2010)

Well, it may be all over except for the negotiating. The Charles theater's owner will take over the Senator, (probabilistically). The details are here. The Senator being leased for one dollar a year? Sounds like a deal, though I think I hear the Senator's soon-to-be-former owner crying off in the corner somewhere...

In other news, the Charles is gearing up for the 2010 Maryland Film Festival. The schedule is here. I may have to recuse myself from too much reportage on this, as I am a member of the screening committee and, at a few screenings, I will be introducing the filmmakers and running the Q and A afterward. Dan Deacon presenting Total Recall? Bill Callahan of Smog presenting Faces? Norwegian Black Metal Doc? Japanese Noise Band Doc? Some SNL doc that James Franco made? A whole slew of cutting edge festival fare, John Waters, 3D movies, and more? I would suggest giving that schedule a good going-over and making a weekend out of it.

Up next, a new format for my Films Viewed (April 2010).

Films Viewed (March 2010)

Fish Tank
Husbands
Wild River
Shutter Island
Spring Breakdown
The White Ribbon
Alice in Wonderland (IMAX 3D)
A Prophet
For Ever Mozart

Key
The Charles
The Rotunda
The Landmark Harbor East
Other (Video Americain, The Maryland Science Center)
Total: 9 films (7 in theaters)

NOTE THE NEW POLICY: If you want me to say something about any of the films viewed, please ask. I will be more than happy to speak on their qualities.

Film Exhibiton in Baltimore (March 2010)

A day late and a dollar short. Apologies.

It has been some time since I have weighed in on local happenings. Here's some data worth passing on...

The Charles has upped its ticket price. The six dollar matinee/ eight dollar feature era is over. There is also now a senior discount. May God have mercy on the ticket sellers during this time of tumultuous transition.

The Charles has installed credit card machines. This means the "cash only" era is over. May God have mercy on the concessionists during this time of upheaval and change.

The Charles has installed fancy new granite counter-tops over the raw concrete ones. There is talk of the Charles serving alcohol in the future, but this is a rumor at best. For now, Tapas will have to suffice. May God have mercy on the ushers as they engage in crowd control.

In summary, every time I go into the place, something is different.

The Senator's former owner may have finally nuked the soup, as Towson University has pulled out its bid for turning the theater into a live music venue. This leaves the Charles' proposal as the only one on the table. For more, see today's article in the Sun. I have intentionally avoided reporting on all this wrangling, but am pleased to see a proposal which would bring films back to the theater as the only one left standing. If only anything involving the Senator's fate was a done deal!. Oh well...

The Rotunda continues to show first run films. I am assuming they will continue also to poorly project them, and will also continue to understaff the theater (concessions and tickets in the same line) so that there is very little chance that you will get in to see your movie on time.

That's about it! Up next, a paltry Films Viewed (March 2010).

Films Viewed (February 2010)

The Hurt Locker
Putty Hill (excerpt)
La Corona
JFK (director's cut)
The Battle of Algiers
Final Flesh
The Last Station
Numero Deux
American Graffiti
The Last Picture Show
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Hot Tub Time Machine

Key
The Charles
The Rotunda
The Landmark Harbor East
Other (Video Americain, School Library, Wholphin)
Total: 10 films, 1 short film, 1 excerpt from a longer work (6 in theaters)

NOTE THE NEW POLICY: If you want me to say something about any of the films viewed, please ask. I will be more than happy to speak on their qualities. If not, I shall keep mum.

the Brith of a Cineaste (1998-present)

After I broke up with the girlfriend who hated movies, I almost immediately entered into a relationship with a girlfriend who loved movies.

I had a lot of catching up to do.

I have two impulses that are pretty strong in me. One, if you deny me something for specious or arbitrary reasons, I will want it more. Two, if you tell me I can't do something, I will do it more just to defy you.

My first tentative encounter with the Charles happened just as they opened under the present management. I saw the second half of a Saturday Night Fever/Pulp Fiction double feature. Through my work for the A&E section of my college newspaper, I began attending critical and preview screenings there. It was at a screening of Kissed that I think that my love for the place, then still a one screen, solidified.

The Senator came into play during the Star Wars digital ruinings of late 1990s. I was there for more than that, of course, seeing many mainstream and classic films there over the years. I am especially grateful for my experience of a "proper" screening of Laurence of Arabia before the ol' gal entered into her current season of local band sucktitude. The place has really nuked the soup recently, if you ask me.

The Rotunda was owned by the Loews chain the middle to late 1990s, and used to screen arthouse fare, forcefully exercising its clearance over the Charles on many occasions. I saw Requiem for a Dream, the Virgin Suicides, You Can Count on Me, and many other films there that you might have expected me to have caught at the Charles.

My old interests rekindled, I added the recent explosion of American Independent cinema to the agenda. If I had the time, I was at the movies. If you were talking to me, I probably wanted to talk to you about film. If it was a nice sunny day out, I could be found in a darkened auditorium.

On one level, it is silly to talk about this person who is still me now. Clearly, a person who keeps a bi-monthly blog on film exhibition in Baltimore still has a more than healthy film habit. You know how I feel when it comes to the cinema: go hard or go home.

After a year's campaign, I got a part-time job at the Charles in 2003, and the rest is history.

Next month, I will devote this space once again to the goings on at the various local theaters. I hope this nostalgic exercise wasn't too painful. Before then, my Films Viewed (February 2010).

Films Viewed (January 2010)

Stepbrothers
Sherlock Holmes
42nd Street
Stingray Sam
The Young Victoria
Letters from Iwo Jima
Broken Embraces
Gold Diggers of 1933
Young Mr. Lincoln
A Single Man
Swing Time
Footlight Parade
Crazy Heart
Mixtape

Key
The Charles
The Rotunda
The Landmark Harbor East
Other (Video Americain, DVD, the Internet)
Total: 13 films, 1 short film (9 in theaters)

Notes: Although I will be including this in my Films Viewed next month, I thought it would be important to mention Putty Hill, the new feature by local filmmaker Matthew Porterfield. It seems like he hasn't caught too many breaks since the critical success of his extremely impressive directorial debut Hamilton. Of course, this is the case in the larger independent filmmaking community when it comes to funding and financing in these time of economic crisis. I attended a screening/benefit, and was impressed by what I saw. To find out more and donate to the cause, go here.

My filmwatching has been impacted by the re-start of school and another task I am engaging in for the Maryland Film Festival. This second task is secret but important. I can say no more.

I had two bad screening experiences this month: Sherlock Holmes and Swing Time. Sherlock Holmes' bad time was due to the print being projected "dark." Either something was wrong with the projector/print or Guy Ritchie has made a truly murky film. I am thinking it was the former. My problem with Swing Time came not from any technical problem but from the sequences between the dancing. I am very forgiving of hokey old-timey filmic conventions, but this one took the cake. I say watch Fred and Ginger dancing on Youtube instead. I also suspect my viewing of a few episodes of the rapid-fire 30 Rock earlier that morning kept me from getting too into the swing of things.

Conversely, I have had no problem getting into the Busby Berkeley films which the Charles theater revival series has been on a tear through recently. Those sequences are surreal and amazing.

Two winners which will be playing locally whenever the Charles manages to dig out and open their doors again would be A Single Man and Crazy Heart. As someone who has always had an affinity for the aesthetics and about-to-explode-in-revolution culture of the early 1960s, A Single Man was a direct hit, telling an engaging, tragic story in high style. Go and be enveloped in another time and place. Crazy Heart is a minor miracle, the same old story told one more time, but with feeling. Jeff Bridges is in the role he was born to play, and the rest of the cast is on par (even Colin Farrell). The music ain't half-bad either, and that is coming from someone who is very choosy about his Country and Western. The Charles needed another Slumdog Millionaire, and it looks like they found it.

Finally, is is nice to be able to watch a short film and then be able to say that you can watch it here right now. Otherwise, it was Ford, Almodovar, and Eastwood, independent nuttiness and low-brow humor of the first order.

Up next, the final installment in my recent series, The Birth of the Cineaste (1997-present). Stay safe and warm, Baltimore!

the Lost Years of the Cineaste (1995-1997)

For two years, I didn't watch movies.

"Oh... come on! You? For two years?"

Yes. Two years.

It is a bit of a simplification, but it is essentially true.

For two and a half years, I was in a relationship with someone who did not like films.

We got along on most other levels, but she wasn't interested in this activity.

That meant no weekend trips to see first-runs, no snowbound rental marathons, no catching something odd on the television. Nothing.

To be fair, I was also busy being a full-time college student who worked two part-time jobs who was also in a full-time rock and roll band. But, still! The conveyor belt shut down and I was out of the loop, creating a gap in my filmic knowledge that makes it appear as if I was out of the country at that time.

Clearly, there is not a lot to say about this era. I present instead a list:

TOP TEN 1995-1997 FILMS I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN

1. Se7en (1995)

Yes, one of my favorite contemporary directors made this apparently stunning film and I still haven't seen it. I tried once at a noisy college party. No dice. I rented it in anticipation of this list and ran out of time. Clearly, I need to see this thing. Some guy named Pitt is pretty good in it, I hear.

2. The City of Lost Children (1995)

It is insane that I haven't seen this film. It makes no sense considering how much I have enjoyed and/or felt obligated to see Caro and/or Jeunet's other works (Delicatessen, Amelie, A Long Engagement). Some day soon I will rent this and fill in this critical gap.

3. Apollo 13 (1995)

Epic space film starring Tom Hanks? C'mon, EVERYBODY saw that one! Not me...

4. Toy Story (1995)

Okay, this one I would have skipped initially, but considering its impact and influence, you figure I would have rented it or caught it at some holiday gathering. Not the case.

5. Independence Day (1996)

While everyone else was in line to catch this mega-blockbuster that July 4th weekend, I was in the studio recording an EP with my band. I caught part of it on cable recently and was amused by what a time capsule the film has become. Oh, to recall to time in America when we had no clear enemies and endless faith in computers!

6. The Apostle (1997)

With an acclaimed preformance by Robert Duvall, this is the kind of movie I will be all over very shorty. Not then and not yet.

7. Mission: Impossible (1996)

Tom Cruise on wires? Brian DePalma at the helm? Sounds like a guilty pleasure, but I have yet to indulge. This non-viewing has led me to not see the entire series as I assumed I would be unable to follow the storyline. This is silly.

8. Hackers (1995)

I guess I get a pass on this one considering my college-age at time of this "teen film", but some hold this (apparently) horrible and hysterically inaccurate film in high cult-esteem these days. Perhaps one day when I need to laugh, I will happen upon it on VHS at the thrift store.

9. Dead Man Walking (1995)

This is sort of acclaimed, serious drama I would have found gripping some rainy afternoon. Instead, I was off combing thrift store bins in search of rare records for a dollar (vinyl was cheap because it was SO DEAD at the time).

10. Amistad (1997)

Stephen Spielberg tackles slavery and I was either working at the school post office or the writing center when I wasn't desperately trying to suss out the lyrics I had warbled on my band's latest practice tape.

So, that is that. As I will explain in my next installment, this deprivation is extremely important, as without it there would be no true Birth of the Cineaste (1998- present). Before then, my handful of Films Viewed (January 2010).