Yesterday Paul shared some highlights from his experience at Telluride. Now it’s Aaron’s turn. Here’s what I asked for and here’s what he gave me.
5 favorite films:
- Jindabyne (check out my blog post about it)
- The Last King of Scotland
- Catch a Fire
- Volver
- John Ford Directs
4 interesting people:
- Peter Bogdanovich (check out the podcast of the conversation I had with him)
- Kevin MacDonald (again, another conversation, another podcast)
- Bill Pence (Telluride co-director for 33 years)
- Rolf (a really interesting Telluride volunteer and film-lover)
3 favorite spots:
- on the gondola descending the mountain into Telluride–a breathtaking view
- the trail leading from our hotel to the Brigandoon
- the Nugget Theatre (Spout was the Nugget sponsor)
2 memorable moments:
- Interviewing Peter Bogdanovich for SpoutBlog. I never expected to meet him, a consummate film lover, flimmaker, actor and film historian. The highlight of our conversation was when he said Orson Welles’s “genius was a kind of rebuke to mediocrity.”
- Paul and I were riding the gondola down to Telluride one night, in the dark, and the gondola stopped moving. There we were, hanging in the quiet darkness on the side of the mountain. Paul recorded a “final” entry with his recorder (”To whoever finds this compact flash card…”) Then it started moving again and we made if back safely. Paul recorded the scary sounds the gondola makes as it glides along.
1 way the festival changed you:
- Mostly, I just have hope that people are still making good films–that not everything being made is designed to just make money. I saw a lot of amazing and beautiful stories. When I think back on what I saw, I am amazed at the variety and the scope and breadth of the films: The hilarity and terror of Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland; the aching beauty of the mountains and hidden rivers in Jindabyne; Penelope Cruz singing through her tears in Volver; Derek Luke standing naked in the midst of a South African field, his arms raised, guns pointed at him in Catch a Fire, and the hilarity of Jimmy Stewart recounting a humbling moment with the late great director John Ford in John Ford Directs. There are still people who actually love films. Out of that deep deep love they make wonderful and beautiful films. They know their craft and are true to the stories they want to tell.
Greetings from Portland, the city that apparently has more movie theater seats per capita than any other city in the country. My man Jason and I are out here visiting my brother, Bill, who is a huge film lover–6-foot-4, to be exact (so sorry for the bad pun). For people who are into great community film-watching experiences, this seems to be the place to live. Not only are there theaters all over the city keeping up with the first-run pace of much larger cities like New York and LA, there are several alternative theater experiences to take advantage of. Personally, I’m much more excited about these than I am about catching a new film now that will hit my local art theater back home two or three months later. I can wait. What I can’t do back home is drink a good microbrew while I’m enjoying an affordable, well-chosen film in a community setting (ie: not my livingroom).
Take the Laurelhurst Theater. This movie theater landmark since 1923 shows second runs and classics on four screens for $3 a show, while you fill up on pizza and wash it down with microbrews. The McMenamin brothers have also made a huge name for themselves in Portland, by refurbishing historic buildings, showing $3 films, and serving exceptionally delicious pub grub and their own micro-brewed beers. They have four theater locations, including one in an old elementary school. And get this: The Academy Theater not only has “real” food, beer and wine, it also offers inexpensive babysitting on site! A complete date at an affordable price–what a novel concept!
So all of us not from Portland (or Austin or the few other places in the country that have their theater groove on) are thinking “Of course! That’s the way to see films! That’s the way to keep historic theaters as theaters, and to repurpose other great old buildings into film destinations rather than driving film-lovers all out to the suburbs!” If we’re all thinking that, where are the McMenamins of Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and Louisville? When will every other place jump on the train? Are the rest of us really not cool enough to support these kinds of theaters in small and mid-sized cities across the map?
