The 51 Birch Street event last night was a success, even though we sweated through some technical difficulties. (Paul handled the situation perfectly, putting everyone at ease. I have almost convinced him that it made the event more human and created a sense of comaraderie in the audience.)

There’s really no better place to highlight our imperfect, human condition than at a screening of 51 Birch Street. The filmmaker, Doug Block, has created a documentary around his journey to understand his parents as people, not just parents, and to understand their marriage in that light. In addition to many conversations with family members, the film includes insight drawn from years of his mother’s journals, which were discovered after her death. (The journals include all kinds of information most adults would rather not know about their mothers).

I think the most moving part of the film, for me, is an interview Doug has with his mother’s best friend of many years, Natasha. He asks her if she thinks his mother would have wanted him to read her journals. Natasha goes through a long process of thinking and making a string of “difficult thinking” expressions before she answers emphatically “Yes!” I love how sure she is after taking the time to think about the issue from many different angles. I also love what she says to back up her response: What a relief for someone to really know us, and still love us.

The film held many similar moments for me–moments of articulation that left me feeling that I was understood, not alone. When I talked after the show to several of the 125 people in attendance, it became clear that I was not the only one to be moved in that way. We all have our own, unique stories, yet we are all connected. Films like this simply bring that connection into the light.

That’s why we love filmmakers who realize they have a story, right under their nose, and decide to tell it. If you have your own story about making a breakthrough with your parents, Doug Block wants you to share it at the 51 Birch Street website. (You can also see where the film is scheduled to play in October and November.)

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.

We love them and crave them-they’re the glue that holds people together at Spout. They inspire us to respond in some way, or in other words, to be more human: to laugh, cry, form an opinion, develop a new idea, sit in stunned silence.

When we Tag them, we sort our films into categories that work for us. The video store may call a film "Action" when, for me, it’s a "personal classic." Listing is similar. When you make lists of films, you use their stories to tell your own.

(These screen shots are of the Spout Alpha site and may look very different from the Spout Beta site that will soon be available to the public)

There are some stories I never tire of. Stories told through books, stage or film that I go back to over and over. Now that I’m performing in the stage version of The Wizard of Oz for 26 performances, I’ve been thinking about why I don’t seem to mind this particular repetition. In fact, the repetition started as a kid. Every year, I remember waiting, checking the TV Guide sometime late November to get the night right. Then, the whole family would gather to see Dorothy go off to the magical land of Oz where trees talk, lions are cuddly, and it’s easy to accidentally kill witches.

You know what’s going to happen, of course. You know the Wicked Witch of the West will blast up from the earth before the Munchkins finish singing “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead.” You know Dorothy and her walking buddies see the wizard and he sends them off to get the witch’s broomstick. Heck, you know the Wizard isn’t even a wizard at all. Everybody knows this.

So I’m wondering why … why do I care? Why do I watch this movie again and again? Why am I re-reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a third time before seeing the movie?

With DVDs and the Internet, there’s no waiting, no checking TV Guide, no anticipation. I could watch a new film every night. That’s 365 films a year. If I dedicated the next decade of my life to this, I’d have seen 3,650 films and just scratched the surface of what Netflix and Amazon offer.

Here’s my problem: I’m confused.

I never know what to watch now. There are just too many options. My friends recommend films, but if I don’t write them down, I can’t remember them. I’m a busy woman. I don’t make the time to watch films that aren’t fun or thoughtful. Sometimes I fall asleep. Sometimes I get bored. When I do make it to a rental store, I wander around, picking up DVD cases, looking at the photos, reading the back. Will I regret this? Will I embarrass myself? Will I get scared? I hate being scared. So I go home, put in The Wizard of Oz, and spend time with what I love.

When I see the Spout website taking shape here, I get excited for me, not just because Paul will introduce me to Wong Kar-Wai. You see, I like a good solid happy endings. I like to know characters may be a little messed up, but they’re on the right track. I like things that are cute and funny. Basically, I like movies that most people are talking about when they say, I just want to see a movie tonight. I just need a helping hand in finding that movie.