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[bryant]

Suck news of the day: the Brattle Theater is in trouble. Compared to Katrina? This is a pretty trivial deal. But it's still significant enough for me to care.

The Brattle has film programming as good as anything I've seen anywhere, including the Castro Theater out in San Francisco. Ned Hinkle, who does the programming, has an exhaustive knowledge of film and he has the contacts and know-how necessary to program festivals ranging from a complete Wong Kar Wai retrospective to a classic film noir series. They also run the Boston Fantastic Film Festival, which is small potatoes compared to Fantasia or Sitges, but which does not in the least suck to have around.

Long story short: they're a treasure, and if you care about film in Boston -- which you may not, it's just my obsession -- it's worth donating.

Comments

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

Dude, here's to you. I found out that the very cool old movie theater in my old neighborhood was torn down. It'd been there for like over sixty years, with beautiful detailed ornate statues and stuff. I saw a few movies there, and in later years it hosted "stop making sense" or whatever Talking Heads film was out then. Oh, and in 1975, it hosted Springsteen's "bomb scare" show. Ian Hunter, Queen and others played there back when I was young and too stupid to care.

It was replaced by this monstrosity. Big huge walls of glass. That's what an inner-city police station NEEDS, EH? They stationed a squad or two on site the whole time it was being built because of the constant threat of vandalism.


[In my research I found out that I wait for the bus just a half-block away from the first building built as a movie theater: the Comique. Woo woo! It's now a liquor store, so it's not just because I'm obvious.]

What can I, one cinephile graduate student, do?

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

The level of money they need is such that my patronage counts for little or nothing. They need a big wad of cash from a corporate donor or somesuch.

Re: What can I, one cinephile graduate student, do?

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

But the more people who hear about it, the more connections can be made. You probably know people who WORK AT COMPANIES, so if you talk to them, they might catch this fever and take it up as a cause at work. Or someone might know about an arts funding program or somesuch that could take it further. Heck, after mortgage, diapers and my weekly bus pass, I can't do anything either, but networking is a great alternative. When you can't write out the problemsolving check, I mean.

:^)

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

OH, and often corporate sponsors are going to look to see how much community/public support the institution has before investing, so the more they raise from individual humans, the better they'll look to corporate sponsors.

(Yes. I thought about this last night when I should have been sleeping.)

Re: What can I, one cinephile graduate student, do?

[bryant]

Yep. What richtermom said. Also give 'em an email and ask about volunteer stuff -- that can't hurt either.