Back In Tweed

Been a busy few weeks around here at The End Of Cinema HQ. I got flattened with a cold for a week, went on vacation for ten days and have been watching as much baseball as possible during opening week (melt damn snow!). I have managed to watch a few movies, but not too many (I still haven't made it to Grindhouse, one of my most anticipated movies of the year). I anticipate getting back in the swing of things over the next couple of days, with a Movie Roundup and the next installment of the Movies Of The Year countdown, 1954. Can anyone guess what #1 from that year will be?


I've also been working on making The End Of Cinema a theatrical experience, trying to program an experimental repertory series at my theatre. We're currently in negotiations with the execs at corporate headquarters, but it looks like we're going to get the chance to try and make it work. Repertory cinema has died a slow death over the last 15 years, as the cost of prints, the plague of corporate multiplexes and fear of advanced technology (DVD and cable) have made suits wary of the effort required to try to market a rep series effectively, even in a film-crazy urban market like Seattle. But I and my coworkers think we can make it work at our theatre, and it looks like we'll get the chance (knock wood).

We proposed an initial calendar of nine films, playing one day a week for nine weeks. Each film represents a decade of film history, from the 20s through the present:

1. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
2. Duck Soup
3. Casablanca
4. The Searchers
5. Pierrot Le Fou
6. Taxi Driver
7. Do The Right Thing
8. Miller's Crossing
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Wish us luck. Further updates to follow if and when The End draws near.