Midnight starts at 11 pm every Friday and Saturday night at the Jean Cocteau.
This week we have another horror… ah… "classic"… coming up, for all of you who loved PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILLS.
Yes, it's SPIDER BABY!
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See you at the movies!
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We had a cool event at the Jean Cocteau last night… the Santa Fe premiere of a locally made independent film, BLAZE YOU OUT, filmed and set in Espanola, just a half hour north of the City Different. The producers, writers, directors, and several of the cast members attended the screenings and answered questions afterward, and we had a crowded and enthusiastic house.
Indy films don't get the nationwide multi-million dollar advertising campaigns of major studio releases, but the best of them are as good or better than most of what the majors churn out. You probably haven't heard of BLAZE YOU OUT, but it's a good one. Check out the trailer:
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BLAZE YOU OUT has three more screenings at the Cocteau, if you're in Santa Fe. If not, well, watch for it if it shows up at a theatre near you.
This week's other new offering at the Cocteau is I DECLARE WAR, another indy. This one I haven't seen myself yet, but I hope to catch it later this week.
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See you at the movies.
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Jean Cocteau Cinema'
418 Montezuma
6:30 pm
Pizza, popcorn, and
FORBIDDEN PLANET.
Be there or be square.
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((… and fans from Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and other surrounding states who have reliable cars and enough free time to drive to Santa Fe… or maybe just a bunch of frequent flyer miles they need to use up.))
Tickets are now available for the first week's offerings at the revived Jean Cocteau Cinema.
Here's our schedule for our first week:
FRIDAY AUGUST 9
630pm Forbidden Planet – SOLD OUT
845pm Orpheus
11pm Dark Star
SATURDAY AUGUST 10
2pm Forbidden Planet
415pm Orpheus
630pm Forbidden Planet
845pm Orpheus
11pm Dark Star
SUNDAY AUGUST 11
2pm Orpheus
415pm Forbidden Planet
7pm Orpheus
9pm Forbidden Planet
MONDAY AUGUST 12
7pm Forbidden Planet
9pm Orpheus
TUESDAY AUGUST 13
7pm Orpheus
9pm Forbidden Planet
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14
7pm Forbidden Planet
9pm Orpheus
THURSDAY AUGUST 15
2pm Orpheus
415pm Forbidden Planet
7pm Orpheus
9pm Forbidden Planet
Tickets to all showings are absolutely FREE. So come by the theatre — we're at 418 Montezuma, just off Guadalupe, near the Railrunner depot and Sanbusco — and pick up one, or two, or five.
And I'll see you at the movies.
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We're down to seven days till the grand re-opening of the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.
[That sound you just heard was me gulping. Work is proceeding apace, but there's still a lot to do, and that opening is bearing down on us like a damned locomotive. I need to whip my minions harder.]
First up, the classic 1956 MGM big budget SF classic, FORBIDDEN PLANET.
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Tickets for FORBIDDEN PLANET… and Jean Cocteau's ORPHEUS and John Carpenter's DARK STAR, our other featured attraction… will all be FREE, but they're going fast, especially for opening night. If you're in Santa Fe, drop by the box office and get yours now.
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Oh, and we also hope to have signed copies of some of my books for sale at the theatre… and maybe other cool stuff as well.
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. . . until the Grand Re-Opening of the Jean Cocteau Cinema, the movie theatre I bought a few months back in a fit of madness.
We've been busily refurbishing the theatre all that time. As late as a week ago, it looked as if a bomb had gone off in the lobby, and I was having a nervous breakdown. Things have finally started to come together, however, and my contractor (the amazing Marshall Thompson of Constructive Assets) and my manager (the astonishing Jon Bowman, founder of the Santa Fe Film Festival) both assure me that we will indeed be ready come the day. I certainly hope so. We've kept the theatre's wonderful old marquee, after replacing the old fluorescents with brighter LEDs, and the auditorium is more or less the same (though we've installed some wheelchair seating), but the lobby and concessions area has a bold new look, designed by the wonderfully talented Jayne Franck. Assuming our chairs and tables arrive on time, it should be spectacular…
The Jean Cocteau has been dark for seven years, since Trans-Lux closed all its theatres in April, 2006. To celebrate our return to life, and let the Santa Fe film-going community know that we're back, admission will be FREE to all shows during our first week.
FREE! FREE!! FREE!!!
We open on Friday, August 9, with two classic feature films: ORPHEUS, by Jean Cocteau, for whom our cinema is named, and FORBIDDEN PLANET, the classic MGM big-budget SF movie from 1956, which IMNSHO remains the best science fiction film ever made.
Both of them will be shown on our brand new (slightly larger and definitely brighter) screen, with our brand new digital projector(an NEC 900 Digital Projection System and Integrated Media Server) and our brand new upgraded sound system (Dolby Digital Surround Sound Processor CP650), so the picture quality and sound should be better than ever.
We will also be offering pizza, pastries, and the best popcorn in town (with parmesan) from our new art deco concession counter.
(No, the food and drink won't be free, that's just admission).
And we have some cool SURPRISES in store for that first week as well. So those of you in Santa Fe… or Albuquerque… or, hell, anywhere in driving distance, should make of point of turning up for our Grand Opening Week to see the new improved Jean Cocteau.
More on all this in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, our website is just up, so take a look. Be advised, website construction is still in progress, so a lot of our features are not working yet… but you can check out the general design, and get a peek at the posters for some of the films we've got booked for the weeks and months to come.
http://www.jeancocteaucinema.com/
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Went to see the new Baz Luhrmann version of THE GREAT GATSBY last night.
The film is doing good business, but getting decidedly mixed reviews from the critics. Some love it, some are cool, a few are tearing it to pieces. And the sides don’t necessarily line up with those who liked or didn’t like the source material, the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Count me with those who loved it. I think this is a great film. AND a great and faithful adaptation of the novel, which is not necessarily the same thing. I’ve never seen the two oldest versions of GATSBY, but the Luhrmann films stands head and shoulders above the beautiful but curiously empty Robert Redford/ Mia Farrow version.
Visually, this GATSBY is just amazing, something even its harshest critics have been forced to allow. (Though some of them do not like that). I don’t think it would be correct to say that it brings 1920s New York to life, since I doubt that 1920s NYC was ever so saturated with color, life, sound. This is a dreamscape, everything bigger, brighter, noisier, drenched in life and color… but that’s perfectly appropriate here, since the entire narrative is couched as Nick Carraway looking back on a formative time in his life, and dreams are always more intense than reality. Golden ages are never as golden as we remember them.
I’m a word guy first and foremost, though, and it is the words that sing for me here. There are a lot of Fitzgerald’s own words in this GATSBY, in the dialogue, in the voiceovers, in the frame, and that’s more than okay with me. There’s never been a more lyrical writer than F. Scott and that lyricism is captured here.
The performances were also terrific. Carrie Mulligan’s Daisy made me understand Gatsby’s obsessions in a way that the Mia Farrow’s Daisy never did; I would be have been obsessed as well. I will confess, I had my doubts about Leonardo diCaprio going on. The central flaw with the Robert Redford GATSBY is Redford himself. A fine actor, certainly, but far too handsome, graceful, self-assured, and in command of every scene to be convincing as Jay Gatsby. Robert Redford is one of the golden people, and Jay Gatsby is desperately TRYING to be one of the golden people, to aspire to everything that comes naturally to Redford, and that distinction is crucial… and ultimately as one of the things that sank the Redford film. I was afraid the Luhrmann version would suffer the same way. I’ve liked Leonardo diCaprio ever since I first saw him in THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (a guilty favorite) as The Kid, but in that, in TITANIC, and in all his major roles, he’s comes across as cocky, brash, self-assured, handsome, with a swagger to him that suggests that he knows who he is and is unafflicted by doubts or fears… all of which is the antithesis of Gatsby.
He wasn’t here. This is a new, mature Leonardo, as I have never seen himself before, and he does a great turn here. The Kid and Jack and all of those vanish, and there’s only Gatsby… trying so hard, dreaming so fiercely.
I loved it.
And at the end, it broke my heart, the way the novel always does ever time I reread it, the way it did the first time I read it, back in the early 70s.
Now I will admit, I am prejudiced. This is one of my favorite books. This is a book that has vast personal meaning to me, one that has affected me deeply. The romantic in me identifies strongly with Jay Gatsby (and sometimes with Nick Carraway). I know what it is to chase after that green light. So I will not pretend to be disinterested.
But I love the book, I love the story, and I loved this movie. Go see it.
“… And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter !” tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning !” So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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For those of you interested in following my Adventures in the Screen Trade, the SANTA FE REPORTER has uploaded a short clip from the press conference wherein I announced my purchase of “Santa Fe’s most beloved movie theatre,” the Jean Cocteau.
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FYI, there was a lot more to the press conference than that. Most notably, I announced the hiring of Jon Bowman, the founder and former director of the Santa Fe Film Festival, who will be managing the Cocteau. Jon is already hard at work. We hope to reopen the theatre this summer. Besides an eclectic menu of films both old and new, we also plan to have midnight movies and children’s matinees, and some very special events, including music, comedy, and author readings.
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I had not intended to mention this until somewhat further down the line, when my plans were a bit more advanced, but the Santa Fe NEW MEXICAN got wind of a recent real estate transaction of mine and ran the story this morning, so the cat is now out of the bag. (The cat in this case perhaps being Jean Cocteau’s original Beast? No, not really, but it’s an amusing coincidence, considering my years on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST).
Anyway, I don’t intend to say much here, since there is as yet not much to say… but I will fess up to basics, since I see the story is already out on the internet and I would rather not be bombarded with hundreds of “is it true?” emails.
Yes, it’s true. I’ve bought a movie theatre.
Here it is:
The Jean Cocteau is a small Santa Fe art house, with a single screen and 127 seats. It was built in the early 70s as the Collective Fantasy, became the Cocteau later in that decade, went through several local owners who ran it well, and finally became part of the Trans-Lux chain. They closed it in April, 2006, when they shut down their entire chain of theaters. After that it supposedly became the site of the New Mexico Film Museum, but the museum was never funded and never had any exhibits, so that was more in theory than in practice. Aside from a few special showings for the state film commission, which used to have its offices upstairs, the theater has been dark since 2006.
Before that, however, it was one of the city’s nicest film venues. It offered coffee and pastries, and had the best popcorn in town, fresh-popped with real butter and parmesan cheese. I saw a lot of movies at the Cocteau between 1979, when I moved to Santa Fe, and 2006, when it closed. I like the idea of bringing it back, better than ever.
I will not be doing it myself, of course. So please, readers, fans, don’t get nuts. I am a novelist and a screenwriter, not a theatre manager, it won’t be me standing at the concession stand asking if you want butter on your popcorn. My job remains the same as before: editing anthologies, creating and producing television and writing the occasional script, and… first, foremost, always… completing A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. This does not change that.
I love movies and old movie theatres, and it broke my heart to drive past the Jean Cocteau for these past seven years and see it sitting there, dark and decaying. Bringing this beloved theatre back to life is my small gesture at giving something back to Santa Fe, the community that has been my home since 1979. Might be that I will lose my shirt… but, hey, I’ve been very lucky, I have other shirts.
For those of you who want to read the story that broke the news, the link is here:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/article_11f41778-724e-5d42-9fbe-40e5b56ae400.html
We’re having a press conference on Tuesday to detail our plans for the Cocteau to the local media, FYI. If anyone reading this is local media, you’re welcome to attend.
More than that, I cannot say at this time.
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I was very saddened today to hear of the death of Roger Ebert.
Roger (somehow I think of him as ‘Roger,’ not ‘Ebert,’ though I never met him in the flesh, and spoke to him only once, by telephone, in the early 1970s when both of us were young and dinosaurs roamed the earth) has been my favorite film critic since forever. I did not always agree with him, but I always found him insightful and fun to read. He was not just a terrific critic, he was a terrific WRITER. His shows with Gene Siskel, SNEAK PREVIEWS and SISKEL AND EBERT AT THE MOVIES, were must-see TV for me. A hundred other teams have tried to recapture their magic, but none came close.
He was One of Us too. A fan, and an SF fan at that. In his youth, he wrote for fanzines, and he even published a few short SF stories in Ted White’s AMAZING and FANTASTIC along about the same time I was publishing in those selfsame magazines. If he had not gone on to be the world’s best film critic, he might well have been a successful SF writer.
A brilliant man, a good life. I give him two thumbs up.
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