THIS WEEKEND YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Jerry Aronson took the pic above. That handsome devil to my right is director Derek Cianfrance. He and Joe Curtis (co-writer), Jim Helton (co-editor), and other folks hailing from hereabouts are currently making a splash with the film BLUE VALENTINE. It was one of the best films at Sundance last year, and if you buy a ticket to see it this weekend you're not just supporting one of our own, you're also helping push cinema away from its current shallows, obsessed with teen demographics, and upward toward something more adult, interesting, and intelligent.

Wide Release vs Platform Release

Big studio films usually enjoy a wide release with three to six thousand prints flooding the nation on the same weekend. Their fate is determined by their weekend grosses. Smaller films get specialized releases (aka: platform releases). This means a handful of prints are screened in certain key markets. BLUE VALENTINE, for example opened a couple weeks ago in four theaters in NYC, a few more in L.A. It did well there, so they struck more prints and now push it out a bit wider. BLUE VALENTINE opens this weekend in Colorado. I've already seen it, but plan to buy two tickets this weekend to help it gain momentum. Here's why you should too.

Authentic vs Phony

It's as clear as putting Jeff Bridges up against Matt Damon in TRUE GRIT - Jeff's character plays the authentic part with his boozy, blotched skin, straggly beard, stained clothes, and yellow teeth. Matt's mega-watt movie-star smile is not without reason as he's supposed to be a squeaky clean Texas Ranger - but it's a distraction nonetheless, one that reminds us we're watching a millionaire movie star. It's a great film, and lots of fun, but full of patented movie contrivances (ie: a person's foot being caught by a dangling root as they fall into a pit full of snakes). This kind of artifice is commonplace in movies. It's a testimony to our love of distractions , ones that take us away from the every day pitfalls of real life. Even so, for me Jeff Bridges' character was far more interesting than Matt Damon's character. Why? Everything about him seemed more authentic. Y'know: grittier.

I miss the "true grit" that American movies used to have. The late sixties and early seventies were full of great examples. Even the blockbusters back then, like THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) had a "man, that's what it's really like on the streets" kinda feel to 'em. Speaking of Gene Hackman, I have to add that a few years later he starred in another film with even more true grit: SCARECROW (1973) - which focused on an ex-con drifter and a homeless ex-sailor. The locations were real: Colorado gets a couple nods (Canon City and Denver), and so does Michigan, Detroit. You see parts of America there that don't normally get the time of day. Thinking about drifters takes my mind to MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) and FIVE EASY PIECES (1970) - also great examples of films infused with an authenticity for the battles of the human spirit, and both also show us places and times that we recognize as genuine. And then, of course, there are the films of John Cassavetes, which alone deserve their own essays and contemplations.

JAWS (1975) and STAR WARS (1977) ushered in the new model... and here we are still, swimming in tent-pole, big-studio films that get churned out like sausages at a factory. The cinematic marketplace is now a ruthless arena dictated by the box office and the reality is that we, the customers, make it or break it with the tickets we buy - and specifically the tickets we buy on the opening weekend.

Go!

So that's why I want to urge everyone reading this to go out there this weekend and buy a ticket to see BLUE VALENTINE. This is a film with true grit. It makes Jeff Bridges' so-called "true grit" look like a cardboard cutout on an old STAR TREK set. BLUE VALENTINE hearkens back to a time when filmmakers were interested in showing us the messy and harsh realities of what it means to be human. Now, granted, there are a lot of other movies out there that will be competing for your attention, like THE GREEN HORNET, TRON, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, etc. And I know some folks out there have been forewarned that BLUE VALENTINE is a harsh toke, and so they might ask themselves, well... what's the point of watching a relationship disintegrate before your eyes?

The point of THE GREEN HORNET will probably be "avoid explosions." The point of TRON will probably be that "3-D is kinda cool." The point of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS will probably be to "not get tied down." Not having seen any of these, I'm guessing here, and these are all good points. But I think BLUE VALENTINE has something to say about love and the nature of being human. Which is to say, the point will be evasive - but much more interesting. Especially as you will be in the hands of a passionate filmmaker who really cares about tapping into something genuine. It's a very personal film, one that deserves your support.

As I would like to see more films like this, I urge you to go out and buy a ticket to see it this weekend. If we do, we help make it. If we don't, we help break it. And we all sorta broke the whole damn contraption already when we fell too far in love with the big studio blockbusters of the mid-seventies. It's time to take back the marketplace from all the computer generated piffle that riddles the multiplex. Make a difference this weekend: buy a ticket to a film that looks into the human soul. It might even help the next person out there who wants "to keep it real." It'll pave the way.

BLUE VALENTINE opens this weekend at the locations below. We bring it to IFS again on March 5th with Derek in-person. I encourage you to see it BEFORE that - for all the aforementioned reasons - and then to come back and see it again for free and with fresh eyes after a couple months have rolled by.

- Pablo Kjolseth, IFS Director

BLUE VALENTINE's opening weekend can be caught at these theaters:

Highlands Ranch 24

Westminster Promenade

Century 16 - Boulder

Mayan Theatre

The Greenwood Village