Avant garde cinema for the people! All are welcome to peak behind the screens of Houston's one and only, mighty Aurora Picture Show, where mysteries of the microcinema and independent film are unveiled.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Take Me to Monkeytown
The July 27 show at Monkeytown was chest-poundingly good. I screened the Best of Aurora, Volume 3 (Jona Bechtolt, Tommy Becker, Andre Silva, Gerald Straub, Jim Finn, Skip Elsheimer, Eileen Maxson, Jeff Butterworth, Adad Hannah, Arthur Jones, Matt Hulse, Enid Baxter Blader, Bill Daniel, Andy Mann), and got to reconnect with some top Aurora buddies.
The Monkeytown screening room is a theater in the square, with gi-normous screens on all four walls, a killer sound system, and futons with coffee tables for food service. Initially I thought the four screens would be distracting, but not at all. The brain works miracles when given too much information, and settles into plain old stereo vision. Monkeytown started out in the apartment of Montgomery Knott, and was later underwritten by some investors who thought it a pretty good idea. I agree. The current home of Monkeytown is a storefront on 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's more comfy than Alamo Drafthouse, Austin-- the futons and coffee tables invite people to lounge and hang out. I wonder if Montgomery was influenced by Alamo, as he is a former Austinite.
In attendance at the screenings were your friends and mine: Colleen Burke (We Ragazzi), Mary Ellen Carroll, Nick Hallett, Sara Hines (Apex Art), Arthur Jones, Ryan Junell (Slomo Video), Kyle Lapidus (Lovid), Marisa Olson (Rhizome), Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy (Mostra), and Butcher Walsh. There was also a big group from an design agency called Farenheit 212. I read somewhere that Jonas Mekas once said that advertising professionals were some of the biggest clients for film rentals from Filmmakers' Coop.
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