The name says it all
The Castro Theatre staff change the marquee overnight like little elves, so I can see that night's feature on the way back from the gym in the early morning. This morning it said:
JEEP PRESENTS
WARREN MILLER'S
PLAYGROUND 8:00
I'm fascinated by Warren Miller movies, even though I've never seen one. I remember the radio and newspaper ads from when I was growing up in Southern California. Sure, they evoked the excitement of outrageous ski runs, but more than that, they conjured up images of ski enthusiasts packed into an auditorium, eagerly awaiting winter together. These were commercial films, but they broke the mold of Hollywood exhibition.
In the early Seventies, the only places to see movies were first-run theaters, second-run theaters, and commercial TV. By the mid-Seventies there was cable, then eventually videotape, but even then it was a quaint world compared with today. For most people, movies were a mass-market, general-audience product or they were nothing. Warren Miller's films were personal works (the director's name always appeared before the title), had no plots or famous actors, were made for a small target audience, and had very limited releases completely outside the theater system. Not to mention the fact that they were made up of real-life action footage. Is it too far-fetched to call them the ancestors of YouTube?
JEEP PRESENTS
WARREN MILLER'S
PLAYGROUND 8:00
I'm fascinated by Warren Miller movies, even though I've never seen one. I remember the radio and newspaper ads from when I was growing up in Southern California. Sure, they evoked the excitement of outrageous ski runs, but more than that, they conjured up images of ski enthusiasts packed into an auditorium, eagerly awaiting winter together. These were commercial films, but they broke the mold of Hollywood exhibition.
In the early Seventies, the only places to see movies were first-run theaters, second-run theaters, and commercial TV. By the mid-Seventies there was cable, then eventually videotape, but even then it was a quaint world compared with today. For most people, movies were a mass-market, general-audience product or they were nothing. Warren Miller's films were personal works (the director's name always appeared before the title), had no plots or famous actors, were made for a small target audience, and had very limited releases completely outside the theater system. Not to mention the fact that they were made up of real-life action footage. Is it too far-fetched to call them the ancestors of YouTube?
posted by Steve at
7:54 AM
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