When I first saw RBG in 2018, I knew that Port Townsend would embrace the film, that Ruth Bader Ginsberg's story would find it way into peoples' hearts. It was a fait accompli. Her life's work in the name of equality and justice earned her legions of admirers. We're bringing the film back (streaming) beginning this Friday, and 100% of the Rose's proceeds will be donated to the ACLU Women's Rights Project, which Ginsberg co-founded in 1972. The streaming this time is not a rental, but an actual purchase of the film ($6.99) that you will own. "Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." -Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Oliver Sacks' life contained more drama than a Dickens novel. He studied and documented those whose neurological peculiarities - sleeping sickness,Tourett's, autism - revealed much about their own fickle brains.
On January 15th, 2015, a few weeks after completing his memoir, the writer and neurologist learned that he had a rare form of cancer, and that he only had a few months to live. A few weeks later, he sat down with director Ric Burns for a series of marathon filmed interviews in his apartment in New York. For eighty hours, across five days in February, and on three more occasions in April and June, he talked about his life and work, his dreams and fears, his abiding sense of wonder at the natural world, and the place of human beings within it. He spoke with astonishing candor and clearsightedness, a profoundly gifted 81-year-old man facing death with remarkable courage and vitality while facing the end. He was determined to come to grips with what his life has meant, and what it means to be "a sentient being on this beautiful planet."
At Oliver's memorial service, David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, talked about Oliver's work and the uncanny impact it has on people. "In nearly all of Oliver's pieces," Remnick said, "there comes that moment, that epiphany, that shock, when the reader realizes that Oliver was just as strange, and just as wonderful, and just as elusive as the person he was writing about. And there came that moment too when we his readers realized: so are we -- so are we." OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE begins streaming today, 9/23. "A tender and thrilling portrait." -Variety
I can never think about PETER PAN without thinking of my friend Stewart Stern. Stewart was the Oscar-nominated screenwriter who wrote REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) with James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. But Stewart was enthralled with PETER PAN from a young age. "It's the unmoored, the untended child searching for an idealized teacher, hero or protector to help him find the path," Stewart said. "All my movies are about that, and about finding out that the hero resides within." PETER PAN, which begins streaming this Friday, 9/25, is the first of a three-part, three-week repertory series that includes Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL and STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.
Pop-up popcorn on sale this Saturday, 9/26, from 2:00 - 5:00. Pop by and say hi.
Cinematically yours,
Rocky