Film Fans Unite:
A Salute to Andy Gyurisin and Film Club 3.
Once upon a time, back in the 1950s, a little girl and her grandfather used to drive in his BIG teal/green Plymouth each Sunday afternoon to a matinee at the Capitol Theatre about ten miles away. It mattered not what was playing as movie censors of those days took care of not subjecting folks to unseemly activities on the screen!
We watched a newsreel, a cartoon, and then the feature film. We saw everything from Alice in Wonderland and Lady and the Tramp to Rock Around the Clock, Ben-Hur, Oklahoma, East of Eden, Sunset Boulevard and Bad Day at Black Rock.
Quite an education for an elementary school child, hum? But what special memories these titles hold. I have been a movie buff (not quite the stature be a cinephile – aka: a serious film historian and critic) since I was about five years old. We continued our Sunday tradition until I was old enough to drive! I needed my weekly movie fix! And I did have my opinions even then according to my family. Imagine Sunday night supper with me wanting to tell the whole story, plus describing set and costumes. I am sure I was a PAIN!
Movies continued to captivate me in college. William & Mary offered film series each semester for one credit! I fell in love then with Italian films – the stranger the better. I saw Fellini and De Sica films, picked up some Italian, and fell in love with Marcello Mastroianni.
My favorite was 8½ about a filmmaker trying to satisfy his wife, his mistress and develop his film project. I wrote a critique of it back in the 1960s. Wish I could find it!
Now, retired, I can still get my weekly movie (or more) thanks to one of the students I remember fondly from teaching days, Andy Gyurisin. Andy is the founder of our local film club. What Andy and his wife Jen started as a movie group with a book club format in 2008 is now filling a theatre at the Alamo.
In eight years, Andy has given my husband and me the chance to see movies we had wanted to see and, even more exciting, to see movies we didn’t know we wanted to see, but so very glad we did.
Andy shows us screenings of old films, new cutting-edge films, out-of-the-ordinary films, foreign films, indie films, and series by directors (right now it’s Hitchcock/Truffaut). [Remember you must look for Hitchcock in each of his movies.]
Working with various small independent film distributors, the Club gives the community a chance to be together to experience - on the big screen - movies that do not have the same impact on Netflix or streaming on your computer. Often, Andy elaborates, it is the joint reactions of the audience that add depth to your understanding of the film. The collective laughter or the collective sigh becomes a community experience.
We see films that were critically acclaimed but never shown before in our small city. Documentaries! Oscar shorts (a rare treat!). The Club themes are diverse. Coming soon are films by women directors and then the BIG EVENT called “Lost Weekend” in September wherein one sees about a dozen movies in a three-day period for one flat fee. Last year’s event sold out in 30 minutes! And, fun fact, as this blog goes out, we are watching 3.0’s 230th screening!
Since the film club outgrew Andy and Jen’s house, the Club now partners with the Alamo theatre. Andy has been able to help the Alamo in selecting its film choices and he has brought in directors, producers, speakers, and live acts. Andy and the Club help the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema make some extraordinary connections with folks in the film industry.
A club that started with only a handful of members, now eight years later, Andy says that the no-fee-to-join club has upwards of 2500 members. Incredible numbers in a small city of about 80,000. Each showing also gets a little bit of movie talk before the show to set the stage and an audience group picture is taken that shows up in social media (but the crowd is large and the faces hard to see – thank goodness!) The group photos, says Andy, tell the distributors much more about the popularity indie films in our region than saying we had 90 people attend the show.
A club that started with only a handful of members, now eight years later, Andy says that the no-fee-to-join club has upwards of 2500 members. Incredible numbers in a small city of about 80,000. Each showing also gets a little bit of movie talk before the show to set the stage and an audience group picture is taken that shows up in social media (but the crowd is large and the faces hard to see – thank goodness!) The group photos, says Andy, tell the distributors much more about the popularity indie films in our region than saying we had 90 people attend the show.
I salute both Andy and the Alamo.
The Nerangis family, owners of this particular Alamo franchise, and even Tim League, founder and CEO of the Alamo Corporation had the foresight to see how Andy’s dream could help them. And Andy’s personality and reputation have brought in loyal followers to Film Club 3.0. He leads by passion and knowledge.
Checkout Film Club on Facebook and find additional information about what’s happening with the Club on the Alamo website. You, too, may want to grab your spouse or bff and head to show!
Plaudits and kudos!
And, please, honey, share the popcorn.
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