COMING TO A REEL CHANGE NEAR YOU

Those inclined to keep up with the “On The Marquee” sidebar feature may have noticed that I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds twice over the weekend—once early Saturday morning, and again on Sunday afternoon, and my response was, shall we say, enthusiastic. So rather than approach it as a straight review, many of which you have undoubtedly read by now, blogger Bill R. and I (he of The Kind of Face You Hate) have decided to go at the picture Movie Club-style and talk about over an e-mail exchange which, depending on our enthusiasm, should last several days. The beginning of that feature should be online within the next 12 hours or so.

In the meantime, here’s just a little more evidence, if you weren’t convinced by Sunday’s L.A. Times article, that the New Beverly Cinema is a happening place to be. From an article on MTV.com entitled “Inglourious Basterds: Five Things You Should Know,” comes this little tidbit:

“A key scene in Basterds features revenge-minded Shosanna Dreyfus swapping reels of a Nazi propaganda film with her own homemade movie. To prepare for the scene, Tarantino made French actress Mélanie Laurent act as a ‘guest projectionist’ at a beloved L.A. art-house theater. ‘He organized a crazy thing,’ she remembered. ‘He asked me after 10 days [of training] to go to the (New) Beverly Cinema, and I was supposed to project cartoons, trailers, old Japanese kung fu trailers and Reservoir Dogs — almost 3 hours! It's like a lot of changeovers, and I was alone in the projection booth. ... It was completely stressful, but it was a test.’ Looking back, that audience is probably just happy she didn't lock them in the theater and reenact the Basterds final act.”

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