ISSUE #1
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Hello, and welcome, to the inaugural issue of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, a new weekly newsletter from the GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
While it has been great to begin building a community on other social platforms, we hope BEAM FROM THE BOOTH can act as the centerpiece of our digital presence. Each week, we’ll be sharing our shared passion for cinema through curated and considered columns from members of the GRFS. We’ll bring you expanded information about upcoming events, new release reviews, interviews, and anything else we here at GRFS feel excited about sharing. We have so many fun events/screenings on the horizon, but this newsletter will be an excellent way for us all to keep the conversation going and the community growing in between those events. And we’re really excited about that.
So, without further ado…
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH #1
WELCOME
[BY: NICHOLAS HARTMAN]
If you’re reading this, it means you have shown interest in the Grand Rapids Film Society and are now reading our first-ever newsletter. Thank you, we’re excited to have you here.
In this age, all forms of media are at our fingertips. We’re able to access all the information we desire. Though this may be convenient, it still has a downside. We here at GRFS believe in community, and we strive to bring all walks of life together through the power of the moving image.
Of course, you can argue that the digital age brings us together through social media platforms, but it will never bring us together in one location, one physical space. We hope to give the city of Grand Rapids a location that provides thoughtful, unique, and engaging cinematic events that nurture community and build conversation.
Cinema isn’t just entertainment to us, it’s a spiritual and transformative experience. Movies have a way of speaking to our own personal character and our own individual journey. They speak to us on an emotional level, they make us courageous, inspire change, create empathy, make us laugh, cry, and sometimes elicit fear. Most importantly, they bring us together through one shared experience.
The theater is our church, the screen is our preacher, and within the walls of the cinema – the audience is the congregation. GRFS encourages you all to join us under one roof, in one space. We ask you to join our community.
Please enjoy our first official newsletter, and we look forward to seeing you at all future events.
-Nicholas Hartman
Wealthy Theatre’s Film Coordinator & Theatre Operations
ECHOES
[BY: SPENCER EVERHART]
Echoes is an exclusively-visual column based on the MUBI Notebook series of the same name - a fun way to find the repetitions, reverberations, and recapitulations in images throughout cinema history.
Sudden Impact (Clint Eastwood, 1983)
The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)
Filmmaker Spotlight:
Lindsey Normington
(Open Projector Night Winner, Nov.‘22)
We'd like to congratulate our last Open Projector Night winner, Lindsey Normington and her film 'How to Without a Doubt Get Rich and Famous in L.A.' We were excited to have a conversation with Lindsey to learn more about her, process, and filmmaking background.
Poor yourself a coffee, relax, and enjoy this interview with filmmaker; Lindsey Normington.
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For those who don’t know you, Lindsey, please tell us about yourself – give us a little bio.
LN: Hi! I'm Lindsey Normington and I'm a 26 year old actress, writer and stripper from Grand Rapids, MI living in Los Angeles, CA. I moved out to LA shortly after I graduated from Grand Valley State University in the spring of 2018.
Can you tell us about your cinematic background? How did you get involved in the world of filmmaking?
LN: I would say that my involvement in filmmaking mostly stems from my love for acting and storytelling. I saw a high school production of Little Shop of Horrors when I was about 7 years old that completely took my breath away. My mom rented the dvd from Blockbuster and we made a bootleg copy. I used to watch it literally every day after school. That movie offered me an escape in a time of my life where it was desperately needed, and I wanted so badly to jump inside the screen and stay there. From that point I began doing plays and musicals all through grade school until I got to college and started helping people out with student films and local projects (shoutout to you and to Mitch Anderson.) My older brother Taylor studied film at MSU too and was always writing/filming something.
Who and what inspires you to create? What drives you to make art?
LN: Even something as campy as Little Shop of Horrors was so lovingly crafted and executed that it could transcend this reality. Something about a great movie or book or painting sort of invents a new dimension that people can then visit and revisit. It doesn't just serve as an escape, but also as a partner that sort of talks back to you, and you can hear it differently each time. It can serve as a tool for gauging and then addressing your own life. I have been profoundly impacted in this way particularly through film, and have always strongly hoped that I could offer others that same experience from the inside.
Considering Open Projector Night relates to the state of Michigan and you’re originally from here – can you tell us what MI means to you? Has it inspired you in any way?
LN: Michigan is heavy! Full of so much pain and so much love my brain wants to answer in all sorts of platitudes and song lyrics lol. I love Michigan and the people there that gave me everything I have. So yes, it's inspired me because everything I can and will ever do will be done in my own Michigander spirit!
This film was created a few years ago now and unfortunately somewhat shadowed due to the pandemic. Considering some time has passed, how do you feel about it now; are you still happy with it? If not, what would you do differently?
LN: I'm so happy this movie got made against the odds of our team being composed of very young and mostly inexperienced kids with essentially no budget. Shoutout to Kelly Curran and Creston Brown who worked their asses off. We originally wanted it to be a series with the two main characters getting into all kinds of trouble in their unending search for clout. Sort of Broad City for LA basics. If I were to do something differently with what I know now, I'd push harder to keep it going. I think the biggest obstacles we faced as a group of intricately involved young creative types were our individual sensitivities and differences. It's hard to work with friends in general but especially when you don't have a shitty boss controlling you that you can all make fun of together. We were in charge of ourselves and each other and that was very freeing and very limiting all at once.
Tell us about the evolution of this film – where did the idea blossom and why did you want to tell this particular story?
LN: While the events of the film didn't happen exactly as depicted, the following details were real: too many substances, major hangover, weird weed themed photo shoot conducted by the sketchiest man alive, getting too high, psychic disturbances, passing out and shitting myself, and learning nothing from my mistakes. I wish I could tell you we invented this story out of our creative genius, but it basically just happened for real. Only it was a lot less funny at the time. I had only been in LA for a few months at that point, and I was sure I'd already reached rock bottom. Once we got home from the photoshoot I cried my eyes out in the bathtub thinking about how all I wanted was to call my mom back home and tell her what happened but I couldn't because she'd be furious at me. Kelly assured me that it would be a funny story one day and she saw to it that that became a reality, bless her. If you had told me then I'd one day be reflecting on it in this way I don't think that I would have believed you.
You not only star in the film, but you also co-directed, wrote, and produced this picture. Tell us a little about that. In hindsight, is this something you’d do all over again or would you prefer to pass off some of those responsibilities?
LN: I think it would have been so much better to have more help, but we were all pretty precious about this project to the point where we even had trouble communicating/coming to agreements even with each other. It's hard to say whether or not we'd have been better off with more voices in the mix. I would also probably prefer to never be a producer again, but I love casting!
This may be a cliché’ question to ask – but what are some of your favorite films and how have they impacted your life?
LN: Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Uptown Girls, Boogie Nights, Thelma and Lousie, Paris is Burning... There are a million movies I love but these are a few that speak to something very stark inside of me! I love when I have that sensation of identifying with something so strongly even if I can't exactly place why at first. The biggest impact they've had on me is that they've given me immense hope for the future. They give us permission to explore the difficult themes within our own lives and to let others bear witness. They show us we are not alone.
If you can provide any advice to filmmakers/artists; what would that be?
LN: Thinking is not creative. To create something is an active verb, so even if you don't have the tools at your disposal to make the thing you really want to make - draw a picture about it, jot something down, move it into another medium. That is the function of art.
What are the next steps for Lindsey? Are you planning to make any more films? Do you have any other artistic endeavors you’d like to share with us?
LN: 2022 has been a whirlwind. Not only have I had some of my best job opportunities yet in acting, I've also been heavily involved in unionizing my strip club Star Garden with my crew at Stripper Strike Noho. I don't know everything 2023 has in store for me artistically, but I can say that a career dream of mine is underway! That's all I can say for now, but this year should start off very special for me. I'm hoping that in the next few years I'll be in a financial place to start developing my first feature, and I can move into writing and directing moreso than I have had the chance to since HWDGRFLA was made.
Cheesy question but I must know. If you were granted a large budget and you could make your dream film, what would that be?
LN: System of a Down jukebox musical. I'm completely serious. Please nobody steal my idea!
Any last words you’d like to end on?
LN: Thanks for taking the time to watch our little movie! Solidarity forever to workers across all industries. <3
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Want to watch Lindsey's award winning film? Click the link below!
How To (Without A Doubt) Get Rich And Famous In LA - YouTube
Are you a filmmaker and looking to screen your film on the big screen? If so, please visit www.filmfreeway.com/openprojectornight for submission rules and guidelines.
Finally, mark your calendars for the next Open Projector Night that will take place on Wednesday, February 15th. (NEXT WEEK! Keep reading for more details.)
NEW RELEASE REVIEW
[BY: SAM MCKENNEY]
Infinity Pool (Cronenberg, 2023)
When going into a film directed by someone with the last name Cronenberg, there comes a certain list of expectations attached. Thematically, there seems to be what some would consider a cinematic project or, perhaps more realistically, an auteur’s canvas with repeating messages and themes. Things like techno-nihilism, a sort of primal fear of technology wreaking havoc on the collective human psyche and experience, the invasion of the mind and body by these forces beyond humanity are all things that frequent these films (see Videodrome, Scanners, Crimes of the Future, and even more). There is quite a difference in approach to these themes within the Cronenberg project, and the difference is distinctly generational.
Brandon Cronenberg, writer/director of Infinity Pool has a totally different command of the genre, taking a more self-serious approach, lacking any humor or levity (beyond the absurdity), utilizing thumping, droning scores and a slower modern arthouse approach to his direction. His father, David Cronenberg, has a much more slyly comedic approach to those themes, yet with all the same surreality and phantasmagoria. There is a very kitschy and witty sense of black humor coursing through Cronenberg Sr.’s films.
This sense of humor tends to lend itself to the belief that David has a greater understanding between the two of how to deploy the different tools of cinema to tell their stories, as there are times when Brandon’s more modern arthouse style begins to be so loud it drowns out the thematic weight and keeps the text feeling shallower than his father’s work, while still maintaining a visual bravura that keeps you focused on the story at hand. Even so, Brandon Cronenberg’s work is very patient and precise, and he uses that to make some really visually and sensationally gratifying moments in his newest film Infinity Pool.
The film follows James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård), a down on his luck author coasting off of his poorly reviewed novel, and the money he has inherited from marrying into a rich family. Him and his wife (Cleopatra Coleman) take a trip to an exotic resort on the fictional island of La Tolqa, a little slice of beach-y heaven, surrounded by the poverty of a country stripped of its land and resources. After James and his wife go on an expedition outside the confines of the resort, accompanied by a couple they met there (one of whom is played by the magnificent Mia Goth), they accidentally kill a citizen of the island. After getting arrested, James is sentenced to death. But there’s a catch. For a large sum of money, he can have the island create a double of himself - an exact replica of his body containing all of his memories - with which they will go forward with the execution, while he must watch. After these events, something primal and hedonistic is awakened in James and, with Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth), they embark on a series of criminal activities with the knowledge that they will be doubled, and executed, before their own eyes.
Through these severely disturbing circumstances, the film is able to comment on many different aspects of wealth and its proximity to power. The law can seem perfunctory or symbolic for people with a lot of money, and this island is a place where the depravity of a people whose senses have been dulled by excess and extravagance is rewarded in brutal fashion. The proximity of wealth to the poverty surrounding it is made literal in the placement of the resort, surrounded on all sides by an island whose people are marginalized and left behind. All these themes are very present in the text of the film, yet the way they are rendered makes it seem as if a grander, more complex message was there to be grasped when, upon further examination, it's all there in the text right on top. The film feels much more effective as an emotional and sensational psychedelic trip rather than a biting social commentary, especially in a time where those types of movies seem to be coming out every week. When B. Cronenberg dips into more absurd surreality and neon-lit orgies, the film seems to really come into its own, as its technical brilliance is all right there on screen.
All of that is aided by incredible performances from the two leads, Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth. To many, this film would be considered a career best for both actors, especially for Mia Goth, who is just maniacally insane and amazing in the film; she will be a scream queen for many years to come.
Brandon has some ground to cover if he wants to catch up with his dad on a creative level, but he is on track to get there and has all the tools to make it happen (nepotism on the brain for sure in this film). Keep an eye on these Cronenbergs, because they continue to be a bright spot in the world of film, and it seems they have a lot more to say about the future of our human existence. Maybe it’ll be more hopeful next time. Doubt it, though.
UPCOMING EVENTS
OPEN PROJECTOR NIGHT
WHAT: A program of selected short films from MI filmmakers!
WHEN: Wednesday, February 15th, 7:00 pm.
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
LE HAVRE (Kaurismäki, 2011 - Finland/France)
WHAT: Part of CHIAROSCURO INTERNATIONAL FILM SERIES’ “Absence/Presence” Series. Screening to be followed by discussion and reception.
WHEN: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19th, 2:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
TWIN PEAKS DAY: SPECIAL EVENT
WHAT: A special screening of TWIN PEAKS Episodes 1 and 2 in celebration of the iconic series. Coffee and pie provided. Costumes encouraged.
WHEN: Friday, February 24th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And that’s all we have for you for this very first installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
Plus, join us on social media! We’d love to chat with everyone and hear YOUR OWN thoughts on everything above. (You can also hop in the comments section below!)
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Look for ISSUE #2 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 2/17!
Until then, friends…
🔦❤️🔥