I was inspired recently, reading Harry Knowles' reports of QT6, the latest installment of Quentin Tarantino's personal film festival. Tarantino collects prints and, at uneven intervals like every couple of years, brings some to Austin, Texas to show to devoted cinephiles. He emcees and gives energetic introductions to every movie, often including rambling trips through the encyclopaedia of film inside his brain, and always punctuated by tossing the microphone and letting it crash onto the stage. Each night of the festival has a theme, like Italian WWII or 80's horror or Sexploitation. A lot of what fascinated me is that very few of the films he shows are available on DVD, but there's always the possibility that one might become available because of Tarantino's influence, as seemed to happen with movies like Lady Snowblood that he name-checked as influences on Kill Bill. The chosen movies tend to run toward grindhouse rather than arthouse, and there's a fair amount of backlash (as usual) on the AICN posts to what seem like intentionally contrarian attitudes, like saying that the little-known Psycho II is better than the first one, or saying that Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho was better than the original, or championing obscure directors over canonized ones. But in reading Harry's reports it's hard not to be convinced that at least some of the movies being shown are true lost gems. The documentary Blue Water, White Death (described in the 'reports' link above) seems a likely candidate. Its casual treatment of sharks as man-eating monsters seems almost comically politically incorrect these days, but considering the footage served as a model for JAWS, it's gotta be pretty good. On second thought, I don't know why I said 'but' there. Comically politically incorrect stuff is awesome.

I immediately started thinking about how cool it would be to do something like this on my own, inviting friends over once a month or so for a movie night picked out from my collection. Of course I won't be coming up with such crazy films as Tarzoon, Shame of the Jungle--an obscene animated parody of Tarzan shown at QT6. All but a few of the titles I have are readily available, though there are plenty of web sites that sell more obscure stuff. Then again, in my friends I also probably have a less demanding audience, and one that would probably rather see a great movie that they've likely never seen, than one of questionable quality that they won't see anywhere else.

I'd already been thinking about buying a digital projector for audiovisual elements in my band's shows. This seemed like a perfect auxiliary justification. There's no doubt in my mind that creating a more immersive atmosphere, as is possible with a 6-foot wide image, makes for a better experience than one has with a TV. I tend to be a bit of a control freak when showing music or anything that I love to others, and I don't want them to miss a moment of what makes it great because of some distraction. It's quite possible to build a projector from parts, using an LCD screen, a set of lenses, and a very bright light bulb, and help from places like Lumenlab and the DIY Projector Company. After much deliberation I decided not to do that, for the following reasons. It only costs about 30% less than buying a commercial projector. A DIY projector is usually housed in a big MDF box, taking up a whole lot more space than a commercial one and not looking nearly as nice. And chances are my first-time DIY result would not be nearly as good or as reliable as a commercial one. I don't really want to still be tweaking it and affixing duct tape in various places when I'm trying to have a movie night. There are good reasons to go DIY that you'll find endlessly debated on the forums of those sites, but I think this time it'll be commercial for me. After much further deliberation I decided the model for me is the Infocus Screenplay 4805. There's no need to go into the myriad variables affecting that choice, but you can find plenty of discussion of them at another site, AVS Forums. The screen is another big question that I haven't entirely resolved yet. But I hope to have my first movie night within a month and a half or so.

[BTW - For other Netflix people--Not long after discovering QT Fest I went through the archives of the programs of all the previous festivals to see if any of the titles were available on Netflix. Naturally, it turned out other Netflix users had already created custom lists of the QT Fest movies available: here's one. I queued up Bullet Train, a Japanese precursor to Speed, and Hickey & Boggs, a gritty detective flick with Bill Cosby. By the way, if anyone is on Netflix and isn't my Netflix friend, let me know, and let's bee friends. I only have 2 friends right now, which makes their little quizzes about which friend likes which movie just a bit dull.]