Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

The late Phil Musick called them "things I think I think." The late Bruce Keidan called them "loose items from a tight-leaf notebook." I call them "cluttered items from an empty mind," because if a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what's signified by an empty desk?

. . .

We saw "Searching for Sugar Man" over the weekend. It's a great film, well worth your time, and it will resonate with anyone who grew up or still lives in the Mon Valley.

If you haven't heard by now, the film is a true story about a folk musician from Detroit, Sixto Rodriguez, whose career fizzled in the early 1970s. He dropped out of the business and became a construction worker.

In the meantime, his two record albums --- filled with well-crafted songs about oppression and disillusionment --- became massive successes in Australia and South Africa. Rumors spread that he was dead. Two music buffs from South Africa tracked him down and brought him to the country for a hero's welcome.

I have a couple of quibbles with the film. The director shows us concert footage of his first big concert in South Africa in 1998. There's not a black face in the crowd; it's all white people. The question I had was, why did Rodriguez's songs resonate only with South African whites? The filmmakers don't explore that.

Also, the film tells a teensy (maybe not so teensy) fib: Rodriguez wasn't entirely in obscurity. He did concert tours of Australia in the 1970s and again in 1981, and he was a political activist and candidate for office in Detroit several times.

Admittedly, that doesn't change the fact that in the pre-Internet days of 1990s South Africa, no one was sure whether Rodriguez was dead or alive. But it would have been more accurate and honest for the film to point out those truths.

. . .

Gee, That's Familiar: I said "Sugar Man" will resonate for people from the Mon-Yough area. Well, the scenes of beaten-up neighborhoods in Detroit look a lot like the Mon Valley.

And when Rodriguez's daughter says her father is a dreamer in "a town where people are told not to have big dreams," I nodded my head. Yeah, that sounds like McKeesport.

. . .

Local Celebrity Sighting: When we saw "Sugar Man," which won an Oscar on Sunday for "Best Documentary," we were two rows behind Tony Buba, whose films about Braddock and the Pittsburgh experience have been acclaimed around the world.

I was kind of eager to know what Tony thought of the film, but then again, I thought of the prime directive of Tube City Almanac, which is: Don't be a jagoff. So I didn't bother him.

. . .

Filmmakers Could Use a Makeover: We saw "Sugar Man" at the Harris Theater in downtown Pittsburgh, which is one of three movie theaters operated by the non-profit Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Every time I see a movie at one of those theaters, I'm underwhelmed. Is that an ungrateful thing to say? (Yes.)

I'm very grateful for Filmmakers for bringing independent, low-budget and foreign films to Pittsburgh. No one else is doing that. I'm also grateful to them for providing venues for classic movies ranging from Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock to Mel Brooks. Again, no one else is doing that.

And they also provide classes in how to make movies and videos, and training to aspiring filmmakers. These are all worthy causes.

. . .

But: the actual movie-going experience at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' theaters --- the Harris, the Regent Square and the Melwood, in Oakland --- is mediocre, in my opinion. The screens are small and cramped. The films all seem dimly lit and blurry. (Roger Ebert, who knows a few things about movies, often complains about theaters that run their projectors out-of-spec, sometimes deliberately, to save money.)

And the sound quality at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' movie theaters is surprisingly poor. In a movie such as "Sugar Man," which is all about music, or in a foreign film in which the dialogue may be dubbed or accented, you ought to be able to hear every single nuance on the soundtrack.

I understand that stuff costs money, and that Filmmakers is a charity. I also appreciate that they keep ticket prices low. (Student tickets? $4. Adult tickets? $8. And refreshments are dirt cheap.)

But one of their core missions is exposing people to great art in filmed form, and their delivery of that experience is significantly less than what you get at the average mall multiplex. For those of you who grew up in McKeesport, it's below the quality of the old Rainbow 3.

(And don't get me started about the giant screen at the Eastland Cinema. God, I miss that place. I saw all of the Walt Disney classics on that enormous screen. Honestly, and I'm not making this up, I've had dreams about seeing movies again at the Eastland Cinema. It was smelly and falling apart, but it was a great place to see a movie.)

. . .

Pittsburgh Filmmakers is all about instilling people with a love of (duh) filmmaking and they ought to be providing a drop-dead fantastic movie experience. In my opinion, the experience is just so-so, and that's a shame.

Filmmakers ought to be taking Western Pennsylvania's for-profit theaters to school (pun intended) on the art of movie projection. If they don't, who will?

In some ways, the experience they provide is less satisfying than the experience you could by renting the film and watching it at home, in crystal clear video on a big LED screen with digital surround sound, where you can pause a film, zoom in, stop and go to the bathroom.

Years ago, when you simply couldn't get foreign or classic films, Filmmakers' theaters didn't have to be good. But in the age of Netflix and Amazon downloads on demand, Filmmakers' theaters are in danger of irrelevance, and as a movie lover, I would hate to see that happen.

It's too late to re-open the Eastland Cinemas, though. What about the old porno theaters in the Executive Building? Hmm.

(Harris Theater photo by Todd Shirley via Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.)

. . .

Opinions expressed in commentaries are those of individual authors, and do not represent those of Tube City Community Media Inc., its directors, contributors or volunteers.

Tube City Community Media is committed to printing viewpoints from residents of the McKeesport area and surrounding municipalities. Commentaries are accepted at the discretion of the editor and may be edited for content or length.

To submit a commentary for consideration, please write to P.O. Box 94, McKeesport 15134, or email tubecitytiger -at - gmail -dot- com. Include contact information and your real name. A pen name may be substituted with approval of the editor.

You are previewing your comment. Be sure to click on 'Post Comment' to store it.