Movie Maven

The Brattle Theatre is not a movie palace. Unlike the other art house theatres along the muddy Charles River- Coolidge Corner, Kendall Cinemas, the Somerville Theatre- the Brattle is like an old sweater, threadbare and strangely comforting. Creative director Ned Hinkle says it "has character," which is a pretty accurate description. Old spotlights hang from the ceiling, a remembrance when the theatre was a venue for live theatre. The carpeting is old and musty, a huge neon clock proclaims the time for the audience sitting in the dark. Creaky stairs lead to the balcony, directly above the extra seats which are set up to accommodate any stragglers into the 250-seat theatre.

But it's not the aesthetics of the place that brings people to the Brattle, or instills such a profound attachment for the venue. It's the programming. Ever since it's inception as a cinema, the Brattle's proprietors have had a mission to bring films that you can't find anywhere else. One of their greatest coups was finding a print of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible Part II, which was thought to be destroyed by Stalin during the Cold War. They were among the first theatres in the country to show important cinema that failed financially but survived the tests of time: Welles, the French New Wave filmmakers, and foreign cinema that wasn't state funded. It was a gathering place for the artistic, the avante garde and the curious.

In short, it's one of a dying breed.

The Brattle got another shot at life, however, when its owners announced last year that without a massive fund-raising campaign the tiny theatre could be shut down forever. It was a call to arms for the Boston/Cambridge community, who poured in the moolah, winning the Brattle owners a year's extension on their lease. But they still have to raise $250,000 by the end of this year, so if anyone in the area has a spare farthing or two, toss it in the Brattle's poor bucket. It'll be a donation not just for the Brattle, but for the scores of interesting, independent, foreign and just plain weird movies the Brattle makes it's mission to show.

Oh yes, a quick explanation of the title before I move on...

Hudson Hawk, for those who are not fortunate enough to know, was one of Bruce Willis's vanity projects, very bad, and very entertaining. It includes just about everything and the kitchen sink, but here's a couple running themes:

1. A kidnapping
2.The works of Leonardo Da Vinci (without having to wade through pages and pages of Dan Brown's overblown ego! Huzzah!)
3. Mystical (or at least very shiny) crystals hidden in the works of Da Vinci.
4. Musical action sequences.
5. It's complicated. And the plot doesn't really matter anyway.

In any case, the Brattle had two midnight showings of Hudson Hawk last weekend (their April Fool's Guilty Pleasure feature!) It's just a little break from their fancy-schmancy intellectual-type movies. Art theatres have a sense of humor too, despite popular belief.

So, I say again, drop a tuppance in the Brattle's coffers. Do it for art. Do it for Eisenstein. Do it for Hudson Hawk.