The Archivists Are in Town: Free Movies for All!
I can't be the only one thrilled to hear the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) is holding its 2011 conference in Austin this week. If you're not thrilled, you don't know what this means: Fascinating and well-restored movies screening at the Paramount, all free to the public. The last time AMIA held its annual conference here was 2005, and for me it was as though the circus was in town. In fact I was tempted to run away with them and become an archivist myself, except a) I don't want to go back to school, b) I don't think I'd be good at it and c) it's not a profession with many job opportunities in Austin. (As opposed to film criticism? Well ...)
The fun kicks off tonight at Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, with the AMIA "Reels of Steel" competition at 11:30 pm. Film buffs and archivists will be bringing all kinds of rare and interesting film and video clips from their personal collections to screen. Admission is free and first-come, first served.
More free movies are screening all day long on Saturday, November 19 at the Paramount -- you could get down there early and stay all day, paying only for parking and a meal or two. At 9 am, they'll show Nicholas Ray's 1976 film We Can't Go Home Again. At 10:45, the 1966 film Passages from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Grab some lunch and go back for a collection of home movies from around America at 1 pm. Then at 3 pm, you can see a restored version of the 1977 documentary Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives.
As if that weren't enough, AMIA is also hosting a special "Night at the Movies" that Saturday at 8 pm. They promise a newsreel, cartoon and trailers before the main events: two restored films from 1937. The ten-minute short A Night at the Movies stars Robert Benchley, so it's fitting that it would be followed by a movie Dorothy Parker allegedly helped script, the delightfully cynical Nothing Sacred (pictured at top), starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March. And did I mention this is all free to the public? You might see me there, and you might need to talk me out of running away with the AMIA circus.