While you’ve been doing your schoolwork up here in Fort Collins, Quentin Tarantino has been down in Telluride shooting his next movie.
Scheduled for a worldwide release later this year, “The Hateful Eight” is a Western that almost wasn’t. Tarantino was so outraged over the script leaking in 2014 that he made short-lived plans to publish it as a novel.
It will be the first film in 20 years to be photographed on 70mm stock.
In celebration of this historic moment for the Colorado film industry, the Fort Collins Lyric Cinema Café is hosting a Quentin Tarantino retrospective. They began the week of March 6 with a screening of “Reservoir Dogs” and have continued in chronological order of each film’s release.
The remaining “Inglourious Basterds” will begin Friday and end April 16, and “Django Unchained” will play until April 23. The Lyric, located on 300 E. Mountain Ave., has showtimes listed on their website: LyricCinemaCafe.com.
CSU student Emily Stewart, a senior majoring in music, is an avid Tarantino fan. She said she would describe his directorial style as quirky, but cohesive, a special rhythm you become familiar with as you watch each of his films.
“Although I can easily see these movies at home, I would go see them at the Lyric because of their great atmosphere and larger screen,” Stewart said. “Everyone needs to see a Tarantino movie at least once, so why not do it at a great location with good friends?”
According to Dillon Cole, an English junior who works at the Lyric, the “Pulp Fiction” showing and the “Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2” double feature were their most popular events, whereas “Jackie Brown” and “Death Proof” have had lower turnouts, which the movie theater expected.
After all, BoxOfficeMojo.com lists “Jackie Brown” as the lowest-grossing title in Tarantino’s filmography. “Grindhouse,” the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double feature where “Death Proof” was born, failed to earn back even half of its budget at the box office.
“The guy does whatever he wants,” Cole said about Tarantino. “That’s what the Lyric does.”
The owner of the Lyric, Ben Mozer, founded the theater in 2007, after graduating from Montana State University with a degree in film.
“These retrospectives are good for slow times, since nobody goes out to the movies in spring because the weather’s nice,” Mozer said. “We did a Wes Andersen retrospective last year when ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ came out. Retrospectives are like the comfort food of movie buffs.”
According to Mozer, none of the Tarantino dates have sold out, with around 30 or 40 people being the maximum on any given day.
“’Death Proof’ might bring in four people Wednesday night, but, hey, at least that’s four more people than any other 9 o’clock shows are getting,” Mozer said.
As for the future of the Lyric after the retrospective, Dillon Cole said the team is producing an “Office”-inspired web series, “Welcome to the Lyric.” The first five episodes will premiere April 30 at the Lyric’s comedy and variety show, “Theatre of Cruelty,” according to Cole.
“It takes place at a fictionalized version of the Lyric, and we all play fictionalized versions of ourselves,” Cole said. “They’re 10-to-15 minute vignettes. They’re just a silly, funny, good time.”
Collegian A&E Writer Hunter Goddard can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @hunter_gaga.
