I’m already signed up for this calendar, and as a film lover myself, I think this will be a great tool for all of us in SoCal.  I , for one, will definitely be at the “conversation with Amy Poehler and Jane Lynch,” listed below!  -Jared

Guest Blogger Max Keller, MFA Film and TV Production ’13

Like most of you reading this post, I am a cinephile. I am a lover of all things film. I eat, sleep, and breathe celluloid. Two weeks ago, while most people my age were getting excited about the impending announcement of the Coachella lineup, I was getting excited about the impending wave of Godard films screening towards the end of the month at various theatres around Los AngelesSouthern California. Outside of New York City, there is probably no greater place to live if you’re a cineaste. Not only are you surrounded by some of the greatest first-run theatres in America, you also have possibly the finest selection of repertory houses in the country. Within a fifteen mile radius, you can see movies at the New Beverly Cinema (whose landlord is a guy who made a couple movies you may have heard of called Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds), the Egyptian (a 1920s movie palace built by Sid Grauman, who also built the Chinese a few blocks away), the Aero, Cinefamily, the list goes on and on.


(Click on the image to see the entire calendar -JP)

When I’d finished, I sent the calendar to about ten of my friends who also attend Dodge, and posted on the various Facebook pages for Dodge students about how I had created this calendar and would be happy to send it to anyone who wants it. Within five days, my mailing list had gone from ten people to nearly one hundred. People loved the idea, but after a couple of days, I realized I was unhappy with the look and functionality of the calendar.  I wanted to fit more information onto it, and with the way it was designed, I couldn’t do that, so I’ve spent part of my winter break creating “Calendar 2.0,” which you can see an unfinished version of below.

(Click on the image to see the entire calendar -JP)

The new calendar is fully interactive. You can click on any movie listed and will be taken to either the event page for the screening or the movie’s IMDb page. At the bottom of the page are links to all the theatres’ websites, and if you click on a theatre’s name, it will bring up a Google map that gives you driving directions from Dodge to the theatre. The new calendar includes showtimes and ticket prices, which the old one did not. I plan on creating one of these each and every month and e-mailing it to anyone who wants a copy.

It was only after I had put several hours of work into this new calendar that I realized just how much time creating it would take every month. Is it worth it? Absolutely. The fact is that to be the best filmmakers we can be, not only do we need to get out and make as many movies as possible, but we also need to see as many movies as possible, and not just what is being release currently, but what came before. The great filmmakers, the Spielbergs, the Scorseses, the Tarantinos, they all have a great knowledge of film history and an affinity for the great filmmakers that came before them (Spielberg sums it up better than I ever could in the clip below).

While Dodge does an excellent job at getting us to see the classics in various classes, it is simply not enough. There are far too many great films out there for us to see them all at film school, so it is up to us to seek out the rest. We need to go out and see as many of them as we can in the way they’re meant to be seen: in a dark theatre without any distractions, surrounded by friends and strangers, all enjoying the amazing communal experience that is moviegoing.

Though I think the new calendar is far better than the old one, there is still room for improvement, so any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the “comments” section at the bottom of the page. If you can think of some great additional features for the calendar or other theatres you’d like added, please let me know.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you at the movies.

Max Keller
MFA Film and Television Producing – Class of 2013

View all the Cinephile’s Dream calendars here.  You can sign up to receive the calendar by email, or Tweet with the author.