PCTV In the News
Local Cable Show's Winning Formula Offers Film Buffs 'A Fistful of Popcorn'
By Linda Arntzenius, Town Topics
When the Oscar results were announced, there were few surprises for the team that produces Princeton's weekly movie review program, A Fistful of Popcorn. The show, which has a devoted audience in Princeton and beyond, has developed its own winning formula since its inception almost a decade ago.
Now the longest-running program on TV 30, the show invariably begins with a hand — usually that of the week's moderator — reaching into a bowl of popcorn. "We tend to keep the same popcorn for two shows and then it goes to the squirrels," said Gretchen Oberfranc, who with her partner, Chuck Creesy, has been producing and directing the show — filmed every three weeks in their book-lined living room — since the first one in January, 1998.
Back in 1997, the Princeton couple signed up to learn the art of filmmaking from Princeton's new public access cable station. Having mastered the technology, Ms. Oberfranc, editor of the Princeton University Library Chronicle and Mr. Creesy, former Princeton Alumni Weekly editor and now computer guru at Princeton University Press (PUP), were looking around for a subject.
The subject presented itself at a party attended by PUP colleagues, when the conversation centered, as it so often did, on cinema. A Fistful of Popcorn was born.
Winning Format
"Every time we got together at staff parties and elsewhere, we found we were always discussing films," remembered panelist Janet Stern, a film enthusiast who was then managing editor of the Press and subsequently program director of the Arts Council of Princeton, where she presented numerous film series, many in conjunction with Princeton Public Library. "When Princeton first got its cable franchise, part of the deal that was negotiated was that local individuals could receive free training in how to make TV programs."
What may have begun as simple movie talk among friends, however, has evolved into a highly informed conversation about cinema, directors, producers, camera angles, film scores, film history, and movie trivia. Each week they discuss two or three films in depth.
Three of the four panelists — Ms. Stern, Bob Brown, and Marilyn Campbell — have been with the show since 1998. Carol Welsch, the only panelist who has never worked for PUP, came on board toward the end of the first year, replacing another press employee.
With degrees in communication arts with a concentration in film, Princeton resident Marilyn Campbell is regarded by the other panelists as the "real" film scholar. She also directs the copy editing and book production department at Rutgers University Press.
Bob Brown reviews films for TimeOff, the weekly entertainment supplement of the Princeton Packet. A Kingston resident, he's vice president in the marketing department of Merrill Lynch in Pennington. Ms. Welsch lives in Lawrenceville and serves as an attorney for the State of New Jersey. Prior to each show, panelists do their homework, researching and reading movie reviews. The online Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com/movies) is a favored resource for reviews and film clips.
In the beginning, it took four people to run the cameras, and editing took up to 14 hours. That changed with digital technology
"We're only a couple of months away from putting this show on the internet," said Mr. Creesy. The cameras have stopped only once, when one of the panelists suffered an asthma attack.
Their talk ranges beyond entertainment value and film technique to the context of a particular film within a director's body of work.
They are a well-read and well-traveled crew, often calling upon their own or family experiences, comparing, for example the different receptions for the film Borat when seen by an Irish as opposed to an American audience. In reviewing The Queen, for example, panelists brought their understanding of British post-war history and labor politics to bear.
Discussing Sofia Coppola's recent Marie Antoinette, Mr. Brown, who saw the film in Paris, reported that the French audience booed and sniffed contemptuously, wondering what Americans were doing with their history.
"But Marie Antoinette isn't about politics," commented Ms. Stern, "it's about Hollywood and the distorted vision that results from living there. Sofia Coppola is incapable of making a film that is not about herself. That's not a criticism. I love her films. But one must understand that to understand this film. If you examine her films, they are all about girls living in bubbles: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette.
A Fistful of Popcorn viewers get more than a synopsis of the film. The program offers details of a film's producers, director, origins, with snippets of gossip, and a good deal of laughter, too. The team discusses what works, what doesn't work, whetting one's appetite for the film and enhancing one's appreciation of the movie-making process.
"We generally avoid seeing films to be discussed together," said Ms. Stern. "Besides it's just too hard to arrange." When they do, they try to avoid talking about them so as not to preempt the on-air discussion. And they always try to avoid spoiling plot endings for viewers who haven't yet seen the films.
Recent shows have covered Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, and The Good Shepherd. Films reviewed are usually those shown in local theaters, the Princeton Garden and Montgomery Theaters. "We want people to go to local theaters because we are so incredibly lucky to have them," said Ms. Stern, who is chagrined that audiences are "beginning to forget how much their appreciation of a film is enhanced by seeing it on a large screen — the way the many craftspeople involved in the making of the film intended it to be seen — and by seeing it with a large audience. They are beginning to forget how much pleasure they get from a night out at the movies with an enthusiastic audience surrounding them and reinforcing their own reactions, emotional and otherwise."
Unlike the garbled voices that often result from talk radio, these conversations rarely if ever devolve into incoherence because panelists are talking over one another. A Fistful of Popcorn is a primer in the art of conversation, the harmonic balance that occurs after long practice between individuals who respect each other's opinions, which differ considerably when it comes to politics or appreciation of music in film. Each has his/her own particular preferences. When Ms. Stern saw Babel as a profoundly anti-American film her view was not shared by other panelists.
Guests have included the likes of McCarter Theatre's Bill Lockwood, curator of the Princeton Adult School's Second Chance film series talking about his choices for the series.
Show
At a recent taping earlier this month, the team weighed in on Notes on a Scandal and Venus. While Ms. Oberfranc and Mr. Creesy set up, panelists settled on the sofa in front of the eponymous bowl of popcorn centered on the coffee table. It was Bob Brown's turn as moderator. The sole male on the panel, Mr. Brown began by inviting viewers to share their thoughts with the panel by e-mail (popcorn@patmedia.com), before inviting plot summaries from the panelists.
Ms. Stern summarized the plot of Notes on a Scandal by British director Richard Eyre as a beautifully packaged story of predators with Cate Blanchett as a classy art teacher and Judi Dench as a buttoned up history teacher. She likened it to a Ruth Rendell novel with "malice, menace, and tension."
Venus, was summarized by Ms. Welsch as a mixture of Educating Rita and Lolita, worth seeing because it may well be the last film to feature veteran British actor Peter O'Toole. She described the film as "a valentine to a generation of RADA trained British actors who cut their teeth on Shakespeare, learning their craft in the theater: Alan Bates, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, among them."
The hour-long taping ended with Bob Brown's: "And there you have it. We hope you'll go to the movies."
Public Access TV
A Fistful of Popcorn airs every week on Mondays at 8 p.m., Wednesdays at 11 p.m., Saturdays at 9 p.m., and Sundays at 10 a.m. on Princeton Community Television, Channel 30 on the Patriot Media Cable system. It's also shown on the Princeton University cable channel and on cable channels in Cambridge, Mass., Woodbridge and Edison, New Jersey, Radnor, Pa., and Schenectady, New York.
Directed by George McCollough, the public access cable station was created by the Borough and Township in January 1997, as a way for members of the community to broadcast locally produced programs. Located at 369 Witherspoon Street, TV30 offers free training for anyone interested in learning to make programs. For more information, call (609) 252-1963, or e-mail info@princetontv.org.