COURTESY OF DON BROWN
Don Brown brings "dinner and a movie" to Restaurant Row.
Sometimes, sitting in the back of a darkened theater, traces of Psychology 101 come flitting back into Don Brown's consciousness. A tasty serving of films
By Nadine Kam
nkam@starbulletin.com"I was a psych major, so for me it's interesting to watch people," said the general manager of The Art House Theaters at Restaurant Row. "For every movie it's a totally different crowd. I don't know where they come from."
Under his direction, the nine Wallace screens have undergone a makeover from premiering mainstream feature films, to focusing on independent films from around the world, an extension of the work Brown started at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
One of his proudest moment came when, in a coincidence of timing, five of the nine theaters emptied at once and there was a convergence of Filipinos coming out of "American Adobo," Chinese coming out of the Taiwanese film "What Time Is It There?," kids running out of "Spider-Man," Mormons leaving "The Other Side of Heaven," and the "artsy" crowd walking out of "Fluffer."
"It was like Grand Central Station, very eclectic," Brown said, "Like no congregation I'd ever seen."
That's the plan anyway, to make The Art House a destination for Hawaii film lovers of all leanings. Toward that end, he introduced the Pau Hana Fridays "dinner and a movie" concept earlier this month. For $2 to $5 before a screening, movie-goers can sample light fare coinciding with a particular feature. For "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," there was Greek pupu; accompanying "Green Dragon" was a selection of spring rolls, chicken salad and tapioca pudding, and for "The Lady and the Duke," French bread, Camembert, Brie and strawberries were proffered.
That's an upgrade from the usual popcorn, hot dogs, Jujy Fruits or sticky Milk Duds.
He's taking a break from the menu this week only because he didn't know -- beyond blubber -- what to serve with the Inuit film "Fast Runner," but will be back next week with East Indian fare to accompany "American Chai" and "Lagaan."
This is generally served against a backdrop of painted walls with a revolving art show, and the music of Edith Piaf, and Brown intends to someday add DJs to the mix. The convergence of food, cinema, music and art is inspired by his college experiences, where he frequented the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge. "It was a very happening place. There were four theaters and they were always packed.
"American Chai": A first-generation Indian-American boy can't tell his traditional parents he's studying to be a musician instead of a doctor, but in his last year of college, the deception can't last long. Directed by Anurag Mehta. THIS WEEK'S FILMS
"Fast Runner": The Inuit language movie is based on the ancient legend of Atanarjuat, who falls in love with a woman who has been promised to the chief's evil son Oki. Meanwhile, Oki's sister wants Atanarjuat for herself. Betrayal, seduction and bloodshed follow. Directed by Zacharias Kunuk. (Review, page 4)
"Bartleby": Based on Herman Melville's 1853 story "Bartleby the Scrivener," this tale has Bartleby's firm handling municipal records, and while the strange young man is good at his main job of filing and verification of claims, he prefers not to pitch in elsewhere. Directed by Jonathan Parker.
"What I'm trying to create is a gathering place where people who like the same kind of movies can meet each other. That's what I miss most in Honolulu, a place to get together, talk about the film and relax afterward. Hawaii is ready for it."
This wasn't always the case. Brown arrived in Hawaii in 1988 as a writer hired for a yearlong project. When that ended, he decided to stay, supporting himself by cooking spa food on the North Shore, doing graphics work and making time to volunteer at the Academy of Arts, while making note of the lack of film diversity.
"I'd lived in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, so I was really aware of all the things we weren't getting, about 90 percent of the films out, and that's so frustrating for anyone who's into film."
When the opportunity to book films at the academy arose, he took the challenge, finding distributors were reluctant to send their films here.
"They really thought of us as a beach. They didn't know whether their film was gonna come back with sand in the can. It took two years to build the confidence of distributors in New York and L.A."
THAT'S WHERE knowing a little bit of psychology came in. Brown had briefly studied under B.F. Skinner, the man who promoted the theory of operant conditioning, that is, providing a system of rewards and punishments to produce certain behaviors. A class project involved observing a pigeon for a semester, and feeding and tending it accordingly. If the pigeon died, its caretaker flunked.
In the theaters, though, Brown says he's the one who's been conditioned to responding to positive and negative feedback. "You always want to pack the house and I had to learn what triggers bring people in," he said.
"Over the past 10 years, the audience has gotten a lot more sophisticated. And after Sept. 11, there was an influx of people looking for different fare, people started to seek out more films that deal with humanity instead of looking at violence as entertainment.
"Whenever people feel threatened, they want to bond with their human side and see different points of view of human nature. It's an important shift and Hawaii is a good place to do that because it's a melting pot.
"People can't travel a lot, so this is the next best thing. You can go and see the world on nine screens, like going from one country to another on a magic carpet," Brown said.
"My secret goal has been to make more tolerant people, make them more accepting of other cultures, other mores. It's very important, and the only way the world is going to get along, because God knows it's falling apart."
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