A VISIT TO RERUN, BROOKLYN’S LATEST MOVIE VENUE

By Eric Kohn

The history of moviegoing in New York City is quintessential to the survival of the medium. Manhattan alone provided a healthy nexus of theatrical activity at the beginning of the 20th century, and in that regard, little has changed. The city continues to host dozens of theaters, including more arthouse venues than almost anywhere else in the world. From the usual specialty releases regularly showcased at the Sunshine and the Angelika to the storied repertory programming at prestigious fixtures like Film Forum and Lincoln Center, New Yorkers have innumerable eclectic opportunities to expand their cinematic horizons.

But movies without distribution have a hard time finding a certified route to these popular establishments. That’s a gap that the new reRun Gastropub Theater, which opened in the back room of reBar in Brooklyn’s hip Dumbo neighborhood on Friday, will help fill: The venue, a 60-seat screening room that includes a full bar and elaborate snack options, aims to focus on undistributed or overlooked indies from the festival circuit. Although the bar is owned and operated by Jason Stevens, freelance critic and Greencine Daily blogger Aaron Hillis has been hired to manage the program. A good friend and colleague of yours truly, Hillis resides at the heart of Indiewood as an occasional filmmaker (his documentary “Fish Kill Flea” made the festival rounds in 2007), programmer, and journalist, and he also serves as VP of the DVD label Benten Films — a quadruple-threat that allows him to keep up with plenty of the noteworthy low budget achievements struggling to get noticed.

On Friday, I made it out to the 11:30pm screening of reRun’s opening night feature, Frank Ross’s chatty lo-fi character study “Audrey the Trainwreck.” Ross, a Chicago-based filmmaker whose movies are distinguishable by an attentiveness to overlapping dialogue and the positioning of extreme frustration as comedy, premiered “Audrey” at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March. By bringing his movie to reRun, he managed to get publicity from The New York Times, The New Yorker and several other outlets (including, well, this one). With “Audrey” playing at … Read the rest