There is a place in southern Indiana I’ve been many times for both shooting and weekends away…the neighboring burgs of French Lick and West Baden Springs.  They each, as you may know, have their own resort hotel, now sharing operations and a casino.

My first visit was in 1981, I believe…where I was a young member of the team restaging the Reno Gang’s robbery of a train for Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance and Cranfill Advertising’s famous and long-running Indiana history campaign.  Dave Cranfill directed, Craig Somers DP’d and Mark Somers did about 20 things, including painting a train engine and teaching me how to tip bellhops.  It was a spectacular experience.

We stayed at the French Lick Springs Hotel, but had to visit the West Baden Springs Hotel building.  It was threadbare and barely alive, as the home of a college of hospitality management, but it was still spectacular.  On beautiful grounds, its singular and awesome feature is a domed atrium…at more than 200’ across and 120’ high, it was the largest free span dome in existence from its construction in 1902 until the Houston Astrodome was built.  It closed as a resort during the Depression, and then served for decades as a monastery before turning into the college.  Finally, shortly after that first visit, it closed completely.

Through the years when it literally started to collapse upon itself, to the late 90’s when billionaire Bill Cook of Bloomington put up $50M just to keep it from falling down, I always loved the West Baden.  In 2004, Road Pictures, with director Jeff Weiser, filmed an Indiana Tourism commercial there; being up on the domed roof and staging beautiful scenes all over the grounds was almost as exciting as my Reno Gang experience, and just as memorable.  (See that tourism spot on the Work portion of this site.)

And now…my cell phone pictures don’t do it justice, but suffice to say that you owe yourself a weekend there.  There’s more to do if you golf or gamble, but I do neither and the time hanging out, eating well, and strolling the grounds, was peaceful and energizing.  And you can take a ride on the historic railroad we utilized for the Reno Gang all those years ago.

So often in life, the places we love evolve into something we hardly recognize, and usually not for the better.  The West Baden Springs Hotel is that rare place that flourishes anew, achieving a new and spectacular vitality.

Work and family obligations meant that in the month or so leading up to the Holidays I didn’t make it to the theatre but once or twice.  Finally, with the Holidays in full swing, I was able to make up for lost time.

This Holiday season at the movies, with the Oscar contenders coming out right and left, seemed to me a little stronger than the last few…at least when it came to cinematic story-telling and strong performances.  However, noticeably, the movies I made it to were all ‘smaller.’

No “Lord of the Rings” spectacles this year.  I was one of the folks who liked the latest installment of Harry Potter, but “Deathly Hallows Part 1” was, in many ways, despite the high production price tag, the most intimate of the HP tales on screen.  But have you noticed that with the occasional exception…like “Avatar”…the big movies of the year are rarely the best movies of the year?

One thing about Hollywood and the movie industry in the days before 600 channels and Netflix and narrowcasting:  there was room for big-budget, thoughtful, intelligent movies that had wide appeal.  Now, thoughtful and intelligent generally means Indie films consigned to the art house, and it often means that most of the Best Picture nominees have been seen by a relative handful of people…think of “The Hurt Locker” last year.

Oh well.  Enough ruminating.  Holiday movies still in theatres well worth the price of admission, in my humble opinion:

“The King’s Speech.”  No, this is not PBS for the big screen.  Yes, there’s some history here (that you probably didn’t know), and the main characters include Kings and Queens of England…but you’ll find a surprising, engrossing, moving  drama with comedy.  Colin Firth has the early lead for the acting awards.

“Black Swan.”  Director Darren Aronofsky knows how to get under your skin, and Natalie Portman’s, in a creepy, memorable psycho thriller set in the world of ballet.  Loved his use of medium shots throughout…

“True Grit.”  Boy, is this better than The Duke’s version of the 60’s.  Those Coen boys sure now how to make movies.

“127 Hours.”  Not close to being my favorite Danny Boyle movie, but watch a few of his movies, and the Coen Brothers, and Aronofsky…and when your relatives say, “But what does a director do?” and you might be able to answer them.  James Franco is terrific, btw.

“The Fighter.”  Ok, maybe this one is a rental…but amazing performances by Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are best appreciated on the big screen.  And the set piece where Bale, as Mark’s older, screwed up brother, tries to make some money (illegally) while the rest of the family is at a restaurant, is one of the best sequences in movies this year.

OK, OK, blog posts shouldn’t be this long.  But, if you’ve made it this far, don’t hesitate to send me a comment via email.

Happy New Year!

-Greg

Thanks and kudos to Jeff Morris for great design, Barrett Crites for the right amount of hand-holding, and Mark LeClerc for a clear head. Thanks to all the folks at Wiredground for getting us to web-reality.

And a special shout out to Eddie Mills here at Road, for taking so much of this on his shoulders.

I’ve never attempted to be a blogger before, but I’m going to give it the college try. And I’m sure you’ll be hearing from my friends and colleagues as well.

-Greg