The Jackson Hole Guide from Jackson, Wyoming • 59

Wednesday, November 15, 1995, Jackson Hole Guide, D3 mm i i irtirn ilM ---r-iiiimi in JONATHAN ADAMS, GUIDE Tony Garretson hopes that independent releases and foreign films wil fly in Jackson. Will 6arf fillies save the screen? Garretson already has plans to run Christmas classics, like "It's a Wonderful December, andhehopes to get Warren Miller's latest release during the ski season. Next summer, the Teton Theatre will screen filmed-in-Jack-son favorites "Shane" and "Spencer's Mountain." Throughout the year, Garretson will keep an eye on how alternative releases are received in the more metropolitan areas. If a film does well in New York, he suspects it will probably do well here. "This is a very artsy town," he said.

"Look at how many galleries there are. For such a small place, it's got a very metropolitan flavor. You've got a lot of people coming in from bigger cities. So, I think this kind of thing will go here." The Teton Theatre is on its third manager in as many months. But this time, said new guy Tony Garretson, movie goers will see the change on screen.

Following a late-summer season marred by mechanical problems and low attendance, the theater's parent company, Carmike Cinemas, brought Garretson down from Billings, to try his hand at running the failing movie house. After a few short weeks at the helm, Garretson, 29, saw that he had his work cut out for him. He spent much of October tuning and repairing the theater's antiquated projection system. But the real problem, he said, is that the Teton Theatre can't compete for films with the six screens at the Movie Works and the Jackson Hole Twin Cinema. "This was a pretty good turnout" Garretson said after the first show.

"I think this is going to fly." The move to films that are out of the mainstream, Garretson said, was really his only option. Fortunately, it's an option that he enjoys. At the Babcock Theatre in Billings, Garretson introduced a series of foreign films and a series of World War II films last spring. Both, he said, were well received. In Jackson, he hopes to get the same kind of reception year round.

"I'm not doing just a one-week deal or a film festival kind of thing," Garretson said. "ItH be an art film, an independent release or a foreign film three weeks out of the month and a new release, if I can get anything good, for the fourth week." "One guy owns all the other screens in town," Garretson said. "With only one screen, I don't have the buying power to get any of the good new releases." "Most new movies aren't worth watching to begin with," he added. "If you're not getting a good one, you really don't have much." In fact, with films like "Vampire in Brooklyn," Garretson didn't have anything at all: several shows last week had fewer than four patrons in the 400-seat house. So, Garretson decided to go the alternative route literally: Last week he introduced "Smoke," the first of a series of independent, foreign and classic releases that will show at the theater.

On the opening night about 30 moviegoers snowed up. "Smoke" offers a prelude to the Christmas spirit independently produced film packed show after show. Much of the credit for the film's success belongs to the universal appeal of Auster's script. Like last year's big winner "Forrest Gump," "Smoke" spends much of its screen time lauding the benefits of having a kind heart. But "Smoke" does so without a plot of mythic proportions, magical realism or all of the By Will Sweetser When author Paul Auster sat down to write "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," he had a good idea about what really matters the stories and fleeting bits of happiness we offer one another as we float through the seasons.

When Wayne Wang began working on the set of "Smoke," he had a good idea what Gumpian, stupid-is-as-stupid-does preaching. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy "Forrest of 4,000 shots of Auggie's storefront, taken at exactly 8 a.m. from across the corner, on 4,000 consecutive mornings. This sounds a bit scattered because it is. Wang and Auster work in slightly longer than MTV soundbite-length clips of the characters' lives.

But they do work. Through a combination of action and storytelling they give us the framework of the lives we are sharing. We see Auggie's money-grubbing side as he spurns an ex-lover in order to finance an illegal Cuban cigar deal. WtTwatch Kashid ashe triesxTcome to an understanding of why his father (Forrest Whi taker) left him. And through it all, we watch as $5,000 in a paper sack continually changes hands.

Perhaps this is what Wang and Auster truly had to say: that opportunity and material wealth waft through our lives, but never settle long anywhere. When the credits roll, it's only our stories and happiness that matter. ump, its simply tnat asmoke sucks to the Was tautlng auOUt jjwaaps ue- cause Auster was looking over his shoulder, Working from Auster's story, the two foamed iirvtn rlirorf a film fhflt. serves AS the realm of the plausible. The film follows three characters Paul Benjamin, Auggie Wren, and Thomas "Rashid" Cole through their daily, and not so daily, travails in downtown Brooklyn.

picture perfect vehicle to present Auster's point: Ofie big that in the end, those moments ofhappiness are what we crave most. To this singular focus add accomplished performances from Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Forrest Whi taker and newcomer Harold Perrineau concentrate on the camerawork, sprinkle in cuts from a soundtrack that includes Tom Waits and Jerry Garcia and you've created a film that knocks critics' socks off. Which is exactly what "Smoke" did inNew York and Los Angeles. "Smoke" scrupulously avoids the Hollywood standards of slick sets, sex and special effects. Still, the When daydreaming writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) is yanked from the path of oncoming traffic by Rashid (Harold Perrineau the three begin to cross paths with more than coincidental frequency.

Paul, by way of thanks, invites Rashid to spend a couple of nights at his apartment. Rashid immediately declines, but later reconsiders and shows up on Paul's doorstep. In the meantime, we have hopped along to Auggie's Brooklyn Cigar and on to Auggie's apartment, where Auggie (Harvey Keitel) invites Paul to pore over his photo collection, a collection that consists "Smoke," starring Harvey Keitel and William Hurt, plays at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., nightly, through Thursday at the Teton Theatre. Martin Scorsese's "Belle de Jour" opens at 7 p.m., Friday.

All seats are $6..