Since it’s Saturday, I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about my pal Dennis Hartley who’s been holding down Saturday nights here at Hullabaloo for the last 18 years. I’ve actually known Dennis since I was a teenager and we were growing up in Fairbanks Alaska. We (mis)spent some of our 20s in San Francisco whiling away hours and hours in the fantastic repertory movie theaters that were numerous in all the big cities in those days. (This was before you could pretty much find every film ever made just by asking Mr Google.) In those days they had film addict types curating the bookings, which changed every day, and you could see classic film programs, foreign films and offbeat independents on huge screens in big, old movie palaces any day of the week. We devoured them. It was an incredible education in the art of film.
Dennis went on to pursue a career in comedy and radio in Seattle and I ended up in LA working in the movie business but we’ve stayed in touch and Dennis has remained a film hound on a level I couldn’t keep up with. His personal collection is probably bigger than most film schools at this point.
Anyway, back in 2006 I had been reading Dennis’s film reviews on film forums online for a while and the bright idea occurred to me that he should write them for my readership who might like to have a break from politics on the weekend. Saturday Night at the Movies was born.
He’s become well-known for his “lists” of films which he curates in much the same way those film bookers used to do the programs in the old repertory houses back in the day. And as it happens, he’s also a musician with a huge music collection which he has often shared as his “mixtapes” (or as the kids say “playlist.”)
One of my favorite blog stories is about the time Dennis was trying to get accredited for a film festival, as he does every year, and one of them denied him entry. He told me about it and I asked him, “should we sic the readers on them?” He said sure and I put out the word. Some very important people in the film business who happened to be readers wrote to the festival asking them to let Dennis attend. The next morning they contacted him and suddenly they just couldn’t be more accommodating.
The running joke between us has been that people came into the office that morning, opened up their emails and all exclaimed in unison, “who the fuck is Dennis Hartley?” He’s never been denied since.
Anyway, it’s been a privilege sharing this space with him all these years and I’m so happy that I could share his film and music knowledge with all of you.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!