Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Virtual cinemas provide a wide range of viewing options

Dan Webster

One benefit of being forced to see movies online is that the streaming options are widespread and varied.

I like to support Spokane’s own arthouse theater, the Magic Lantern, as much as anyone. And, yes, the Lantern has 32 movies available to stream right now through its website. But that lineup hasn’t changed in weeks.

So what else is out there? For one thing, you can stream movies through the Seattle International Film Festival. New York's Film Forum is another option. Also Kino Lorber, Film Movement and Music Box Films all offer streaming services.

Some of these services require registration. Some of them are offering similar lineups. But some of them are streaming films that you'll have trouble seeing any other way — especially for those of us living in Spokane, and especially during this pandemic.

And like the Lantern, some of the services provide not just and opportunity to see a movie but to also help support the theater — such as the Lantern — through which you rent it.

Take the Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver. An old graduate-school friend of mine lives in that Washington city set just across the Columbia from Portland, and he is a regular patron of the Kiggins. Or at least he used to be. Now he, like the rest of us, is stuck watching films at home.

Beginning Friday, the Kiggins will be streaming a documentary that my wife is interesting in seeing, "River City Drumbeat," which focuses on a Kentucky-based African-American drum corps and the teachers and students who participate in it.

As Teo Bugbee wrote in the New York Times, "Though the movie does include footage of drum performances, it doesn’t move at the clip of sticks on snares. Instead, the film listens for this community’s heartbeat, finding its steady pulse just as expected: healthy and strong."

So, yes, we movie fans can't congregate at our local theaters to see images dance across screens bigger than what our televisions provide. But the range of what we can see through streaming is massive.

That in itself should help us all keep healthy and strong — at least until we can all gather again in the dark.