Here is something you may not know - San Jose is the home of the greatest professional wrestling journalist who has ever lived. His name is Dave Meltzer, and his newsletter, the Wrestling Observer, is the gold standard in all wrestling reporting. His Twitter feed is a lot of fun, he often beats-down bozos, but is also one of the most informative Twitter history handles, as he answers questions from folks like me. Well, not from me, I'm still waiting for an answer to my question about whether Tor Johnson was a big star befor ehe hooked up with Ed Wood's film and if the movies made him a bigger star, but either way, he's an incredible human.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with SiliGone Valley? The Camera 12, and specifically, the wonderful documentary The Great Sasuke that showed there in 2016. The Great Sasuke is an amazing lucha-inspired Japanese wrestler, and an Oakland filmmaker, Mikiko Sasaki, made an exceptional documentary about him and his political career. Sasuke came on the final day of Cinequest to do the Q+A afterwards, and since Dave lives not too far down the road, I was estatic to see him show up, and even happier to see that he and Sasuke had a lovely little chat, and were even willing to take pics with me! This was the last time I was in the Camera 12. In late 2016, it closed. A victim of so many things, not the least of which being the rent, Netflix, and on and on. In it's first incarnation, as a United Artists theatre in the 1990s, I only saw a single film there, Drop Dead Gorgeous, but when it re-opened under the Camera Cinemas management (having lost the Camera 1, another episode that will have to happen) Cinequest began to use it, and it became the home of all the shorts programs for Cinequest. The same theatre, every year, and I would be there, watching them, announcing them, leading Q+As, and basically loving it. I saw so many other movies there as well. My favorite Documentary, Accordion Tribe, my favorite horror film, Blood Car, and one of the truly greatest cinema experiences of my life, a rowdy late night showing of Love in the Time of Monsters that was just incredible. My son Benji has only seen one thing in a theatre, the short Cows by the illustrator/author Sandra Boynton. It was at the Camera 12. The last time I talked to my friend Rick was at the Camera 12. My short films played there. There I met directors like Thomas Meadmoree, Kurt Kuenne, Jadrien Steele, and on and on and on. It was such a part of what made Cinequest amazing, and I am so glad we had it as long as we did. This year, the first without it, it was a festival without a center, more than a little adrift, but at the same time, the theatre was still there, empty, but not gone. I will always remember the Camera 12, I will always think of it as a home. Only now, it's a home that I have to walk by on my way to the Hammer theatre after I get myself a Boba drink. I do love that the last time I was there, it was to see an amazing movie, to meet one of my all-time favorite wrestlers, and to get to say hey to the greatest of all the wrestling journalists. If I had known it was the end, I'd have stuck around longer...
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Chris GarciaCurator at the Computer History Museum, Born and Raised in Santa Clara, and a Massive History Geek! Archives
February 2019
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