Focusing On “The Big Picture”:
Mad River Valley Theater Owner Has Grand Plans

For months, the marquee on Route 100’s old Eclipse Theater in downtown Waitsfield has read:

Closed For Renovation
Big Picture Theater And Café
Will Re-Open In May

Despite the sign, a casual observer might not notice that big changes have been afoot at the new “Big Picture Theater and Cafe.” But look closer. Recently poured concrete now supports a stronger building foundation, and new owner Claudia Becker might liken this change to her own ambitious hopes for the space.

A long-time educator and filmmaker, Becker projects an attractive combination of vivacity and intensity, perhaps related to her ability to balance a wide variety of interests and responsibilities. Many Vermonters may know her as the organizer of Mad River’s Mountain Top Human Rights Film Festival, a several day event that has brought a wide variety of cutting-edge documentary and feature films (as well as movie personalities like actor Mario van Peebles) to the central Vermont community every January for several years now.

Running a full-time multimedia performing space, though, is a bit more of a challenge than organizing an annual film festival. Becker seems more than up for the task. A mother of two young children and wife of documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (“Why We Fight”), she radiates enthusiasm as she describes her vision for the space. “I was first attracted to film as a way of educating, of informing people,” she explains. “There is a huge need for a gathering space here in the Valley, and this is an opportunity to create something fun and meaningful, a space that allows for thinking, dialogue, and a sense of community.”

But the Mad River Valley is a relatively small community, and there are movie theaters within a thirty-minute drive of the Valley. How might “Big Picture” succeed where other owners of the space have failed? The only way to make it work, Becker believes, is by actively partnering with a number of community stakeholders to offer a diverse array of multimedia activities for all age groups and interests.

Brian Degen, president of the Valley’s Open Hearth Community Center initiative and one of Becker’s primary partners, agrees. The Fayston resident, a longtime businessman and consultant, has helped spearhead a several year Valley-wide Open Hearth initiative exploring viable options for creating a family and community center space within the Valley. When the Eclipse Theater came up for sale last year, the Open Hearth committee talked with Becker about initiating a creative partnership to buy and maintain the theater. “We’ve dedicated our efforts toward helping Claudia plan for and manage the financial success of her business,” explains Degen. “Previous owners have also had passion and purpose, but they lacked business experience, while Claudia combines vision with the ability to execute, allowing her to launch her new business with passion, responsibility, and fiscal responsibility.”

Sounds good on paper. But how will it actually work?

“Well start slowly, and gradually expand our programming,” Becker says while taking me on a tour of the “Big Picture” space. “Ultimately, we want weekly events that will draw different audiences.”

The spacious multi-room venue at the Big Picture suggests a variety of possibilities.

The “Blue Theater,” located towards the back left of the building, will serve as a traditional movie space, and Becker plans on showing a diverse array of appealing films. Her opening week-end over Memorial Day, she launched with the Oscar-winning film “Crash,” a riveting film that explores modern race relations in the United States, as well as Disney’s more family-friendly PG-13 film Hoot.” “The kids and teen audience is hugely important to us,” Becker observes. “I’ve got kids, many in our community have expressed interest in a place where kids can go to hang out, and we want the space to be kid-friendly.”

Working with Brothers Builders construction company, Becker has renovated the second theater space – dubbed the “Red Theater” – adding three big windows, flattening the floor, and re-designing the sound and lighting systems. “Red” can show movies, but will also serve as a community space, hosting an array of groups and activities, from “hip hop dance classes, to art for kids, to circus arts,” Becker explains.

And then there is the ajoining lounge and café. The lounge will be a multi-purpose space, with wireless Internet, a play space for children, a player piano, and a traditional soda fountain/bar. Becker plans, meanwhile, to open the café on July 4th week-end, serving a wide variety of light international fare.

But wait, there’s more. Much more.

“Wednesday nights will be family nights, where locals can drop in, “eat pizza, drink lemonade, and just play,” Becker says. “Once a month, we’ll use Friday nights as dance party nights, doing reggae, eighties, variety, anything and everything.” And Saturday nights will be devoted to music. “Vermont has an unbelievable number of talented musicians,” Becker observes. “We want to showcase Vermont and New England bands as much as we can.”

And, of course, Becker plans to continue using the space for the Mountain Top Film Festival and other special educational events. In June, it will be Swing Dance. July will bring the Vermont Opera Festival to the “Big Picture,” while August showcases an “End of Summer” Kids Fair tied into the Vermont Festival for the Arts. And Becker is already booking into the fall.

What about other groups wishing to use the space? “We’ll rent the space on a sliding scale for nonprofits, community groups, and businesses, based on need and availability,” explains Becker. “We are more than willing to work with other groups to make their events successful.”

While the magnitude of her vision is expansive, talking to Becker about her plans to breathe new life into the old space makes me feel like, if anyone can pull this off, it will be her and her community-minded team. “I’m taking the three year approach. By our third year, we hope to actually be making a little money,” she explains with a sigh and a smile.

“I’ve learned an unbelievable amount, and it’s a huge task – but we can make it work.”

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United 93: “Let’s Roll” The Official Conspiracy Theory

The first images we see are of intent-looking Arab men, their mission in the making.

The first words we hear are those in whispered Arabic, prayers to Allah.

The first two places we encounter: Newark International, where San Francisco-bound United Flight 93 is boarding all passengers, and the National Air Traffic Control Center (NATCC), home of the most sophisticated aircraft tracking system on the planet.

So begins director Paul (“Bourne Supremacy”) Greengrass’s “United 93,” one of the most gripping celluloid thrillers to come along in some time.

And a brilliant propaganda piece.

The genius of this film lies in its narrative style – the hand-held shaky cam, quick edits, wide range of camera angles, and generous use of rack shots all work together to keep the viewer off balance. And, of course, this is no ordinary flying film, but a movie purportedly based on the events surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks of almost five years ago.

As the film begins and the NATCC readies for another busy day of “pushing tin,” it becomes apparent that a lone aircraft - American Airlines flight 11 from Boston to L.A - may be involved in a possible hijack situation. Shortly thereafter, another plane – United 175 out of Boston – begins to fly off course. And then, American flight 77 out of Dulles goes missing, on its way to LAX. “Hijacking?” says one controller half jokingly to another in the heat of the moment. “We haven’t had a hijacking in forty years.” “We’re trying to get the military involved,” says the NATCC head into the phone. “We can’t reach anyone in headquarters.”

What’s going on? No one seems to know. Questions abound.

And you won’t get any answers here.

“United 93” reveals absolutely nothing about either the movie’s hijackers or the individual passengers, not even their names, but this is not a film about character development. This is a movie designed, consciously or not, to help searingly embed in the public mind an official version of the events surrounding 9/11’s doomed Flight 93, legitimizing for a global movie-going audience the official 9/11 “conspiracy theory” story: 19 knife and box cutter-wielding Middle Eastern Muslim religious fanatics single-handedly hijacking four U.S. commercial aircraft and flying three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon while successfully confounding the most powerful intelligence and military force in the world.

The fourth aircraft – Flight 93 – allegedly ended up in pieces in a Pennsylvania field.

While the official version of the 9/11 story mentioned above doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, “United 93: The Movie” covers up real questions surrounding the events of 9/11, events that, out of respect for both the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the truth itself, we ought to be demanding answers to.

Here are but five:

1. Why were both civilian and military air traffic controllers unable to effectively respond to the hijackings on September 11?

Forget Hollywood for a moment. In the world of real life, the NATCC and NORAD have an explicit set of agreed-upon procedures they immediately follow whenever any airplane in U.S. air space drifts from its designated flight plan. Working in tandem, civilian and military air control authorities successfully land dozens and dozens of rogue airplanes every year in the United States. You’d never know this from “United 93,” which uses montage techniques to compress into just a few fleeting moments significant chunks of time in which, under normal circumstances, apparently incompetent U.S. air traffic controllers could have easily responded to an emerging threat.
This “incompetence” narrative is in keeping with the official 9/11 story, though, to date, not a single person within the NATCC, the FAA or NORAD has been so much as reprimanded for poor 9/11 management. Odd, given that 9/11 was the single most devastating day of hijackings in all of US aviation history.

2. Why weren’t any military aircraft able to intercept and shoot down the hijacked planes?

Based on research done by Crossing the Rubicon author Michael Ruppert and others, evidence suggests that U.S. military planners decided to stage more than one dozen military simulations for September 11 – the same day (coincidently?) as the hijackings – effectively removing many east coast-based U.S. air force fighter jets from the picture. Again, the movie simply suggests a communication breakdown between civilian and military chains of command. The truth appears much more insidious.

3. How did Flight 93 crash?

The movie: “United 93” explicitly argues that the doomed jet crashed into the ground at 10:03 a.m. in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after courageous passengers stormed the cockpit and wrested control from the hijackers. The evidence: An eight-mile long trail of airplane debris and numerous eye-witnesses present at the scene suggest, instead, that Flight 93 may have been shot down, most likely by U.S. military aircraft.

One web site – www.letsroll911.org - goes so far as to name the pilot who committed the deed. But of course, like the FBI, it is but one source of information.

4. Who gave the “shoot down” order?

When Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 a.m., “the nearest fighter jets were 100 miles away,” concludes the film. “At 10:18 a.m,” the movie asserts, “the President ordered the military to engage hijacked air craft.” Fifteen minutes too late, in other words. Investigative evidence, based on sourced documents, suggests that Vice President Dick Cheney gave the shoot-down order, possibly to prevent Flight 93 from landing successfully and revealing some damning evidence that disproved the “19 hijackers acting alone” theory.

5. Did Flight 93 actually crash at all?

Based on eye-witnesses, the makers of the Google-driven 9/11 film phenomenon “Loose Change” suggest that Flight 93 may have landed in Cleveland, Ohio later on that fateful morning. In other words, whatever happened in and around Shanksville was smoke and mirrors.

Before you dismiss any of this as conspiratorial rantings, I suggest doing some research of your own. Begin with David Ray Griffin’s readable The New Pearl Harbor, and then move on to the official 911 Commission Report and its essential companion volume, Griffin’s Omissions and Distortions. Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon is also an invaluable resource.

I don’t profess to know the truth about what actually happened on 9/11, but I’m reasonably convinced that the official 9/11 “conspiracy theory” story, helped along by propaganda pieces like “United 93,” are deliberately muddying the waters at a time when what we need more than anything in our troubled country is clarity, honesty, and a new vision for our common future as we confront global Peak Oil, rampant militarism, electoral fraud, corporate corruption, and a “war that will not end in our lifetimes” (to quote the U.S. Vice Resident).

But don’t take my word for it.

During May 2006’s first week, as “United 93” pulled in $11.5 million in ticket sales to become the second most-watched film in the United States, the White House’s current occupant, not yet having seen the film, noted in a televised CNBC financial news network interview that the 9/11 Flight 93 passenger “revolt” against the hijackers had struck the first blow of “World War III.”

“Let’s roll” onward with those words in mind.

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