If there is one man who wants to ensure everyone has an uninterrupted movie experience, it's Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League. Taking the infamous no-talking PSAs and cell phone ban one step further, League tellsDeadline that Google Glass is now banned in his theaters, including the Houston-area cineplexes at Vintage Park and Mason Park.
Though he says nothing of how ridiculous they make patrons look, League, a 1992 graduate of Rice University, says he does worry about potential piracy issues.
“We’ve been talking about this potential ban for over a year,” he said. “Google Glass did some early demos here in Austin and I tried them out personally. At that time, I recognized the potential piracy problem that they present.”
League took to Twitter to announce the ban, tweeting:
Google Glass is officially banned from @drafthouse auditoriums once lights dim for trailers. #MovieManners
The Alamo's announcement, which was covered by Time and other national news outlets, does leave a little wiggle room. League tells the trade publication that as technology adapts, so too will the Alamo's policies. While the current ban is in effect patrons are asked to remove their Google Glass before the lights dim.
In a subsequent interview with Glenn Beck, League also clarified his stance a bit, saying that prescription glasses will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
As the rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community have expanded over the past 50 or so years, one part of that group, transgender people, has found it more difficult to be considered a normal part of society. Every new instance of putting the story of a transgender person on screen, whether fictional or real, increases their exposure to those who might never have encountered them before.
That makes a documentary like Will & Harper (a title which seems to take inspiration from the groundbreaking TV series Will & Grace) valuable. The fact that the “Will” in the title is comedian/actor Will Ferrell helps, as he and longtime friend, Harper Steele, embark on a road trip across the United States soon after Harper reveals her transition from a man to a woman.
Harper, who met Will while they were both at Saturday Night Live in the late '90s/early 2000s, decided at the relatively older age of 59 that she could no longer pretend to be someone she wasn’t. The idea of the road trip – and of filming it – came about so that the friends could reconnect, learn more about each other given the momentous change, and do a lot of the things that Harper enjoyed doing by herself prior to her transition.
Director Josh Greenbaum and his crew attach a camera to the hood of Harper’s old Jeep Wagoneer to record her and Will's conversations as they traverse many states, starting in New York and heading west. Their connection to SNL means that many of the show’s current and former stars show up in one form or another along the way, including Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon, Kristen Wiig, and Will Forte, among others.
While their love and respect for Harper is obvious, Harper has trepidation over how strangers in middle America will react to her. The presence of Will (and the cameras) gives her perhaps easier acceptance than someone not traveling with a famous person, but there are still more than a few uncomfortable stops, particularly when they get to the South (Texas does not come off well, but surprisingly Oklahoma does).
Those scenes with everyday Americans are interesting (if occasionally a bit contrived), but the heart of the film is the friendship between Will and Harper. Their conversations range from silly to heartfelt, but there is a genuineness to them that can’t be faked. Harper invites Will to ask her any questions he has about her transition, resulting in insightful – and, often, funny – answers. Their friendship was clearly already strong, but it gets palpably stronger during the 17-day journey.
There are a lot of messages one could get from a film like this, but it’s notable for how apolitical it is. Will and Harper have encounters with Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, as well as a few people wearing MAGA hats, but their positions on transgender people goes unremarked upon. The friends gently correct people who mis-gender Harper, but they never express any animosity towards them. It’s a movie about exploration, with education as a side benefit.
While it might be too strong to say that Will & Harper is a world-changing film, it adds another layer to the story of transgender people as a whole. It also shows the unconditional love between two friends, a lesson that is heartening in divided times.
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Will & Harper is now playing in select theaters; it will debut on Netflix on September 27.
