Board

Kate Barr

President/Treasurer

Kate obtained a degree in Film Management from Columbia College, Chicago, back in the early 1990s. She delved briefly into Chicago’s commercial film production industry doing on-set production work, and then returned to the film industry in the early 2000s, this time in LA, working as a Controller for commercial productions. Kate moved to Seattle in 2009 where she joined the volunteers at The Grand Illusion Cinema and helped bring it back from the brink of closing. She is one of the founding members of SV Archive, the nonprofit that took over Scarecrow’s collection in 2014.

Favorite Scarecrow section: Whodunit

Formative movie experience: Doris Dörrie’s Men…, which I rented from our neighborhood video store back in the ‘80’s. As a teenager in the Midwest watching a German movie… a movie written AND directed by a woman…doors of possibilities opened in my mind that have never closed.

Currently recommending: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017, Catherine Bainbridge, Alfonso Maiorana); Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018, Pamela B. Green); Rat (2000, Steve Barron); The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent, 4K release)

Brian Alter

Secretary

Brian is senior video editor at Seattle’s nicest advertising agency, Copacino Fujikado. Since 2003 he has volunteered at the non-profit arthouse cinema, The Grand Illusion, where he has done every conceivable job and currently serves as Executive Director.

Favorite Scarecrow Section: Mondo Macabro

Formative movie experience: I was four years old seeing Star Wars at drive-in revival screening and the film melted during the trash compactor scene.

Currently recommending: Remember My Name (1978, Alan Rudolph); Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022, George Miller); Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021, Ana Lily Amirpour)

Mark Daniels

Mark was born into a military family, fourth of six children, married for twenty-five years and father of two daughters, he has called the Seattle area home since 1970. His father and siblings were big fans of westerns, musicals, comedies, and dramas, but Mark discovered his passion when his eldest brother introduced him to Star Trek at age six. When not feeding his sci-fi addiction and bolstering his preternaturally encyclopedic knowledge of all things Star Trek, he is busy sharing his passion with the community. Since April 2012, he has been a guest host on the podcast Treks in Sci-Fi. For the past six years, Mark has also been a volunteer at Scarecrow Video in Seattle. Outside of all things science fiction, he serves as the Facilities Director at a local technical college, where he has worked for 35 years. He is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of 16 buildings and grounds on 40 acres and supervises a crew of 20 employees.

Favorite Scarecrow section: Classic Science Fiction

Formative movie experience: As a child, my middle sister made me watch a lot of musicals. Singing in the Rain, South Pacific, Oklahoma and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers were just a few of the movies I had to watch. Watching musicals was like torture to my ten-year-old self. Five or so years ago, a good friend of mine told me that I really should give Signing in the Rain another chance. I did and it was a wonderful experience! I truly enjoyed watching it. As a child I didn’t appreciate the story of Hollywood in the late 1920s and the transition from silent films to talking movies. Singing in the Rain is a wonderful film! That experience changed the way I look at movies. Since then, I have discovered that I also like Westerns and Foreign films as well!

Currently recommending: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, Wes Anderson); The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Val Guest); Mr. Klein (1976, Joseph Losey); Onibaba (1964, Kaneto Shindo); Kuroneko (1968, Kaneto Shindo)

Woods Fairbanks

Woods is a film archivist and investor who works with UW Special Collections and has haunted the aisles of Scarecrow throughout the 21st century.

Favorite Scarecrow section: Laserdiscs (also my favorite format 😉)

Formative movie experience: I was lucky enough to see Star Wars on its opening day on the biggest screen in Washington DC, the Uptown (I hope they are able to save it—it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in Dec. 2022).

Currently recommending: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick); The Stunt Man (1980, Richard Rush); Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock); Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson); and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, Stanley Kramer)

Daniel Herbert

Daniel is a professor of media culture in the Department of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store and Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film. He used to be a video clerk at Alphaville Video in Albuquerque, NM.

Favorite Scarecrow section: BANG!!

Formative movie experience: Seeing Persona on celluloid in my first film class at the University of New Mexico. The projection services left something to be desired, so when the film “breaks” half-way through the movie, I genuinely thought the film had broken in the projector. It is a perfect film.

Currently recommending: La Jetée (1962, Chris Marker); Heat (1995, Michael Mann); Top Gun: Maverick (2022, Joseph Kosinski)

Robert Horton

Robert is a Member of the National Society of Film Critics, "Historian-Programmer in Residence" at Scarecrow Video, and host of the radio program "The Music and the Movies." For many years he was film critic for Seattle Weekly and the Everett Herald and a contributor to Film Comment, has been a Fulbright Specialist (Romania), taught at Seattle University, the Seattle Film Institute, and the Architectural Association in London. Film books include Frankenstein (Columbia U Press) and Billy Wilder: Interviews (U. Press of Mississippi). He's been a speaker with Smithsonian Journeys and Humanities Washington, and served on FIPRESCI juries in Odesa, Ljubljana, Seattle, Mannheim-Heidelberg, Hong Kong, Indianapolis, Berlin, Guadalajara, Montreal, and Palm Springs.

Favorite Scarecrow section: Howard Hawks

Formative movie experience: A PBS film series, "The Men Who Made the Movies," broadcast in 1973, profiling six old-Hollywood (although still nominally current-Hollywood) directors, featuring long interviews and long clips, evocatively narrated by Cliff Robertson. The critic Richard Schickel directed it, covering Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, William Wellman, and Vincente Minnelli. It was a way of thinking about the art of movies that I'd heard about but never seen demonstrated in this way. (Two other movie series helped doom me around the same time: the PBS foreign film-collection of Janus releases broadcast under the title "Film Odyssey," and a Canadian station showing all of Charlie Chaplin's films in order.)

Currently recommending: The Intruder (1962, Roger Corman); The Souvenir (2019, Joanna Hogg); Abigail's Party (1977, Mike Leigh); Wanda (1970, Barbara Loden); Pacifiction (2022, Albert Serra).

Ken Jennings

Ken was a 74-time champion on the quiz show Jeopardy! in 2004 and now hosts the show. Most of his winnings went to Criterion Collection discs. He is also the author of thirteen books and co-hosts the podcast Omnibus. A Scarecrow shopper for over 25 years, he lives in Seattle with his family.

Favorite Scarecrow section: Marx Brothers

Formative movie experience: Star Trek II, when I was eight years old. My expectations were not high, having already been bored by the first Star Trek movie (seen with When Worlds Collide as a Lynnwood drive-in double feature). But this one was good! The Kobayashi Maru fake-out in the first scene! Ricardo Montalban! The early computer graphics in the Genesis Project sequence! And Mr. Spock actually (SPOILER ALERT) died! Unbelievable. That same weekend my parents took us to Tron and I liked it fine but I was still thinking about Star Trek II.

Currently recommending: Neptune Frost (2021, Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams); The Last of Sheila (1973, Herbert Ross); Athena (2022, Romain Gavras); Phantom Lady (1944, Robert Siodmak); Kaili Blues (2015, Bi Gan)

Lacey Leavitt Gray

Lacey is a producer and writer whose credits include Lynn Shelton's Outside In, Touchy Feely, and Laggies, Megan Griffiths' Year of the Fox, I’ll Show You Mine, Sadie, The Off Hours, and Lucky Them, Todd Rohal's The Catechism Cataclysm, The Hunky Boys Go Ding-Dong, and M.O.P.Z., Colin Trevorrow's Safety Not Guaranteed, and adult swim's Three Busy Debras. Her films have played at the Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Busan, San Sebastian, and Seattle International Film Festivals. She’s also worked in cinematic XR, including an immersive Claude Monet piece that premiered at the 2019 TED conference. Lacey has received the Seattle Mayor's Award for Achievement in Film and was a Sundance Creative Producing Lab fellow. Lacey has a degree in Cinema Studies from the University of Washington and lives in Seattle with her dogs, daughter, and husband, whom she took to Scarecrow on their second date.

Favorite Scarecrow sections: Psychotronic

Formative movie experience: My dad took it upon himself to give me a good movie education in the 1990s, which to him meant Technicolor musicals, black and white film noir, sci-fi, and 60s/70s American classics. I remember being thoroughly engrossed in my first viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, covering my head and peering through the holes of a crocheted afghan, when he snuck up behind the couch and startled me. I screamed bloody murder and it’s still one of my favorite films of all time.

Currently recommending:  One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977, Agnes Varda); The Found Footage Festival Volumes 3 & 4 (2008, 2009); Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry)

Karl Woelfer

Karl developed an eclectic taste in film early on, renting VHS tapes in the 1980s and attending screenings at the ‘Streamline Moderne’ Art Deco “Tower Theater” in Sacramento, CA. He has appeared in 3 films: as a live concert audience member in THE DUB ROOM SPECIAL (1984), a flower shop walk-on part in SINGLES (1992), and as an uncredited extra in the bonfire scene of 21 AND OVER (2013). He is delighted that Scarecrow has so many movies in the France section.

Favorite Scarecrow sections: France & Japan

Formative movie experience: Seeing some of my first films on the HUGE curved screen of St. Louis’ MARTIN CINERAMA including How the West Was Won, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Currently recommending:  When the Cat's Away (Chacun cherche son chat -1996, Cédric Klapisch); Léon, The Professional (1994, Luc Besson, International Cut); Bound (1996, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski); The Hummingbird (2022, Francesca Archibugi); Filip (2022, Michał Kwieciński); Superposition (2023, Karoline Lyngbye)

ADVISORY BOARD

Zack Carlson is a writer/producer living in Austin, TX. His previous work includes THE AMERICAN SCREAM (named one of 2012’s best documentaries by Roger Ebert), where he was producer for director Michael Stephenson, as well as international horror anthology THE ABCs OF DEATH and independent comedy ZERO CHARISMA. He was a lead film programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the Grand Illusion Cinema and Fantastic Fest for many years, and co-authored the book Destroy All Movies!!! He’s currently at work on multiple other features, including collaborations with Elijah Wood, Todd Rohal (THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM), Jim Hosking (RENEGADES), Jason Eisener (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN), novelist Sam McPheeters (author of The Loom of Ruin) and the Zellner Brothers (KUMIKO THE TREASURE HUNTER). He owns over 4000 VHS tapes and doesn’t eat fruits or vegetables.

Tim League graduated from Rice University in 1992 with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Art/Art History. After a two-year stint at Shell Oil in Bakersfield, California, Tim turned his back on the engineering profession and opened up his first movie theater. In 1995 he headed to Austin to start the Alamo Drafthouse, where he remains as CEO today. League also co-founded Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States, the entertainment merchandise entity Mondo, the film distribution and production company Neon and the film distribution company Drafthouse Films, where League has produced films including The ABCs of Death. When asked about his early qualifications for opening a movie theater in the first place, “none, other than really liking movies, which I guess is the most important part.”