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Theo Kalomirakis doesn’t make the popcorn, but in creating any of his beautiful and dramatic home theaters, he does everything else.
If he did provide the popcorn, he would need to research the subject of corn for three months, shop the world to locate the finest
popping machine, commit himself to long hours of oil and salt analysis in a laboratory, and design a new and better popcorn tub or
box. Theo is obsessed with his work and embarked upon a quest for an elusive ideal theater that can exist only in dreams. Each
time that he makes a dream theater into a reality, no matter how stunning the creation, it never quite fulfills the ideal in his
mind- - and off he goes again in the enthusiastic pursuit of impossible perfection.
I understand this psychology too well. The motivating certainty that your ideal is within your reach if only you can run a little
faster and jump but one inch higher- -this is the mighty engine that drives any committed novelist or painter, or film director.
This chase is crazy, of course, for it can never be won. Ours is a fallen world in which perfection can never be achieved. Besides,
with the artist’s every achievement, he further refines his ideal, makes it more enchanting, and thus it always remains the same few
inches beyond his grasping fingers.
Nevertheless, in art and design, the pursuit of the ideal is as noble as it is sweetly foolish, and it gives us those moments of
breathtaking beauty that lift our hearts out of darkness and strike in our minds bright fires of possibility. The ornate movie
palaces of earlier eras- -especially the deco masterpieces like the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles- - were more gorgeous and more
inspiring than most of the films that played in them. They represent, after all, the clear vision of one architect and his close
associates, while film is a medium that too often allows vision to be drowned in the rushing tide of expedient collaboration.
This irony informs the work of Theo Kalomirakis as well. His stunning home theaters, inspired by the magic of movies, have more
magic, mystery, and grace than ninety-eight percent of the films that will unspool in them. They are, therefore, not merely a joy
to their owners but a service to the art of film in the same sense that an exquisitely wrought Tiffany setting can make even a
mediocre diamond shine like a crown jewel.
This book is eye candy to sweeten your mood on a sour day; but it also gives you the opportunity to run with Theo Kalomirakis as
he chases the ideal in his dreams, to feel the excitement of spinning magical environments out of the golden threads of creative
thought, and to recapture the wonder of going to the movies before theaters were reduced to drab multiplex boxes in which even that
rare film of transcendent beauty is diminished by its setting. Theo is not only embarked on a quest for the ideal but on a crusade
to redeem theater design, and it is always a thrill to take a ride with someone who, like him, has a glorious destination in mind
and keeps the pedal to the metal.
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