On my first trip to Tacoma’s Grand Cinema, an archetypally red-carpeted movie theater overlooking the bustling port, I get the full tour courtesy of executive director Philip Cowan. Cowan is a tall, mellow ex-Texan with wireframe glasses and a deliberate vocal cadence. Befitting his station, he’s adamant about the role of independent theaters in the larger cinematic ecosystem.
“I’m always looking for a ‘wow’ factor,” he says of selecting movies for the Grand. “The film finishes, and audiences do a legitimate wow.”
Unlike the AMCs and Regals of the world, independent theaters search high, low, and in between for this wow factor. Small-budget debuts, experimental
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