I was there last night too. I googled "seattle benning rr" and found this site. I'm glad I did.

His point in making the film (according to him) was that he liked trains. He wanted to focus on landscape at first (since trains generally flow with the landscape), but then it became a train movie. And a good one too.

The discussion after the movie was actually a lot less artsy than I feared it was going to be. The crazy guy in the safety vest seemed to really bring it down to earth (he annoyed me at first, but I got over that). I'm the one who added the comment about the Huey helicopter sound.

Oddly though, I didn't find any of it boring. Sure, my mind wandered a little here and there, but that's true when I'm watching trains in person. Sometimes the rumbling is comforting.

Benning doesn't release his stuff on DVD, so seeing the movie again is pretty well impossible. If someone could convince him to allow it to be showed around here once more, I'd be very grateful.

I keep a blog (called LittleBlackStar) that has more recently been train-focused, but covers many topics (Vespas, Godzilla movies, Civl War, old Washington Highways, travel). I'll be posting a lengthy review of RR tomorrow. Not that it's anything most would want to read, but if you like this kind of stuff then this will be the kind of stuff you'll like. :)

What was best about RR, for me anyway, is that it made me want to grab a camera and go do this myself (with slight variation, of course).

-Eric