Swingin' at the Vineyard with Pete Farrelly

Of all the directors I’ve ever talked to, no two have ever taken the same approach to watching movies at home — which isn’t too surprising, since each has had an extremely idiosyncratic approach to making movies.

 
Pete, with his son Bob exiting on a tire
swing, frame right. (Photo: Nora Gaughn)

For instance, Get Shorty and Men in Black helmer Barry Sonnenfeld (who does a bang-up job in the September issue of Sound & Vision writing about his experiences upgrading the system in his Telluride home) likes to research every piece of gear that goes into his setup and wants to know all the details about why his system works the way it does. Meanwhile, Pete Farrelly — who, along with brother Bobby, has made a string of hit comedies that includes Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary — admits to being a technophobe, and just wants to know where the On button is.

That doesn’t mean Pete would settle for a lesser quality system than Barry’s — the screening room in his Santa Barbara home, for instance, features Meridian digital speakers and a Faroudja projector. It just means he relies more on his installer to be able to interpret his tastes and then recommend the right gear to satisfy them.