This week, I'm going to completely overstep my bounds as the Video Vulture and discuss a film that will never ever be released on home video in any format.

Recently, local film buffs were surprised and amused by the announcement that the prestigious Calgary Cinematheque (www.calgarycinema.org) would be screening Andy Warhol's notorious art film Empire (1964) at the Plaza Theatre on Wednesday, September 10, 4 p.m. to midnight, one show only.

Empire is a silent, stationary shot of the Empire State Building, held for eight hours and five minutes. Yes, really. Andy Warhol was experimenting with film at the time, making such celluloid oddities as Eat (1963), which simply shows a man eating mushrooms for 40 minutes, and Sleep (1963), which records 321 minutes of a man sleeping. Empire tops them all with its epic length and its complete lack of characters, plot, sound, or, well, anything. It is a remarkable film simply for the fact that it exists. On occasion, Empire has been projected onto walls in art galleries, where viewers can walk in and out, glancing at it at leisure. It has also, on extremely rare occasions, been screened in actual theatres, where dedicated cineastes have attempted to sit through the entire thing. Calgarians will soon get the chance to do precisely that.

But why on Earth should an audience sit quietly and stare at such a thing for so long? If Warhol was interested in pushing the limits of what could be considered cinema, surely it is our duty to experiment with new ways of watching film? This is a chance for the audience to break out of its traditional, passive role and engage in some performance art. Here are a few suggestions about how to watch Andy Warhol's Empire:

• Approach the screen wearing a gorilla costume, and pretend you're King Kong.

• Bring a camcorder and attempt to record a bootleg copy of the film. Get caught.

• Talk to the screen. “Don't go in there!” (pause) “I told him not to go in there!”

• Bring a camp stove and make s'mores for everybody.

• Arrive wearing pyjamas and carrying blankets, a pillow and a teddy bear.

• After hours of silence, try to get the crowd to join you in singing “New York, New York.”

• Use one of those little flashlight toys to project an image of Spider-Man climbing up the building.

• Sit near the exit. Keep count (out loud) every time someone leaves.

• Station yourself in front of the screen with a sign reading “Closed captioned for the hearing impaired,” and just stand there quietly. Every time somebody says something in the audience, pretend to translate it into sign language.

• Give away the ending.

• While wearing a tuxedo, hand a glass of ginger ale and a love note to a guy sitting alone. Tell him it's from the cute blonde girl in the fourth row.

• Show up late, and don't pay. Do you honestly think they're going to man the ticket booth the entire time?

• Return from the bathroom and say, “What did I miss?”

• Wear a gigantic hat. Sit in front of a short person.

• Come dressed as the Empire State building.

• Come dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.

• Come dressed as a Stormtrooper.

• Attempt to stir up rivalries among the most dedicated viewers. “That guy in the green shirt said you'd pussy out and go home after the third hour.” “He said what?! Bullshit, I'm here for the long haul, baby! You tell him he's a pseudo-intellectual poseur!”

• Storm angrily up to the front every time somebody speaks, and hold up a sign that reads “Sshh!”

• Pretend to talk on your cellphone. “I'm still watching that movie you told me about. Yeah, it's real boring. I don't get it.”

• Hacky sack!

• Sit next to a stranger, and stare at him.

• During the eighth hour, come in with a film crew and shoot a documentary about obsessive compulsive disorder.