I see your point, BradE41. Nowadays, it seems that no sooner does a new movie hit the theatres, then it’s made into a DVD about six months or so later. When I was a teenager throughout most of the 1960’s, films also had long, exclusive runs, wide runs, and then re-releases. I still enjoy filmgoing, and, with rare exceptions, don’t attend the more current films. I have a yearly membership at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which plays all kinds of stuff, as opposed to the same schlock that most all of the other theatres play, and I also attend the Brattle Theatre and the Somerville Theatre from time to time, both of which play all kinds of stuff that’re different from most of what comes out nowadays in the way of movies. When older classics come to the Coolidge, the Brattle, or to the Somerville Theatre, I jump at the chance to attend those screenings and see them on a great, big wide movie theatre screen, in a real movie palace, with the lights down low. Regardless of what anybody says or thinks, I believe that movies really ARE meant for theatres, and that even if one sees a great classic film on a home-theatre system and/or a big TV screen, it’s NEVER, EVER the same as seeing such films in a big theatre. It’s true that money-making hand over fist is the order of the day, and the reason for the DVD-home entertainment business is that the movie industry makes even more money that way—quickly, too.
So, I always like to go to the movie theatre, not just for the movie experience, but to get out and about among people, and to share the experience with several hundred or more people, whether I know them or not. There’s something more fun about that, and, even when I go alone, I always manage to find people to talk to before and after the film, also.
Here’s something else; West Side Story, which is my alltime favorite film, is a film that I sort of follow around our general area (I’ll go within reasonable driving distance, not any farthur), in addition to attending every screening of WSS that comes around, including TV/TCM airings of it. I have no DVD player, because I’m not much of a TV watcher. When they screened the film West Side Story at the Brattle just this last May, I attended both screenings of it!
Thanks for the compliments. I understand why you have the policy of not letting young children into the theatre after six p. m. I was just curious—that’s why I asked. I remember that you also had a summer midnight movies program. What happened to that? Again, just curious. Again, you’ve screened many wonderful movies, have had many wonderful concerts, and it’s a great, old movie palace. Here’s hoping this theatre stays on forever, and that you keep up the great work. Btw, would it be possible to get some more of the older classic films into your theatre? That would be cool. Again, had a great time at the screening of WSS last year.
Since Hartford, CT is about a 2-hour drive from where I live, I plan to drive down to Hartford to see the screening of West Side Story there. Regarding KY and CA, including S. F.—too far for me.
Frankly, I think smoking really should be outlawed in movie theatres and oher public places where there are many people in close quarters. Nobody should be forced to inhale second-hand smoke!
“It’s a shame Die Hard isn’t playing in more theatres this year. Every film is better on the big screen, but some benefit more than others. Die Hard really benefits.”
reinforces the fact that I feel exactly the same way about the great golden oldie-but-goody movie musical classic, West Side Story. How I wish WSS would play in more theatres more often this year, and forever. The MGM adage “Unlike other classics, West Side Story grows younger” is so true.
This, too:
“The original "Die Hard” looks more and more like a classic Hollywood blockbuster—“classic” as in something that was uncommonly well done for its time and has held up unexpectedly well. "
The Albany Palace Theatre is another beautiful theatre, very baroque-looking inside, yet a little bit old-looking, too, which is one of the beauties of movie palaces like this. I drove out to Albany from Boston to see a screening of the film “West Side Story”, and had a wonderful time. After the movie, I spent the night at the nearby Hampton Inn Suites, and then headed home the next day. after exploring the city for a little while.
Without having seen any of the “Die Hard” Series, unfortunately, JSA, the failure of sequels to match the original is all too common, although there have been some notable exceptions. Superman I and Superman II were both very good, as were Spiderman I and Spiderman II. I didn’t go to see any of the other ones, because, as I figured they would be, the other sequels to both Superman and Spiderman were disastrous failures.
The Somerville Theatre in Davis is another cool place, and I’m glad that it, too, along with the Coolidge Corner Theatre, was saved from the wrecking ball. I’ve seen some cool movies there, including:
THE DEPARTED
PAN’S LABYRINTH
SHREK III
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
and afew others.
I’ve also seen Arlo Guthrie live in concert, in the big main theatre—he was really cool.
A year ago last March, there was a singalong screening of the film West Side Story. What a wonderful afternoon it was. It was a pleasure to be in line and in the audience with all the other WSS movie-goers, and, it was great sitting on the balcony. The main theatre of the Somerville Theatre, in addition to being one of two theatres left here in this area that has a balconied theatre, is also quite baroque-looking inside, as a real movie-theatre palace generally is. Wonderful for a movie
experience. It’s also the only moviehouse around that one can get in for under 9 or ten dollars, even in the evening. Hope it stays that way. Does anybody know, btw, if they still have the policy of not letting kids under 8 years of age into the theatre for evening shows? Just curious.
I remember going to the Assembly Square AMC (then Lowes) cinema a number of times, even to late shows by myself. One day, about a year ago, when I was perusing the Arts/Movies section of the Boston Globe, I noticed that the Assembly Square Lowes Cinema wasn’t there anymore. Not long after that, I heard from somebody that AMC had bought that particular theatre and for whatever reason, didn’t want to keep it, and that there’d been some discussion of the possibility of building a new cinema to take its place. I’m sort of hoping, (though it’s just wishful thinking on my part), that, if it does get renovated into a new cinema, that it gets renovated into a movie theatre that plays independent film, and older classics, etc., as opposed to the schlock that most theatres play nowadays.
Yet, at the same time, that area could get kind of wierd. Audiences were often quite rude, and, yes, the theatre did start looking kind of grubby and run-down shortly before it closed. Since the mall pretty much closed down, it began to lose customers, I think, too.
It would be cool to get more of them back here in the Bay State, also. The only drive-in here in the Bay State is in Mendon, MA, which is way west of us, out in the central part of the state, really.
During the summer of 1962, when I was due to enter the sixth grade in the fall, my sister and I attended day camp out west for six weeks, where weekly trips to see movies were a regular thing. I remember seeing films such as “The Music Man”, Merril’s Marauders, Bon Voyage, and a number of others. This was also the summer that I got introduced to the great musical West Side Story. One girl in the group that I was in received a copy of the LP album soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of the group. The kids would be singing all the songs from WSS on the bus, both to and from camp every day, and it was cool. I immediately fell in love with the music of WSS, although I didn’t see the movie
until it was several years out of date, and shortly before it went on TV; around Christmaastime of 1968, as a high school senior. I fell in love with the film instantly, and have been hooked on it since. heh.
Probably the best thing to do then, is to bring an extra sweater in case the auditorium is really, really cold. At the ( no longer existing) 733 Theatre on Boston’s Boylston Street, I heard a wierd story from my parents who’d gone there at one point. It was a hot sultry summer’s day, the box-office person had sold more tickets than there were seats available in that theatre, and the A/C was malfunctioning, to boot. It was so hot that people were taking their shirts off—in a public movie theatre yet!
North by Northwest is a cool film. Although I first saw it when it was first out of date, I enjoyed it immensely also. I also enjoyed “The Birds”, despite warnings by the theatre box-office person that, since I own a small green macaw, that my attitudes towards birds would be adversely changed forever. Not so!! I’ve seen “the Birds” a couple of times and still love my McGee (the Noble Macaw). I’ve seen “The Birds” in the Brattle Theatre, as well as North by Northwest, which I also saw in college at the B. U. Theatre when they still showed movies.
It seems to me that pretty much all movies were theatre movies before going on TV, being videoized, or made into DVD’s, no?
MPol
commented about
MobMovon
Jul 12, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Here’s a question, though, TheaterBuff1: Wouldn’t the MobMov idea eventually help to kill off the movie theater business? DVD and video have helped do just that. Also, the disadvantage of such an idea as MobMov is that it seems like it can only be done during the warm weather, so how well it would work here in the northeast during the colder winter months, when people don’t go outdoors at night much, if at all. Also, if it’s raining, or an electrical storm is happening, outdoor movies have to be cancelled.
Looks like a cute little theatre. The sad thing about movie theaters is that most all of the movie theatres here in the United States, and even throughout the world are either closed or have been demolished. I still remember when pretty much every town and/or neighborhood used to have its own movie theatre, and, in towns like the one that I grew up in, there were movie theatres in at least two of the towns that abutted ours that we ended up going to, and, sometimes, for both good and awful, seeing other kids that we knew at those theatres, particularly on a Saturday afternoon or evening. Now, with rare exceptions, movie palaces don’t exist anymore, and, for the most part, there are the antiseptic, sterile-looking multiplex box theatres that’re just off various highway exits, where people from various towns go to, and there’s no intimacy to anymore. I still remember waiting to get into a movie and waiting in a line that wound all the way around the block. Sometimes we’d get in and other times not. I guess people don’t want to wait outside anymore, either.
There were a number of classic revival/repertory movie art houses in our area too, as late as the 1980’s, but most of them too, either went the way of Cinema heaven, or were bought out by the big cinema franchise/chains, such as AMC, Showcase, etc.
Since I recently resumed posting here on CinemaTreasures after not having posted here for sometime, I realize that I’m sort of late to the party, but I still remember that awful day. 9/11/01 started out as an ordinary day for me, and when I heard about the horrific attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center Towers, and later, the Pentagon, I thought it was all a hoax. However, when I turned on my little TV and saw the horrible footage of the WTC Towers being hit by planes and collapsing, I knew differently. To get to the subject at hand, however; back in mid-August of 2001, shortly before 9/11, I’d just gotten back from an eye-dilation exam when I received a call from some friends of mine who’d lived in Boston but moved down to NYC years ago (and who knew that West Side Story is my favorite film), telling me that there was going to be a special 40th-year anniversary screening of the film West Side Story at Radio City Music Hall in early October, and that many members of the cast would be present. Enthusiastically, and from the bottom of my heart, I said yes when they asked me if I wanted them to send off for some tickets for me. After some snafus, the tickets were obtained.
Saturday, October 6th, 2001, was the big day. Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I drove down from Boston to the Big Apple specially to see it, and to see old friends and relatives. What a Saturday night out that was! Radio City Music Hall was packed with an exuberant, friendly, fingersnappling, applauding crowd (of about 5-6, 000, to be exact), and there was a beautifully remastered, cleaned-up and restored print of WSS. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, and it was fantastic that several thousand people could get together for such a wonderful evening less than a month after the horrific 9/11 attacks. This, imo, is another great example of how to bring people together.
They sure are, Iris. It’s very sad that all these elegant, baroque-looking movie palaces, for the most part, have gone the way of cinema heaven, and been replaced by very sterile-looking and antiseptic multiplex cinemas that show a lot of the schlock that passes these days for art.
It’s true that the previews have become a way of movie life, so to speak. They can be boring, but they’re often used to lure people to the movies. One advantage to the previews,, however, is that if you end up being afew minutes late to a film, the chances are just as good as not, possibly better, that you’ll end up missing some of the previews rather than the feature film itself.
MPol
commented about
MobMovon
Jul 12, 2008 at 4:22 pm
The MobMov idea has caught up a little bit here in our area too, and it seems like such a cool idea. I remember reading/hearing about a couple of experiments like that not too far from where I live—and it seemed to work. Unfortunately, howver, I haven’t heard or read anymore about this neat idea. Outdoor movie programs, however, that’re free to the public, and amount to the same thing, seem to be taking hold more and more, which is good. The Movies by Moonlight program, where there’s a movie every Friday night at the Rowes Wharf Boston Harbor Hotel during the summer months, Friday Night Flicks at the Hatchshell, the Comcast-sponsored outdoor movies program in Somerville, and, more recently, an outdoor film program in at the Devotion School Park in Brookline, have become more popular. Wonderful movies, including WSS, have been shown at the other outdoor theatre programs, although I haven’t been to the outdoor movies program in Brookline yet. If you go to an outdoor film program, where it’s very woodsy, or near the water, or anywhere, it’s good to bring bug-dope, especially because mosquito bites today can be more than just a bit of an irritating annoyance, if one gets the drift. One big disadvantage to outdoor movie or MobMov programs is that if it rains or whatever, they have to cancel the film.
I’ve also seen the film West Side Story outdoors on at least 3 occasions—and it’s really cool. The sounds of the city in the background seem to add a whole new dimension to an already-great classic film.
I first saw the film; “2001: A Space Odyssey” 40 years ago, when it first came out. I was a high school kid and, like lots of other films of that era, it had a powerful impact on my imagination. I enjoyed it immensely, seeing it on the great big screen of the now non-existent Charles Cinema in Boston. Afew years later, I saw it again, at the same theatre, also having a wonderful time. Just afew years ago, I saw “2001: A Space Odysssey ” again, this time at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. It was a tad or so more frayed at the edges, if one gets the drift, and I’d forgotten how freaky it was, and I still enjoyed it. I sometimes think about how ‘2001" was more a “back to the future” type of film, and, now that the year 2001 has come and gone, where are we? (lol). However, I admit to one thing: As much as I enjoyed “2001: A Space Odyssey” and have seen it afew times, it doesn’t hold the same special place in my heart regarding movies as the film West Side Story.
That film “Movie Pests” sounds like a nightmare come to life, if one gets the drift. They DO exist in real life. Generally, unless a “movie pest” is really super obnoxious, I tend to ignore him or her the best I can and just concentrate on watching the movie. I remember at least a few incidents when I went to the movies that sort of threw me off, however: Back in the mid-1970’s, at the now-non-existant Orson Welles Cinema, I went to see the movie “The Harder They Come” with my family. It was a wonderful movie, and we all enjoyed it. However, in the back of the theatre, there were a bunch of people in the audience, who, obviously quite stoned, were laughing hysterically at all the sadistic parts of the film. Not pleasant to listen to at all.
Another instance of a “movie pest”, who sort of threw me off was one that I encountered when I went to see a Friday night midnight screening of the film “The Warriors” at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. There was a good crowd of people, many college kids, many who were also just really drunk off their butts. Just behind me was a fairly tall woman, who was clearly drunk and kept kicking the back of my chair. It took some doing, but I managed to finally get her to stop after telling her several times that I didn’t like her kicking m chair. Still more recently, when my sister-in-law and I attended the evening screening of the film “West Side Story” at the Brattle Threatre, there was a woman in the row right behind us (we were on the balcony), who was giggling her fool head off pretty much the whole time, until one of her companions told her to shut up. Since she was from another country and spoke a different language, neither my sister-in-law or I could turn around and tell this woman to be quiet. But, happily, as I said before, her companions finally told the giggling woman to shut up, and she did.
I see your point, BradE41. Nowadays, it seems that no sooner does a new movie hit the theatres, then it’s made into a DVD about six months or so later. When I was a teenager throughout most of the 1960’s, films also had long, exclusive runs, wide runs, and then re-releases. I still enjoy filmgoing, and, with rare exceptions, don’t attend the more current films. I have a yearly membership at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which plays all kinds of stuff, as opposed to the same schlock that most all of the other theatres play, and I also attend the Brattle Theatre and the Somerville Theatre from time to time, both of which play all kinds of stuff that’re different from most of what comes out nowadays in the way of movies. When older classics come to the Coolidge, the Brattle, or to the Somerville Theatre, I jump at the chance to attend those screenings and see them on a great, big wide movie theatre screen, in a real movie palace, with the lights down low. Regardless of what anybody says or thinks, I believe that movies really ARE meant for theatres, and that even if one sees a great classic film on a home-theatre system and/or a big TV screen, it’s NEVER, EVER the same as seeing such films in a big theatre. It’s true that money-making hand over fist is the order of the day, and the reason for the DVD-home entertainment business is that the movie industry makes even more money that way—quickly, too.
So, I always like to go to the movie theatre, not just for the movie experience, but to get out and about among people, and to share the experience with several hundred or more people, whether I know them or not. There’s something more fun about that, and, even when I go alone, I always manage to find people to talk to before and after the film, also.
Here’s something else; West Side Story, which is my alltime favorite film, is a film that I sort of follow around our general area (I’ll go within reasonable driving distance, not any farthur), in addition to attending every screening of WSS that comes around, including TV/TCM airings of it. I have no DVD player, because I’m not much of a TV watcher. When they screened the film West Side Story at the Brattle just this last May, I attended both screenings of it!
Hi, Ian.
Thanks for the compliments. I understand why you have the policy of not letting young children into the theatre after six p. m. I was just curious—that’s why I asked. I remember that you also had a summer midnight movies program. What happened to that? Again, just curious. Again, you’ve screened many wonderful movies, have had many wonderful concerts, and it’s a great, old movie palace. Here’s hoping this theatre stays on forever, and that you keep up the great work. Btw, would it be possible to get some more of the older classic films into your theatre? That would be cool. Again, had a great time at the screening of WSS last year.
Thanks, Jonesy.
Since Hartford, CT is about a 2-hour drive from where I live, I plan to drive down to Hartford to see the screening of West Side Story there. Regarding KY and CA, including S. F.—too far for me.
Frankly, I think smoking really should be outlawed in movie theatres and oher public places where there are many people in close quarters. Nobody should be forced to inhale second-hand smoke!
Hey Jonesy and Paul Bubny!!
This"
“It’s a shame Die Hard isn’t playing in more theatres this year. Every film is better on the big screen, but some benefit more than others. Die Hard really benefits.”
reinforces the fact that I feel exactly the same way about the great golden oldie-but-goody movie musical classic, West Side Story. How I wish WSS would play in more theatres more often this year, and forever. The MGM adage “Unlike other classics, West Side Story grows younger” is so true.
This, too:
“The original "Die Hard” looks more and more like a classic Hollywood blockbuster—“classic” as in something that was uncommonly well done for its time and has held up unexpectedly well. "
could be said for West Side Story.
The Albany Palace Theatre is another beautiful theatre, very baroque-looking inside, yet a little bit old-looking, too, which is one of the beauties of movie palaces like this. I drove out to Albany from Boston to see a screening of the film “West Side Story”, and had a wonderful time. After the movie, I spent the night at the nearby Hampton Inn Suites, and then headed home the next day. after exploring the city for a little while.
Without having seen any of the “Die Hard” Series, unfortunately, JSA, the failure of sequels to match the original is all too common, although there have been some notable exceptions. Superman I and Superman II were both very good, as were Spiderman I and Spiderman II. I didn’t go to see any of the other ones, because, as I figured they would be, the other sequels to both Superman and Spiderman were disastrous failures.
The Somerville Theatre in Davis is another cool place, and I’m glad that it, too, along with the Coolidge Corner Theatre, was saved from the wrecking ball. I’ve seen some cool movies there, including:
THE DEPARTED
PAN’S LABYRINTH
SHREK III
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
and afew others.
I’ve also seen Arlo Guthrie live in concert, in the big main theatre—he was really cool.
A year ago last March, there was a singalong screening of the film West Side Story. What a wonderful afternoon it was. It was a pleasure to be in line and in the audience with all the other WSS movie-goers, and, it was great sitting on the balcony. The main theatre of the Somerville Theatre, in addition to being one of two theatres left here in this area that has a balconied theatre, is also quite baroque-looking inside, as a real movie-theatre palace generally is. Wonderful for a movie
experience. It’s also the only moviehouse around that one can get in for under 9 or ten dollars, even in the evening. Hope it stays that way. Does anybody know, btw, if they still have the policy of not letting kids under 8 years of age into the theatre for evening shows? Just curious.
I remember going to the Assembly Square AMC (then Lowes) cinema a number of times, even to late shows by myself. One day, about a year ago, when I was perusing the Arts/Movies section of the Boston Globe, I noticed that the Assembly Square Lowes Cinema wasn’t there anymore. Not long after that, I heard from somebody that AMC had bought that particular theatre and for whatever reason, didn’t want to keep it, and that there’d been some discussion of the possibility of building a new cinema to take its place. I’m sort of hoping, (though it’s just wishful thinking on my part), that, if it does get renovated into a new cinema, that it gets renovated into a movie theatre that plays independent film, and older classics, etc., as opposed to the schlock that most theatres play nowadays.
Yet, at the same time, that area could get kind of wierd. Audiences were often quite rude, and, yes, the theatre did start looking kind of grubby and run-down shortly before it closed. Since the mall pretty much closed down, it began to lose customers, I think, too.
What a sweet story, Ian-AdoraKiaOra!! Thanks for sharing it with us.
It would be cool to get more of them back here in the Bay State, also. The only drive-in here in the Bay State is in Mendon, MA, which is way west of us, out in the central part of the state, really.
During the summer of 1962, when I was due to enter the sixth grade in the fall, my sister and I attended day camp out west for six weeks, where weekly trips to see movies were a regular thing. I remember seeing films such as “The Music Man”, Merril’s Marauders, Bon Voyage, and a number of others. This was also the summer that I got introduced to the great musical West Side Story. One girl in the group that I was in received a copy of the LP album soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of the group. The kids would be singing all the songs from WSS on the bus, both to and from camp every day, and it was cool. I immediately fell in love with the music of WSS, although I didn’t see the movie
until it was several years out of date, and shortly before it went on TV; around Christmaastime of 1968, as a high school senior. I fell in love with the film instantly, and have been hooked on it since. heh.
Probably the best thing to do then, is to bring an extra sweater in case the auditorium is really, really cold. At the ( no longer existing) 733 Theatre on Boston’s Boylston Street, I heard a wierd story from my parents who’d gone there at one point. It was a hot sultry summer’s day, the box-office person had sold more tickets than there were seats available in that theatre, and the A/C was malfunctioning, to boot. It was so hot that people were taking their shirts off—in a public movie theatre yet!
I love this site too. Heh.
North by Northwest is a cool film. Although I first saw it when it was first out of date, I enjoyed it immensely also. I also enjoyed “The Birds”, despite warnings by the theatre box-office person that, since I own a small green macaw, that my attitudes towards birds would be adversely changed forever. Not so!! I’ve seen “the Birds” a couple of times and still love my McGee (the Noble Macaw). I’ve seen “The Birds” in the Brattle Theatre, as well as North by Northwest, which I also saw in college at the B. U. Theatre when they still showed movies.
It seems to me that pretty much all movies were theatre movies before going on TV, being videoized, or made into DVD’s, no?
Here’s a question, though, TheaterBuff1: Wouldn’t the MobMov idea eventually help to kill off the movie theater business? DVD and video have helped do just that. Also, the disadvantage of such an idea as MobMov is that it seems like it can only be done during the warm weather, so how well it would work here in the northeast during the colder winter months, when people don’t go outdoors at night much, if at all. Also, if it’s raining, or an electrical storm is happening, outdoor movies have to be cancelled.
Looks like a cute little theatre. The sad thing about movie theaters is that most all of the movie theatres here in the United States, and even throughout the world are either closed or have been demolished. I still remember when pretty much every town and/or neighborhood used to have its own movie theatre, and, in towns like the one that I grew up in, there were movie theatres in at least two of the towns that abutted ours that we ended up going to, and, sometimes, for both good and awful, seeing other kids that we knew at those theatres, particularly on a Saturday afternoon or evening. Now, with rare exceptions, movie palaces don’t exist anymore, and, for the most part, there are the antiseptic, sterile-looking multiplex box theatres that’re just off various highway exits, where people from various towns go to, and there’s no intimacy to anymore. I still remember waiting to get into a movie and waiting in a line that wound all the way around the block. Sometimes we’d get in and other times not. I guess people don’t want to wait outside anymore, either.
There were a number of classic revival/repertory movie art houses in our area too, as late as the 1980’s, but most of them too, either went the way of Cinema heaven, or were bought out by the big cinema franchise/chains, such as AMC, Showcase, etc.
Since I recently resumed posting here on CinemaTreasures after not having posted here for sometime, I realize that I’m sort of late to the party, but I still remember that awful day. 9/11/01 started out as an ordinary day for me, and when I heard about the horrific attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center Towers, and later, the Pentagon, I thought it was all a hoax. However, when I turned on my little TV and saw the horrible footage of the WTC Towers being hit by planes and collapsing, I knew differently. To get to the subject at hand, however; back in mid-August of 2001, shortly before 9/11, I’d just gotten back from an eye-dilation exam when I received a call from some friends of mine who’d lived in Boston but moved down to NYC years ago (and who knew that West Side Story is my favorite film), telling me that there was going to be a special 40th-year anniversary screening of the film West Side Story at Radio City Music Hall in early October, and that many members of the cast would be present. Enthusiastically, and from the bottom of my heart, I said yes when they asked me if I wanted them to send off for some tickets for me. After some snafus, the tickets were obtained.
Saturday, October 6th, 2001, was the big day. Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I drove down from Boston to the Big Apple specially to see it, and to see old friends and relatives. What a Saturday night out that was! Radio City Music Hall was packed with an exuberant, friendly, fingersnappling, applauding crowd (of about 5-6, 000, to be exact), and there was a beautifully remastered, cleaned-up and restored print of WSS. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, and it was fantastic that several thousand people could get together for such a wonderful evening less than a month after the horrific 9/11 attacks. This, imo, is another great example of how to bring people together.
They sure are, Iris. It’s very sad that all these elegant, baroque-looking movie palaces, for the most part, have gone the way of cinema heaven, and been replaced by very sterile-looking and antiseptic multiplex cinemas that show a lot of the schlock that passes these days for art.
It’s true that the previews have become a way of movie life, so to speak. They can be boring, but they’re often used to lure people to the movies. One advantage to the previews,, however, is that if you end up being afew minutes late to a film, the chances are just as good as not, possibly better, that you’ll end up missing some of the previews rather than the feature film itself.
The MobMov idea has caught up a little bit here in our area too, and it seems like such a cool idea. I remember reading/hearing about a couple of experiments like that not too far from where I live—and it seemed to work. Unfortunately, howver, I haven’t heard or read anymore about this neat idea. Outdoor movie programs, however, that’re free to the public, and amount to the same thing, seem to be taking hold more and more, which is good. The Movies by Moonlight program, where there’s a movie every Friday night at the Rowes Wharf Boston Harbor Hotel during the summer months, Friday Night Flicks at the Hatchshell, the Comcast-sponsored outdoor movies program in Somerville, and, more recently, an outdoor film program in at the Devotion School Park in Brookline, have become more popular. Wonderful movies, including WSS, have been shown at the other outdoor theatre programs, although I haven’t been to the outdoor movies program in Brookline yet. If you go to an outdoor film program, where it’s very woodsy, or near the water, or anywhere, it’s good to bring bug-dope, especially because mosquito bites today can be more than just a bit of an irritating annoyance, if one gets the drift. One big disadvantage to outdoor movie or MobMov programs is that if it rains or whatever, they have to cancel the film.
I’ve also seen the film West Side Story outdoors on at least 3 occasions—and it’s really cool. The sounds of the city in the background seem to add a whole new dimension to an already-great classic film.
I remember watching “The Day After” on television back in 1983, too, and my co-workers and I agreed about one thing: It wasn’t scary enough.
Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre, too has some Operas on screen. Cool.
I first saw the film; “2001: A Space Odyssey” 40 years ago, when it first came out. I was a high school kid and, like lots of other films of that era, it had a powerful impact on my imagination. I enjoyed it immensely, seeing it on the great big screen of the now non-existent Charles Cinema in Boston. Afew years later, I saw it again, at the same theatre, also having a wonderful time. Just afew years ago, I saw “2001: A Space Odysssey ” again, this time at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. It was a tad or so more frayed at the edges, if one gets the drift, and I’d forgotten how freaky it was, and I still enjoyed it. I sometimes think about how ‘2001" was more a “back to the future” type of film, and, now that the year 2001 has come and gone, where are we? (lol). However, I admit to one thing: As much as I enjoyed “2001: A Space Odyssey” and have seen it afew times, it doesn’t hold the same special place in my heart regarding movies as the film West Side Story.
That film “Movie Pests” sounds like a nightmare come to life, if one gets the drift. They DO exist in real life. Generally, unless a “movie pest” is really super obnoxious, I tend to ignore him or her the best I can and just concentrate on watching the movie. I remember at least a few incidents when I went to the movies that sort of threw me off, however: Back in the mid-1970’s, at the now-non-existant Orson Welles Cinema, I went to see the movie “The Harder They Come” with my family. It was a wonderful movie, and we all enjoyed it. However, in the back of the theatre, there were a bunch of people in the audience, who, obviously quite stoned, were laughing hysterically at all the sadistic parts of the film. Not pleasant to listen to at all.
Another instance of a “movie pest”, who sort of threw me off was one that I encountered when I went to see a Friday night midnight screening of the film “The Warriors” at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. There was a good crowd of people, many college kids, many who were also just really drunk off their butts. Just behind me was a fairly tall woman, who was clearly drunk and kept kicking the back of my chair. It took some doing, but I managed to finally get her to stop after telling her several times that I didn’t like her kicking m chair. Still more recently, when my sister-in-law and I attended the evening screening of the film “West Side Story” at the Brattle Threatre, there was a woman in the row right behind us (we were on the balcony), who was giggling her fool head off pretty much the whole time, until one of her companions told her to shut up. Since she was from another country and spoke a different language, neither my sister-in-law or I could turn around and tell this woman to be quiet. But, happily, as I said before, her companions finally told the giggling woman to shut up, and she did.