Go to the Movies

This week I want to say a few words in praise of the small single-screen theater. I grew up in a small, windswept farm town in southeastern Idaho. The tallest building in town was two stories, the most popular activity on Friday nights was dragging Main Street, and the town was surrounded by potato fields and lava flows in every direction for a hundred miles. As much as I loved growing up there, it was not what you would call glamorous. But there was one place that did have a little sparkle and excitement to it. The Westwood Theater was a cavernous single screen theater built in 1917 and located right on Main Street. Whether it was the hot, dusty summer or the bitter cold winter, The Westwood was always there, its marquee lit up and gleaming in dim evening light.

There was an actual glassed-in box office window that faced the street that was flanked by frames displaying that week’s movie poster. The lobby was a cozy, little den with a glass concession counter, more movie posters, and even those little velvet rope dividers for people standing in line. The whole place was presided over by the manager, Mr. Wilson, who, with his slicked back hair and impeccably manicured pencil ‘stache looked to a small-town kid like me like a French concierge.

With 430 seats, the theater itself seemed huge. Red velvet curtains covered the screen until it was showtime.  The triangular sconces on the walls would imperceptibly dim and then the massive red curtain over the screen would slowly and ceremoniously rise as the trailers began to play.

I have so many memories of leaving the Westwood through the back alley doors and being punched in the face by Idaho’s winter wind or walking back out into the lobby and being surprised because it was still light at 8:30 on a July evening. Leaving the Westwood, regardless of the movie I saw, I always felt like I had been part of an event. Seeing a movie there was meaningful and important, even if the film wasn’t.

These days, movie watching is an entirely different experience. With DVD and Blu Ray, streaming, and video-on-demand, along with laptops, phones, tablets, and wristwatches that you can watch films on, anyone can watch a movie any time, anywhere. But there’s very little sense of “going to the Movies” with a capital M.

This holiday season, I intend to see as many movies as I can, but I don’t want to just watch a movie – I want to go to the movies. One of the great things about central Michigan is that many small towns still have locally owned single screen theaters on their Main Streets. The Ideal in Clare, the Strand in Caro, the Vassar in Vassar. The bumpy, yellow bulbs and buzzing neon lights of the marquee still invite us in to those den-like lobbies for popcorn, soda, and ridiculously overpriced boxes of M & M’s.

There are disadvantages to theaters like this, of course. They only show one movie at a time, generally, and you don’t get the overwhelming sensory experience of super-ultra-mega digital surround sound or seats that convert into a small bed from IKEA. But in exchange for regular speakers and seats, you get the feeling of going somewhere special, instead of just watching a movie on your laptop in your sweats on your couch while your 5 year old tugs at your sleeve. This holiday, try finding the nearest single screen theater. Get a sitter for the kids, or better yet, take them with you. Get a little dressed up. Maybe grab some dinner at the local diner before the show. Let it be an event. Go out into the cold snowy weather so you can be welcomed into the warm glow of the theater lobby. 

Don’t just watch a movie this Christmas. Go to the Movies.

This review originally appeared on Q90.1. For more information, visit www.deltabroadcasting.org.

Holiday Traditions and Remember the Night

The holidays are a time of tradition. You get together with the same people, sing the same songs, eat the same food, and give the same gifts. It’s comforting, and we love it. Tradition gives a sense of place, belonging, and heritage. There’s nothing wrong with it, I think, until, it calcifies and keeps us from trying new things. I grew up with Christmas ham every December 25^th, but then I got married and was introduced to the idea of Christmas lasagna, which is a tradition from my wife’s family. I was open (as I often am when it comes to carbohydrate laden food) and now it’s a newer tradition for me that I look forward to every Christmas.

Holiday movies are an American tradition that are swiftly becoming calcified, primarily by cable tv. The 24 hour marathons of A Christmas Story and It’s a Wonderful Life, to my mind, sap the specialness of both of those movies. There are only so many times you see Ralphie lose his junk on Scott Farkus or hear George Baily bray “Merry Christmas” across the snowy streets of Bedford Falls before they stop making you feel festive and start making you feel like a drink.

 Some newer movies are becoming holiday regulars. Jon Favreau’s charming Elf and Robert Zemeckis’s exhausting The Polar Express both go into heavy rotation around this time of year. That’s all fine and good, but this Christmas, I suggest something a little older and more classic. Remember the Night was made in 1940 and stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. The two of them starred in three other films, including the spectacular Double Indemnity, but this was their first pairing, and it’s utterly charming. Stanwyck plays Lee Leander, a woman arrested for trying to shoplift a bracelet from New York jewelry store. MacMurray plays the aptly named John Sargent, the district attorney assigned to prosecute her. Sargeant doesn’t like his chances of getting a guilty conviction right before Christmas, so he asks to delay the trial until after the holidays. Stand-up guy that he is, he doesn’t feel right about leaving a lady in the clink for the holidays, so he posts her bail and ends up taking Lee home with him to Indiana.

Once there, the worldly girl from the wrong side of the tracks is enchanted with John’s loving mother, doting aunt, and his silly cousin Willie who is played by Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Winnie the Pooh. Not only that, but Lee falls in love with John, who is a little stiff and clueless but still a really good guy. There are Christmas carols, plenty of laughs, a New Year’s Eve dance, the fateful kiss at midnight, and everything you’d expect from a holiday movie. So why isn’t Remember the Night more remembered? Well, it takes a weird turn at the end. Even though the film is ostensibly a comedy, it gets a little dramatic. I won’t give it away here, but the fact is that Stanwyck’s character is guilty of shoplifting. So it makes for a more ambiguous ending that we usually expect from our family friendly holiday movies. No bell rings at the end of this movie giving some life-saving angel his wings. 

 The main selling point of this film is Stanwyck. Visually, she’s a very slight character, thin and waspish, but her personal steeliness and that unique, slightly sultry voice make her a formidable screen presence. She also had a way with delivering a line that could simultaneously caress you, cuff you upside the head, make you laugh, and break your heart. When John’s mother gently asks her not to ruin her son’s future by falling in love with him, Stanwyck delivers a few lines with more pathos than a silly holiday movie deserves.

Remember the Night is not as classic as It’s a Wonderful Life, but I think it’s an overlooked gem that you ought to track down on TCM or at your local library if you’re interested in trying it out as a new holiday tradition at your house.

This review originally appeared on Q90.1. For more information, visit www.deltabroadcasting.org.

Hobbit Hangover Antidote

Next week will see the release of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and will mark the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth hours of Peter Jackson’s adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books released in theaters. I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy even though it became more about spectacle than story by the third film.  But the Hobbit movies have left me utterly cold. As soon as I heard Jackson was splitting Tolkien’s modestly-sized novel into two and then three three-hour long films, I saw the whole project as a silly attempt to regain former glory. Jackson went from being an Academy Award winning genius with The Return of the King to making films that just wouldn’t catch at the box office. It seemed he became so enamored with the vast technology at his command with his special effects company WETA that he forgot about story, character, and heart. This resulted in The Lovely Bones and the woefully misguided King Kong. Ever want to see a flirty ice skating sequence with a woman and a giant monster gorilla? Nobody did.

Anyway, The Battle of the Five Armies will undoubtedly feature epic battle scenes, epic monsters, epic everything except emotional involvement from me. 

 

If you are like me and aren’t feeling Peter Jackson’s current incarnation as a classier Michael Bay, I recommend a couple of his other films you might want to try this holiday season. They’ll cleanse your palate of Bilbo and Bard and Thorin and help you see Jackson in a new light.

A movie like 1996 ‘s horror comedy The Frighteners is more suited to Halloween than Christmas, but people who like scary movies generally like them year round. The film stars Michael J. Fox in his last big screen role before returning to TV. He plays Frank Bannister, a man with the ability to see and communicate with ghosts.  He and some harmless ghostly friends use his ability to possess and then quote unquote exorcise people’s houses. No one gets hurt, Bannister make a little money, everyone is happy. The problems begin when a not-so-friendly ghost who looks suspiciously like the Grim Reaper begins murdering people around town, and only Frank knows what’s going on.

The film is funny and spooky and effectively uses CGi special effects to enhance the story, not dominate it. The Frighteners is a movie you finish feeling unexpectedly satisfied, rather than sadly deflated. 

 The other Jackson film I highly recommend is hard to track down but well worth the effort. 1995’s Forgotten Silver is a documentary Jackson made for New Zealand television about the forgotten filmmaker, Colin McKenzie. It features Jackson himself uncovering a trove of McKenzie’s movies from the early days of film. The documentary carefully lays out how McKenzie pioneered the use of close-ups, tracking shots, sound, and color years before Hollywood would successfully attempt any of those things. McKenzie was a visionary who disappeared into the New Zealand forests, emerging a year later, having constructed a giant set in the woods where he would film a massive Biblical epic. The documentary features interviews with directors, producers, and film historians who all comment on McKenzie’s importance in the world of filmmaking.

The best part? It’s totally made up. There is no Colin McKenzie and nearly every single thing in the film is fiction. Jackson uses his own love of film history and his technical skill to recreate silent films, war footage, historical photos, and props, and make it all seem completely believable. If you have a film buff on your gift list this holiday, you can’t go wrong with Forgotten Silver. It’s basically a giant, winking love letter to movie making.

Peter Jackson is a talented filmmaker who has overseen some of the most ambitious and lucrative films in history. This holiday, try seeing a couple of the films that got him that job in the first place. 

This review originally appeared on Q90.1. For more information, visit www.deltabroadcasting.org.