2015, My Year in Classic Film – I Wish I Had Done the Math

I don't see a lot of movies in the theater. Scratch that, I don't see a lot of new movies in the theater. This year, I saw a total of six new films in the theater:

• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Avengers: Age Of Ultron
• Jurassic World
• Trumbo
• Hitchcock Truffaut
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens 

It's almost new year, and unless I make it to The Hateful Eight before the 1st, I assume that number is going to hold. This is pretty typical for me. Seeing about six new movies in the theater in a year is probably what I've done every year for the last 10 or more years.

I actually saw over over 64 movies in the theater in 2015. The six new ones account for about 10% of the total. The rest (58) were classic films. I know the number 58 is not correct. I know that there are a few that I'm not thinking of. Hence, I wish I had done the math. My New Year's resolution is to write down all of the movies I see in the theater in 2016. That way, if I decide to do this silliness next year, I won't have to dredge through old schedules, tweets, and blog posts to figure it out. I did attend three classic film festivals in 2015, Universal Suspects, a year long festival showing 31 Universal Monster movies once a month (I saw 11 of them),  the TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF, saw 13), and the Palm Springs Classic Science Fiction Film Festival (saw all 8).

If you exclude the films I saw at festivals, there were still 26 classics to 6 new films, not bad, considering I live in San Diego, not New York or Los Angeles. The 26 films were spread out over 9 venues. 

Four were traditional theaters, showing Fathom Events screenings, or one of their own special screenings where they show an old movie one or two times only. Three were Indy theaters, where they mostly show foreign and Indy films, and only have limited offerings of classic films. One is a tiny outside theater in the back of a restaurant, where you sit on reclining chairs patio chairs with blankets and heaters. This is the only one where they show mostly classics, but they are only open four nights a week during the summer, two or three nights the rest of the year. The last couple of months they switched to showing new movies and have yet to post a schedule for January. The last venue was the Balboa Park Organ Pavilion, The Phantom of the Opera (silent with live organ accompaniment) on Halloween night.

So you're probably wondering why I writing this. Is it just to brag about the movies I've seen? Well, partly. But the other reason is that I want people to know that even if you don't live in a town where they don't have a lot of theaters that show old movies, you should have access to some. I live in San Diego. I'm sure it's better than some cities, but I know for a fact that it is worse than others. 

Fathom Events brings classic films to theaters across the nation. I just checked half a dozen cities, Des Moine, IA, Mobile, AL, Hartford, CT, Omaha, NB, Anchorage, AK, and Medford, OR, and all had screenings scheduled for January. Their web site currently list the classics they will be showing through November 2016:

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Jan 17 and 20)
• The Maltese Falcon (Feb 21 and 24)
• The Ten Commandments (Mar 20 and 23)
• On the Waterfront (Apr 24 and 27)
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (May 15 and 18)
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Jun 26 and 29)
• The Planet of the Apes (Jul 24 and 27)
• The King and I (Aug 28 and 31)
• Dr. Strangelove (Sep 18 and 21)
• The Shining (Oct 23 and 26)
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (Nov 27 and 30)

Some pretty good stuff there. I'm most psyched on The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront, and The Planet of the Apes. The folks who did the Universal Suspects festival are planning a year-long Hammer Horror festival. And I have already bought my passes to TCMFF, so 2016 is looking pretty good.

About three months ago, I started keeping a calendar of all classic films I can find showing in San Diego. I update it once a month. It forces me to scour the internet for screenings. I made it public, but as far as I know I'm the only one using it. There's a link at the top of the page. Just knowing that something is coming up makes me more likely to go out and see it. I now have a number of places I know to look and occasionally I stumble on new ones. The Coronado Island Film Festival is coming up in January, and they will be showing at least some classics including Some Like It Hot. 

Seeing great old films in the theater is wonderful. I know that film festivals are expensive, TCMFF especially so. The cost of travel, hotel, and the festival itself might not be doable for a lot of people. I consider myself very lucky that I can do some. Still, you should be able to take in the Fathom Events screenings unless you live in the middle of nowhere. I can't help you with that. 

Look around, you never know what you may find. October tends to be a good month as a lot of places will show horror movies for Halloween. Summers you might be able to find movies in the park. The local library might show film noir or a university might show schlocky science fiction. It's worth the effort to see these films the way they were meant to be seen on the big screen with an audience. Even films, you don't like all that well tend to be better, and by supporting those who show them, you encourage them to do more.

In case you're wondering, the 26 films are listed below. Two are from the 1990s (The Iron Giant, 1999, is the newest, a classic in my book), four are from the 1980s, and two are from the 1970s. The rest are all 1960s or older:

• Roman Holiday
• The Good The Bad and The Ugly
• Dr. Zhivago
• All About Eve
• The Phantom Of the Opera
• Dracula
• Dracula [Spanish Language version]
• Duel
• The Black Cat
• Dial M for Murder
• An American Werewolf in London
• Rafifi
• Dead Ringer
• Strait Jacket
• Duck Soup
• Iron Giant
• The Third Man
• Jaws
• Double Indemnity
• Top Gun
• Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
• The Sound Of Music
• Sunset Blvd.
• Once Upon a Time in the West
• Blade Runner: The Final Cut
• The Shawshank Redemption

Prime Rib and Joan Crawford

Last night we went to dinner at a place I had never been to, despite having driven past hundreds of times. We used to live with my wife's mother in Southeast San Diego. This is a predominantly black and Latino area, and there really isn't much there other than the mom and pop liquor stores and taco shops (actually marginally better now than it used to be in that respect).

When we went shopping or wanted takeout food, we almost always went to National City, which borders San Diego to the south and was only about 8 blocks from where we lived.  The main north-south street in that part of National City is Highland Avenue. We used to call it eater's row, because it has every fast food known to man on it. About where all of the fast-food places start of give way to more normal businesses, there is a restaurant called Cafe La Maze, a place that looks like it's been there forever, because, well, it kinda has, at least by San Diego standards. 

I always assumed it was a sit-down Mexican place. La Maze to me sounds vaguely Spanish, and in San Diego, that usually means Mexican food. I would have never guessed that it was a steakhouse, nor that it was a haunt for old guard Hollywood. Cafe La Maze opened in 1940 and catered to Hollywood, stars such as  Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, and Johnny Weissmuller. Back then, that stretch of Highland Avenue would have been the road you took south to the horse races at Agua Calliente in Tijuana. According to the web site, they even had a secret gambling room upstairs.

Our friend Anastasia suggested we go when she found out the place was classic film related. The place is definitely old school, red velvet wallpaper and pictures of classic film stars above each booth. The food was excellent. I had a rib eye and everyone else had prime rib in a booth with a young Joan Crawford watching us eat. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night three days before Christmas. 

Dial M for Murder in 3D

Last night, I had a chance to see Dial M for Murder in the theater. It's not my favorite Hitchcock movie. I don't think it would even crack the top 10. Still, how often do you get to see Hitchcock in the theater, so I went. They were showing it in 3D, which I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way for, but originally they released the film in 3D, so I figured, what the hey. 

Now, I have to say I'm not real big on 3D. I'm old. When I was young, 3D involved cardboard glasses that had blue and red cellophane lenses. It really more weird than 3D. What Avatar came out, I didn't bother to see it in 3D. Why should I? It wasn't that great of a movie in regular D. Why would I pay extra to see it a second time in 3D? Of course, after that, the movie industry went completely ape shit on 3D. Still, you had the option of regular D or 3D, and I always went for regular D. The result was that, aside from a demo at the Sony Store, the only real modern 3D I've ever seen was "Captain Eo" at Disneyland probably 20 years ago. Then again, that was basically a long music video with cutesy aliens floating above your head.

This was a new experience for me. I would like to say that it was incredible seeing Grace Kelly on the big screen and in 3D. I would like to say that it felt like I could just reach out and touch her boobs. But I can't. It was kind of a cool effect. When you looked at Grace Kelly, she was clearly at a different object on a different plane than what was in the background or the foreground if she was standing in front of a desk or something. Very cool, and on a certain level, quite impressive. And when she reached out toward the audience like in the poster above, it sort of looked like her hand was coming toward you. But mostly, it just looked weird. On the whole, it was distracting. And annoying. And when I left the theater, I felt slightly sick in the stomach. I guess I'll give it another 20 years before I do 3D again. Maybe, by then, they'll have figured out the boob thing.

24-Hour NoirAThon Fundraiser for Theater Marquee

The good folks at Film Geeks and Digital Gym Cinema in San Diego are having a 24-Hour NoirAThon fundraiser July 3 to get a real marquee for this small independent theater. It works sort of like one of those marathons you used to do in high school where you would run a certain number of miles to raise money for the cross-country team. Although technically the sponsorship levels are based on the names of the films being watched, and not how many they get through. Still, the idea is roughly the same. 

On-board as the main sponsor is and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The Film Geeks contacted TCM in hopes of getting permission to stream TCM's July 3, Summer of Darkness Film Noir offerings. TCM graciously agreed to match dollar for dollar (up to $5000) all donations to the event (through indiegogo.com). They also granted permission to stream TCM at Digital Gym Cinema for the NoirAThon.

The funds will go toward a real theater marquee for the venue, including installation, permits, etc. The Digital Gym Cinema is a cool little theater but looking at it from the street, it is a bit of a mystery. It doesn't scream movie theater. In fact, it kind of screams, I wonder what's going on in there. This is what it currently looks like from the street:

But inside is a sweet little theater:

To sweeten the pot, they set a mini-goal of $1200 by the end of the day today (assuming that would be Midnight Pacific time, June 29). If they hit that goal, Miguel Rodriguez (@HIFFSD) has agreed to post a video of himself in drag in his best Noir Femme Fatalle style. Fortunately, he has the gams for it. I just threw a few coins in the kitty, and they are now less than $200 away from the minigoal

Beth Accomando (@cinebeth) and Miguel Rodriguez (@HIFFSD) will be live tweeting during the event using the hashtags #NoirSummer and #TCMParty. The cinema will be open for people who want to join them. I plan to join them for at least part of the time, and hopefully, my 15-year-old partner in crime, Jasmine (@CineBopper) will be joining us as well. I might even be tapped for a food run from one of the food and drink sponsors Bread and Cie, Trails Eatery, Pizzeria Luigi's, and Lightning Brewery, who are making sure Beth and Miguel won't starve during the 24-hour NoirAThon.

To donate, go to:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/24-hour-noirathon-film-geeks-investigate-darkness#/story

Near Perfect Weekend

Last weekend was pretty darn close to perfect. A little bit more running around than I like, but well worth the effort. The Ken Cinema was playing different a classic movie each day, starting Friday. I'm on track to see all but the last two. Friday night was Sunset Blvd., which I have never seen in the theater. It was way funnier than I expected. The narration and dialog is very biting. At its heart, the film is really a tragedy, so you kind of feel guilty laughing at it.

We had to move some furniture Saturday morning but it ended up being less of a pain than I expected. In the afternoon, I took my 14-year-old daughter to see Blade Runner, The Final Cut. This is one of those films that I watch once or twice a year, but my daughter had never seen it. I'm sure I've seen all of the various incarnations of the film through the years, but even having just seen the film and read the Wikipedia page, I would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between the Final Cut and the 1990s Director's Cut.

I hadn't seen the film in the theater in a lot of years (possibly 10 or more, might have even been when they re-released as the Director's Cut). It was spectacular as I expected. I actually started to tear up when Roy Batty died. I wasn't expecting that. Now, my daughter, she realizes that there are a lot of Science Fiction films she needs to see if only for upping her geek cred. I had asked if she had wanted to see any of the films I was seeing this weekend, and for that reason, she picked Blade Runner and bowed out on the others. She said she had too much homework that weekend to go any of the others. All of the dedication and desire to do well in school that was totally lost on our son showed up in her in spades. Good girl.

Her reaction to the film was, it was okay, which I can totally understand. Don't get me wrong, I love the film, but I really don't think there is much of the story. I'm not one of those who ascribe to there being a lot of deep symbolism in the film. I'll admit that there is symbolism, but I feel like it is just dumped into a box and poured all over the movie and not tied up in any meaningful way. What makes it great is that the visuals are so good. I love to watch and let it wash over me. And to this day, three decades after its release, it still holds up. I explained this to her, and I think she got it. I thought it was kind of cool that she had almost the same initial reaction to Blade Runner that I did. For those keeping track, her Tweetable review of Blade Runner was:

I've never felt so threatened by boiled eggs.

That night, my wife and I went to the Goth nightclub we go dancing at. That night, they had two rooms running, the front room with mostly newer Goth music, which my wife loves and is a bit hit or miss for me, and the back room with a mix of 80s New Wave-ish dance music and older Goth and Industrial, which I'm more into, well, that and heavy-ish women in corsets. As usual, we spent most of our time in opposite rooms, and occasionally going back and forth between the two.

It was a good night for both of us. The front room had a guest DJ, which is usually either good or horribly bad. That night, it was good. For me, if they play a lot of 80s music and don't screw it up in the remix, I'm happy. That night was mostly good for me as well. If I had a complaint, it would be that it seemed like every third song was, Depeche Mode, not that I have a big problem with that, but there are other bands of that ilk to choose from. The next day my wife told me that she was trying to dance with some guy, but every time she got a chance I showed up and scared him away. Should I be worried? No, not really.

I ended up sleeping in, which I never do. It was rainy, so that made sleeping in all the better. When I woke up, I got coffee and was surprised how crowded it was in the coffee shop. I'm always in two hours earlier. I had a late breakfast and caught about the last 10 minutes of The Maltese Falcon, teach me to sleep in. I read the paper, my Sunday ritual and ran a quick errand. At 12:30, we (my wife and I this time) went to see Once Upon a Time in the West. This is a movie that I have only seen the first time in the last couple of years and have only seen once or twice since. Of course, this was the first viewing in the theater, such a great movie.

We were going with our friend, Didi, who is one of my few close friends, who is an even bigger movie snob than I am. Over the previews, he whispered about how our daughter liked Blade Runner. I whispered back her thoughts. I think all four of us fall in the visually very cool movie, but kind of short on story camp for Blade Runner. As expected, Once Upon a Time in the West was great. The opening sequence is so cool. It's about 12-minutes long. Woody Strode, Jack Elam, and Al Mulock show up at a train station to wait for someone. There is probably three minutes worth of closeups of Jack Elam, as he wiggles and scrunches his face to get rid of a fly that he is too cool, too mean, or too tough to swat at with his hand. The sequence does virtually nothing to advance the story other than to build tension about who is going to be getting off the train. Most directors would get through it as quick as possible. Sergio Leone dwells on it, and his film is that much better because of it. 

It's also great to see Charles Bronson in a good role. Usually, he just shoots people. Technically, he does shoot a lot of people here, but at least, here he is doing so in a really good movie and gets to act as well. Henry Fonda is great as well. It's so weird seeing him be a vicious killer. I always think of Henry Fonda as the father we all wish we had. Here, he's more like the father Charles Manson wishes he had. Pretty awesome.

With the late breakfast and no time for lunch before the 12:30 movie, we were famished by the time it got out. Now, Didi is what we affectionately call, a food whore. It doesn't matter what part of town you are in, he knows of a reasonably priced place that is insanely good. We figured we could tap into that culinary database he keeps in his head. He suggested a Thai place about 10 blocks away. We got there, but it was closed. We continued on another 10 or 12 blocks and ended up at a little hole in the wall called, Swine and Soda. Various items with meatballs and frou frou sodas. I got a meatball sandwich, goat cheese potato puree, and a Strawberry Crush (not exactly frou frou, but they were out of the three or four things listed on their sign board, and I didn't want to spend 5 minutes ordering a soda). Oh my god, it was the best sandwich.

Finally, the weekend ended with the Fathom Events screening of The Wizard of Oz. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't that psyched, not because I don't like The Wizard of Oz or Fathom Events or anything, but I had seen it in the theater in August. I really didn't need to see it again that soon, but my friend, Ned wanted to go. I figured, what the heck. It was fun and spectacular as expected, but I do have to say, my favorite part was seeing my Twitter #TCMParty home girls, @CitizenScreen and @IrishJayhawk66 on the big screen in the TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF) promo that they ran before the file. You go, girls.

Post-script
I ended up seeing two more classic films at the Ken as well, It Happened One Night (Monday) and Yojimbo (Tuesday). If you're counting that makes six classic films in the theater in five days, not bad for a place like San Diego, not exactly the film Mecca of the universe. I like to think of that as training for TCMFF.

Big Screen Safari

As you can probably gather, I love old movies, and there is really nothing like seeing them in the theater with an audience. This was driven home this year when I went to the TCM Classic Film Festival for the first time, 16 great movies over 4 days with the time in between spent geeking out with other people who love old movies just as much as I do.

Naturally, coming back to just watching them on TV was kind of a let-down. The thing is I live a pretty decent sized city, San Diego, but it's no L.A. or New York. There isn't what you would call a thriving classic film scene. Then again, it's not non-existent either, but you do have to hunt around to find it.  In the months of August and September, I managed to see 8 classic film on the big screen, but to find classic films you may need to venture outside of the multiplex. Of the eight movies, I saw two a piece at four different venues:

• AMC Mission Valley 20 – Straight-up multiplex, but on occasion, they do special screenings of classic movies; you want to see more of this, you have to support them

• Arclight La Jolla – While technically this is a multiplex as well, it's what I call a boutique theater, bar/cafe in the lobby, and they have an ongoing series, Arclight Presents, where they show classic and foreign films, usually one showing only

• Cinema Under the Stars – This is most unusual venue of the bunch, films are shown on about a 20-foot screen on the patio of a restaurant; you sit in reclining patio chairs and are provided with a pillow and a blanket; bonus, each film is shown with a classic cartoon at the beginning

• Ken Cinema - Old neighborhood theater from the 1940s run by the Landmark Theater chain and recently converted to digital; yes, I know you want film on film but it's the 21st Century, you need to be able to show digital to survive

So what were the films?

• The Godfather [Ken Cinema] – The Ken had almost closed, and to celebrate remaining open, they had a week-long festival of movies from the 60s and 70s

• The Wizard of Oz [Arclight La Jolla] – Part of the Arclight Presents series, always a treat to see The Wizard of Oz in the theater, next time, I'm bringing Pink Floyd and headphones

• The Great Escape [Ken Cinema] – Not a huge fan of War movies, but The Great Escape is just so good

• Ghostbusters [AMC Mission Valley] – Does this really count as a classic? In my book, yes, and it was being rereleased as part of its 30th anniversary

• Rear Window [Cinema Under the Stars] – My first time at the venue and gotta say, I dig it; they announced that they will continue through December

• M [Arclight La Jolla] - Had never seen this movie, oh my God, so good, a new favorite

• Casablanca [Cinema Under the Stars] – My number one all-time favorite film, would watch this movie on the big screen once a week if I could, although might get sick of it after a year or so

• Gone With the Wind [AMC Mission Valley, courtesy of TCM and Fathom Events] – Granddaddy of all classic films; mostly packed theater, there were empty seats but if you wanted two together you had to be in the front rows, hope to see more things like this in the future

So what's on the bill for next month? Well, it is October, so checking the usual suspects, looks like mostly horror. These are just the ones I'm most likely to see:

• Psycho Arclight La Jolla  or Cinema Under the Stars 

• Young Frankenstein Again Arclight La Jolla  or Cinema Under the Stars 

• From Dusk Till Dawn –  Okay, probably not a classic, but 1996 is now pushing 20 years, and it is Robert Rodriguez and Quintin Tarentino, besides, my blog, my rules

• Blazing Saddles  as a midnight movie, okay, takes a lot to get me motivated to see a midnight movie these days, then again Blazing Saddles is a lot of motivation

Now, I know you're thinking, what's my point? Is it just to make people jealous of all the cool stuff I've seen lately? Okay, partly, yeah. But the real point is, if you want to see classic movies in the theater, you might need to hunt for them. Try googling, classic film and [name of city you live in]. You never know what will turn up. Maybe, the local university is having a Film Noir festival, or the central library is showing schlocky Horror movies Thursday nights in October. The point is that classic films are out there, you just need to hunt for them. To steal a line from one of my favorite films of the 90s, L.A. Story, you just might "need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them."

Three Classic Films, Big Screen, One Week

Okay, the one week might be pushing it. It started last Friday and ended last night Thursday. Seven days is probably more accurate, but you know what, seven days is a week, so that's what I'm going with. My last post was about how a local single screen movie theater from from the late 1940s had been saved from closing. Woohoo. In celebration, they had a week-long festival of films from the 60s and 70s. Of the eight films, they showed, there were three that I really wanted to see and  I actually got to see two of them (the third was playing the same night as another film I'd already bought tickets for.

First up, was The Godfather at the Ken Cinema. Great film. It's one of those films that I always watch when it comes on TV though I never go out of my way to watch it on DVD, even though I'm sure we own it. I had never seen it on the big screen, and that was a huge treat.

Next up, was The Wizard of Oz at the Arclight, La Jolla. This is the film that I had already bought tickets for and caused me to miss the other film I want to see Sorcerer. Still, an okay trade-off. I had wanted to see both Sorcerer and The Wizard of Oz at the TCM Film Festival, but had ended up wanting  to something else more. Kind of weird that both films would be playing opposite each other one night only the same night, but that's the way things work sometimes. I had seen The Wizard of Oz in the theater back in the 80s, but getting to see again, in the theater, a fresh restoration, not in 3D, sweet.

Finally, back to The Ken for The Great Escape. What a great movie. I definitely had never seen this in the theater. I tend to not be real big on War movies, but The Great Escape is one of my favorite exceptions. Of course, now I want to see Stalag 17 in the theater. 

I can't remember the last time I saw three movies in the theater in a week. Okay, TCM Film Festival, but that doesn't really count. Anyway, huge props to the two organizations that made it happen.

Landmark Theaters – Thank you for keeping The Ken up and running. I'm hoping that the 60s/70s film festival was successful enough to make you want to do more things like that again. It would be great to see things like maybe a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder (you did notice Stalag 17 above) Hint! Or maybe something like Screwball Comedies or Universal Monster movies. If it helps, I really want to see, Take Me to the River and A Letter to Momo. I don't think I would have even known about these, had I not been lured there for The Godfather and The Great Escape.

Arclight Theaters – Your Arclight Presents series rocks. Godzilla: The Japanese Original earlier this year and of course The Wizard of Oz were great. Hoping to squeeze in Ghostbusters this weekend, and Princess Mononoke and M next month.

Keep it coming.

Batman, Don Corleone, and Social Media Losing Their Shittedness

Seems like every now and then, something happens and all of Facebook friends decide to completely lose their shit all at once. Thinking back, it's happened twice in the last year or so. I try to stay out of these things unless I have vested interest.

The first was when the announced that Ben Affleck was going to play Batman.

Oh

My

God

My friends completely lost their minds over this. My thought was two words, Michael Keaton:

Oh, and two more words, Val Kilmer. We survived Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer Batmans. We'll survive Ben Affleck too. My friends take casting of Batman movies way too seriously. When they start making Batman movies that stand up to a single 22 minute of this:

Then I'll start taking Batman casting seriously.

The next time my Facebook circle of friends completely lost their collective minds was about four months ago when it was announced that the Ken Cinema would be closing. The Ken is one of the last remaining historic movie theaters in San Diego county (at least that still shows movies anyway). Online sources vary, but from what I gather, the Ken Cinema was opened in 1947. The building that houses it is older, 1912, about the same time that most of the houses in the neighborhood were built.

In the overall scheme of things, The Ken was not a grand movie palace from Golden Age of Cinema. It was, however, a nice neighborhood theater that had managed to survive as a single screen theater in the Cineplex era. As such, that made it kind of special, I was sad to see it go. I knew that it would probably end up a Starbucks or something. Still, I did not jump on the Oh My God The Ken Is Going Out Of Business, We Have to Save It Bandwagon, mostly because I know that it had been like 10 years since I'd seen a movie there. I would feel like a hypocrite if I publicly mourned the death of a business I had not patronized in a decade.

Years ago, okay, let's be honest here, more than a decade ago, when I used go see movies at The Ken, they would do a mix of foreign movies, small independent films, and classics. It's safe to say that I was a lot more into the classics than the foreign and independent films, and these had all but vanished from their schedule. I probably can't complain too much though. It is after all a business, and I'm sure that if classic films packed them in, I'm sure they would have shown them more regularly. I think the last film I saw there was a Bubblegum Crisis (Japanese anime) film. It was a long movie (well over two hours) and the 50-some-year-old seats did not make for a positive movie experience.

As with most social media uproars, the reality of the situation probably did not warrant the outcry that surrounded it. At the heart of it was a rental/lease negotiation between Landmark Theaters, the company that runs The Ken, and the whoever owns the building as well as the cost of converting the old theater to digital to remain viable in 2014. 

#######

Fast forward to Friday of last week. By that point, it had all worked out. A friend mentioned that The Ken was doing a retrospective of films from the 60s and 70s. I googled it, and it turns out, the theater had converted to digital and would continue to be a movie theater, hooray! 

Not only had a cool old theater been saved from becoming a frappuccino dispensary, they were showing classic movies again. Topping the week-long event, at least in my mind was, The Godfather, scheduled that night. Now, on almost any other Friday, my wife would have gladly gone to see The Godfather in the theater with me, but she already had a Girls Night Out scheduled. Fair enough. So I started texting/e-mail people to see if anyone wanted to go. I also posted a note on Facebook about it, but I'll get to that later. 

My first thought was a couple friends, the husband and roommate of the woman hosting said Girls Night Out (they were being kicked out anyway). Turns out, they had already made plans to go see Guardians of the Galaxy. Again, fair enough. Next thought, was a friend who was more into films of any type than I am. He already had plans as well. My next thought was my best friend/old roommate. This I knew was a shot in the dark. He works at a nightclub; so him being free on a Friday night with no notice was not likely to happen. I was not at all surprised that he had to work.  I texted my 19-year-old son. If it had been Bubblegum Crisis (or any other anime), he would be on it like white on rice, but a film made 20 years before he was born, not so much. He declined. At this point, I'm starting to run out of options....

#######

Back to Facebook

Now bear in mind that four months earlier, literally dozens of people in my Facebook feed were up in arms about the loss of a San Diego cultural landmark, the Ken Cinema, so Friday afternoon, circa 1:30 pm, when I posted the following:

So The Godfather is playing at The Ken tonight at 8:30. I've never seen it in the theater, anyone up for it?

I kind of expected something other than the following response: [Crickets]. Well, almost, this is what I really got:

• Friend 1 (along with my wife) – Clicked Like.

• Friend 2 – Said, not even exaggerating, that he could drive to Las Vegas faster than it would take to get through L.A., Orange County, and San Diego traffic to get to The Ken, but mentioned that he had seen both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II at The Ken, back before they had redone the seats.

• "Friend" 3 – Said something snarky, unfunny, and negative, because that's what he does.

• Friend 4 – Who lives more than an hour away, said he had been in San Diego the night before for a concert, but was really jealous.

• Friend 5 – Said she would love to go but needed more notice.

So with the possible exception of the snarky unfunny negative "friend," I don't think any of these people were involved in the Oh My God The Ken Is Going Out Of Business, We Have to Save It thing.

#######

I ended up going with my 14-year-old daughter. It was either that or go by myself. I was a little worried. The Godfather would be a little rough at 14. I know she watches things like The Cabin in the Woods, but The Godfather's different. I figured I'd leave it up to her. I asked if she wanted to go, and she said she has wanted to see it some time anyway, so we were on. She's got a good head on her shoulders, and I was pretty sure she'd be okay with it. I'll close with her review of the film:

Corleone family: Fuck you

Other families: Fuck you

Corleone family: Is that your final answer?

Other families wake up traumatized and dead.

She also said she wanted to slap Francis Ford Coppola. And hug him. So yeah, she was just fine with it.