Tag Archives: entertainment

Friday Comments About Monday

Posted on March 16, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Well, here it is Lame Post Friday and once again, I got nothing. And not plenty o’ nuthin’, like in that song in Porgy and Bess. But I do have a comment about another song that I was thinking about earlier in the week.

I don’t know who sings it or what the real name of the song is, but it starts, “Monday, Monday,” and goes on to some words I can’t understand very well so don’t remember. The gist of it is Monday is no good to the guy singing because, “Monday morning couldn’t guarantee/ That Monday evening you would still/ Be here with me.” My apologies if I misquote. I haven’t actually heard the song in a while, but it was playing in my head all day one day.

And it was really annoying me! Come on, guy, better to have loved and lost! Who spends a relationship saying, “Oh, I hope we don’t break up before nightfall!” I suppose some do, but then the singer goes on to say, “Every other day (every other day, every other day) of the week is fine, yeah!” What? Tuesday et al. can guarantee that the girl will still be there in the evening? What kind of chick is this that only breaks up on a Monday?

I suppose somebody will argue that Monday is the most stressful day of the week, at least for Monday through Friday workers. If you’re going to have a messy break up, it might as well be on a Monday (oh, I know, nowhere in the song does he say it will be messy; I’m just extrapolating). Maybe there is something special on Monday, or even this particular Monday, that I don’t know because I never listened to all the words in the song (which is unusual for me). Just get through Monday! Then we’ll be together forever! After all, who am I to judge other people’s relationships?

I think it is more likely that someone will argue, “Lighten up, Cindy, it’s JUST a SONG!”

And Friday is just a day. And now that I’ve made my Lame Post, I’m going to go enjoy what’s left of it.

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Crazy Good Show

Posted on March 10, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I spent the first part of Act I of The Crazy Time at Ilion Little Theatre worried my husband might leave me for a younger woman. I spent the second part kind of hoping he would.

Just only kidding, Steven!

Last night (Friday, March 8), we went to Ilion Little Theatre (ILT) to see The Crazy Time, written by Sam Bobrick and directed by Julianne C. Allen. The play deals with what problems can ensue when a man leaves his wife of over 30 years for a young chippie. Julianne promised giggles in a Facebook post earlier this week, and the show delivers.

I don’t want to tell you too much about the characters and the plot, because I think it is funnier to let it unfold before you. I didn’t know much about it beyond the above paragraph, and I was thoroughly entertained.

Christopher Casey plays Miles, the 50-something man trying to keep up with his 30-years-younger chippy wife (I can call her a chippy; I’m almost 50 myself). He has a challenging part, because he is on stage for practically the whole show. He does a fine job with it.

George Malavasic also does a fine job, making a character who is really kind of a slime bucket be actually pretty likable. Malavasic gets some of the best laughs of the evening. Also getting a lot of laughs was Raphael DeLorenzo, who has been in several ILT productions. I had the pleasure of being on stage with him in Harvey, when he played the brilliant, buttoned-down Dr. Sanderson. I’ll just say he has quite a different part in this play.

Speaking of laughter, I was so impressed with Jennifer Brown, a newcomer to the ILT stage for her ability in that area. It is WAY harder to laugh on stage than to cry (I’ve done both). Brown goes off into peals of delightful laughter, sounding completely natural.

I have to admit, though, my favorite character was Kate, Miles’ dumped wife, played by Julianne Allen. Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 50 myself, but to see the divorced, older woman so sexy and sure of herself did my heart good.

The play continues today, Saturday, March 9 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 10 at 2 p.m. at The Stables, Remington Avenue, Ilion, NY 13357. For more information you can visit their website at www.ilionlittletheatre.org. You can also like them on Facebook.

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And I’m Still Mad About the Dog

Posted on February 19, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert: I am pretty much going to recount most of the plot of today’s movie. I feel no qualms of conscience in doing so, because the only reason to watch this movie is Lionel Barrymore’s performance and you can enjoy that in any case.

Calling Dr. Gillespie also stars Donna Reed as a young and beautiful girl about to graduate from some girls boarding school somewhere. At the beginning of the movie she is meeting her young man. Donna’s father has at last consented to their engagement (cue romantic sigh from Donna’s young, impressionable roommate).

The fiance wants to elope right away, but Donna’s father has stipulated that she must finish school first (Yay, Dad, insisting on education! I’m a little sorry we never meet that character).

“I always get my way,” says Fiance with that demure, psycho look you often see in these movies.

“Not this time,” Donna tells him gently. He immediately kills a perfectly nice dog with a rock.

What the hell! I saw the dog and had fears for its well-being, but I hoped the poor thing would make it to the second reel at least. Donna is also upset, but not as upset as me, because she does not immediately terminate the engagement. She asks advice of the understanding headmistress, who recommends a psychiatric evaluation. She calls Dr. Gillespie (Barrymore), in hopes that it can be done so discreetly that even the fiance doesn’t know about it.

Dr. Gillespie calls in a brilliant young surgeon on staff at the same hospital. This young man wants to branch out into psychiatry but has so far been denied by the head of the hospital. The two of them go to the girls school. While Dr. Gillespie holds court with a number of fascinated young girls, Brilliant Surgeon takes Donna and the Fiance for a walk and asks some questions so subtle even I didn’t know what he was getting at.

Dr. Gillespie, Donna and Brilliant Surgeon meet with Fiance’s parents and family doctor. Fiance might be a mental case, our heroes say. Nonsense, says Family Doctor. Who do you think the parents believe?

Luckily, another demonstration of Fiance’s mental imbalance soon follows. No animals are harmed, but he smashes the window of a toy store and wrecks a plane, muttering threats against Dr. Gillespie.

So Family Doctor prescribes a long rest and a trip somewhere. Fiance smiles charmingly from the bed and says he feels fine. He doesn’t remember anything about the dog or the toy plane. As soon as he’s left alone he smashes Donna Reed’s picture and escapes out the window.

In talking with Donna, Brilliant Surgeons realizes that what triggers Fiance’s episodes of madness is the sound of a train whistle. You know, I don’t think the Hollywood screenwriters involved ever took a psychiatry course in their lives. For one thing, I never herd another train whistle for the rest of the picture, but Fiance kills two random guys to get a hot car to impress a dime-a-dance girl he’s trying to make time with.

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that a little inconsistent? Smashing a poor dog or a shop window because you’re frustrated and hear a train whistle strikes me as a slightly different psychosis from killing people to obtain a material object. Of course, his little murder for gain in a clumsy, short-sighted act, and the police are soon after him.

Donna Reed looks out her window and screams, because the first place he heads in the school garden. Headmistress, immediately consulting via telephone with Dr. Gillespie, sends Donna to the hospital with the school chauffeur, where she will supposedly be safe. Guess where Fiance is headed.

It is a big hospital. Fiance is able to kill a doctor and steal his glasses and his identity fairly easily (we don’t find out till later the poor other doctor is dead) (and we never meet him either, which saved the producers paying another actor). My first reaction was, “Oh, great disguise. They’ll NEVER recognize you with those glasses one!” But he only runs into people who don’t know him or the dead doctor as he continues to stalk Dr. Gillespie, intent on revenge.

Donna Reed, meantime, is hiding out in Brilliant Surgeon’s office suite, which includes sleeping accommodations (she does not avail herself of the invitation to put on a hospital gown, so don’t get your hopes up) (you know who you are). How fiance figures out she’s there so he can call her is never explained, but she ends up on hand for the final confrontation.

The thing that really annoyed me was Donna’s wailing at the end, “But it wasn’t really his fault!” Three men and a dog are dead! Why are you feeling more sorry for the killer? I’m thinking she doesn’t know about the dime-a-dance girl, for one thing.

On the whole, I thought it was a pretty dumb movie. It was saved for me by Lionel Barrymore and a few of the minor characters. There are a couple of nurses he spars with, as fictional doctors and nurses tend to do. A large, kind of doofy orderly is recruited to act as his bodyguard, unbeknownst to the prickly Dr. Gillespie. I also got a few chuckles from Donna’s roommate, a budding photographer and paramour.

In closing credits they advertised another Dr. Gillespie movie. I’ll have to watch for it. I do love that Lionel Barrymore.

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Be Kind to Animals, Hollywood

Posted on February 18, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

What is it with animals coming to bad ends in movies?

I recently wrote about What’s the Matter with Helen?, in which some very beautiful white rabbits suffered at the hands of a lunatic. I watched a movie yesterday in which a perfectly nice looking dog had an even shorter and more thankless role. And now I am looking at a movie where every third or fourth scene, I hear myself saying, “Nothing bad better happen to that cat!”

So far the worst thing that happened to the cat is a lady took away the yarn he or she was playing with. I only wrote my remark about nothing bad happening in the TV Journal once, but as I continued to repeat it, I thought to myself, hey, this could be a blog topic.

Many of us get more upset when bad things happen to animals than we get when bad things happen to people, especially in the movies. After all, animals are more defenseless and often more harmless. Most of them are a good deal less annoying than some people, especially in a work of fiction.

You know, now that I’m writing this, I believe I have touched on the topic before. My defense for repeating myself is: I think it was previously a remark in passing and now it is the topic of the post. Also, it is a topic that bears repeating. Who doesn’t love cats, dogs and beautiful white rabbits (or at least one of the three)?

Hollywood, apparently.

Sometimes it is movie shorthand for a really, really bad person. Ooh, look at them, they were mean to a dog! They can’t be any good AT ALL! Just in case the viewer was looking for socially redeeming characteristics. Now we know there are none to be found.

I still don’t like it. I just don’t LIKE to see bad things happen to good animals. I don’t particularly like it when characters I like die either, but at least I can comfort myself with the thought that actors like to play death scenes. I don’t know that any animals feel the same way.

I don’t think any Hollywood screenwriters are likely to heed my words and start writing movies where all the animals live happily ever after (humans can take their chances). But I wanted to express myself. Now I’ll go back to the movie I was viewing and check out what happens to that cat.

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Sorry About the Bunnies

Posted on February 13, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I DVR’d What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971) from TCM because it starred Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds, and the description included the word “murder.” I thought no further of it till last Sunday. Steven and I had watched a distinctly non-cheesy movie (which I may yet write about), and Steven suggested that Helen might contain some amount of cheese.

In pre-show commentary, Ben Mankiewicz tells us the movie was one of a few horror movies featuring middle-aged female protagonists which followed the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Jane was based on a novel by Henry Farrell. Farrell wrote the screenplay to Helen as well as the one to Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (which, incidentally, was originally titled Whatever Happened to Cousin Charlotte? I sense a pattern here).

Shelley Winters plays Helen, the one with some something wrong with her. Debbie Reynolds plays Adele, the proprietress of a young ladies’ dance academy. It is a testament to the ladies’ acting ability that as I watched the movie and as I write about it, I see the characters as Helen and Adele, not Shelley and Debbie, nor yet Crazy One and Tap Dance Lady (as you know two less talented, unknown actresses would have ended up). For the purposes of this post, though, I will refer to them as Shelley and Debbie, to aid my readers’ mental imagery.

Shelley and Debbie play two women who are drawn together because their sons have committed a murder. The movie, which takes place in the 1930s, opens with a Hearst newsreel showing the two of them fighting a crowd to get to a taxi after sentencing. Life in prison, not the death penalty, which has caused some outrage. Shelley gets cut by someone in the crowd and receives a death threat over the phone from “somebody with athsma” (Debbie’s description).

I have to hand it to a movie that gets right into things and doesn’t waste a lot of time on boring flashbacks. Still, I could have used a little more backstory. Then too, after the promising start the movie bogs down a little. Debbie decides they will change their names and move to Hollywood, where hopeful mothers will pay good money to Adele in hopes she will turn their little darlings into the next Shirley Temple. Helen, it transpires, is the accompanist.

The most ominous foreshadowing to me was the collection of big white rabbits Shelley keeps in the back yard. She picks one up, caresses her, calls her beautiful, and I said, “Oh NOOO!” I spent the next hour or so saying, “Nothing bad better happen to those bunnies!” but not really holding out much hope that the poor things would make it to “The End” with skins intact.

The movie does create suspense, offering us several characters who may or may not be up to no good. Has the Texas millionaire who romances Debbie honorable or evil intentions? Why is the mysterious Englishman who enters without knocking so intent on teaching diction in this rinky dink school? And how about that stranger across the street, smoking a cigarette and watching Texas and Debbie “smooch” (Shelley’s word)? What is he up to? For that matter, are Shelley and Debbie what they seem, two innocent women caught up in bad circumstances?

I must sadly report that the ending did not justify all the suspense. Oh, I suppose it is shocking and creepy. To tell you more might ruin it for you and I am loathe to do that, because it is a pretty fun watch. I realize I did not include my usual Spoiler Alert, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not spoiling anything. Except perhaps for the bunnies, and I consider that more in the nature of a warning, if such a thing is needed. I think anyone who’s watched a horror movie knows: don’t get too attached to small, cute animals.

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And There’s a Bird

Posted on February 8, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Before Steven and I had our collection of 50 Horror Classics, we had a smaller collection of horror movies which we enjoyed. It came in a tin box that made haunted house noises at the press of a button. I purchased it almost purely because it contained Nosferatu (the original silent version), the scariest movie ever made. But we’re not talking about Nosferatu today.

Recently a co-worker was telling me about a horror movie he had which he thought I would like. He could not remember the title but it had Jack Nicholson in it and it was trippy. He went on and I can’t remember what all he said, but something rang a bell.

“I’ve seen it,” I exclaimed (I really did “exclaim,” although I realize it sounds a little dorky when I write it that way). “It has a bird in it, right?”

“Yes!”

“I can’t remember what it’s called either.” So I went home and checked my little tin box.

The Terror (1963) also stars Boris Karloff. He would be the operative star for my purposes, although Nicholson has the bigger part. Even more importantly, the movie is directed by Roger Corman. Lovers of horror cheese need look no further.

I finally got around to watching it again, thinking my conversation with my co-worker would make a neat introduction (“neat” as in “tidy,” not “nifty neato”). Full disclosure: I did not write about it right away. I even made a note in the TV Journal that I didn’t know if I could write about it. Then I thought, on Non-Sequitur Thursday, with no other topic to hand, it would be worth a try.

Nicholson plays a soldier who is lost from his regiment, about to expire on a sandy beach, presumable the ocean, since he is dying of thirst. A beautiful girl brings him to some fresh water (which looked to me like some ocean water had just washed into a cove, but what do I know?).

It is obvious from the get-go that there is something strange about the girl, but naturally it is love at first sight for Nicholson. It should surprise no one that he intends to spend the rest of the picture trying to help her rather than rejoining his unit like a good soldier should (I don’t know why I always advocate these logical courses of action that would make for a short, boring movie).

Karloff plays a mysterious (naturally) old baron, living by himself in a creepy (naturally) old castle. He’s had a very sad and bitter past. It’s kind of too bad there aren’t any flashbacks, because the character doesn’t really have a whole lot to do in the present.

The other characters are Karloff’s servant, an eerie old lady who might be a witch, her half-wit (I think) son and, of course, the bird. I don’t know if it’s a raven or a crow or just a big old black bird, but you just know it’s going to peck somebody’s eyes out. I didn’t need a spoiler alert before I told you that.

The movie is, as my friend said, trippy. I don’t think I can even tell you what is going on, because I’m not even sure about what seems to be going on. And this was at least my second viewing. I guess I’ll have to watch it yet again. I may even write about it yet again, especially as it seems I haven’t told you much so far.

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Well, I Watched It and I Need a Post

Posted on February 6, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’m actually going to try to be more circumspect about this one, just to mix things up a little. Still, one can’t help but give away something.

I DVR’d Sinner Take All (neglected to write down the year) purely on the strength of the clever title. Let that be a lesson to me.

Just kidding. It really was not a bad movie. My problem was that while it was not exactly a good movie, it did not reach the level of cheesiness I seek for my blogging pleasure. Still, I watched the whole thing. I need a post. I’ll write about it.

The plot centers around a rich businessman and his grown offspring, two sons and a daughter. All four receive death threats. It is pointed out that most murderers do not advertise their intent, they just go ahead and kill whoever. It is never explained why this murderer does not follow that protocol. I could hazard a guess as to the ostensible reason (love that word, ostensible), but that would give away who the murderer is. It is one of those, “You couldn’t be sure THAT was going to happen anyways” reasons, but let’s not get into that argument.

The hero is an ex-newspaperman who has become a lawyer. As a reporter he worked for a newspaper owned by the rich businessman. Guess whose lawyer he works for now. This makes it easy for his old boss to get our hero back on the paper to cover the big story once the rich folk start to get knocked off.

The rich guy’s offspring are pretty typical: one son is a driven businessman like Dad, the other a ne’er-do-well drunkard, the daughter a madcap heiress. Our hero’s first task, while he’s still a lawyer, is to bring the daughter home so’s they can have a family summit about the death threats.

Of course she does not want to leave the speakeasy/gambling house she’s in (at least, I don’t know if it’s a speakeasy or legitimate nightclub; they weren’t clear) (this is where knowing the year of the movie may have been helpful, but let us not repine). He persuades her not by logic or appealing to her better nature but by threatening to slug her, so you just know they’re going to fall for each other.

This is only the beginning of the patronizing man-knows-best crap he pulls on her because, after all, he must keep her safe. Funny how later on the only way he can catch the killer is to use her as bait and almost get her killed. Oh, I KNOW it is more dramatic that way. I’m just saying. The irony, not surprisingly, is lost on the characters.

The head lawyer is played by George Zucco, who somebody described as “marvelously theatrical” in Dead Men Walk (which I wrote a blog post about). I was wishing he had a bigger part, because he brought a certain… ambiguity to the role. Or perhaps I was just remembering the vampire.

Well, now I’ve done it. If you watch the movie, you’ll be staring at George Zucco thinking he’s the villain. Or is he? Or isn’t he? I will neither confirm nor deny.

Another character I liked was the cop, a young man who I thought was better looking than the hero. If I’d have been the heiress, I’d have fallen for him. He’s not your typical dumb cop, either. He’s usually a step ahead of our hero, although still a step behind the murderer (I guess it would have been a short movie otherwise).

Of course I was sorry to be watching a movie about a boy reporter and not an intrepid girl reporter. You know how I love those. I perked up when I saw in the credits that Dorothy Kilgallen has a role. Kilgallen was a real life intrepid female reporter (don’t feel right calling her “girl,” although it is OK for movie characters, if you see what I mean). In this movie she is a sob sister with a small but pivotal role.

On the whole, I enjoyed the movie. The plot is convoluted enough to make it interesting. There is no shortage of suspects and if the solution is a little “Waaait a minute,” who am I to quibble? For one thing, to raise my quibble I would need to tell you the solution, and you know how I hate to do that.

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Taking Liberties with Miss Marple

Posted on January 31, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

When I DVR’d Murder Ahoy starring Margaret Rutherford from TCM, I was hoping for a star-studded Agatha Christie extravaganza, maybe in a “Love Boat” type of setting. It was not that, but it was an enjoyable movie and not without certain points to ponder (you know how I hate to do just a straight review).

My first point of contention came during pre-movie commentary when Ben Mankiewicz kept referring to the main character as “Mrs. Marple.” It’s MISS!!! She is an old maiden lady, gossipy and harmless. It is perhaps a small point, but I think it is telling. Mankiewicz certainly never read a Miss Marple book and I question how many Miss Marple movies he has actually seen.

In fact, I know he’s never read a Miss Marple book, because he said “Mrs. Marple” was featured in 20 short stories by Agatha Christie. In fact, she was also in a number of novels (I didn’t look up how many, but you needn’t shake your finger at me; I’ve probably read them all).

Oh, I know, I’m carping. I don’t expect Ben Mankiewicz to have watched every movie TCM possibly shows, much less researched them all himself. I know he has a staff for such things. But I still think it is perfectly legitimate for me to point out: It’s Miss Marple, not Mrs., and she was featured in novels as well as short stories. OK, I’m done. For now.

Murder Ahoy, Mankiewicz tells us, was not adapted from a Christie story but is an original mystery based on the character. Well, I don’t mind that. Sometimes a novel doesn’t translate so well onto the screen. An original screenplay is at least written for its medium.

In the novels, Miss Marple solves mysteries mainly through her extensive knowledge of human nature (idea being that a maiden lady has more leisure to observe these things than, for example, a married lady with half a dozen kids to look after). Somebody would remind her of somebody she used to know and that would give her the key.

I believe this sort of thing works better on the page than on the screen. No matter, because this Miss Marple doesn’t seem to work that way. For heavens’ sake, she has laboratory equipment so she can detect the poison in… well, you know I don’t like to give everything away.

The written Miss Marple also stuck close to her little village of St. Mary Mead, with a few exceptions. Purists feel she was at her best at home, but I have no prejudice either way. This Miss Marple, as you probably expected, goes on board a ship to solve the mystery.

I have to say that the liberties taken with the character of Miss Marple did not bother me one bit. Dame Christie herself was the first to point out that screen (or stage, for which many works were originally adapted) is a different medium with different requirements. In fact, I’m not even going to share all the things the movie makers added, because at least one was for me a quite delightful surprise.

I thought the movie Murder Ahoy was quite entertaining. I look forward to other Miss Marple movies starring Margaret Rutherford.

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Good Job, Leonard!

Posted on January 29, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’m going to give away a big plot point for a B-movie (Crack-Up) and an A-Movie (Gaslight). It’s actually not that well-kept of a secret, but I feel better having issued a warning.

I DVR’d Crack-Up based on the description in the digital cable guide, which says an art forgery expert is made to think he’s losing his mind. In retrospect I don’t know why I found that intriguing. Maybe I was hoping for a low-rent, gender-reversed Gaslight.

In fiction people are always trying to make other people think they’re crazy. I don’t think it happens nearly that often in real life. It seems to me that in real life, the villains just go ahead and kill the victims or rob them or discredit them or whatever. The whole “make him think he’s crazy” idea seems awfully complicated to me. Then again, what do I know? I don’t go around victimizing people, not intentionally, at any rate.

The problem with the plot device in movies is that the audience knows it’s coming. We read it in the description or the review, or see it in the trailers (I could do a whole other blog post about how those three things usually give away too much). So only the characters in the movie are wondering, “Is he really crazy?” It would be much more suspenseful if the audience could wonder too.

I’ve seen it done in novels with greater success, perhaps because I avoid reading the backs or fly leafs of novels. Of course, having read a few novels and seen a few movies, I would automatically think when a character starts questioning her own sanity (it’s usually a girl) (insert gender-based stereotype of your choice), that somebody is making her feel that way.

In Crack-Up our hero never for one minute questions hes own sanity, even though pretty much everybody else does. He insists he’s not crazy and sets out to prove it. Complications ensue.

After I wrote the above but before typing it in, I consulted Leonard Maltin’s 2007 Movie Guide (Penguin Group, New York, 2006). Leonard says, “Art critic…remembers surviving a train wreck that never took place; it’s just the first incident in a growing web of intrigue and murder.”

What a great description! It barely gives anything away! Well, the train wreck that didn’t happen, but we find out about that fairly early on, so I say that’s OK. I say, Bravo! The digital cable guide should take a lesson.

As a side note, I went on to see what Leonard had to say about Gaslight. Alas, he is not nearly so circumspect. I suppose since that is such an old movie, based on an even older play, he figured that everybody pretty much knew.

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A Capitol Time

Posted on January 21, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Friday night, Steven and I traveled into Rome, NY to the Capitol Theatre to attend a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

The Capitol Theatre is a truly gorgeous old time movie palace. It is where I saw my first movie (Mary Poppins), roughly a hundred years ago. I saw other movies there, till it closed. The building fell on some hard times. It was used occasionally for stage shows such as Rome Catholic High’s musical. Now it’s a Center for the Performing Arts, and they do all kinds of fun stuff there. This is the first event we’ve been able to make it to.

The Capitol first opened in 1928, I recently learned. I just knew it was old. It’s never been renovated, that is, chopped up into a six screen cineplex, for which I am grateful. The ceilings are high and ornate. The balcony goes back forever. It seats over 1,000 people (1,788, according to the brochure I picked up).

Steven and I got there early, so we had time to walk around a little and explore. We climbed up the steps to the balcony. There is a large foyer-type of room with a few comfy chairs and a piano, then you go up another small set of steps and through an opening about a third of the way down the balcony.

We walked up toward the top of the balcony. It went back just about as far as I remembered. I also remembered there being bats, once during a performance of Oklahoma! I was in, one summer during high school. I didn’t see any Friday night, though. With the theatre more occupied these days, perhaps the bats have found other quarters.

We decided to sit right in the front of the balcony. First we went and got popcorn and soda (me) as well as coffee (Steve). I don’t usually drink soda, but they were having a special on a large soda and large popcorn. I didn’t finish either.

The movie was wonderful. Rear Window is one of our favorites, but I have never seen it on such a big screen. The movie concerns Jimmy Stewart, wheelchair bound with a broken leg, looking out his window at his neighbors in the surrounding apartments. It was fascinating to notice all the details I missed on a television screen.

The Capitol hosts a variety of events. We picked up a flier that listed movies, a Celtic-Rock group called The Elders, Joshua Kane’s Psychic show, and others. We voted on next year’s Hitchcock selection (Steve wants Lifeboat, I picked Strangers On A Train). We also hope to return in August for CapitolFest II, three days of silent and early sound films.

For more information on the capitol, visit their website at www.romecapitol.com. You can also like them on Facebook.

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