I’m kind of excited to be seeing Casablanca on the big screen this afternoon. I’ve seen the movie probably close to a dozen times, but I’ve never seen it in a movie theater. Seeing it in an old, traditional theater will only make the whole experience better.
What old movies would you like to see on the big screen?
Lawrence of Arabia
Days of Heaven
I saw Lawrence of Arabia on a huge screen here last year – some of the desert scenes were truly amazing. Yes, definitely catch that on the big screen if you ever get the chance.
I’m jealous Boo is seeing Casablanca on the big screen. That’s one of my alltime favs….
It didn’t disappoint.
Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Modern Times, Nosferatu, Metropolis (Fritz Lang), maybe la Dolce Vida come to mind.
Oooh, I saw Metropolis on a big screen in school – fantastic!
There was a really nice theatre in our town and when I was about seven years old, we saw the debut of The Sound of Music. They had the big speakers, too, so we were surrounded by the Austrian Alps and all that gorgeous scenery as well as the wonderful music. I’ll never forget it: it was a true “experience”.
The York, The Lumiere, The Bridge, The Red Vic, The Roxie and The Castro in San Francisco. The best and still going. Siskel and Ebert came to The Roxie when they were first famous and packed the theatre to the rafters. They do old/foreign revivals, old cartoon revivals (Rocky and Bullwinkle come to mind), and indie films.
The Stanford Theatre and The Varsity (now a Borders’ Books and Music). There were a couple of small indie theatres, one on Hamilton Avenue and another on California Avenue. Gone by the 1990s.
They were great.
The Bijou, The Biograph, and The Festival. The Fine Arts was on California Avenue.
I saw Platoon at the Bijou. The Festival was known for showing old Alec Guinness comedies.
I saw She’s Gotta Have It at the Fine Arts.
Are they still going? Great to hear it!
It broke my heart, almost, when I heard that the old UC Theater in Berkeley — sort of a sibling institution to the Castro, I believe — got closed down. The UC Theater got me through many difficult, solitary, and generally penurious years. (Grad school, in other words.)
Imitation of Life
The Philadelphia Story
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Lawrence of Arabia
The King and I
Gone With the Wind
The Wizard of Oz
The 10 Commandments
Shaft
Come Back Charleston Blue
Mahogany
Carmen Jones
Pride and Prejudice Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier version…
The Lodger Early Alfred Hitchcock showing all his tricks he would use later…
Saratoga Trunk Ingrid Bergman playing a passing Creole woman of color…one of the best roles, she said, she ever played.
Sunset Boulevard
All About Eve
The Merry Widow Silent (German) version and ’50s version with Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas
Holiday Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in a film for our time as well.
The Glass Slipper
I think Mr Smith Goes to Washington is next Sunday’s Classic matinee at that theater.
I would love to see the Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind on the big screen.
Wizard – hell yeah. Saw it on the big screen in the mid-50’s, and it was phenomenal.
Don’t miss it! Half the fun is seeing it with others cheering around you!
Glory, Children of Paradise
I loved seeing Charlie Chaplins “City Lights” in an old theater c. 1974, and before that, “2001 A Space Odyssey” was impressive on the giant screen. No way was I in an altered state, everything impresses me.
For now, I’d go for Lawrence of Arabia, Koyaanisqatsi, and a friend recommended Barry Lyndon because he says every frame is a work of art.
I saw 2001 at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, CA, before they twinned it, in 70mm, sitting in the balcony by myself. A friend was an usher. It was like being in space as the balcony seems like it seats nearly a thousand people.
I’ll second your friend’s recommendation of Barry Lyndon with one reservation. The art direction is truly exquisite. It has to be on a really big screen before you get all the details and on a small screen the candle lit scenes just look mainly black. It’s star, Ryan O’Neal, was distracting at the time the movie first came out — a kind of poor man’s Albert Finney, not quite up to the level of the artistry around him. Kubrick’s film, unfortunately, came out after Tom Jones and was unfavorably compared to it. Now, knowing what a wasted old junkie O’Neal has become, his presence might be even more irritating than it was originally.
I kind of think it might be the other way around. When Ryan “Love Story” O’Neal was cast, he was seen — particularly by the kind of folk who would go to Kubrick films — as a towering emblem of Hollywood’s tendency to elevate the talentless and vapid. Now that he is mostly forgotten, his presence in the film is, I’m guessing, less distracting than before. (Of course, the fact that his acting is miserable remains a distraction, but that’s a constant.)
What do you think?
I was lucky enough to see & hear a Phillip Glass performance some years ago at the IU Auditorium. It was one to remember for a lifetime.
Great stuff!
Anything with Fred & Ginger dancing. Hundreds of chorus girls and boys, too. Don’t forget the mirrors!
Dancing in the dark….. two lonely people we were dancing in the dark…..
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A couple of years ago I had occasion to see the revised version of the original Star Wars on a theater screen. Even though I had seen it in the theater in 1977, I was amazed. It was like I had never seen it before.
I saw M*A*S*H at a Florida theater when it was first released. A few wingers actually got up, made rude comments and walked out on the show. Wouldn’t mind seeing it again now.
Turner Classic Movies on cable.
My advice is, don’t. The movie that looked whimsically irreverent back then looks gratuitously cruel and sickeningly sexist now. Anybody who can even sit through the shower scene without feeling ill is somebody I don’t want to be next to.
I would say that to those of us who count ourselves admirers of Altman, M*A*S*H is even more of an embarrassment than, say, Popeye. Anyone can make a lousy movie … just cast Robin Williams and you’re already halfway there … but to be able to make as mean-spirited a movie as M*A*S*H is a distinction, and a disturbing one.
The Godfather.
Funny tradition in my family: whenever I set up any new piece of video equipment, the relevant media version of The Godfather gets played as a test. When I hooked up my parents’ new 40 inch flat screen last year, I was able to demonstrate the difference between the standard composite connection and the higher-quality HDMI connection of an upscaling DVD player. They were amazed.