YOUNG AT HEART
On Thursday, Mom and I decided to go see YOUNG AT HEART, an uplifting (?) film about a choir of fossils who sing covers of songs by such bands as Sonic Youth or tunes by Bruce Springsteen. Funny, huh? Well, yeah...up to a point. While the movie was enjoyable, well produced, the theater experience was not. First of all, the audience was packed with folks who were somewhere betwixt 70 and death. Now this called to mind the days when I lived in LA, and the County Art Museum would show revivals of films from the last century for on Tuesday afternoons for a BUCK! If you've never seen a Technicolor flick on the big screen, you ain't seen a movie. The trouble was, the Bing Theater was always packed with cantankerous, old, deaf codgers from the (mostly) Jewish retirement centers of the Fairfax district. Talk about a Festival of Flatulence! A Symphony of Snores! A Chorus of What'd He Say?! Naturally, this is what I expected...a movie in Smell-O-Vision.
We found seats in the rear of the Pickford Cinema, Bellingham's only Art House. The seats date back to the Silent Era (hence the name?); You want to be sure and take an Aleve before you go. There's no leg room, no heat, no air. Generally speaking, a sort of Cinema Torture. I hate going there since the movies that get here were seen in other places MONTHS before the burro they strapped the film cans to the back of was pointed northward, slapped on the backside, all in hopes that the flick will arrive in Bellingham before it comes out on DVD. And if you don't see the movie in the week it plays here, then you're screwed. Oh, sure, the popcorn's swell, especially if you don't have dental work that is removed before going to bed. One simply CANNOT gum Jujubees!
Ok. So things are going fine until about the second preview trailer plays, when this old broad with the biggest hair since Ann Miller decides to plant her saggy buttox into a seat in front of me. This cotton candy coiffure, held aloft by HOW many cans of Aqua Net I've NO idea is determind to block my view. I wanted to ask the cow to kindly remove her fall, but instead I changed seats. Oh, I fussed and fumed before making the decision to move, and then decided that I might as well just do it because I wouldn't enjoy the movie at all. (This had happened to me once before at a screening of an Almodovar flick, where this garagantua with Gene Shalitz hair came in mid-film, sat in front of me, obscuring the sub-titles. As far as I'm concerned, I only saw half of one of Almodovar's best...BAD EDUCATION.)
I hate the Pickford!
Anyway, if you enjoy seeing dinosaurs doing a novelty act, dropping like flies, wazzing into colostomy bags or breathing with the help of portable oxygen tanks....YOU'LL LOVE YOUNG AT HEART.
But you probably saw it months ago already.
2 comments:
I agree with you that Bad Education is Almodovar's best!
It was his Zenith, to be precise. I can see no newer film of his and not be mistaken. I love him, always will love him, but, you gotta admit, Bad Education was the best of all his faboo flix.
Thanks Hil!
Craig
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