Romancing the Riverview
When I was a kid, I saw the movie “Romancing the Stone” six times at a New Prague movie theater. Six times. When I tell people that, they naturally have a lot of questions: Was this the series of events that set you on the path to being becoming a movie buff? Do you do this same sort of thing now? Didn’t this seem a bit excessive, even at a young age? Did you know at the time how bad a movie “Romancing the Stone” really was? How was it that your parents allowed you to see this movie six times? Were they even aware of it, and if so, weren’t they at least slightly disturbed?
Yes, I think my obsession with this movie made me aware that I like going to movies more than most people. No, I very rarely see movies in the theater more than once (the last one was “Saving Private Ryan.”) No, six times did not seem excessive because I had a cousin who told me he saw “Star Wars” in the theater more than 20 times. I thought that was cool, and maybe I was trying to be like him. I never confirmed his story; it was better for me if it was true.
I don’t remember if my parents came with me to any of these showings. (Maybe the first one.) I have no idea how many days or weeks it took to see the movie six times, or how I justified it. I don’t remember who was with me. I may have lied about where I was going, and now I can’t remember it because of my guilt. Who knows, maybe everybody but me was disturbed about the whole thing.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Inside the theater, all those questions of right and wrong and quantity and quality fell away. At the time, I thought “Romancing the Stone” was the coolest movie ever, particularly because Kathleen Turner just had to be most beautiful woman ever on film, and Michael Douglas was either shooting guns, swinging machetes, cracking jokes or swearing in every scene. He was Han Solo in the jungle. And I thought the crazy romance-novel-reading-off-road-truck-driving Colombian drug lord was hilarious.
Inside the theater, I got sucked into that movie 100 percent. And it’s still like that.
In later years, I graduated to buying tickets to G-rated matinees and then sneaking into R-rated movies instead. Sometimes I stayed for two or three different movies by sneaking from theater to theater before leaving the building. By my mid-twenties, I was going to the movies by myself. Yes, I felt a little odd about it — even a little pathetic — but I was getting older and running out of people to go with me, and I wasn’t just going to stop!
Most people end up prioritizing movies out of their lives as they get busier with jobs and relationships and kids. I just can’t do that.
These days, my enabler is the Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Ave. S in the Longfellow neighborhood. It’s a great old theater that reminds you that going to the movies used to be a very big deal, and it’s perfect for people like me who still think movies are a very big deal.
A few weeks ago, all by myself, I saw “The Departed” — this year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture — at the Riverview, late on a weekday night. It’s already out on DVD, but seeing that movie at home wouldn’t have been the same. How do you beat a 60-foot screen and a pro sound system? How do you beat a place that’s full of popcorn and anticipation as the lights go down? Scorcese doesn’t make movies for living rooms.
The best thing about the Riverview is that, in this day and age of shopping center multiplexes, some kid in my neighborhood can still walk to this theater and buy a $3 ticket (and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, if so compelled…)
As long as the Riverview and places like it are open, there will continue to be more people like me. Even if the first movie they see six times is as bad as “Romancing the Stone,” I’ll cut these kids some slack.
The Head Fake is featured every week on www.readthebridge.info, and every month in the print edition of The Bridge. You can email Jay Kelly at jk@the headfake.com, or visit his web site at www.theheadfake.com.
last revised: March 12, 2007