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CINEMA SEEN - "Double-Featured!" By William Margold The closer that I get to the inevitable future, the more it seems that in the present, I prefer to revisit locations from my past. Fifty years ago, fresh out of Central Juvenile Hall, and a resident of a highly regarded home for troubled youths of the Jewish persuasion called Vista Del Mar on Motor Avenue in Culver City, my Saturday afternoons were invariably spent in one of the local movie theaters watching a double feature. Although films were also showing at The Palms and The Meralta---passes were always made available to the kids from Vista to attend the old Fox Culver Theatre (which is now a stage play venue), and if I weren’t being punished for one transgression or another, I would walk the railroad tracks east to Hughes Ave. then go south on Hughes to the theater, making sure to stop first at the liquor store across the street to load up on junk treats, and of course, cigarettes (which I and my associates smoked like fiends, with very little pleasure, until we were nauseous). Well…I've given up almost all junk treats, and with the exception of the rarest of moments when I even remotely consider smoking (and then it would only be a cigar, which I stupidly inhale), that form of system polluting is on my “don't do anymore” list as well. But I still go to movies, if for no other reason than to feed this column with material, and so…on a recent cool, overcast Saturday afternoon…the desire to time travel back 50 years motivated me to drive over to Culver City, park near Hughes, and walk to Pacific's Culver Stadium, with quite frankly, the absolutely fraudulent intention of seeing two films: BLOOD DIAMOND (Warner Bros.) and HAPPY FEET (Warner Bros.) for the price of one. After all it wouldn't be the same if I didn't see a "double feature"---would it? Now I must admit that I would have done the popcorn and soft drink thing before going in to see "Blood Diamond"---but the muddled ineptitude of the concession workers resulted in there being no popcorn available, so I had nothing to munch on during my first film. And that's rather sad, because director Edward Zwick's production is the perfect example of a popcorn picture. Although seeped in the seriousness of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, the timeless storyline of greed being prioritized over conscience is truly the paradoxically ferocious fluffy stuff of Saturday Afternoon Matinees: a bigger than life hero with bad/good guy shadings (an excellent Leonardo DiCaprio), a supporting player with noble intentions (a supremely moving Djimon Hounsou, who should easily garner an Oscar nomination), a gorgeous heroine (Jennifer Connelly), and action sequences to die for…and in…when transferred to the nearest playground, which most certainly would have been my immediate recourse back in the day. There's very little more that I can ask from a motion picture than to be provided with ALL of the above, except for that movie to be over in time for me to be able to parlay it into seeing another film within the same complex. And therefore, being appropriately moved as well as being suitably uplifted by "Blood Diamond"---I tumbled out of one auditorium virtually right into another, although this time I did manage to make sure that I was fortified with popcorn and a soft drink. I was the first to enter the uncomfortably small setting for "Happy Feet", but I knew that the invasion of children was imminent, so I found an isolated seat in the dividing row of the mini-mini-mini auditorium, and sat back to watch the crowd assemble. As expected, the majority of those who joylessly trudged in were overwhelmed looking parents, whom I’m sure would have liked to been anywhere else, or even in another life, with numerous brats in tow. Some of the repellant toddlers even glared at me with a "what the Hell are you doing here alone?" affront, as if I were invading their domain, wherein they ruled by the sheer nature of the fact that they were the intended audience. Yeah…well I hope that they will all suffer from eternal nightmares brought on by the vicious sea lion and killer whale characters who endanger the genuinely likeable flip-floppers charmingly exemplified by the primary Penguin of the piece. Although it does tend to out warm its welcome by at least 15 minutes, and the inclusion of "human beings" dilutes the creature simplicity of the affair, "Happy Feet" could put a grin on the face of a lemon. And it most certainly was the perfect balance to my "double-feature" day.” Exiting into the drizzly darkness, I looked toward the area where all those decades ago I could find late Saturday afternoon solace in the afternoon football scores on the front of evening newspapers. But then I realized that those were the days best left to burn brightly as memory logs, and bundling up against a sudden chill that made me feel my age, I limped back up Hughes, so that I go home, and get all the scores I wanted on ESPN. end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, December 28, 2006, issue. |