The Right Way to See a Movie

At the end of a very fun weekend with our grandson and his aunt Emily (and her husband Mike/ Mason is my son's son but he and Emily have always had a special bond - so his parents sent us and him down to LA to see Mike and Emily) we went to the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood to see Wall-E. The El-Capitan dates from the 1920s and is a grand theater, restored to its original grandeur. The interior plaster work is the price of admission. It was the theater that premiered Citizen Kane (and a bunch of other movies) But there is more.

Before the performance a theater organist did about 20 minutes on a magnificent instrument - reprises of all Disney movie songs (this is a Disney owned theater). He disappears into the floor and then they do some previews of coming attractions. Before that there is a pretty good light show on the curtains. Then there was a 20 minute stage show of Disney characters.

Then the movie came on - which the audience - children and adults thoroughly enjoyed. It is a creative feature with remarkable animation. My wife, who normally does not like animation, thought the movie was great.

My son in law thought that our grandson would enjoy this special kind of movie venue. Mason did indeed. He liked the organist - which reminded me of an Assemblyman early in my career who rescued one of these organs from a demolition of a theater in LA and then had it installed into his house! And he seemed particularly intrigued with the stage show. Then came the movie (which my wife and I had already seen but is worth seeing twice) and he enjoyed that too.

After the movie I wondered out loud why movie theaters of that era are particularly magnificent and why play houses of the same era are relatively bland. My mother in law suggested that the performance houses were a bit smaller and if the architects had been as elaborate the features would overwhelm the place - that makes sense to me.

Evidently, Disney redoes the theater for each attraction. The pictures give you some sense of the place - from the Marquee, to the organist, to the architectural details, to one of the opening curtains - but they do not give you the full sense. The tickets are a bit more than the cineplex - but they are well worth it. Inside the concessions are actually a bit cheaper than one would expect in a cineplex. For kids who have never been to anything but the cineplex - this could give them a whole new idea about the magic of movies.