My Year at the Movies
Because you really want to know…
Here’s the annotated accounting of my moviegoing in the year 2007. I’ve been saving ticket stubs for 20-plus years, for tax purposes. Modern ticket technology imprints the theater name and movie name on the stub, which allows me to make the following detailed list.
I saw 40 first-run films this past year, on par with 2006, but continuing the downward slide from the 1980s heyday when I would see at least two films a week, often midnight (egads!) screenings.
The theaters that got most of my cash were the Landmark chain (E Street and Bethesda Row) and the AFI Silver. I saw eight films at each. At E Street I saw Miss Potter and Starting Out in the Evening, and at Bethesda Row I saw 3:10 to Yuma, The Darjeeling Limited, You Kill Me, No Country For Old Men, and La Vie en Rose.
At the Silver, I took in four 48 Hour Film Project screenings (including the poorly attended one featuring my own film), two Silverdocs screenings (Helvetica and a Jonathan Demme celebration), Jeff Krulik’s The Legend of Merv Conn and Todd Rohal’s debut feature, The Guatemalan Handshake.
Not surprisingly, I spent a fair amount of time at the Majestic 20. It’s up the street and has late screenings during the week. The six popcorn flicks I watched there included The Mist, Knocked Up, Wild Hogs, The Last Legion, Michael Clayton, and Breach.
Mazza Gallerie’s AMC theaters are a fave. The screens are big, parking cheap and easy, and it’s Chevy Chase so the audience is generally respectful. The five films I saw there were I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Oceans 13, The Simpsons Movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Balls of Fury. Which are mostly movies that do not cry out for respectful audiences, eh?
Though I’m a member of the lovely Avalon Theater, and thus get free coke and popcorn, I only saw four films there. But all were good: The Queen, Talk to Me, Stardust, and The Savages. (I saw Charlie Wilson’s War there, too, but in early January.) I recommend becoming a member. Go here to sign up: http://www.theavalon.org/
I went to the Olney 9 Cinemas twice because I could use the gift certificates that I gave to my parents — which they never used. I don’t blame them. The dilapidated early-’80s strip mall structure is too depressing for words. So check the photo above. It doesn’t show the many broken seats. Anyway, I saw The Comebacks and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium there, both worth the money spent. (OK, that’s not fair to Mr. Magorium, which was charming, if only for Dustin Hoffman doing an entertaining Ed Wynn impression.)
Saw one movie at the also horrid Dupont Circle cinema, which despite Hank Steuver’s chipper homage in the Post, was in fact rarely worth the effort to attend. In fact, I walked out of Goya’s Ghost. But that’s because Hetty has zero tolerance for screen violence and the torture of poor Natalie Portman was too much for her. Sad, because how many other movies are they gonna make about Goya?
Another office building location I couldn’t avoid is the United Artists Bethesda 10. Usually it’s filled with scores of bored upper-class teens, but fortunately the kids just aren’t interested in Clifford Irving anymore, so for The Hoax I had the place mostly to myself. Which was not an uncommon event in many of these outings, as I often attended the latest shows on weekday nights and Hetty has little interest in what she calls “XY films.”
I was nearly alone at the Regal Rockville showplace for The Golden Compass.
And it was mostly me and Tom Welsh at the AMC Ballston screening of The Brothers Solomon.
I’m happy to say that there was a nearly full house at the Westhampton, a delightful 1938 neighborhood theater in Richmond, for the very French art film Angel-A.
And there was a satisfyingly full house at the AMC Tysons for the best film of the year, Walk Hard. I’m sorry I only saw that once. But I did buy the deluxe extended edition of the soundtrack at iTunes.
Finally, I saved a generic old-fashioned ticket stub but cannot recall which movie it may represent.
So that was my year in the dark. My reviews? Loved them all!
I look forward to hectoring you to accompany me to many more crummy movies in 2008.
