The last picture show

On May 27, Carmel Cinema on Route 52 in Carmel Hamlet closed its doors and faded to black for the final time. It broke my heart.

 

I love movies. At least I used to before Hollywood decided all we needed to see are dubious remakes of old classics and superhero films. I mean, you can give me Superman and Batman any day, but who the hell are the Black Parrot and Zatara and Zatanna?

 

I moved to Los Angeles in 1991 with ambiguous dreams of becoming a screenwriter. I went to screenwriting bootcamp and somehow got an agent. Neither of the two I wrote went into production and they eventually reverted back to being my property. I have them in a box around here somewhere if you want to read them.

 

One was a horror film called “The Providers,” and another was a science fiction thriller called "Out of Time,” with a premise that flying saucer UFOs and those big-eyed gray creatures were not spaceships and aliens, but rather time machines with evolved humans who had traveled back in time to save mankind from some future catastrophe. I thought that was a cool premise but… alas. No one even had the courtesy of ripping off my idea.

 

On its last day, Carmel Cinema showed seven films, including “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” (cool), “Thunderbolts,” and, sadly, “The Minecraft Movie.”

 

“Thunderbolts,” yet another superhero movie, brings together antiheroes, former villains and morally complex figures. The plot depicts the eponymous team, operating in the shadows and taking on missions that others might shy away from. Sounds like a documentary on DOGE.

 

“The Minecraft Movie” is based on a video game, which automatically leaves me clueless. I think the last video game I played was probably Pac Man. I understand there is a point in “The Minecraft Movie” that cues the audience to stand up and vandalize the theater. How fun! My generation had “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” where the audience would shout insults at the screen and sometimes throw rice.

 

But with the advent of the internet and the zillions of streaming services, going to a movie theater is now a quaint, old-timey experience. Kind of like going to a Renaissance fair.

 

I remember going to the movies as a magical experience. People who are used to watching stuff on their tiny phone screens probably don’t understand that. I recall watching an old episode of the sitcom “The Middle.”

 

The parents wanted to take their befuddled children to a drive-in movie theater. The kids just couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea.

 

“Think of it this way,” the father explained. “Picture a giant iPhone turned on its side and you can drive right up to it and watch a movie!”

 

The kids were elated. “Cool!” they marveled as they hopped in the car.

 

I grew up before the dawn of the multiplex—movie theaters—the traditional venue with one giant screen.

 

They all had cool names like the Majestic, the Alhambra, or the Palladium. In Pawling, where I grew up, we had the Albermac. (It’s long gone now, renovated into small retail shops and real estate offices.) I saw some seminal films at the Albermac, most notably, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” As a 12-year-old, the movie went completely over my head, but sitting there in the dark with dozens of strangers, it was a transformative experience. I don’t think “A Space Odyssey” would have been the same watching it on my phone while waiting in the grocery store line. To quote a line from the film, “I’m sorry, Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

 

I’ve written in this space before about how my family took summer vacations in my dad’s hometown, Malone, located in way upstate New York. My cousins and I spent a lot of time at the movies, a great way to escape the oppressive summer heat. Their theater was called the Plaza, and it was there that I saw two of the most famous films of my generation—“The Exorcist” and “Planet of the Apes.” Both of those were rated R, so how we got in is anyone’s guess. It was the ‘70s. People’s keisters weren’t quite as clenched up as they are these days.

 

I was already a fan of science fiction and horror movies, so those two films are likely what set me on the quicksand-laden path of wanting to become a screenwriter.

 

Sometimes, when I look back at the relationships I’ve had over the years, I can chronicle them by the movies we saw together. If I was single (in the ‘80s), chances are I was going to see “Die Hard,” or “Scarface.” But if I was dating someone, then I capitulated to my girl’s artful tastes.

 

In 1986, I had a summer romance with a coworker’s friend who was visiting from Iowa. She took me to see Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander,” which had won the Oscar for best foreign film. The movie is in Swedish (with English subtitles) and is more than three hours long. It actually had an intermission, and it took all I had to not go screaming out into the street. But I endured and told the girl, Cheryl, if I remember correctly, that seeing that masterpiece was a life-changing singular experience. That was pure B.S., of course, but trust me when I say that duplicity paid off later.

 

The same thing happened with my girlfriend Miriam. We decided to go to the cinema one Sunday afternoon and she insisted we see something called “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” I wanted to see “Cocktail.” But I figured I give this “Lightness” thing a try. I looked it up to see what was in store for me. It was the story of two couples living in Prague during the Soviet occupation and depicted their struggles with communism, relationships and their own identities. Yee-haw. It had zero catch phrases and ran for nearly three hours.

The things we do for love.

 

When I lived in Los Angeles, my girlfriend Keri and I would often go to the movies. She had no artsy-fartsy pretentions, which was good. I remember seeing “Batman Forever” (a good superhero movie) with her and within five minutes she was sound asleep. But this was nothing new. She did it nearly every time we went to the movies. I thought paying 10 bucks to take a nap was ridiculous. Years later, when I asked her about this, she admitted there was a reason for it. Keri was a two-pack-a-day smoker back then. Since you weren’t allowed to smoke in a movie theater, she would just go to sleep until it was all over, and she could go outside and light up.

 

Now, this might not make any sense to you. But if you knew Keri the way I did, it made perfect sense. In fact, I called it Keri Logic. At least with her I didn’t have to sit through three-hour films with 15-minute monologues with subtitles.

 

What young folks today may not fully appreciate about the movie-going experience is the aroma. That inimitable smell as you enter the lobby of the theater is universal. You will find it in a movie house in Las Cruces, New Mexico and again in the theaters of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It doesn’t matter if it’s an ornate single-screen venue from the ‘50s, or a more modern multiplex popularized in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the olfactory experience is the same. Although I believe the aroma in the older theaters has a little more gravitas, if that’s even possible.

 

So, stock up on your Junior Mints, Jujubes, Sno-Caps, Raisinets and Red Vines because there is probably no place else that sells those things anymore.

 

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to watch a movie on my laptop… whatever’s free on Amazon Prime. I’ll be munchin’ on some diabetic cookies and a water with lemon.