Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Something tells me after this entry, you'll think Nick and I are 80 years old...

...but we're not. I swear. We are not 80. That would defeat the whole purpose of the "young" part of this blog title. My friend Sarah often reads my blog and tells me I already sound like an old woman, so I'm sure after this I'll really be in for it.

One thing Nick and I like to do is walk. I have to admit, when it comes to paying attention to conversations, I am more the man in that respect and when we take walks it helps to focus me so I can actually pay attention to what Nick is saying. Plus being outside and exploring the neighborhood is always fun. So the last time we were in downtown Palo Alto, we took a long walk from end to end of the main road and on some of the side streets too (it also serves the purpose of checking out restaurant menus for ideas about where to go next time, or what kind of specialty shops we may want to visit one day). While we were looking in the storefronts I noticed one had posters of movies from Classic Hollywood in it and realized that it was a theater that only plays those kinds of movies.

Nick and I love movies regardless, but there's something about the idea of seeing an older movie in the theater that's kind of exciting. I don't know if I'm the only one who does this, but I wonder about the kinds of people who would have seen the movie first hand back when it was first around. Social lives, political climate, clothes, the whole works. I know there's pictures and books you can read that would tell you those answers, but it's a lot more fun to day dream and wonder.

We made up our minds that once the schedule came out we would try to see movies there. I guess that makes us lame, because we're more interested in sticking to that movie schedule than the one at the local AMC theater, but 1. it's cheaper and 2. we have Netflix. If we really want to see a new movie in the theater we will (I am already frothing at the mouth for the new Harry Potter), but just for the effect of going to the movies after dinner? I'd rather have the experience of going to Stanford Movie Theater (for less money). Plus there's a lot better restaurant options in Palo Alto than there are near the major movie theaters and the mall.

The theater was renovated, in the late 1980s, to look like it did back when it first opened. So there is ornate decoration inside, an old style ticket box office (that only takes cash), old posters and newspaper advertisements in the gallery, and a wurlitzer organ that plays in between movies, during intermissions, and along with silent movies. I assume film reels are either originals or preserved versions as the version of Notorious (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) that was saw was full of scratches and jumped in a few places. I have to admit, considering it was part of the experience, I didn't even mind that the picture quality wasn't HD perfect or in color.

Now that we have a copy of the schedule on the fridge we're planning on going again to see a Charlie Chan movie. Ok, so this definitely makes Nick and I a couple of losers, but as long as we're having fun I don't really mind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We have a theater like that too. We only see movies there but they are a little more recent: Rocky Horror, Ghost, things like that.

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