Getting My Movie "Fix"

I finally got my movie “fix” yesterday. It had been a long time since anything “decent” played in our local and surrounding areas. I got the impression that many locals had the same need for a movie “fix” because the theater was packed at 1 p.m.

I confess that I am in the over-50 age bracket and no longer find blood, guts and gore to my liking. Nor do I like silly twaddle involving gorgeous young people looking for romance in all the unlikely places with the ending telegraphed by a sledgehammer. Been there, done that.

Don’t the movie-makers and theaters get it? I’m sure the movie theaters would play more movies for families and those willing to get off their rockers to see if the movie-makers made them. Why wouldn’t they? People flock to them.  

Several weeks ago the in Castro Valley showed, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” and the place was packed for the 9 p.m. showing. It was an excellent movie—at least everyone I talked to said so.

It had a good story, was well acted and featured interesting photography in a unique locale. It only played for one night and then was gone. It played once in the evening after the The Three Stooges, in the earlier time slots.

If you like a movie where the main theme is to watch three men fake stabbing each other in the eyes, that was a great double bill. But most of us who crowded into the movie that let us out past our bedtime, went for the Salmon Fishing in the Yemen film.

Like the whack-a-mole game, yesterday, another “great” film appeared—this time it was at the Dublin multiplex, plus other theaters a greater distance away. It was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It may not get nominated for an academy or any other award, but it was a delightful film.

Reviewer Kate Rodgers gave it four stars out of five and said, the film “has a British cast to die for, and any film which has Bill Nighy, Dames Maggie and Judy and Tom Wilkinson on the ticket is worth double the price….This little charmer is a triumph over cliché…..”

We movie addicts who are starved to see a decent film, are a grateful bunch. We just want to sit in the magic created by a theater with a big screen, great surround-sound and watch a movie that draws us in because of the quality of the story, the directing, the acting and theater floors that don’t cause our feet to stick to them.

If we want to see blood, gore and guts, we can stay home and turn on television.