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The Detroit Movie Palaces add so much variety to the experiences of area moviegoers that it’s extra fun when they create different ways to enjoy the same movie. That happened recently when the Michigan Theater and the Redford Theatre screened the 1964 children’s classic Mary Poppins.
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While watching the ceremony to dedicate the new marquee at the Penn Theatre in Plymouth on June 25, 2009, I thought about all the influences that might have led to this magic moment.
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So there I was, sitting in the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on May 4, 2009, watching a film set in Ashdod, Israel in which a young half Russian/half Israeli boy was trying to learn dances that originated in Spain and England. His instructor was a famous Russian dancer who was considering going to a dance competition in Stockholm, Sweden.
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The recent restoration of the Detroit Institute of Arts included the creation of more user-friendly labels for artworks. In that spirit, the Detroit Film Theatre has been giving its patrons more background on its rich selection of world cinema.
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A few years ago, I started to regularly watch The Lawrence Welk Show, at 6 p.m. on Saturdays on Channel 56. Something about it really appealed to me, and I was curious where this new enthusiasm came from.
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The Detroit Film Theatre has forged such a strong identity for itself that it’s easy to forget that it’s also one of many activities presented by the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DFT screens films in the DIA auditorium, which was part of the original 1927 construction of the building and which also hosts activities like the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit.
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Redford Theatre fans got a double dose of fun on Saturday, April 4, 2009. The anarchy and silliness of the Three Stooges was spiced with anticipation for a win by the Michigan State University men’s basketball team in the NCAA Final Four, taking place only a few miles away in downtown Detroit.
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The first time that I heard of the Millers Creek Film Festival, it struck me as the perfect example of the Michigan Theater as a Public Access Movie Theater. Here were some local activists in the Ann Arbor area who took the initiative to create a film festival out of their special interest. And there was the Michigan, ever ready to play its role as a community meeting place.
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Towards the end of the Redford Theatre’s showing of Sunset Boulevard (1950) on Feb. 7, 2009, the images and the atmosphere combined to give me a deeper feeling for the significance of both the theater and the movie. Sunset Boulevard is a strange tribute to the silent movie era, thanks in part to the performances of two people who helped make the history of that era (Gloria Swanson and Erich Von Stroheim).
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As I watched the magnificently restored Lola Montès at the Detroit Film Theatre on Jan. 16, 2009, I thought about all of the silent films that are lost forever. Before the 7 p.m. showing of this 1955 French/German film, DFT Film Curator Elliot Wilhelm talked about the long journey that this movie traveled to be restored to the original vision of director Max Ophüls, who died in 1957, perhaps in part because of the mutilation of his last film.
