LOVE STORY(1970)and why the CASTRO THEATRE, MARC HUESTIS PRESENTS&CO. should CARE about making "special screenings" SPECIAL EXPERIENCES!
ALI MACGRAW, appearing at so-called "impresario," Marc Huestis' latest CASTRO THEATRE "extravaganza"--a special Valentine's Day(14 February 2012)screening of her major motion picture romantic melodrama, LOVE STORY(1970)--recently stated she was still to this day "puzzled" by the film's enduring popularity amongst so many movie-goers. And that she was both "interested" and "curious" about how the movie would be received by a contemporary Castro Theatre crowd!
I can't speak for the contemporary crowd as we gave the flick's screening a big MISS due to aforementioned reasons already recounted. But what do either Marc Huestis or Ali Macgraw care? And why should they care, really? They both got their big payday: Huestis collected his fat percentage take of the admittance ticket proceeds! Ali collected her fat appearance fee paycheck! No, we don't begrudge Ali that in the least--she's the flick's beautiful and talented co-star; it's a well-deserved perk of her professional career, and that's more than fine by us! As for what paying Castro Theatre patrons got for the price of their tickets--judging by the Huestis-massacred Valentine's Day screening of Romeo and Juliet(1968)forty years later in 2008!--is yet another untold story yet to be told!
As for what this marvelous movie meant(and still means)to me comprises plenty of reason why Marc Huestis Presents ought to take some pains to take special care to take some semblance of RESPONSIBILITY for making such a live, in-person movie event a special and PLEASURABLE experience for ALL! Especially since such an exceptional movie experience holds special meaning and significance for the viewers--especially for the more sensitive(and, yes, sentimental)viewers who appreciated it most when it was first released on 16 December 1970!
For me, unlike for Ali, there's really no esoteric much less puzzling mystery about why Love Story is and remains so special for so many people: simply because it's so full of humanity with innumerable and immeasurable moments of humanity shared mostly by two young people so fully, so passionately, so rapturously, so wholly in love! Only those who've never, ever experienced such devoted love don't get it and likely never will. And that's sad and too bad for them.
Transgender "performer," Justin Vivian Bond, who supposedly sang a "sorry" medley at the Castro Theatre event, recently referred to the flick as being "sappy." With that little tid-bit I rest my case concerning insensitive and unsentimental individuals. Any fairly newlywed couple who lost a spouse to any terminal disease undoubtedly understood the un-sappiness of the concept! Bond's doubtless less-than-"sappy" when he's whining about "homophobia." If Bond's medley was as god-awful as Connie Champagne's "A Time For Us," Love Story's, "Where Do I Begin?" was no doubt equally "sorry," all right. But that's neither here nor there.
I was an impressionable sweet 16 when I first went alone to the Spanish Baroque Saenger Theatre in Pensacola, Florida to see Love Story. Despite hyper Bay Area pretension and mis-conception about the so-called "Deep South," San Francisco isn't the country's sole city boasting a historic theatre! In fact, the Saenger's contained in the US National Register of Historic Places.
I was hand-carrying my new encased Bach trumpet as I was on my way afterwards to an orchestra rehearsal for a Pensacola Catholic High School production of the musical, Sweet Charity(1966); I played first trumpet in high school band.
On my way into the theatre I was accosted by a chubby, cute adopted daugher and sister of a best friend of mine since fourth grade; her name's Rosie.
"Joe!" she exclaimed incredulously, just coming out of the theatre. "I didn't know you liked this kind of movie!"
Apparently, presumptuous Rosie never knew me very well.
Being an instrumental musician especially sensitive to exceptional music, I was immediately overtaken from beginning to end by composer Francis Lai's extraordinary and beautifully haunting musical score. So I was all at once tenderly affected, musically moved and emotionally touched by this profoundly romantic film and all its profoundly romantic moments; my eyes welled out with tears throughout. In short, its intense poignancy--it's just that simple, really. And if you don't(or can't)feel it, then you'd never get it.
Following the film, I footed it west from downtown Pensacola, for multiple city blocks with trumpet case in hand, just to make it late and sweaty to the Pensacola High School auditorium at 500 West Maxwell Street, for my high school play orchestra rehearsal! And all because I'd been so intent on seeing that movie right then!
Two years later during my senior year--for a solo, pianist-accompanied trumpet performance before a crowded high school auditorium assembly--I nervously but successfully played Love Story's famed love theme, Where Do I Begin?--albeit with some classical variations added.
The year before that in 1971--before I left on my own accord an extremely dys-functional family situation--I'd been subjected to watching my mother couch-cuddling with a medical X-ray technician from Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital whom she was having a short-lived extra-marital affair with--in my bastard step-father's absence. A particularly pathetic scene to inflict upon an impressionable teen-ager--especially to the emotive melody of, Where Do I Begin?, which they played on the record turntable incessantly during their cuddle-sessions!
During the summer of 1973 I visited the resplendent Chestnut Hill campus of Boston College--close to Love Story's Harvard University Cambridge--as a prospective student even though I'd been accepted for admission but never attended. Throughout that campus visit, for whatever reason, all that went through my head was Love Story composer, Francis Lai's film composition, SNOW FROLIC!
In the Los Angeles,California area in September 1974, during a cross-country trip stop-over, I was pretty certain that I actually caught a glimpse of a young ALI MACGRAW driving her car! It was her long, gleaming black hair that was the give-away!
In 1990 my mother would die of acute leukemia at her medical technician lover's employer, Sacred Heart Hospital.
Perhaps then such reminiscences(and associations)might suffice to explain to the complacent and unconcerned--that is, the likes of Marc Huestis Presents--some reason why more conscientious and meticulous care could be taken to ensure for all paying Castro Theatre patrons a more pleasurable than painful experience when screening special films of this moment.
Why so special: because you carry such films along with you throughout your life's journey--no matter how old you might live to be--or even how "sappy" your life and loves might prove to be!
Before whining, just stop and THINK about it FIRST!
For me, unlike for Ali, there's really no esoteric much less puzzling mystery about why Love Story is and remains so special for so many people: simply because it's so full of humanity with innumerable and immeasurable moments of humanity shared mostly by two young people so fully, so passionately, so rapturously, so wholly in love! Only those who've never, ever experienced such devoted love don't get it and likely never will. And that's sad and too bad for them.
Transgender "performer," Justin Vivian Bond, who supposedly sang a "sorry" medley at the Castro Theatre event, recently referred to the flick as being "sappy." With that little tid-bit I rest my case concerning insensitive and unsentimental individuals. Any fairly newlywed couple who lost a spouse to any terminal disease undoubtedly understood the un-sappiness of the concept! Bond's doubtless less-than-"sappy" when he's whining about "homophobia." If Bond's medley was as god-awful as Connie Champagne's "A Time For Us," Love Story's, "Where Do I Begin?" was no doubt equally "sorry," all right. But that's neither here nor there.
I was an impressionable sweet 16 when I first went alone to the Spanish Baroque Saenger Theatre in Pensacola, Florida to see Love Story. Despite hyper Bay Area pretension and mis-conception about the so-called "Deep South," San Francisco isn't the country's sole city boasting a historic theatre! In fact, the Saenger's contained in the US National Register of Historic Places.
I was hand-carrying my new encased Bach trumpet as I was on my way afterwards to an orchestra rehearsal for a Pensacola Catholic High School production of the musical, Sweet Charity(1966); I played first trumpet in high school band.
On my way into the theatre I was accosted by a chubby, cute adopted daugher and sister of a best friend of mine since fourth grade; her name's Rosie.
"Joe!" she exclaimed incredulously, just coming out of the theatre. "I didn't know you liked this kind of movie!"
Apparently, presumptuous Rosie never knew me very well.
Being an instrumental musician especially sensitive to exceptional music, I was immediately overtaken from beginning to end by composer Francis Lai's extraordinary and beautifully haunting musical score. So I was all at once tenderly affected, musically moved and emotionally touched by this profoundly romantic film and all its profoundly romantic moments; my eyes welled out with tears throughout. In short, its intense poignancy--it's just that simple, really. And if you don't(or can't)feel it, then you'd never get it.
Following the film, I footed it west from downtown Pensacola, for multiple city blocks with trumpet case in hand, just to make it late and sweaty to the Pensacola High School auditorium at 500 West Maxwell Street, for my high school play orchestra rehearsal! And all because I'd been so intent on seeing that movie right then!
Two years later during my senior year--for a solo, pianist-accompanied trumpet performance before a crowded high school auditorium assembly--I nervously but successfully played Love Story's famed love theme, Where Do I Begin?--albeit with some classical variations added.
The year before that in 1971--before I left on my own accord an extremely dys-functional family situation--I'd been subjected to watching my mother couch-cuddling with a medical X-ray technician from Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital whom she was having a short-lived extra-marital affair with--in my bastard step-father's absence. A particularly pathetic scene to inflict upon an impressionable teen-ager--especially to the emotive melody of, Where Do I Begin?, which they played on the record turntable incessantly during their cuddle-sessions!
During the summer of 1973 I visited the resplendent Chestnut Hill campus of Boston College--close to Love Story's Harvard University Cambridge--as a prospective student even though I'd been accepted for admission but never attended. Throughout that campus visit, for whatever reason, all that went through my head was Love Story composer, Francis Lai's film composition, SNOW FROLIC!
In the Los Angeles,California area in September 1974, during a cross-country trip stop-over, I was pretty certain that I actually caught a glimpse of a young ALI MACGRAW driving her car! It was her long, gleaming black hair that was the give-away!
In 1990 my mother would die of acute leukemia at her medical technician lover's employer, Sacred Heart Hospital.
Perhaps then such reminiscences(and associations)might suffice to explain to the complacent and unconcerned--that is, the likes of Marc Huestis Presents--some reason why more conscientious and meticulous care could be taken to ensure for all paying Castro Theatre patrons a more pleasurable than painful experience when screening special films of this moment.
Why so special: because you carry such films along with you throughout your life's journey--no matter how old you might live to be--or even how "sappy" your life and loves might prove to be!
Before whining, just stop and THINK about it FIRST!
posted by JOSEPH COVINO JR @ 5:44 AM
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