Film clips: Loving to be back in the theatre

It’s one of those things that just bugs you, or me anyway. Watching the trailer to Kenneth Branagh’s new film Belfast, a semi-autobiographical film set during “The Troubles” between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast 1968, the soundtrack blares out the song Everlasting Love. Huh? That song wasn’t on the playlist in 1969. I know, I lived through the year and as a teen was fully aware of the conflict in Northern Ireland. That song was released in 1967. Either Branagh simply loves the song despite the historical inaccuracy or there was a two-year delay in songs from America reaching the British Isles!……I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed a return to bricks and mortar movie theatres. I really didn’t know I’d enjoy the experience as much as I have given the 18 months of lockdown-induced movie streaming at home. Now I’ve seen three films at Cineplex Odeon theatres and among other things love the cinema’s newish deeply comfortable recliner seats. In fact I can’t wait until the next film I want to see, C’mon C’mon (Mike Mills) starring the searing Joaquin Phoenix, opens (maybe this weekend?)…..I have to scratch my head as to why corporate public relations departments do as they do, or don’t. For the past week I have been trying to reach Cineplex’s media team for an interview or at least written comments about the theatre chain’s seeming new screening of ethnic films, in this case two Punjabi features, at its Devonshire cinemas. These are Paani Ch Madhaani and Honsla Rakh. You’d think a PR department would jump at the chance to give more publicity to this new programming for a fast-growing ethnic community. But no. And as I’ve learned from years as a journalist there is often no rhyme or reason why PR departments act as they do…..My most recent Hollywood discovery: watching the 1967 film Up the Down Staircase (Robert Mulligan 1967) on TCM and captivated by lead character Sandy Dennis’s (photo above) performance as novice teacher Sylvia Barrett in a tough NYC high school. A year earlier she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Mike Nichols’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Everyone should watch this extraordinary movie featuring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.) So, I had to look her up and was surprised to learn of her unconventionality.  She never married and disdained the idea of children. “I never, ever wanted children. It would have been like having an elephant." She also lived with jazz musician Gerry Mulligan and had a curious life as a cat lady, rescuing stray ones “from the bowels of Grand Central Terminal,” according to Wikipedia. At the time of her death in 1992 she was living with more than 20 cats…..And tonight, I can’t wait to watch Mel Brooks’s 1977 High Anxiety, which he directs, and stars!