Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace

My wife and I had the pleasure of seeking this warm, loving hommage to movie palaces at Classic Cinema's York Theater in Elmhurst, IL -- with the added bonus of Director April Wright there to discuss the film afterwards.

It's a joy. My perspective might be tainted by seeing so many movie palaces of my youth again on the big screen -- and this film should be experienced on the big screen. The Granada, Riviera, Uptown, Music Box (still alive and very well), and the Avalon (aka New Regal) where I drove on a date for the first time. Like so many of the other palaces of then and now from around the nation featured in this film, the Avalon in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood still stand in all its glory. I had occasion to attend Avery Brooks' one man show of Paul Robeson there on the centennial of Robeson's birth, and it was amazing how much smaller this grand theater was -- compared to how huge it seemed when I was a kid.

If you remember the joy of seeing a film with hundreds of other movie goers, and remember the astounding over the top architecture of some of these movie palaces, see this film. If you never had the experience, see this film and you'll see why so many miss the movie palace of yore.