Still more lazy thoughts from this one…

Tales from the (Movie) Theater: Journey’s End (Part 11)

Being a senior projectionist, at age 22 for the first half of 1977, no less, at the independent Huntington Park Warner Theatre (a place I had come to regularly since I was a kid), was a one-of-a-kind experience. I went from someone who knew next to nothing about the trade to someone who could at the very least get a movie projected — by hook or by crook.

Best Album Covers: Aja

This is the next entry in Best Album Covers, a series begun right here. The first successful long-playing microgroove record for the phonograph was introduced by Columbia Records back in June of…

Reprise – Friday Forgotten Film: Sharky’s Machine

To put it mildly, Burt Reynolds has had an interesting career — feel free to read in the old Chinese blessing slash curse at this point. His charismatic presence with early recurring roles on the Gunsmoke and Riverboat television series got many people’s attention (mine included, as a kid transfixed with TV). He parlayed that into larger and larger film roles.

Friday Forgotten Song: Summer Madness by Kool & the Gang

Sampled years later by Will Smith for the background in his ‘Summertime’ ditty, among others, Summer Madness had to be one of the unforeseen strains to come out of the Light of World LP on its release in ’74. I think I flattened every groove on my copy of the album back then before the year was out, the deepest for this track. Likely one of the most successful B-side numbers from the days where the 45 was still king, it did make quite a mark on radio air. An instrumental that played across R&B, jazz, and pop stations, at least around SoCal for sure.

Tales from the (Movie) Theater: The ‘Movie’ List (Part 8)

I guess when you come down to it, this involvement of working as a projectionist from 1976 – 1977 at the Warner Huntington Park Theater was a unique one. It simultaneously fed me concession stand food & drink (though for years afterward, I couldn’t stand to drink Pepsi), pocket money, and experiences that couldn’t have come from anywhere else.

TMT: On Our Way to Were

This is the next entry in a Theatre… a Movie… and a Time, a series that was begun here. I’ve said it before, timing is everything. And Kelle Pratt, she of the Outspoken & Freckled blog and various, wonderful blogathons, recently batted clean-up with one film for another. Ratnakar Sadasyula, an equally marvelous and generous movie blogger, not long ago completed his Sydney Pollack Blogathon over at Seetimar-Diary of a Movie Lover. This film, in a nice touch, brought the curtain down for the online event, and stirred a memory in the process.

Tales from the (Movie) Theater: Surprise! (Part 7)

After being promoted by attrition to lead projectionist at the Huntington Park Warner Theater, following an all too short stint of a few months showing movies, I attempted to settle into a semblance of routine. The summer of 1976, though, threw that totally out of proportion with its arrival as I completed of my college spring semester. The result of which gave me more time to work.

TMT: Returning to the Scene

Within weeks of heading to Century City one night for a movie, only to find Huey helicopters blitzing the avenue on their way up to the Nakatomi Plaza building, I’d begun the last romance of my life. Unbeknownst to me, mind you, but that’s quite okay. At this point, months into it, I found I rather enjoyed being swept up.