Happy new year my little buckets of blood!
While things are off to a rocky start for the new year, politically, economically - well, in general, I wanted to take a moment in my disconnection (for my health) to talk about:
Friends and family know I am a history fan, an architectural fan - even wrote a book about it! So when I heard on a Tuesday that the last movie theater in the University District of Seattle was closing on Thursday, I asked my brother "want to see a movie?"
We saw the second to last film shown in this 80+ year old gem of Americana. And it was:
*I would post a photo of the poster but IMDB and Blogger no longer allows it. I .... have thoughts*
Was it the best film to say good bye to? No.
Was it hilariously appropriate for this theater?
Yes.
I fell in love with this theater when I walked in, over 20 years ago, and realized it's more than a little messed up - in all the best ways. It's grungy, grimy, crooked, sloppy, and totally overrun by locals and cinephiles.
It takes an alarmingly long time to take the stairs up to the two other smaller theaters that were created in the 70s (??). The bathrooms are wildly haunted. Haunted by ghosts or something else is debatable - they were always scary places.
But my fondest memory is when I had a laughing attack (in the same theater I was sitting in on Thursday) during a film festival. It was a very serious film, theater was packed, and I just lost it in a laughing fit.
I escorted myself out of the theater and laughed until I couldn't breathe and had tears running down my face. The feeling of the carpeted walls that I desperately clung to, remains in my veins.
That's how I'm going to remember this place - which is likely going to be torn down, to rest it's tired bones. This is one building where I am okay to see it go. It carried too much and couldn't let things go. The place felt like a trap and that's what I gathered from the one and only person running the entire theater on that Thursday.
Which brings me to all the fun I had, watching Primate, as one of three people in the entire theater.
This film is ridiculous. Silly. And the effects are rather spectacular.
While money was not spent in more solid character development, it was certainly spent on the practical effects and pure brutality.
I let loose with this film - and this theater. I reacted to the jump scares with vigor, I screamed, jumped, my friends kept texting me and I didn't turn the sound down on my phone, I ate nearly the whole bag of popcorn and drank the large soda, threw my hands up in the air and talked aloud. I sat in discomfort a few rows in front of the seats that were ACTIVELY DECAYING - roped off for security reasons - in front of me.
This was MY theater and I was sending it out with a salute to it's decades of entertainment and communal connection.
Little sad it was Primate as the film but I also laughed about it. This film, while not good, was excellent entertainment for entertainment purposes.
The story follows a family who lived with a chimpanzee for most of their lives. And then the chimpanzee gets bit, gets rabies, and their entire privileged life falls apart.
The film is absurd in many ways - my brother and I laughed through most of it - but a serious acknowledgement to the work that went in to to the gore, the chimpanzees' decline, and malice.
This film is excellent entertainment if you just want to loose yourself for a little while. Just.... just to be in this rich, liminal space and recline to the chaos that is created from chance.
While tragic, this film also gives CEOs dying in the ocean, vibes. So. Take that for what it's worth.
RIP Varsity! You were a noble dame who saw 80+ years of people through heart ache, hope, fear, and empathy. Rest now.
You will be missed.
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