Hollywood
Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215
www.hollywoodtheatre.org
The Hollywood
Theatre is a nonprofit venue operated since 1997 by the
Oregon
Film
& Video Foundation.
The Hollywood
opened July 17, 1926, as a vaudeville theater. General admission
was 25 cents.
A psychedelic space vamp strips naked in zero gravity.
A crazed hillbilly rides an A-bomb over Moscow like a bucking
bronco. A quartet of astronauts travels to Venus in La-Z-Boy
recliners for a tangle with Zsa Zsa.
Fed up with this year's pitiful roster of summer movies?
Try the Hollywood Theatre, which is showing 24 movies spanning
35 years in its first annual "Summer of Sci-Fi" Film Series.
Some are sublime classics, others ridiculous fluff--but
nearly all are a lot of fun. And did we mention that Mr.
Sulu will be there?
Although the series began back in June with such offerings
as War of the Worlds and Earth Girls Are Easy,
the best is yet to come. This Friday, July 14, brings what
is easily the best film of the series--Stanley Kubrick's
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb. The Cold War may be over, but this pitch-black
satire is as sharp and droll as ever. Strangelove
is the best kind of science fiction: the kind that doesn't
feel like fiction at all. As for the week's other selection,
WarGames, let's just say that director John Badham
is no Stanley Kubrick. Still, for those of us who grew up
on Pac-Man and parachute pants, the film's simple query--"Shall
we play a game?"--is a grim reminder that the Matthew Brodericks
of the world can hack us into apocalypse.
July 22 will be the wet dream of every Trekkie in the greater
metro area: George Takei, better known as Mr. Sulu, will
be on hand for a special screening of Star Trek: The
Motion Picture. It's a fund-raiser for the Friends of
Parkinson's Foundation, so try to overlook the fact that
only even-numbered Star Trek pictures are worth beaming
down to the theater for. The same week brings the 1956 sci-fi
classic Forbidden Planet, a space-age version of
The Tempest. Leslie Nielsen performing Shakespeare
with a robot: What's not to like?
In the weeks ahead, the camp and circumstance continue
to blast off each night. The '60s cult favorite Barbarella
(co-written by Strangelove's Terry Southern) pits
scantily clad Jane Fonda against far-out aliens and objectification,
with mixed results. 1958's Queen of Outer Space,
starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, is a chauvinist sci-fi antique with
the half-assed production values of a school play. It's
also tremendous fun. Superb X-Files forerunners Village
of the Damned and Children of the Damned involve
a mysterious alien invasion accomplished through a hybrid
with English children. (No doubt the creatures will develop
bad teeth.) And then there's The Omega Man, with
Charlton Heston battling zealous albino mutants. Considering
his infamous off-screen political leanings, the production
must have given Heston a case of Stockholm syndrome.
If you're determined to catch the latest multiscreen multiplex
extravaganza, that sinking ship departs every hour at the
nearest Regal Cinemas. But for those seeking quintessential
summer thrills in old-time movie-house splendor, try orbiting
the Hollywood this summer. It's a perfect antidote to the
current invasion of bad blockbusters.
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