Celluloid Heroes

Movies in the park – What’s not to like?
It’s a very public event, a shared affair. Yes, you go for the film, but you also go for the sense of community, the nature, and all that stuff.

One friend, who shall remain without a name, disagrees:
“…the feeling is of watching a film with my ass parked on a bbq grill placed in the middle of a very loud party.”

Yet my friend has not seen the first half of Strangers on a Train while sitting underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, or the intro to Boogie Nights, from a rooftop on Orchard Street, underneath a pirate flag.

Admittedly, I have never sat through an entire outdoor movie. Obviously, you do not go to an outdoor movie to watch the movie.

Last night was no exception to this rule although, I swear, I had the full intention of watching the film from beginning to end.

Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet were live-scoring Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) in Prospect Park.

I appreciate Dracula in every interpretation and while it is near impossible to top the novel, it is a story that would be tough to botch in film form, no matter how the details are altered.

Unfortunately, not more than ten minutes into last night’s screening, the production was interrupted by a Hollywood-esque thunder storm.

It was so gothic.

The social and cultural unifier was washed away. There would be no more live score; no more film; no more civic lounging.

Instead, there was a light stampede of sorts as the tribe members rushed out of the park for shelter.

And that, my dear reader, is why God invented Netflix.