You may not have noticed it yet, but after a decade-long run,
the “Best Films In the World” have stopped coming to Sonoma County.
On the evening of September 23rd, Ky Boyd, the public face of Santa
Rosa’s Rialto Cinemas, stood in front of audiences in each of the
five screening rooms, and thanked them for their constant support
over the years.
The story of how (and several interpretations of why) the Rialto
lost its lease is available online (http://www.rialtocinemas.com/index.php?location=lakeside&film=2010_press)
so I won’t go into it here. The new lease-holder, Dan Tochini’s SR
Entertainment Group, says publicly they plan to continue offering
“similar art-house films” at the Summerfield Road location, but
Tochini previously made this promise for screens at each of his
other Sonoma County theaters, and this never really happened.
When KRSH-FM’s Bill Bowker asked the late Doug Smith and I to
“go live” in February 2000, with our “Cinema Toast” radio show, the
Rialto was the underwriting sponsor (under the stipulation that I
was free to “tell it like I saw it” no matter what the venue). Ky
tells me he showed over 1200 films during these ten years, and I
screened most of them for use in my radio shows and movie columns.
I have picked a handful which stick with me to this day:
• Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro is the centerpiece of Al Gore’s
presentation in “An Inconvenient Truth.” We are shown a picture of
the majestic, snow covered peaks that served as the backdrop in the
1952 movie version of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Snows of
Kilimanjaro.” Only fifty years later, the glacier is all but gone,
the mountain’s once green sides have turned brown and our
assumptions are turned upside down.
• Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, an unrepentant lobbyist for
“Big Tobacco” in Jason Reitman’s premiere film “Thank You For
Smoking.” As the champion of farmers (of tobacco), free enterprise
(tobacco companies), and just plain folks (smokers), “Freedom of
choice” is Naylor’s mantra.
• With “Akeelah and the Bee” we finally have a spelling-bee
movie that understands it’s not about an 11-year-old girl from
South Central Los Angeles (Keke Palmer) memorizing arcane words or
focusing on the spellers’ nervously contorted faces, it’s about the
concept that “Knowledge is Power.”
•As Stephen Frears new movie, “The Queen,” opens, Tony Blair
(Michael Sheen) has been elected Britain’s Prime Minister.
Following protocol, he must report to the Queen (Helen Mirren) and
answer “yes” when she asks if he will serve her and their people.
“You are my tenth Prime Minister,” she tells him. “Mr. Churchill
was the first, and he sat where you are sitting right now.”
• In the amazingly visceral new movie, “The Hurt Locker,”
Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) volunteers not just once,
but over and over again to place himself in harm’s way. “How many
bombs have you disarmed?” an impressed colonel (David Morse) asks
James after he takes care of a massive car bomb in front of the UN
compound. “Eight hundred and seventy three,” answers the sergeant,
“counting those in the car today.”
• What sets “Une Liaison d’Amour” apart from any other movie
about two people (Nathalie Baye and Sergi Lopez) having a sexual
rendezvous? It’s not just that it’s French, but that it is very
adult and emotionally revealing.
• Zacharias Kunik’s “The Fast Runner” is a movie that transcends
our existence and plops us down in Igloolik, a nomadic village in
the eastern arctic wilderness at the dawn of the first millennium
where Evil (in the form of envy) is a potent force intent upon
upsetting the village’s balance and spirit of cooperation.
• There is a scene late in the film “Hotel Rwanda” which every
family man will instantly understand. It is the middle of the night
and hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) lies in bed, wide
awake, staring at the ceiling. His arm is lovingly wrapped around
his sleeping wife (Sophie Okonedo), and his eyes focus in the
distance as he ponders the responsibilities he has and the
decisions he must make. But unlike other wide-awake family men who
contemplate issues such as losing a job or getting a new mortgage
or remodeling the bathroom, Paul feels powerless to stop the
machete-hacked deaths of his wife, children and the over 1,200
neighbors, orphans and other refugees who are sheltered in his
hotel.
Comments? E-mail
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Program Note: “Cinema Toast ” is on radio hiatus until KRSH
finds a new sponsor. Thanks for listening.
