Last Wednesday, we checked out to a place that used to be more often on my list, the Glenwood Arts theater, formerly known as Ranchmart Theater at 95th and Mission Road.
This theater looks much the same as it has for at least the last 20 years and I say that in a loving manner. It is a step back in time but they show new movies, sometimes old movies, and often "artsy" movies that you can't see anywhere else in town. It also, especially during and after Covid, is a place where you can sit there with maybe three other people and they still show the film (unlike many airlines which will cancel heartlessly if there are too few flyers in their opinion). You can also always usually see the screen in this theater, despite the lack of pitch in the seats.
Every Wednesday for a while now they've been showing Nelly Don at 5:15 p.m. which is not just fun and a little bit campy but also manages to be educational in terms of Kansas City’s history. There was quite a large crowd this last week, maybe 40 people and all of us were very interested in what was going on.. At the end of the movie, quite oftenTerrence O'Malley, the creator-writer-producer of the film comes out and talks to the audience about it, which is both interactive and really interesting.
It made me think of the “olden days” when you always wanted to see new shows with a crowd of people. To share the laughter, the screams, the gasps and the groans were part of the experience. Very different from streaming even the best movie on Netflix on a home screen. Case in point: about four months ago, Cute and I watched Forrest Gump on TV via Netflix. It was still good and still ended happily, well, pretty happily. But then it came to Union Station on their huge screen with (comparatively) many in the audience – we’d JUST seen it, understand, knew EXACTLY what was coming, and yet it STILL was so much better. Is this just us?
I worry (well, not too much; there are bigger issues impaling us) about the kids who are growing up screening movies on their itty bitty phone screen or only on TV. They don’t know what they’re missing of course. And it’s probably not up to me to tell them.
We signed up for the theater's newsletter online and plan to go out here more often. You should check it out – what’s wrong with tomorrow? But you have several other Wednesdays to catch Nelly Don, an amazing woman who changed both Kansas City's history and the women's garment industry. I fear somehow that sentence makes her sound boring but believe me, in this version, she is anything but.
P.S. The website is https://fineartsgroup.com/ and there’s an extra showing of the famous New York Cat Festival on May 1 if you’re one of those people, which I have been. Bring cat supplies and you get free popcorn. Isn’t life good?
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