Grease is the word or #80 – Watch a movie at the Astor Theatre

This post has been sitting so long as a draft that I barely dare to publish it. In the meantime we’ve even seen that particular movie again. Nevertheless, it was such a nice experience that it should be shared. So, here you go:

#80 – Go 1930s grand and watch a movie at the Astor Theatre having a choc-ice – September 20, 2013

Life leads you in unexpected ways. Few things turn out what you thought them to be and only by looking back you can connect the dots. Sometimes its best to go with the flow and see what happens. In terms of spiritual depth this blog post already punches way above its weight considering what’s about to come.

Harriet and I panned to spend date night at France Soir to try their famous French Fare. However, as I was a bit pfaffy and postponed booking a table to the last minute (yes, Germans might not have a word for procrastination, but we sure know how to do it), we were offered either a table that we had to leave by seven or one after 9:30. Not really my most favourite dinner times. So what to do? Retreat to The List for help!

The Astor glimpsed in my eye. I was hoping for one of the original Indana Jones movies. So I had a look what they had to offer on a Friday night: Grease was the word. The remastered sing-a-long version to be precise.

I’ve never been a fan of sing-a-longs, musical films nor Grease specifically. But Harriet ticks all three boxes very confidently. So I ordered tickets online and prepared mentally for a 23 year old Travolta and 28 year old Newton-John playing teenage dramas. Confession time: Having been a sucker for Beverly Hills 90210 for the better part of the 1990ies, I shouldn’t act if this concept would be new to me.

The Astor is a Melbournian institution as classic as cinema can get: A single screen theatre, opened in 1936, still operating with the same concept. The slogan on the outside says “Fine Film and Atmosphere since 1936”. Although it is obvious that the theatre’s last refurbishment has been quite some time ago and it does not look as well preserved as Yarraville’s Sun Theatre, but Friday it delivered on both the Film and the Atmosphere part exceptionally well. We were surrounded by quite a few Pink Ladies, T-Birds and Sandy Olsons.

The theatre has two ranks and visitors can choose seats freely. We chose without any specific reason the upper rank and have been rewarded by the pre-show. A guy in his late fifties, reminiscent of Al Delvecchio of Happy Days, grabbed the microphone and warmed the audience up with some trivia (“today 35 years ago, the soundtrack debuted the top of the album charts, that year only beaten by … the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.”), some shenanigans with the audience and finally a karaoke contest with the audience. Volunteers were free to sing the first few verses of “You’re the one that I want”. Most of them were decent, some obscure (the only guy participating), some adorable (the four 13 year olds daring each other to sing) and one woman plain spectacular.

I don’t have to repeat the plot here, since everybody should know it at least vaguely. I was quite impressed by the attention to detail and wit they used to integrate the sing-a-long words. Unfortunately, I learned that there are not only lyrics to sing, but also dance moves and whole choreographies accompanying the movie. And that was the point where I declared defeat, leaned back in my chair and watched the rest of the audience engaging with the movie. While I watched it daunted on me why this movie grossed $400M over the last 35 years (that makes it the highest grossing movie of 1978, but does not get it even close into the top 50 of highest-grossing movies of all time).

Limiting that evening to the movie would not do it justice. The whole experience, i.e. the combination of movie, theatre, audience and engagement, was pretty spectacular. Did I like the movie itself? Let me quote Danny directly:

Maybe a little bit.

I got the header image  from altervista.