Sacramento Magazine
your username
your email
your username
your email
Movie theaters are where we gather to share stories and find our way through the darkness together.
Sacramento’s descent into the purple tier forced movie theaters to again close their doors this past fall. And while I know the move was essential, I can’t help but worry that many of those doors may remain shut forever.
Movie theaters have always been an escape for me. Maybe it started in 1976 during a heat wave in Los Angeles, when my mother and I sat through the three-hourlong classic “The Sound of Music”— twice. I could not peel my 6-year-old eyes away from Julie Andrews cavorting with her guitar in her nunnery streetwear or leading her charges in Do-Re-Mi wearing (gasp!) old curtains. Mom and I fled to that movie theater/icebox from our small, non-airconditioned apartment; she’d packed us lunch and dinner before we’d sped off in her Chevy Malibu. In between showtimes, we stayed in the empty theater while the ushers maneuvered around us with their push brooms, me gleefully downing Jordan Almonds (the only candy a health nut 1970s mom would permit).