Final week of films at the Oxford
At least one from each of the theatre’s eight decades to be shown
Back in Halifax for one week only — lineups down the street at the Oxford Theatre!
The venerable cinema has been sold to a developer and a final week of films begins today, with tickets already snapped up for seven of them.
“It’s surprising, the films that are sold out, it’s quite a varied selection,” said Sarah Van Lange of Cineplex. “The capacity of the Oxford is 340, and ‘E.T. the ExtraTerrestrial’ was the first to sell out.”
Others for which tickets are gone are “Titanic, “Gone with the Wind,” “Maudie, ” “Raiders of the Lost Ark, ” “Casablanca” and “2001: A Space Odyssey. ”
In response, Cineplex has added three more screenings, with another showing of “Casablanca” on Friday afternoon, “E.T.” on Saturday and “Wizard of Oz” on Sunday morning.
“Our film team had the difficult task of working with our film distribution partners to select the movie titles that would be shown during The Oxford’s final week,” said Van Lange. “We liked the idea of screening at least one film from each of The Oxford’s eight decades, as well as offering films that would appeal to a variety of age groups across a variety of genres.”
Van Lange also said a number of people visited the theatre last weekend to share memories about films they’ve seen at The Oxford over the years.
Other films to be screened include “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ” “Lawrence of Arabia, ” “Rear Window, ” “The Grand Budapest Hotel, ” “Aliens, ” “City Lights, ” “Grease, ” “The Graduate” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
For director Michael Melski, one film on that list stands out.
“If it’s the restored ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ on the big screen, that would be phenomenal. It’s really sad, I’ve had three premieres of my own films there, and there was always an issue with the sound,” Melski said. “And they’ve just fixed the sound within the last little while, so it’s sad to be losing it. So I would say given the grandeur of the house, the best film that’s most suited for that grandeur would be ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ in my book. Cinematography, sound, everything, it’s an epic house and it’s an epic film, so I’d say that’s the one I’d most like to see on the big screen there.”
Asked which film he’d like to add to the list if he could, Melski thought long and hard, ruminating over which decade of films is his favourite and which genre would be best.
“I would probably go with something from the ’70s,” he said. “OK, I got it! ‘The Last Picture Show’ — great, great film; it’s about the relationship of a small town to its movie house. So, between that and ‘Cinema Paradiso,’ a great Italian film with a similar theme, those would be my choices for a perfect way to end it. I would go for ‘Last Picture Show’ over ‘Titanic’ any day of the week.”
Halifax writer Carol Bruneau worked at the Oxford as a teenager in the early 1970s, staffing the candy counter with her best friend for a wage that she remembers as $1.30 an hour.
“But the perk was that you could go to all the movies you wanted when you weren’t working,” Bruneau said. “I was hoping there would be some from that era when I worked there, the ones that we would watch endless times.
“‘The Sting,’ that was on for a really long run, because I remember seeing that a number of times and the music was in your head. Another one that was there forever, and we loved and watched over and over and over again, was ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ so we could sing all the songs. Then there was Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, ‘The Way We Were.’ We watched that a lot of times too; it was very sappy and sentimental but when you’re 15, you love that.”
Bruneau is busy doing promotion for her latest book, but if she finds time to get to the Oxford over the next week, it’ll probably be to see “Maudie.”
“The only down side to it was that it was filmed in Newfoundland and not in Nova Scotia, and we know why, right? But I love how that movie is travelling and it speaks to people way outside our region, and I think it’s really cool, how well it’s done,” she said. “I saw it at the Oxford. That’s the last movie I saw there, and it probably will be the last movie I ever get to see there.”