So I have the honour of kicking off a brand new Movie Talk series featuring some of our favourite movie-going memories... A Movie Night to Remember.
And as today is Easter Sunday, I think it only proper that I reminisce about the memorable night I spent at a grand old movie theatre in America's Deep South eating soul food, sipping margaritas and watching Sean Connery getting crucified... Because it's about as close to a religious experience as I'm ever likely to get!
Now, if you've read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, you'll have an inkling of what Macon, Georgia is like. As Lee writes of Macon's namesake in her great American novel: 'Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then.'
As it happens the real Macon's still a fairly quiet old town, full of that wonderful faded grandeur that the South excels at, but on the drizzly March day that I drove into town with my best mate on one of our bi-annual US road trips, Macon wasn't all that hot. In fact, it was pretty cold and miserable and after hanging out all day at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame with Otis Redding , we were on the lookout for a venue to while away the evening before we headed out of town the next day.
And then we stumbled across the Cox Capitol, an old-style movie theatre - which looked like somewhere John Dillinger might have watched Manhattan Melodrama (before getting gunned down by the Feds) - and which served up vintage movies and down-home cuisine. Problem solved, we could stay dry, get entertained and have a two-course meal for only $10 a piece...
At first we were a little disappointed to discover we'd missed a showing of King Creole with Elvis Presley the previous week, and tonight's headliner was John Huston's Kipling classic The Man Who Would Be King starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.... Somehow a film starring a cockney and a Scot, set in the far-flung reaches of the Afghan desert about a couple of British chancers in the days of the Empire didn't seem as fitting for our soulful American road trip as The King shaking his pelvis and singing about crawfish in N'Awlins...
But funnily enough, after a monster helping of blackened catfish, collard greens and corn bread, not to mention several margaritas, while kicked back in the worn leather armchairs where Georgians for generations had spent their Saturday night, Sean and Mike and their daft, dare-devil antics in the desert seemed remarkably soulful too. Especially when the film reached it's action-packed climax and Sean got battered and beaten by a horde of rebel tribesmen and took a header down a ravine... accompanied by our second helping of key lime pie.
Civilised, satisfying and surprisingly mellow! And an experience that even made Michael Caine's over-acting seem like a thing of beauty. I'd recommend the Cox Capitol if you ever happen to be passing through Macon, Georgia, and John Huston's Empirical Boy's Own Adventure any day, if you happen to have enough margaritas and Southern Fried comfort food on tap.
We’d love from you if you have your own Movie Night to Remember. Have you too seen a film in an unusual setting: The Beach on a beach or Cinema Paradiso in a cinema that was heavenly? Do let us know.
