Sal Goes to the Best Picture Showcase

I am a huge movie nut, and so is my son, Christopher.  For several years we have been going with some friends to the AMC Best Picture Showcase -- an event that appeals only to the truly obsessed.  The premise is to watch all of the Best Picture nominees one after the other -- 10-12 hours of movies in one sitting!

We started going when there were just five nominees, which meant that we saw all of the films on one Saturday.  There was no Showcase in Cleveland, so we drove 2+ hours each way to attend the Showcase in Columbus.  It was a fun adventure, despite being a very long day. 

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in its infinite wisdom, decided to increase the number of nominees to 9-10, we had to drive to Columbus two Saturdays in a row.  Blech. Some of us have a hard time getting two Saturdays off, and driving there twice is not as much fun as doing it once.  Therefore, we were very happy when our local AMC started having the Showcase.  The theater manager made a great occasion of the event -- even rolling out a red carpet!  We had a wonderful time!

Cut to last year. AMC Ridge Park Square was not on the list of theaters having the Showcase!  Calls to the theater and posts on the AMC Facebook page brought reassurance that the Showcase would return to Cleveland this year.  We thought all was well until AMC announced the Showcase theaters -- and Ridge Park Square was not on the list! 

My son sprang into action -- irritating people at all levels of the AMC organization -- and eventually received an e-mail telling him that Ridge Park Square would be having the Showcase after all!  Triumph!  (I'm not saying that Christopher was personally responsible for getting the Showcase to return to Cleveland, but he can be quite persistent!)

Unfortunately, AMC did not add Ridge Park Square to the list of Showcase theaters on their website until just a couple of weeks ago, and did not add a link to purchase tickets until even later than that.  Therefore, the theater was almost empty on the first Saturday of the Showcase.  We hope that more people will show up for the second week, and that AMC will realize that it wasn't a lack of demand that caused the low ticket sales.  Next year, guys, please get your act together and the theater will be full of crazy Oscar fans like ourselves!

Regular readers of Travels With Sal are probably wondering when I'm going to bring that lovely little uke into the narrative.  The wait is over! The backstory is finished, so the time is now!  Of course I brought Sal to the Showcase. 

When we started attending the Showcase at Ridge Park Square, this gentleman was the manager of the theater.  He was a wonderful host!  Since then he has transferred to another AMC theater, but we were happy to see him back to welcome everyone to this year's Showcase.  Here he is with the lovely Sal.

Not all of the usual suspects could attend this week, but the five of us who could had a great time in the snazzy new reclining seats.  Christopher, Colin with Sal, Diane, and me (not pictured).  What an awesome "group of chatty Showcase regulars!"*

We had a fabulous time doing all the traditional Showcase things:  watching movies, munching on tons of popcorn, eating Malley's chocolate-covered pretzels (purchased by Christopher and smuggled in by moi), vehemently debating the merits -- or lack thereof -- of the various films, etc.  I kept up my usual practice of writing capsule reviews on Facebook after each movie.  Here is what I posted about the films we saw: 
Philomena = Why anybody could remain a Catholic after seeing this mystifies me. Fantastic movie about a very disturbing topic. 
Dallas Buyers Club = Not sure how to sum it up. Depressing, amazing acting, another story where authority figures were baddies. 
Wolf of Wall Street = Exhausted from the debauchery. Some funny moments, but why was this nominated? 
12 Years a Slave = Powerful, yet painful to watch. Of today's movies this should win the best picture Oscar. All four in our group agree on this.  


 All of us -- including Sal -- are looking forward to the second day of the Showcase!


*A few years ago a Plain Dealer reporter came to the Showcase and interviewed some of the people in attendance.  Of course she talked to us.  We would have been hard to miss as we vociferously discussed and debated about the movies.  When the paper came out we were disappointed to see that we had not been given many inches of space in the article, but we will forever refer to ourselves as the writer did -- as a "group of chatty Showcase regulars!"