UPDATE!
So today, on a cold & rainy Saturday morning in March, I found out another casualty of this damn economy: no more weekend matinee series at the Music Box Theatre. I'm not sure how long this had been going on, but when I checked to see what was playing this week I noticed there was no Matinee series on the Music Box Web site. The Midnight Series was still there, but no matinees. The early shows were the same shows they'd play throughout the rest of the day.
But as is the fashion of the times on the web, I noticed the Music Box had jumped on the social media bandwagon and had their own Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter pages, which I found this sad news about the matinees:
Unfortunately, attendance for the matinee series has been declining for some time. Because now more than ever we need to carefully monitor our expenses, and have more flexibility in scheduling our main features, the decision was made to discontinue the matinee series.
The news really saddened me. When I first moved down to Chicago in the late 90s I used to take long Saturday morning bike rides. It was good exercise, a great way to explore the neighborhoods and see the city. A lot of times on my way back to my apartment I'd swing down Southport and see what was playing at the 11:30 Saturday matinee at the Music Box Theatre. Quite a few times I stopped, locked up my bicycle outside, and spent the middle of the day watching movies like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and an occasional Welles or Bogart.
The Music Box, built in 1929 when "sound" was a relatively new feature in motion pictures (for more info on the theatre's history, go here.). It wasn't the most comfortable moviegoing experience as sometimes I wondered if I was sitting in an original seat, espeically during the longer features. The main theater is a maginificent room, the complete opposite of today's state of the art megaplexes. Sitting in the theater and looking around at the walls and ceiling you feel like you're in the middle of a European villa, and the ceiling sparkles as if watching a movie under the night sky. But the seats often wanted for more padding, and the slope of the theater could have used a steeper grade to avoid looking at the back of the head of a tall person in front of you.
There was just something about that theater that made me think of a movie going experience so much different than the cookie-cutter, assembly-line blockbuster mill of the Hollywood megaplexes of today. Hell, I sometimes wondered when I'd show up to see a movie I'd see some war propaganda newsreels instead of coming attractions.
So today I was bummed learning about the fate of the weekend matinee. But as I thought about it, I couldn't remember the last time I actually made it over on a weekend morning to see a movie. I didn't exactly do my part to keep the tradition going, so it shouldn't surprise me this ended up happening. Hopefully someday they'll bring it back, and when they do I'll be sure to get over there for a show.
UPDATE! While wading through the spam comments left for me, Dave @ Music Box notified me that Matinees are indeed back! Huzzah! I'll see YOU there. http://www.musicboxtheatre.com/matinees/