There’s Still Time to See “I Went to the Dance” (AKA “J’ai été au bal”)

Les Blank’s, Maureen Gosling’s and Chris Strachwitz’s “I Went to the Dance” had folks dancing at the Rialto Cinemas Cerrito on the night of Thursday, September 14.

It attracted a crowd of fans of Cajun and Zydeco music, and of Les Blank and Chris Strachwitz, late musical and filmic entrepreneurs who were based out of El Cerrito.

The movie has several more Bay Area shows. Catch it if you too enjoy hearty roots music. It will play at several independent cinemas, including the Elmwood in Berkeley, Roxie in San Francisco, the Lark in Larkspur, and Rialto Cinemas Sebastopol, some of them through September 21. Several screenings of the movie will feature live entertainment.

The El Cerrito show was special because it featured a performance by the band of Eric and Suzy Thompson, performing Louisiana music of the style portrayed in this wonderful, and recently restored, movie.

The movie is both a detailed history of the development of this French-language music and a toe-tapping entertainment. And yes, people were dancing to the music of Eric and Suzy and their band.

Also on hand during the event were Anthony Matt, who headed the restoration of this and other Les Blank films, Les’s son Harrod, a noted artist in the art car movement, Maureen Gosling, Les’s co-filmmaker on many projects, and Susan Kell and Chris Simon, collaborators on this and other films with Les Blank (as well as filmmakers on their own.)

There were so many high points to this event, but one of them surely was Harrod Blank thanking Eric and Suzy for a gift they had given his father shortly before his death in 2013.

“They did something that was so special for my father that I will never forget,” Harrod said, “and that was, as he was dying in his bed, about three days out, they performed for him, and it was absolutely beautiful.”

A review of the Barbie experience from Dave Weinstein, Friend of the Cerrito Theater:

Sure, streaming may be fast and easy, but nothing can beat being in a movie theater when the lights dim and a really fun film comes on and you feel part of a real audience, some of them friends, many of them neighbors.

Seeing ‘Barbie,’ a wacky, fun fantasy about a girl’s toy that is at the same time a critique of partriarchy, brought this home. First, it was great to see a film sell out—day after day—at our favorite movie theater. The pandemic wasn’t good for movie theaters, or for the movie going experience.

It put many out of business in Berkeley and (at least temporarily) closed the Albany Twin. And audiences have often been thin in the theaters that remained open. (Not so on the Albany Twin’s final night in operation, which my wife and I also attended. Ah, but that evening was tinged with sadness, as the crowd was there to bid farewell to a neighborhood institution, as well as to catch a film.)

No such sadness prevailed during the showing of ‘Barbie.’ Fans, some in pink, many of them young girls, lined up outside, chatting and expectant. My wife and I talked to a young couple, new to town, who settled in alongside us—our usual spots in the first row.

They said they love El Cerrito and the Rialto Cinemas Cerrito.

The audience was polite, quiet—except when we all laughed. It was the wonderful, peaceful mood in the theater, a sense of return to something good. No more mask mandates (and no rules against masks either!), no more social distancing. It was just a fine feeling.

Here’s hoping more and more people rediscover the joy of attending real movies in real theaters. See you at the movies.

Dave Weinstein

Rialto Cinemas is continuing its Free Family Matinee and Big Screen Classics series.

The Free Family Matinee series features kid-friendly movies on the first Saturday and Sunday of each month. They will show at 10 am at Rialto Cinemas Cerrito, and at 11 am at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood and Rialto Cinemas Sonoma County in Sebastopol. The films in this series will be:

• Aug. 5 – 6 The Karate Kid (1984)
• Sept. 2 – 3 The Dark Crystal (1982)
• Oct. 7 – 8 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
• Nov. 4 – 5 A Cat in Paris (2010)
• De. 2 – 3 Gremlins (1984)

The Big Screen Classics series features films from the classic era of cinema. They will show on the second Thursday of each month at 1 pm at all three Rialto theaters (the Cerrito, the Elmwood, and the Sonoma County). The films in this series will be:

• Aug. 10 The Trouble with Harry (1955)
• Sept. 14 You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
• Oct. 12 The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• Nov. 9 What’s Cooking (2000)
• Dec. 14 White Christmas (1954)

No admission fee will be charged for any of these screenings. Tickets will be available beginning the Friday before each screening. More information is available at rialtocinemas.com.