Some weeks the Capitol Theatre programs a movie or two. This week they programmed a whole personality test. Whatever kind of moviegoer you are, there is a seat on Fountain Square with your name on it between Saturday, June 13 and Friday, June 19.
Saturday, June 13: The Mel Brooks Marathon
Three Mel Brooks comedies, back to back to back, in one Saturday. Pace yourself or don’t.
High Anxiety kicks things off at 3 pm. Brooks directs, co-writes, and stars as a Harvard psychiatrist with a secret fear of heights who takes over an institute for the Very, Very Nervous after his predecessor dies under circumstances best described as suspicious. The whole thing is a love letter to Alfred Hitchcock, gag by gag. (PG, 94 mins, 1977)
Robin Hood: Men in Tights follows at 5 pm. A Crusades veteran assembles a ragtag crew to take on an evil king, with inside help from the castle. If you grew up quoting this one, you already know. If you didn’t, Saturday is your chance to find out why everyone else does. (PG-13, 105 mins, 1993)
Blazing Saddles closes the night at 7 pm. A crooked politician installs a Black sheriff in a small frontier town, betting the residents will flee and clear the way for his railroad. Fifty-plus years later it is still one of the sharpest, most fearless comedies ever put on film, and it plays best exactly the way you’ll see it Saturday: in a full house. (R, 94 mins, 1974)
Sunday, June 14: Freddy’s Back, and So Is BG Horror Club
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge screens at 7 pm, co-hosted by BG Horror Club. Freddy Krueger returns to torment a teenage boy who just moved into a very familiar house on a very familiar street. The Horror Club screenings have become one of the most reliably fun nights at the Capitol, and a divisive 1985 sequel is exactly their kind of material. (R, 86 mins, 1985)
Tuesday, June 16: Disney’s Darkest Hour, Literally
The Black Cauldron plays a 12:30 pm matinee. This was Disney’s first PG-rated animated film, a dark sword-and-sorcery tale of a young warrior up against an evil ruler, adapted from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain novels. It took more than 2.5 million drawings and ten screenwriters to make, nearly sank the studio, and has spent forty years building a cult following. A weekday matinee on a big screen is the right way to meet it. (PG, 105 mins, 1985)
Wednesday, June 17: A Palme d’Or Winner in Bowling Green
Taste of Cherry screens at 6:30 pm. Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami won the top prize at Cannes in 1997 for this quiet, devastating film about a middle-aged man driving the hills outside Tehran, looking for someone willing to help him with a final task. It is patient, humane, and the kind of movie that almost never plays theatrically in a town our size. That it is playing here is the whole point of having the Capitol. (Not Rated, 99 mins, 1997)
Thursday, June 18: Captain Jack and His Rocket Powered Go-Kart
This one is special. Captain Jack and His Rocket Powered Go-Kart is a documentary about Jack McClure, a 90-plus-year-old daredevil and drag racer who decides his golden years need more adventure, so he and the Rocketboys resurrect the hydrogen peroxide rocket go-kart he raced fifty years ago. Less than two inches off the ground. Narrated by Brian Lohnes, with an appearance from “Big Daddy” Don Garlits.
Doors open at 4 pm, movie at 4:30 pm, and the directors will be there in person for a Q&A afterward. If you have ever loved anything with an engine, do not miss this one.
Friday, June 19: The Color Purple for Juneteenth
The week closes with the 2023 musical adaptation of The Color Purple at 7 pm, co-hosted by the MLK Day Planning Committee and the NAACP of Bowling Green in honor of Juneteenth. Director Blitz Bazawule brings Alice Walker’s novel about the lifelong struggles and hard-won joy of a Black woman in the early 1900s South to the screen with full musical force. Bring tissues. Stay for the community. (PG-13, 140 mins, 2023)
The Details
All screenings are at the Capitol Theatre on Fountain Square downtown. Showtimes and tickets at capitolbg.org/movies.
Pick a night. Pick three. The Capitol did its part. Now do yours.
