2017 Life Logs, Day 96: The Last Word
Date: Thursday, April 6, 2017
Weather: Overcast, Rain, Evening Thunder and Lightning; High 53, Low 44 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
My friend Olivia White picked me up this morning and we headed to Dennis which is located on the northern part of Cape Cod that borders on the Cape Cod Bay. It is about an hour from here, but despite the distance, Olivia really wanted to introduce me to the Cape Cinema. This is a movie theatre that was founded in 1930. It was designed to look like a church and it features a painted ceiling featuring a representation of the heavens and constellations.
The seats are mostly still the originals, although they are slowly being replaced by new replicas of the old. This movie theater is part of the Cape Cod Center for the Arts complex which also includes the Cape Playhouse and the Cape Cod Museum of Art. I had no idea any of this existed. The movie theatre specializes in independent American and international films, simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and National Theatre, and live music performances. Other than my introduction to the Cape Cinema, our main reason for going there today was to see The Last Word starring Shirley MacLaine. The movie gets mixed reviews, but both Olivia and and I are longtime fans of the 82 year-old Shirley MacLaine. We really enjoyed the movie and I enjoyed being introduced to this very special movie theatre.
The movie was at 11 am, so afterwards it was time for lunch. We drove out of the arts complex to a restaurant just across the street, the Scargo Café. And it was also delightful. We were seated and then another couple came in and were seated next to us. At some point, they introduced themselves to us and Olivia noted that we had seen them in the theatre. The woman shared that one of the main actors in The Last Word is her grandson, Thomas Sadoski, and that just a few weeks ago he married the Amanda Seyfried, who was a main actress, along with Shirley MacLaine, in the movie we had just seen. Wow! I remembered Thomas Sadoski from the television sitcom, the Newsroom. Mark discovered this series last year and we watched every single episode. So it really interesting to meet the grandmother. And then Olivia and I started talking about the last movie in which we had seen Shirley MacLaine. We both came up with Steel Magnolias and Olivia shared that the story that movie was based on was inspired by a real life issue that was faced by one of her close friends in seminary school in Texas years ago. AND the movie was shot in a parish in Louisiana where another of her best friends from the same seminary school lives. His home was used as a setting for parts of the movie and he was actually in the movie as a singer in the church choir. What a small world!
