Sidetrack Diversion: A Trip to the Movies — Dune, Part Two

Although I would definitely consider myself a movie fan, it's not often that I'll go a much out of my way to see a new film on its opening night, and on a particular screen, or anything like that.

The Rose Theatre opened in 1907

In fact, on most occasions, I'm quite happy to wait to see a movie until it comes out on one of the streaming services.

Today, however, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I made an exception to that rule — she's actually a much bigger movie buff than I am — to go to our local theater to see "Dune, Part Two" on its opening night.

Now it might sound a bit nuts to go see a supposedly "Epic" movie on a relatively small screen, in a relatively small and quite old movie theater, in a relatively small town... rather than opt for one of those big stadium seating, giant screen, surround sound affairs in one of our nearby cities.

But there's a good reason for that.

Movietime!

The Rose Theatre here in Port Townsend has been around since 1907 and the thing that made today's movie outing sort of doubly cool is that this town was also Dune author Frank Herbert's hometown for many many years.

He actually wrote the original Dune books at his house here in town — locally known as Shangri-La — and he was also a patron of the Rose Theatre. Hence the connection of "why watch it HERE."

Somehow, it seemed fitting to see this latest rendition of Dune — according to many fans, presented the way it was meant to be shown — at a movie theater not far from where the entire saga originally came to life.

Inside the Rose

Although it definitely has an updated screen, projection and sound system, the Rose Theatre is still your basic Old Time movie theater. Locals have been coming here to see films for a very long time, and it is always the "feature show venue" at the annual Port Townsend Film Festival.

Yes, there really is such a thing!

Although it is as much an "art house" as it is a mainstream movie theater, they often do get some of the big shows here, as well. Especially if they have some kind of "local meaning," like tonight's show.

As a "tip of the hat" to the importance of Frank Herbert in this town, there was actually a showing of the movie "yesterday" — the day before it went into general release.

Watcher, in a nearby tree... yes, this is a small town!

I'm not going to get into a review of the movie here, nor am I going to share any spoilers so I will just leave it at the fact that it was "absolutely epic" and for my money every bit as "big" as the book was when I first read it back in the mid-1970s.

It was interesting to see how many people in the audience were likely people who knew Frank when he lived here and were almost treating this as both a family event, and an opportunity to have what they might consider almost a "religious experience."

It's not something you see often these days, but the theater owner actually came out before the movie started and told the small story about the origins of the story and the filmmaker. It added a certain festivity to the showing.

It was definitely a worthy diversion!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

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Created at 2024-03-02 01:17 PST
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