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Movie Blog: The Lagoon's Spring Obsession Series

I'm considerably bummed that I allowed myself to miss the first movie in the Lagoon Cinema's Obsession Film Series.

Two questions: (1) What caused me to miss the movie? And (2) what movie was it?

In reverse order: the movie was Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. I own it on DVD, but I've never seen the movie the way it was meant to be seen. It's about a man who wants to bring opera to the Amazon jungle. And after a few failed entrepreneurial attempts to make this happen, he tries his hand at the booming rubber business. He finds an area of unexploited trees, but in order to sap them he needs to push a steamboat over a mountain.

Played by the uber-intense Klaus Kinski, Fitzcarraldo convinces a tribe of natives to help him in his endeavor, and the result is a feast of fog and festering jungle, rapids and gramaphones, and one enormous and enigmatic metaphor.

It's just too bad that a wonderful dinner with my parents couldn't have fallen on another day.

But because I missed Fitzcarraldo, I'm certainly going to see (at least) one of the three other great movies playing this month.

The one I'm most excited about is the last: Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which plays at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on March 28. I haven't seen this on the big screen, but I recently re-read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, so I'm keen to experience "The horror" in another medium.

Next week's film in the Obsession Series is John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt. It's about a group's search for gold in central Mexico and the devils (greed, madness and bandits) that threaten them in their effort. It's playing at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on March 14.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Trailer by Danios12345 on YouTube

Between Treasure and Apocalypse – that sounds like a 2012 book title – is Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Considering the sky has been recently brightened by aurora borealis, it's not a bad time to think of UFOs or watch Francois Truffaut.

"Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" - 30Th Anniv. - TRAILER by JamesDeanRebel on YouTube

You might encounter Encounters at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on March 21.

Maybe it's just me, but aren't obsessed people so much more fun to watch and listen to? They certainly beat the bored – those who tend to look to others (you!) to entertain them. A high school teacher once told me: if you're bored, it's your fault. Perhaps. In case you need to fend off boredom this spring, consider Wednesdays at the Lagoon.

Times and tickets.

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