Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater Magic BMX Saturday 8/1/09, 10:00 pm

Price: Free with my badge. Concessions: A complementary can of Miller Genuine Draft from a tub filled with ice out back Audience: Full, maybe 150 out of 200 seats Trailers/advertising: Trailers for The Blue Lagoon, Caveman (starring Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, and Shelley Long), and Troll 2. Projection: 35mm changeover.

It wouldn’t be right to do a Movie Week screening at the Silent Movie Theater that isn’t an obscure, bizarre, and completely befuddling film you’d never heard of, screened in front of a crowd of eager and adventurous movie-goers, plied with free beer. So that’s what I did, and it was great. The movie was completely out of left field, a 1983 E.T. ripoff with heavy emphasis on the BMX sequences, and a glowing baby from outer space with superhuman powers whom the protagonist dubs “Magic Brother.”

When the Cinefamily started, I wasn’t sure how well their audacious programming would fare in a town already full of good movie theaters. But of course, they managed to find a niche that needed filling, and now their shows sell out all the time. They consistently program the sorts of things you couldn’t see anywhere else, from an extensive Jerry Lewis retrospective to late night revivals of children’s movies that children never should have been allowed to see. The place has a great atmosphere, as well, of congenial, communal movie-going that always seems to be an adventure, punctuated by mid-evening sojourns to the back patio for beer, cake, smores, barbecue, or whatever else is on tap. The new, reincarnated Silent Movie Theater has quickly become one of the most invaluable fixtures in the Los Angeles movie-going scene. Credit Hadrian and his staff with making an old theater completely new again.