A lifelong passion for movies fulfilled weekly 

I must confess I’m an incurable movieholic. Sitting in a darkened theatre munching an overpriced bag of popcorn ranks up there with hearing Oscar Peterson rip off a solo in full flight. Not actually, but you get the picture (no pun intended). 

My passion for motion pictures started when I was four or five years old with The Wizard of Oz. I recall being excited beyond belief viewing the film’s colourful billboard posters as my father and I shuffled slowly through a line-up to the glassed-in ticket booth at the Capital Theatre in Port Alberni. The thrilling opening scene which has Dorothy’s Kansas prairie farmhouse being ripped from its foundation by a howling tornado (filmed in black and white) and then crash landed in a place called Munchkinland (filmed in gorgeous Technicolor) was my first experience with the celluloid art form known as the ‘special effect’. The magical moments which the ever-evolving technical process produces continue to thrill me.  

Moving to the city of Nanaimo eight years ago has allowed me to emerge in my passion for films as many as three to four times a week. Not only am I able to see the latest Hollywood releases on one of the 14 available screens within a few blocks of our home, but also experience via satellite live musical performances from around the world.  At the Galaxy Theatre at Rutherford Mall on Saturday mornings once or twice a month the Metropolitan Opera’s Emmy Award winning series The Met: Live in HD is in its fifth season with twelve live transmissions on tap. When I first started attending the operas there were only ten or fifteen of us in the audience. Now there are two full theatres for every performance.

However, the Galaxy Cineplex is not only presenting opera on the big screen.  On September 12, along with my wife Pat and brother Terry, we took in a live via satellite performance of one of the most popular musical celebrations of Britain’s extensive summer concert season, the Last Night of the Proms from The Royal Albert Hall in London, England. 

Then on Oct 4th I stumbled across a listing for another live satellite feed from England. Pat had driven up “over the hump’ to Port Alberni to rehearse the Timbre! choir. About 6 pm I was looking on the Internet at the local movie listings and to my surprise learned that the 25^th Anniversary production of Les Misérables was scheduled to be broadcast within the hour. I phoned Terry who lives only a few steps from the Galaxy to say the broadcast was a must-see and I’d meet him there shortly. Bar none, it turned out to be the best of all the satellite broadcasts I’ve attended in the last four years. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables is one of the most beloved musicals of all time and I never tire of hearing its magnificent score. Projected onto the giant movie screen it was nothing less than spectacular and with the Galaxy theatre’s digital surround sound system I’m sure we heard the show better than the audience in attendance at the O2 Arena in London.  

As mentioned above, I’m an incurable movieholic and I’ll go to just about anything that moves - except a horror film.  Currently in theatres, my favourites include Red (a CIA spoof), The Town (an intriguing bank heist flick), Hereafter (Clint Eastwood’s latest release) and The Social Network, a film exploring the moment at which Facebook was invented.  I’d better confess.  Both Pat and myself are on Facebook and as hard as it is to do, we limit the time spent on the social network phenomena. However many past students have found us through our Facebook page and it’s great to track and find out what they’re up to. Many have become professional singers and musicians so that’s a special joy for us to read about.

Further entertainment we enjoy here in the hub city is the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra. Many years ago I played the double bass in an orchestra called the Nanaimo Symphony which was an all-amateur ensemble attracting players from every community north of Duncan. We met weekly on Sunday afternoons under the baton of Maurice Kushner (and later John Getgood) to rehearse for two or three concerts a year. With the advent of the handsome Port Theatre, Nanaimo now boasts a fully professional orchestra. Last Saturday evening we attended the orchestra’s first performance of their 16^th season. The concert, entitled Remembrance, featured the world premiere of a composition written by James Mark, a violinist in the orchestra. I met James several years ago when he asked me to play in an instrumental ensemble he was putting together to accompany an annual show called the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular.  It’s not very often one gets to write a piece for a full symphony orchestra so I was looking forward to hearing James’ new work which he had entitled Weit ist der Weg zurück (The Long Road Back). 

On stage James explained that his inspiration to write the piece had come from hearing stories of heroic actions as told to him by his Grandfather who had been a soldier on the German side during the Second World. Along with Pat and Terry, we enjoyed the composition immensely. The constant martial-like rhythmical pulse of the piece was haunting and evocative, almost hypnotic. Layered upon this constant rhythm, the brass and woodwind sections periodically created thickly textured blocks of harmony, which to my mind radiated thoughts of multiple numbers of tank weaponry on the move. The strings delicately wove their way through this minefield of sound conjuring up the image of morning mists after a ferociously fought battle.  To better appreciate James’ work I hope I have an opportunity to hear it again sometime.

Presently I’m learning my piano accompaniments for the upcoming Timbre! concert on Nov 7th. Also another Jazz Night at the Step Above Café at Quality Foods is on my gig calendar for Nov 5th.  More on both of these Port Alberni concerts in my next blog.

PHOTO: Nick Jonas may be best known for being one third of the immensely popular Jonas Brothers, but he’s been a Broadway star for even longer. The 18-year-old pop star, who started out on the Great White Way in shows like Les Miserables and Beauty and the Beast, joined the cast of Les Miz’s 25th Anniversary concert at London’s O2 Arena to reprise his role of Marius, which he played on the West End earlier this year. The concert was broadcast via satellite to the Galaxy theatre in Nanaimo on October 4th.