Here's lookin'

My faith in the movie-going audience has been restored. Well, at least in a small movie-going audience on the "island" of San Diego-adjacent Coronado.

As you may know, I've just returned from my annual week at the Hotel Del Coronado. By the time you read this, my tan will be fading, I'll have remembered there's no room service or housekeeping at home and my VISA card will be dead from exhaustion.

But I will have gotten to see one of the great films of all time on the big screen.

Every year we have certain things we like to do in Coronado. And this year, we had the opportunity to see a brand new print of Casablanca with a sold out audience at the recently refurbished Village Theater.

There's a series of films called Mayor's Choice, and this past Thursday his choice was Casablanca. It was showing in the biggest of the three theaters at the Village. Of course, "biggest" is a relative term - the Village Theater in Westwood seats 1,341 people. The main theater at the Village in Coronado seats 185.

Still, the line for the 8:30PM showing of Casablanca started forming about 7PM. We took the ten-minute walk from our hotel and got there about 7:30. We heard lots of good natured comments in line like, "You mean this isn't in 3D?" To which I replied, "Don't worry - at least it's in color."

Seventy years later, it's still a thrilling experience to watch Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The acting is classic golden age, and the script's razor-sharp humor, intelligence and intrigue is all very much intact and relevant.

And not to sound too "Hey you kids get off my lawn!", but I'm just going to come right out and say it: it was a great, great pleasure to expose my kids to a film without a character wearing a mask, a cape or a metal suit. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

A film for movie lovers, playing in a theater filled with movie history. A few more nights like this on the island, and it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

If you're interested, here's a quick history of the Village Theater:

Let Titanic rest in peace

Yesterday my family and I went to see Titanic 3D. The wife and I, along with our great friends Dave and Maureen (yes, that Dave and Maureen) originally saw the movie on the second day of its release at the Village Theater in Westwood when it first came out. Because the Village screen is so big, it felt like we were actually on the ship - even at the end.

They've got to get that air conditioning fixed.

You may know, I'm not a fan of 3D. And in this particular case I'm not sure it added much. But at least it didn't distract from the movie.

As I write this, a 100 years ago the Titanic was already underway on its fateful voyage. It's still one of the great "what-if's" of history, like the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, the Challenger shuttle or 9/11.

The movie was better than I remembered. Love story aside (still a stroke of movie marketing genius on Cameron's part), it gives an unflinching glimpse of the sheer terror that must've gone on in the two hours it took the ship to sink.

When Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown looks back at the sinking ship from her lifeboat and says, "God almighty," she's speaking for everyone in the theater.

There's currently a diving expedition company that, for $60,000, will take you on a ten-day cruise out to the site where Titanic rests, and bring you down to the ship in a submersible for an up close and personal look. There've already been couples who have been married down there.

How far behind can the floating gift shop be?

The unrestricted scavenging of artifacts and ship parts by unauthorized divers and treasure hunters has already taken its toll. I think it's wrong. For all the fascination, Titanic, like the Arizona that rests under Pearl Harbor, is a gravesite that deserves the proper respect and decorum.

Even though it only sailed once, it's not too late to give Titanic a second chance.