hardboiled starlite

the first starlite cinema series installment of this spring is now in the books.

we kicked off our two-part walk down raymond chandler's dark alleys with howard hawks' the big sleep (1946). bogie and bacall (in addition to ray miland, the marx brothers and others) also made cameo appearances in our opener, the looney tunes short, slick hare (1947). it was a beautiful night under the stars for classic film and lauren, as usual, made it that much better with her culinary contributions. first, she started with mounds of fresh fruit.

next, she took that action to the grill.

and, as if that weren't enough, she made whipped cream, drizzled it all with honey and topped it with mint fresh from her garden. hardboiled detective stories and fresh, fire-grilled fruit makes for a fine way to spend a spring evening with friends, new and old. fellow paramount theatre devotee, giraldo barraza, dropped by. he writes the excellent blog, the united states of cinemerica, which everyone should check out, especially if you love the paramount like i do. on top of that, my friend liz, whom i haven't seen in the flesh in years, made it out, which i hope is a regular occurrence now that she lives in austin again. more film, more food, more friends - our motto as we approach our third year of doing these screenings.

speaking of milestones, we celebrate our second starlite anniversary with next month's screening. i always like to make these special so we are going to conclude our first two-part program with a film that is in the running for the movie i have seen more times than any other, robert altman's the long goodbye (1973).

we pick up with chandler's knight-errant detective with elliott gould playing him as if he has been in hibernation since the big sleep, waking up in the sun-dappled, early seventies los angeles that is now populated by yoga enthusiasts and two-bit hoods who are armchair pop psychologists. the list of things i love about this movie is long, and one day i will write a vital-graph piece all about it, but until then, join us on saturday, 4.28.12, at 8:30 p.m. to celebrate our anniversary and catch an underrated american classic. here is the facebook event page. feel free to rsvp there or just send me a note and i will make sure you get all the pertinent information. come early, come late, bring food, don't bring food. as long as we get to see your face it's o.k. with me.