Rocket Man at a Theatre near You

David Camps Johnson was having an “electronics / sleep over” party last ni weekend, the emphasis on the party being the former and not the latter.

Bonnie came out to Annis Bay to spend the evening with me.

We began the night with home-made pizza, and in a moment of spontaneous madness, we drove to Salmon Arm for the opening of the Salmon Arm Art Gallery show.

That event ending and being a lot of fun, we drove by the theatre to see if there was anything playing that would interest us. Neither of us were ready to end the night.

“Nope,” I said on looking at the marquee. “Nothing.”

“Hey, Rocketman  is about Elton John and I want to see that,” Bonnie said.

Image from IMDB

With one half hour to the start time and not being ones to waste any minutes together, we knew we could get a small Frosty for $.99 (the new summer price) and still be in time for the movie.

I stayed awake, mostly.  It is hard not to compare Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born and Rocketman, trying to figure out which one I liked best.  Th.e problem is that there are 3 genres here: a biopic, a fiction and a musical fantasy.  Better to view each with its own set of conventions and see if the movie works with those.

Image from IMDB

Bonnie said that Elton John was the first popular culture singer she was aware of as a child – she learned about him in Grade II and she used to practise his lyrics while walking to and from Tracy Appleton’s house.

Apparently she was successful for I could often hear her voice softly chiming in on some of the tunes during the movie. Usually patrons would shush someone who does that, but she wasn’t the only one singing. I could hear the other movie goers seemed singing as well -- the event was a quiet sing-a-long.

I slept in the movie when I needed to. I think I was awake for about 9/10 of it.

On the way back to the lake, we dropped by her house so Bonnie could check on the party there, even though Joaquim was overseeing the event. The snacks, four pizza’s and three 2 quart-bottles of Mountain Dew were gone but the party was still going strong.

Not like parties of people my age where as soon as the food is gone, we go home for our self-set 9 pm curfew.

Arta