15 Moviegoing Questions With Marcy McCall, Education Advocate
"I attend about 100 screenings a year. It’s my thing."
Name: Marcy McCall
Location: DTLA
Occupation: Advocate for Students with Disabilities, Filmmaker
Links: Marcy’s Website
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
For commercial releases, Friday or Saturday nights, preferably opening weekend for films getting some buzz or hype. I love a packed house, and it’s a must for a musical like Dreamgirls.
Non-commercial, artist-driven films tend to screen in the evening on Sundays and during the week. I love a good 8 o’clock underground screening during the week, with time to have dinner at home first and then head over.
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
This is a tough one. Los Angeles offers countless gems with unique strengths and vibes. For commercial films, both Academies have flawless theaters. The Motion Picture Academy offers public screenings all year with modest ticket pricing. And now it’s easily accessed with the new Metro stop at Wilshire and Fairfax. Their mainstage, the David Geffen Theater, may be the world’s greatest standard projection, including 70mm. The scale of the space is a wonder. The Television Academy in the valley has a members-only policy. If you know someone who is a member, go with them to a film screening at the Saban Media Center. The projection is excellent there too, but the sound is a revelation. The interior is contemporary and glam with red carpeting and red seat upholstery. Both academy theaters have a no food or drink policy. And I totally respect that. It’s like church.
For artist-driven non-commercial films, documentary or experimental, new underground cinemas have thrived in LA after Covid. My favorite is 2220 Arts + Archives on Beverly near Alvarado. The programmers at Los Angeles Film Forum, Mezzanine, and Lightstruck all screen there with LA Film Forum offering multiple screenings weekly including 16mm projection. Film Forum always hands you a set of “liner notes” about that night’s screening when you walk in. I am heartened to see these screenings consistently sell-out when the commercial theaters in town struggle with studio films.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
Small buttered popcorn and a small regular Coke. For something sweet, Junior Mints.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
I have this Pavlov’s Dog association of popcorn with a movie. Happy with that. Look forward to it even.
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
Hello Dolly. My hometown, Aurora, Illinois, had three single-screen theaters blocks from each other downtown. Hello Dolly would have shown at the Isle, the Tivoli, or the Paramount. Only the Paramount survives as a restored performing arts theater. My first movie sparked a lifelong love of the musical genre and soundtrack albums.
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Rebel Without a Cause at the Orpheum across the street from my building in DTLA. Every June the historic theaters on Broadway open their doors to the public. It was a packed house, and a daughter of Natalie Wood spoke before the screening.
For new releases, I saw Michael at the Crenshaw outpost of Cinemark. And for non-commercial films, Kevin Jerome Everson came from Virginia to speak at a screening of his recent work at 2220 Arts + Archives. That’s a typical moviegoing week for me.
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
Tokyo Story directed by Yasujiro Ozu.
8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?
Many movies. Twice and three times.
9. Do you stay through the credits or leave as soon as the film ends?
I am that nerd who stays until the end of the credits and for one reason. Part of the language of cinema I enjoy is the creation of place. It’s fun to guess a film’s actual location, but it’s a buried secret at the bottom. I’m seeing a trend of state and national film office branding now near the top of the credits. This will help me leave sooner, for my husband’s sake.
10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
I want to buy a ticket from a human being at the box office. I can still do that in LA, but it’s a dying art. Usually I’m on an app, at a computer kiosk in the theater lobby, or at the concessions counter where the employee must juggle popcorn sales, too.
11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
Shoah at the Biograph Theater (now Victory Gardens Theater) in Chicago in 1986. At nine and a half hours, it’s certainly the longest film I’ve seen. And its spare beauty shook me.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
The Odyssey.
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
I’ll leave that to them. I like the surprise of a movie, especially its casting. That’s why I don’t read reviews until I’ve seen the film. I’m an artist, a filmmaker, and trust directors with their own casting dreams.
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
Any one of the many shot in the state of Georgia. I lived there for 15 years and miss it: the trees, the rivers, and the kindness of strangers.
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
For the love of it like I do. I haven’t watched a film on my laptop or phone and won’t. All in, I attend about 100 screenings a year. It’s my thing. I don’t stream, and I don’t watch much TV. Even on airplanes I’m reading. No judgment here. I’m a movie lover, but watching a film outside of a cinema puts me to sleep. It always has, including the videocassette era.