Why I Oughta...

We went to see Zootopia 2 last week at the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove.  While I was on my way back to the concession stand to refill the pair of "kiddie combos", I noticed this plaque in the lobby that claims The Tivoli Theater (opened in 1928) was the "Second theater in America designed and built for talking movies".  That's wild.   When I went home, I found this page from the Downers Grove Historical Society (the same folks who put the plaque up) and it has a few more details.  And, it included this photo (below) of the original marquee on opening day (Christmas Day, 1928).  The family behind Classic Cinemas have done a great job with not just the Tivoli in Downers, but with historic, mainstreet theaters across the suburbs.  We previous lived in Elmhurst and the York Theater was one of our favorite spots in town.  I wrote about the York a number of times when we lived in Elmhurst.  Here are those [York Theater] archives .   ...

Not a better place to see the last one of these Star Wars movies than in the Tivoli - which I am guessing hosted all nine of them.  There are plenty of people out there that are saying the movie was bad, but I liked it.  And...I stayed awake the whole time.  These days, the theatres around us are all putting in this luxury lean-back seats.  Everytime I get into one of those, the movie has a hard time competing with my next nap. 

Recently, we checked out the new (to us) Classic Cinemas theatre in Fox Lake.  We've come to really love Classic Cinemas based on living so close to the York Theatre in Elmhurst.  They run a first-class operation.  And...the kids popcorn/fruit snacks/icee boxes and booster seats don't hurt one bit.  Not to mention the free refills on corn/soda and the rewards program.   One morning while it was raining up in Wisconsin, we decided to head to see the new Cars 3 movie and instead of going up to the multiplex in Lake Geneva, we decided to drive down to Fox Lake to give the Classic Cinemas Fox Lake a try.  It wasn't what I was expecting.  But it was great!  Based on seeing what Shirley and Willis Johnson have done to the York in Elmhurst and the Tivoli in Downers Grove , I was expecting an old, downtown movie palace.   Instead, the theatre was kind of tucked in the corner of a stip mall about a block or two off "main street" next to a h...