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Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What 'Retro Movies' are playing at Bloomington's Starlite Drive-In in 2025?
Gearheads take notice: The Starlite Drive-in Theater's Retro Movies this year will feature plenty of grease, grilles and growling engines, ranging from the 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback from the Steve McQueen classic 'Bullitt' to the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in 'Smokey and the Bandit' and the 1994 Toyota Supra MK IV used in the original 'The Fast and the Furious' movie. But don't fret if gasoline, gaskets and gauges aren't your thing: The Starlite, 7640 S. Old Ind. 37, will be offering plenty of entertainment for families with little ones, with such fantasy classics as 'The Dark Crystal,' from the mind of Muppets creator Jim Henson, or the animated adventures of Fievel Mousekewitz in 'American Tail' or the live action adventures of Atreyu and the dragon Falkor in 'The Neverending Story.' Here's the lineup for this year's Retro Classics. Movies will start a few minutes after dusk, which means showtimes will vary. Admission to these movies is free. You may be cool, but you'll never be as cool as Steve McQueen when he speeds after bad guys in San Francisco in his black 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback. Famous movie critic Leonard Maltin said the movie features one of the best car chases ever captured on film. Here's your chance to see it on a big screen. This romantic musical comedy from 1978 features chart-toppers such as 'You're the One that I Want,' and solidified the star power of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. Burt Reynolds, Sally Field and Jackie Gleason star in this 1977 action comedy road movie about truck driving bootleggers. From the mind of Muppets creator Jim Henson, this dark fantasy revolves around a quest and a powerful crystal on a damaged planet. Brothers Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) are 'on a mission from God' in this 1980 action musical comedy. And while they're asked to play 'both kinds of music: country and western,' you can hear plenty of tunes from other genres, from artists including James Brown, Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin. The 1986 disaster film was co-written by 'Jurassic Park' author Michael Crichton, stars Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz and has lots of special effects. Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez are in this movie, but the real stars are the cars, smoking tires and roaring engines. Catch the original movie in this series — before it turned ludicrous. Another Jim Henson movie, this one from 1986, and co-directed by George Lucas, of 'Star Wars' fame. This musical fantasy stars David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly. The original 1979 Australian dystopian road warrior film starring Mel Gibson. Weird outfits, weird hairdos, lots of grime, dust, diesel and action. This 1986 sports drama starring Gene Hackman is quintessential viewing for any basketball fan in Indiana or just those who love to root for the underdog. Inspired in part by the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg this animated tale tells the story of a family of mice that leaves Russia to find freedom in the U.S. A Howard Hughes-penned comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. Think bears and boats and lightning strikes. Another animated movie executive produced by Spielberg, this 1988 adventure film depicts the adventures of a young apatosaurus named Littlefoot and his companions, which include a triceratops, a stegosaurus and a saurolophus. In this 1988 adventure film, a group of kids (played by actors including Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton and Ke Huy Quan) try to save their homes from foreclosure by following a treasure map that leads to the long-lost fortune of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy. Goonies never say die, even if they hear, 'Hey, you guys.' A teen (Kevin Bacon) moves from Chicago to a small town, where a strict dancing ban is administered by the local minister (John Lithgow.) You already know what's going to happen, but you won't be able to keep your feet still because of the chart-topping and Oscar-winning title track. A Christmas comedy starring Will Ferrell as Buddy, the elf. A 1990 sports drama starring fast cars and Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid and Cary Elwes. This 1978 coming-of-age movie was written and directed by George Lucas and stars Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard and an at-the-time unknown carpenter named Harrison Ford. The 2001 animated comedy features the voices of Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow and Mike Myers as the eponymous ogre who tries to rescue a princess. This 1984 fantasy based on a German novel by Michael Ende tells the tale of young heroes fighting 'The Nothing' with the help of a night hob, a rock biter and a luck dragon named Falkor. Spoiler alert: Don't get attached to Artax. Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@ This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: 'Retro Movies' showing in 2025 at Bloomington's Starlite Drive-In
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
West central Minnesota communities celebrate Norwegian heritage
May 18---- Two traditional havens of Norwegian culture celebrated their heritage in a time-honored way. Good food, music and lots of fun were the orders of the day as the small communities of Milan and Sunburg hosted their annual Syttende Mai celebrations over the weekend. Blustery wind and temperatures in the 40s didn't dampen the enthusiasm in which celebrated the event Saturday. The town's festivities included the traditional Smorgaas Tea at the Kviteseid Lutheran Church. It was the scene too of Norwegian delicacies to enjoy. It was all followed by the traditional parade, but in a not-so-traditional way. The grand marshal for the parade was a funeral urn carried in a decorated car and celebrating the memory of Milan native John Lea. He died Feb. 11 at the age of 79. His former classmates in the Milan High School Class of 1963 proposed that his love for his hometown be celebrated as part of this year's celebration by making their former Homecoming King the grand marshal for the parade. Milan's celebration of Syttende Mai dates to 1934, when it held its first "Lefse Days." The event was dropped but later revived. The current "Taste of Syttende Mai" celebration dates to 19 years ago. The Norwegian heritage runs every bit as deep in Sunburg. The small Kandiyohi County community continued its 20th annual modern-day version of its Syttende Mai celebration on Sunday under sunny skies and warming temperatures. True to form, the community honored Norway's Constitution Day like a traditional 4th of July celebration. Tractor pulls, pedal pulls, a grand parade, and a baseball matchup between Norway Lake-Sunburg and Regal were among the day's events. But at its heart, the event celebrated the community's Norwegian heritage with traditional music by the Sunburg Community Music group, Norwegian foods, and by decorating the community with Norway's flag. Syttende Mai, or the 17th of May, celebrates the signing of the Norwegian constitution in 1814.
Boston Globe
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
The main reason why ‘Hoosiers' is considered among the greatest sports movies of all time? Gene Hackman
Hackman, 95 at the time of his death, was the owner of a remarkable 101 acting credits across an " The Firm," or 'The Birdcage' later on. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But it is as Norman Dale that sports fans will forever remember him most, the leader of the tiny band of Indiana dreamers who took a chance on their coach and took a chance on themselves, believing in both enough to defy the odds and win an all-schools high school state championship. An underdog tale at its core, the movie, inspired but not completely based on the 1954 championship season by Milan High School, is about so much more. It's about second chances, such as the one Dale's old friend Cletus Summers offers him with the chance to coach Hickory, promising a clean slate after Dale's anger got him booted from the college game. Like the one Dale pays forward to Wilbur 'Shooter' Flatch, the alcoholic dad of one of his players who gets to unearth latent coaching skills on Dale's staff, and who ultimately, gets help with his disease. Like the one Jimmy Chitwood gives himself, letting go of the sadness of the loss of his former coach to ultimately give Dale a shot, or the way he knows he can make the final, game-winning shot. Advertisement It's about belief, by the players (eventually) in Dale and his seemingly crazy requirement to pass the ball four times before taking a shot, or his incessant conditioning drills that set the team up to outlast the bigger, stronger teams opposite them. Belief, like what Dale shows when he says to his bench during a crucial late timeout, 'After Ollie makes his second shot and . . . [turning to manager turned emergency player Ollie] . . . you will make your second shot.' Or what Dale reveals in his most stirring locker room speech. 'If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game,' the coach says. 'In my book, we're gonna be winners.' And it's about love, and not just in Hollywood's obvious connection between Dale and fellow teacher Myra Fleener, but between a coach and his players, between Fleener and the way she looks out for Chitwood, about the community and its support for the team, about a coach who reignites his love for the game. Hackman is the engine that makes it all go. Noted movie critic Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, credited screenwriter Angelo Pizzo for knowing his subject so well, convincingly portraying the complicated dynamics of small-town sports. But, as Ebert correctly pointed out, 'all of his knowledge, however, would be pointless without Hackman's great performance at the center of this movie. Hackman is gifted at combining likability with complexity — two qualities that usually don't go together in the movies. He projects all of the single-mindedness of any good coach, but then he contains other dimensions, and we learn about the scandal in his past that led him to this one-horse town. David Anspaugh's direction is good at suggesting Hackman's complexity without belaboring it.' Related : Advertisement For Anspaugh, a first-time director who would later also direct another Pizzo underdog classic in the Notre Dame tale 'Rudy ," getting the movie made is as much a triumph of the underdog as the film itself. While the script was inspired by real life, Anspaugh had no such blueprint, fighting for more than two years to sell and finance the idea, even moving on from the original casting of Dale, Jack Nicholson, to Hackman. In interviews in later years, the director revealed how much Hackman made him earn his stripes on set, how there were no predictable signs this 39-day shoot would turn into an iconic cult classic. 'I can't explain how popular the movie still is other than it moves people,' Anspaugh told 'Variety' in a 2016 interview commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of 'Hoosiers.' In a 2020 Associated Press poll of sports journalists, it was ranked the No. 1 sports movie of all time. The American Film Institute lists it fourth all time in the genre, behind 'Raging Bull ," " Rocky," and 'The Pride of the Yankees ," just ahead of my all-time favorite, 'Bull Durham.' In 2001, the US National Film Registry selected 'Hoosiers' for preservation in the Library of Congress for being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.' Advertisement As Anspaugh put it, 'It's a sports film that doesn't really feel like a sports film. It's really more about a place and time and people and community and second chances and fathers and sons. But who knows? Angelo and I, we still shake our heads and go, 'How in the hell did this happen?' ' I know one reason: Gene Hackman. May he rest in peace. Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
