1. I'm leaving next week on Wednesday for about twelve days of travel, with stops in Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. Today, I finalized where I'll be staying every night I'm gone. I know that my trip will be packed with live music and one movie featuring The Grateful Dead from Copenhagen during the Europe 72 tour. I know I'm visiting friends, sharing a meal with some, having coffee with others, and that I'm not finished figuring out my schedule of get togethers and things to do.
2. I drove to Coeur d'Alene late this afternoon. The Riverstone Regal Stadium 14 cinema complex partners with Fathom Events to show, on occasion, special film presentations whether of classic movies, opera, or other features.
Tonight, in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies, Fathom Events via Regal Stadium 14 was showing In the Heat of the Night to commemorate the movie's 55th anniversary.
I had to see this movie tonight. Wild, wild horse couldn't drag me away.
I started the evening by going to Syringa, a Japanese restaurant in Coeur d'Alene. It's a place I've read about often, heard about some, but never visited.
I decided to make it easy on myself as far as a dinner choice and ordered the Syringa Bento.
My order included a bowl of delicious miso soup to start.
The Bento included a spring garden salad (I chose the splendid orange ginger vinaigrette as a dressing), about five or six pieces of lightly battered vegetarian tempura, three pieces of cucumber and three pieces of salmon sushi, the chef's sushi roll of the day, and two pieces of nigiri, both raw, yellowtail and tuna.
It was a superb variety of Japanese food and was actually more food than I had bargained for.
I enjoyed every part of the Syringa Bento -- and I could have easily shared it with another person.
3. I left Syringa satisfied and headed over to Riverstone.
The last time I went to one of these Fathom Events was back in November of 2019. Ed and I watched John Fogerty's 50 Year Trip: Live at Red Rocks.
It was awesome.
That night, Ed and I were two of four people in the theater.
Tonight's Fathom Event had a similar turnout.
I think nine of us were in attendance.
I'm ecstatic that I drove over to CdA to see this classic movie, In the Heat of the Night, on a mammoth screen.
I don't think I'd seen this movie since my sophomore year at North Idaho College.
I'd certainly forgotten a lot about it.
For starters, I'd forgotten that it's a detective story, centered on the process of determining who killed a prominent entrepreneur, Phillip Robert, in Sparta, Mississippi.
It becomes an unusual detective story because Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier), the first person accused of the murder, is in Mississippi visiting family. When a deputy apprehends him at a train depot and brings him into the police station, we learn that Virgil Tibbs is a homicide detective from Philadelphia and the story suddenly transforms him from suspect to investigator as he accepts the assignment to help Police Chief Gillespie.
The pairing of Virgil Tibbs, a black man, with the bigoted Chief Gillespie, creates the movie's central emotional conflict alongside the tension of Tibbs and Gillespie trying to figure out who the killer is.
I marveled watching Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger playing off of each other. Both actors brought to life their characters' depth and complexity. Both characters transcended easy stereotypes and both actors were titanic in ways they not only battled one another, but developed some mutual understanding.
In addition to Poitier and Steiger's captivating work, the movie featured several other superb performances. Lee Grant's screen time is brief, but as the distraught widow of the murder victim, she makes an indelible mark on the entire arc of the movie, portraying Mrs. Colbert's devastation and her mighty resolve not only that her husband's murderer be found, but that her husband's plans to bring new industry to Sparta not be deterred.
In supporting roles, two actors riveted my attention. Scott Wilson played Harvey Oberst, the second man accused of Colbert's murder with a keen understanding of Oberst's desperation not only as a suspect, but as a man mired in poverty. Anthony James was also brilliant in playing Ralph, the pie hoarding, fly killing cook and counter man at a local diner. Ralph is off kilter. His enjoyment of exercising small measures of power, sometimes a bit sadistic, over others made me uneasy and Anthony James plays Ralph's dark personality perfectly.
The movie's exploration of racism is, to my mind, complex. On the one hand, nothing about this movie suggests that the deeply held and inherited racism embedded in this world of Sparta, Mississippi is affected by anything that happens in this movie. The movie does, however, portray that individuals of different races and backgrounds, in relationship with each other, can find ways of developing mutual respect. It's limited. It doesn't have an impact on the larger community and its bigotry.
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