We just got back from seeing The General, starring Buster Keaton. It's a silent movie, and a local group of genius musicians, bLuE daHLia did the live soundtrack and all the sound effects (including a squeaky rubber dog toy for Annabel's voice).
It was amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
It was screened in a local church, and we all sat in the pews and munched free bags of popcorn and they passed the collection plates for donations. The music was amazing, and perfect for the film -- all original compositions, to boot (well, except where they nicked a few lines of "I Love A Man In Uniform" for the recruitment office scene) -- everything from a chugga-chugga rhythmic opening number to the heart-tugging "Annabel Lee", full of wistful longing. You can hear two of the tracks here: "Girl in the Sack" and "Time is Ticking".
Paul and I were really vocal during the movie (no surprise there) because it was the first time either of us had seen the movie all the way through, and we were genuinely amazed by its breadth and depth -- and we got at least some of the audience cheering and clapping along with us, especially when Johnny Grey bonked the union engineer over the head with a piece of firewood and ran off with the girl and the engine both. Afterwards, the musicians told us that we were one of the more vocal audiences they'd had -- which surprised the heck out of me. How do you watch a movie as brilliant as The General in a setting like that and not cheer and hooray when Buster hoses a bunch of Union officers with a water tank? Twice?
So yeah. They do a lot of stuff around the state. If Blue Dahlia comes to a venue near you, totally go, especially if they do a Buster Keaton movie, and especially if you have kids. That was one of the single best cinematic experiences I've ever had in my life.