“Respect the caucus!” Mayor Freddie O’Connell shouted into a headset mic on opening night of the Belcourt’s 1999 Retrospective. The mayor — nay, the Movies Mayor — was there to kick off the Belcourt’s 25-film series that started with Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia, hence the Tom Cruise impression. That night, and the whole series, made my summer — I even took two days off work to go see movies that were playing in the middle of the day. I sat in theaters filled with Zoomers who raised their hands when asked who hadn’t seen Magnolia, fellow Gen X-ers who also apparently took a Monday off to see Rushmore, and people of all ages on date nights for both The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project. I’ve never had so much fun going to the movies.
