Opening night for F9/11 here in Bloomington/Normal, IL

[Guaranteed]

I'm gonna go see it for a second time with my girlfriend. It's playing at a smaller, old-time city-run theater downtown. Cheap tickets- only five bucks. :)

Should be fun- I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[cjbuchanan]

1. enjoy the show

hope it is a sell out.

[kcwayne]

2. I've been to that theater, its where I saw Woodstock 3 times

I grew up in Bloomington. There's a whole other world beyond Funk's grove and all that corn. I thought Bloomington/Normal was an amazingly conservative place given that its a college town.

[Guaranteed]

7. It really is conservative.

GKC Theatres, the main company in the area, won't run the film. I had to go to Champaign to see it Friday night. It was either that or Peoria.

My guess is it'll get a great reception if people actually find out it's playing...the local newspaper and Yahoo movies aren't showing that the movie's playing there. I called the theatre about it to give them a heads-up on that, and hopefully they'll get it fixed.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

3. It'll be interesting to see the reception F9-11 gets downstate.

Make sure you let us Chicagoans know...

[lovedems]

8. I live in Springfield but drove over to Decatur to see it.

We went Friday night to the Avon Theater which seats 700+ (it is old style with the balcony) and it was nearly sold out.

Some of my family saw it Saturday afternoon in Springfield and said the parking lot was nearly empty but the theater for F911 was full. He laughed because he said all of the cars in the lot were obviously there for that film.

It is doing well here in central Illinois!

[SpiralHawk]

4. But will it play in Peoria?

I am having a seance later with Tricky Dick Nixon, and his sPIRit would like to know?

[Guaranteed]

6. It sounds like it HAS been playing well there...

Guess it can play anywhere. :)

[Robbien]

5. There should be many opening nights tonight

So you should be in good company. BoxOfficeMoJo is listing available theaters now at 1710, almost double that of last week.

Hope you have a good crowd.

[gauguin57]

12. opened here in eastern PA Repug hell ...

... this morning. Went to the first show. When I came out (sobbing, as I had been throughout the entire movie), I ran into a bunch of Dems, gathered in a huge group in front of the theater, being interviewed by a couple of reporters. You'd have to know just how completely dominant the Republican party is here to know how significant that was. To know how weird it is to see a big group of Dems speaking out loudly in any public place. Living here, you feel like a victim of the Salem Witch Trials all the time; today, I could stand in the sunlight, and declare, "I am NOT a witch; I am a Democrat who loves this country. See this movie, and join me!" So many people telling me they LOVED my Kerry button, and wanting to shake my hand. That just doesn't happen here.

So many elderly people in the late-morning showing ... and all of them muttering "Son of a bitch!" under their breath as Cheney, Ashcroft, Bush, you name it, showed up on the screen.

It was so exciting. And the film was so moving. I started crying (from anger) right at the beginning, and didn't stop till I hit the parking lot after it was over.

[mermaid]

14. OMG!! I Used To Live Where You Do

And all's I can say is, "I'm sorry, dude!"
I used to live in Saylorsburg, PA, and I know what you mean about the Lehigh Valley being Eastern PA Repug Hell!

Dunno if you'd know where Saylorsburg is, it's just a little bitty town...but it is about 20 miles north of Easton, PA, up state Route 33. About 12 miles south of Stroudsburg.

I was up there last year, visitng my mom, who still lives up there, and even back then, I was amazed at how many people had negative things to say about Bush...or ANY Repug, for that matter! I even told my mom I thought I'd faint, because I thought all her neighbors though any Repug walked on water!

Of course, my mom is a good, solid Democrat, just like me! My brother (who now lives in Nashville, TN, however, is another story...)

I now live in the blue part of one of the reddest of the Red States...I live in Austin, Texas...often described as an oasis of liberalism in the midst of a rabidly conservative state. And it is an accurate description of South Austin, anyway, where I live. North Austin and that miniature police state to our north, Williamson County, is a Repug hell!

[gauguin57]

18. Not Lehigh Valley ...

... but I used to live near there, too, for a short time ... until you get right into Philly, Eastern PA is just a sea of PUGS!

[mermaid]

19. Ah...

Well, I have heard it said before, when I lived there...that Pennsylvania was Pissburgh and Philadelphia...with Alabama in between. That's not too far from the truth, either, as eight years of experience living in the northern "Alabama" taught me!!

[Robbien]

22. There was a great opinion piece that reflects what you said

Suddenly, in one revolutionary weekend, Michael Moore planted a priceless notion in liberals' minds: you are not alone. You are not freaks or conspiracy theorists or members of some NPR fringe. You are not adrift in a world of Rush Limbaugh, Jay Severin, Neil Cavuto, Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham and Larry Kudlow.

Suddenly, in one revolutionary weekend, people who embrace Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Tina Fey began to feel that they were part of a movement. That lots of Americans get weirded out by flag-pin-wearing anchors. Or distressed by the fact that most foreign leaders seem to speak better English than George W. Bush.

Suddenly, in a powerful, palpable way, liberals realized that it was not just their friends -- or the vegan neighbor -- who worried that America was headed in the wrong direction. No, it was lots and lots of people, so many that they couldn't squeeze into the Framingham AMC. So many that Michael Moore will be a gazillionaire by election time. So many that Michael Eisner is undoubtedly -- even as you read this -- cursing himself for not distributing "Fahrenheit 9/11" (though he's between a rock and a Bush place, as Disney has serious tax considerations in Florida).

Suddenly, liberalism had become fun and kicky and colorful. Moore had done with the documentary form what conservatives did with talk radio in the '80s and cable news in the '90s: made it entertaining. "Fahrenheit 9/11" bore no vestiges of the old, dullsville left-speak, the Ivory Tower chatter, the scholarly denseness of The Nation. Instead, it had tunes from the Go-Go's and R.E.M. -- as well as the theme songs of "Greatest American Hero" and "Bonanza."

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=72067

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. Five bucks?!

I'm moving to Illinois!

[mike1963]

10. Be careful, I hear Karen Hughes is just 10 minutes away...

:evilgrin:

[Blue-Jay]

11. I remember that theatre!

I went to ISU for grad school. Haven't been back to visit for a long time, but I suppose there's nobody left that I'd want to see anyhow.

[Guaranteed]

13. Yeah, just a bunch of yuppie kids driving around

the Jettas and Mercedes that their parents bought for them.

[Cocoa]

15. those are the IWU kids

hated them IWU kids.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

16. I take it IWU kids are from Illinois Wesleyan University?

[Blue-Jay]

17. Yep. IWU.....

Mostly a bunch of yuppies in training. ISU was a pretty even split between us & them. In retrospect, most of ones on our team seemed to be from the Chicago area, and most of "them" from rural areas. Clearly, that's totally an unscientific assumption, but it seemed that way to me. I was studying music, so most of the people I hung around with were flaming liberals.

[kcwayne]

21. I spent (wasted) my freshman year at IWU

they gave me a great financial aid package that paid my entire tuition. They assumed I was going to live on campus, and when they found out I wasn't, they recalled my aid.

That place was such a wasteland of rich pampered drunks. I was a poor pampered drunk when I went there. It was a real eye-opener when I left there to go to the University of Texas in Austin, and met real liberals (amongst a sea of cowboys and rednecks). I never knew anyone in Bloomington who was even moderately well read or even semi-intellectual. Being smart, world aware, and progressive was like being an alien. For example, the wife of a friend I have there not only has never read any Kurt Vonnegut, she had never even heard of him as of 2 years ago. That's just plain running on 2 watts.

I couldn't envision ever going back to Bloomington after I got off the farm, but unfortunately did end up back there for a year after I graduated from UT because I didn't have any money and couldn't find a job (1977).

My family have all moved away from Bloomington, but I still know a couple of people there. It is the same old Hootersville, 30 years later. The people are caught in a time warp of 50's era Republicanism, and are much more comfortable now that they are unrestrained in being dirt bag racists, and its cool to to be a snob again. Not that they were ever all that restrained.

I could never figure out how Adlai Stevenson ever emerged from that backwater to the heights of his illustrious career. Even though his family was wealthy, he would never have met anyone in Bloomington that could mentor him in anything other than insurance sales or agriculture production.

[rucky]

20. Crap! n/t