Opening entry, (St. Paul Pioneer Press) Bulletin Board

Posted on Sun., Sept. 17, 2006

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The simple pleasures

Poet X of PDX: "I'd not seen a movie in a theater for a very long time until recently seeing two.

"Robert Altman's 'A Prairie Home Companion' was the first, and I shouldn't have been surprised to find it had been filmed in St. Paul. It was a treat to see the scenes in Mickey's Diner and recall eating there a couple times. Another treat: finding out that Woody Harrelson is an amazing actor, underrated (and Lindsay Lohan, the opposite).

"Then, last week, I went to see 'Factotum' at Portland's version of the Uptown Theater as I remember it in the '80s (minus stars and moving clouds in the ceiling). Fairly early in the movie, a skyline is splayed large across the background — immediately recognized as downtown Minneapolis from the northeast to southwest. Throughout the movie I recognized several places — most near the old Warehouse District; a few St. Paul locations. It helped reinforce the fact that it was a movie — although trying to imagine the beautiful Matt Dillon as the miscreant Hank Chinaski wasn't happening for me, either."