Member-only story
Nevada County Special Film Programming for April 2025
A look at the some of the most significant special and retro film programming coming up in April in Nevada County. Get on out there! Your local movie theatres would love your company!
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) (Saturday, April 5, The Onyx Theatre, Nevada City, 10:00 AM). As the folks at the Onyx Theatre will demonstrate, Springtime is the perfect time for a festival of classic movie musicals from the bygone days before popular music seemed to run out of melodies. (Who among us can hum a single tune from either La La Land (2016) or Wicked (2024)? Nope, me neither, though, admittedly, I can barely whistle “Chopsticks.”) Like most musicals, the story of this MGM Judy Garland/Vincente Minelli classic is simplicity defined: A wealthy and happy St. Louis family find their cozy world is coming to an end when father announces that he’s been promoted, meaning they’ll all be packing up and moving away from their happy home to New York City. Underneath its bright surfaces run streaks of sadness as the family faces the everchanging modern world, revealed most poignantly in the lovely “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” maybe the saddest secular Christmas song ever. With Judy Garland at the peak of her powers, accompanied by Margaret O’Brien as her little sister, along with Mary Astor, Leon Ames, and Marjorie Main.
Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young and Pavement (2023) (Sunday, April 6, The Onyx Downtown, Nevada Theatre, 7:00 PM). Sadly, this documentary about the band Pavement is not currently available on streaming, so it still eludes my studied gaze. But local interest runs strong, thanks to the film’s local connections: Cinematographer David Nicholson and co-producer (and Onyx theatre associate) Jefferey Clark are both Nevada County residents and are scheduled to take the Nevada Theatre stage for a Q&A following the screening.
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) (Sunday, April 13, The Onyx Downtown Nevada Theatre, 7:00 PM). My Pick of the Month is considered by many to be the greatest…
