The first movie I ever saw in a theater was the Rodgers & Hammerstein masterpiece, The Sound of Music. I had just turned 6 years old, but it stuck with me – and still does. The film has long been in my personal top 10 list.
To celebrate its 45th anniversary, the film is re-releasing to theaters for two nights only next month – October 19 and 26. That’s the good news. The bad? It’s being billed as a sing-a-long event. I suppose that’s fine for folks who WANT to sing along. But I want to hear the divine Julie Andrews, not the tone-deaf schlub I happen to be sitting next to in the theater that night. I don’t even want to hear myself singing (because I’m a tone-deaf schlub myself). I want to hear Maria, Mother Abess and the nuns, and Liesl (confession: I was crushing on Charmian Carr as a pre-teen) and the children singing these songs. Heck, I even want to hear Christopher Plummer quasi-croak his way through “Edelweiss,” which makes me tear up every single time.
Can’t we have the best of both worlds – a sing-a-long release one week, and an “art-appreciation-so-just-shut-up-already” release the next?
