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Limited Choices for Movie Theaters in Sacramento
Display case at United Artists movie theater in Arden Fair, Sacramento.
Where are your favorite movie theaters in Sacramento? My husband refuses to go to movie theaters in Laguna or Elk Grove because they show too many commercials, which is partly why we ended up driving to Davis on Sunday to catch SPOTLIGHT. Davis is only 15 minutes from our home in Land Park. Ordinarily, we see most of our movies at the Tower Theatre in Land Park because we can easily walk there and Tower Theatre shows many of the independent movies we want to see. We can also walk downtown to the Crest Theatre, but there is not much on the screen there nowadays except for Oscar-nominated short films or old classics.
Our next choice for movie theaters in Sacramento is generally Century Downtown Plaza but they closed those theaters earlier this month due to the construction of the The Golden 1 Center and the redevelopment of the downtown mall now called Downtown Commons, aka DOCO. It was hard enough finding parking for that theater due to the construction. There was Macy’s but the parking lot was so small and cramped, even to go shopping at Macy’s meant one had to circumvent the lot several times to find a spot.
Fortunately, the new theaters at Downtown Commons are slated to open this fall with nine screens, and I can’t wait. Hey, that’s a long time to wait, between now and “sometime in fall.” That’s enough time to get pregnant and give birth, for somebody else, not me, of course. The thing I like about going to the movies downtown is the walk is far enough to burn off the calories acquired by stuffing my face with popcorn, and it is enjoyable to walk from Land Park to downtown, even though some people can’t imagine walking “so far.” What? It’s about a mile.
If we can’t find a movie we like at the Tower or Downtown, then our next choice in favorite movie theaters in Sacramento has generally been Century Stadium 14 over by ‘Bout Arden on Ethan Way. Plenty of parking, quick popcorn service, clean and spacious theaters under the domes. But now the domes are being demolished, and that complex is closed until fall as well, when a new 14 theater Century Stadium will open. It’s where we recently saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as required by federal law, my husband said. We try to stay away from Arden Fair if we can, too many kids and dumpy theaters.
What all of this means is after we watch every movie at the Tower Theatre, we will probably have to drive to Davis to see a movie in Sacramento between now and next fall. Well, we can always take the long way and drive over the beautiful Tower Bridge.
Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub
Downton Abbey Preview at the Crest Theatre
When I spotted seemingly free tickets to the Season 4 premiere of Downton Abbey, I snatched up four for my Elizabeth Weintraub Team to attend, along with my husband, of course — who will tell you he doesn’t matter because he jokes that that’s what I say when I do not. Tickets were free so a couple of cruise lines and a clothing designer could get our names and addresses, because I was required to register. Not only that, but KVIE collected another 250 names and addresses as backups in case anybody canceled.
Yet, still, none of us was allowed to sit in the lower front section of the theater because all of those seats were reserved for corporate sponsors. We did not allow this kind of marketing to damper our enthusiasm for Downton Abbey. After all, we are Sacramento real estate agents and we put up with worse stuff during our work week. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that KVIE could have sold seats for $100 a piece and people would have paid it, so there must be some kind of non-profit rules that prohibited it.
The Crest Theatre sold refreshments and there was a wine / beer section. There were not enough employees staffing the refreshment stands, and the lines were long. Not to mention, the night was pretty chilly for downtown Sacramento in December.
So, that’s all of the downside. The upside, of course, is the fact my team and I, along with my husband who doesn’t matter, got a chance to see the first hour of Downton Abbey Season 4, which is not showing in the United States until January 5th. Some of us have no patience. That’s another reason to go into real estate. Nah, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.
My husband prepared cocktails and appetizers for a pre-theatre get-together at our home in Land Park. The photo above is Elizabeth Weintraub, with the always delightful Barbara Dow on the right. Linda Swanson was planning to come dressed as a maid but she had a prior appointment in Elk Grove to show a home. You know how that would go over. Like, who is this? Why is Mrs. Bates showing me a house?
Downton Abbey Screening Party at Crest Theatre
I am so excited that the premiere of Downton Abbey Season 4 is showing in advance next month at the Crest. One of my favorite places to see concerts and movies is at the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento. Downton Abbey Season 4 is officially premiering on January 5th on Masterpiece at 9 PM on KVIE Public Television, but a few lucky people in Sacramento will get to see the first hour absolutely free. Yes, tickets are free! You don’t even have to be Michelle Obama to see it. How about that?
There will be a costume party and trivia. My husband was considering coming as Matthew, maybe carrying a steering wheel. Doors open at 6:00 and presentation starts at 7 PM. Over at 9 at PM. The Crest Theatre is located at 10th and K Streets in downtown Sacramento.
All you have to do is go to the Crest Theatre online and click on RSVP Today to Reserve Your Seat. I picked up four seats as my husband was driving me to the dentist to get four teeth yanked out. Spotted it as it came across my cellphone because I subscribe to new events at the Crest. Reserved the seats and transferred the QR codes to my Passport.
If you haven’t signed up for new events at the Crest, you should do so, because you get advance notice and can sometimes buy tickets before they even go on sale to the public. How do you think I manage to snag my front-and-center row seats for all of the shows we attend?
Oh, and here is a little bonus for you. After you finish watching Downton Abbey Season 4, you can go to this link and watch the recap. I’m telling you it is so hilarious it will make you laugh out loud like a guinea pig: If Downton Abbey Took Place on Facebook Season 3, Episode 7.
My two valuable Elizabeth Weintraub team members, Barbara Dow and Linda Swanson are coming with my husband and me. If you are not addicted to Downton Abbey, consider yourself fortunate, I guess, because some of us would do anything to get to see Downton Abbey. OK, maybe not anything. I would not eat raw termites. Since I have a couple of pest inspections to review today for several sellers, I’d rather not think about munching on termites.
Happy Together Tour at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento
When I first laid eyes on the groovy poster for the Happy Together Tour, the show coming to the Crest Theatre on July 6th, I was hesitant. Because the first band listed was The Turtles, and while they are an OK group from my teen years, they weren’t all that fabulous to me. I read down the list and my eyes landed on the guy from Three Dog Night, yawn, yeah. Followed by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. OK, Young Girl get out of my mind. What? Is he a pervert, lusting after jailbait? Might be silliness. But then I saw Mark Lindsay, whom you may recall from Paul Revere and the Raiders, and hey, maybe this would be a fun show in a goofy sort of way. The clincher was Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?
I suggested the show to my husband, who immediately pooh-poohed it. He muttered something about John Lennon and the rattles of jewelry in the balcony, and then he started coughing, wheezing and singing like Tom Waits, telling me there will be nothing but 70-year-old people hobbling about in the lobby. See what I put up with? What he really means is now I will owe him one. I might have to do something dreadful like go the grocery store or eat stir-fried weeds for dinner and not moan about it.
It seemed like a perfect evening out to invite my friend, Barbara, and her husband. Sure why not, the four of us could go to the show. That way Barbara and I can bond in sisterly solidarity belting out This Diamond Ring Doesn’t Shine for Me Anymore while our husbands roll eyes and acknowledge each other’s boredom through those all-knowing glances.
I had a listing appointment yesterday over at Woodside, but I pushed it back by 15 minutes so I would have ample time to go online and buy advance tickets, prior to the public offering. I have ticket buying down to a science. I open the seating chart in one browser and starting a few minutes before the opening time, I begin clicking refresh over and over in another browser. Often, the Crest is off by a few minutes, but luck was on my side yesterday.
Bank of America had just sent me a revised counter for a Cooperative Short Sale, moving a few fees around when I realized, OMG, it was 9:59. Time to go to the secret link to buy tickets. Darn. The website said tickets were not on sale. Like a person with a psychological disorder, I drooled and clicked refresh again and again and again, and whoa, I was in. Just like that. I entered the code, and the website took me to a page to select tickets. I could not believe my eyes. Front row and center seats, four tickets were mine! That almost never happens. My heart raced. My eyebrows got stuck together.
I clicked buy and the website took me to a new page, one that I had not seen before. Oh, no, something new. It wanted my user name and password. Did I have a user name? I quickly tried to open a vault where I store passwords. It did not immediately respond. That’s because emails were hitting my email account at the same time an update was about to take place from Adobe Reader. Everything slowed. If I had a dog, I would have kicked it. No, not really, I would never kick a dog. I might kick a Republican, though.
I looked through possible user names and could not find a name for that website. It was then that I noticed the continue button. I clicked. Now it wanted my credit card information, which I threw on the page from memory. I could not believe we got front row and center seats. My eyes were spinning in circles. Breathing became difficult. My fingers trembled.
I clicked BUY.
The screen returned to my credit card information. What the? I know I put the code in the box. I entered it again. The screen returned to the page with my credit card information and missing 3-digit code. I entered a completely new card and a new code. The screen returned to the page with my credit card information. Was this like the movie Groundhog Day? Do I have to listen to Sonny and Cher over and over? Oh, I see, it had unchecked the box that I checked NO to whether I wanted insurance. I clicked BUY again fully confident that now the sale was complete.
Big red letters: Your Time Has Expired. Start Over.
Ahhhhhhh. I unleashed a string of unpublishable words. My cats ran for cover, paws over their little kitty ears. And just like that, I ended up with Row 2 tickets. Row 2, where I will have to sit and stare at the people who are sitting in Row 1, IN MY SEATS.
Yes, I realize how petty and shallow these thoughts are, and how I should be strung up my toenails because female babies in China are being murdered and we broke the planet and honeybees are dying and the air is so bad over Mauna Loa that it will never be safe to breathe again, while I am spending my valuable time left on earth griping about having to stare at the back of the heads of those people who will be in my seats at the Crest Theatre for the Happy Together show.
Do You Want to Live Near the Russians?
By that title, I am not talking about the 49th state admitted to the Union, no, no, no. I’m speaking directly about Sacramento. I’m a Sacramento real estate agent, and I could say that I know where the Russians live, but that would only send the CIA after me, and having the FBI hot on my trail is bad enough. I don’t need one more government agency chasing Elizabeth Weintraub all over Sacramento. No, Sirree. Oh, wait, I didn’t mean to say the FBI, it’s just a California district attorney’s office who wants more information on the bad guys that I sometimes write about.
But the other thing is I do know where the Russians live, but I can’t tell you. If I tell you, I could be accused of breaking the Fair Housing Law. The Russians are a protected class. Put that into your Eisenhower pipe and smoke it. I’m not going to say anything bad about the Russians, either. Some of my favorite people hail from Russia. I’m trying to think of some Russians other than my housekeeper and a REALTOR from Daytona Beach, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.
I got to thinking about this because a) many people demand that real estate agents perform acts that would get a real estate agent investigated if the authorities knew or watched the agent do it, and b) people don’t know much about real estate agents, and that which they do know for certain, absolutely certain, is often absurd. Like John Oliver said at the Crest Theatre last night, and I paraphrase, about 50% of Americans are positively devastated and at odds with each other 100% of the time. This is just regular people. This is not real estate agents he’s talking about.
When we got on the elevator after Oliver’s performance to rise to the fourth floor and find our car, I looked around at the people on the elevator. Usually, I don’t like standing in close knit quarters with a bunch of strangers. But these people at least had something in common with me; I mean, they had been to see John Oliver, which means if the elevator suddenly got stuck between the floors, I probably would not mind having to participate in a sudden crisis with this particular group of strangers. It would be better than, say, being in a bus load of Republicans that flew off a cliff while on vacation in Utah.
Call it the LOST syndrome. You know, there you are on a plane flying to some exotic place like, oh, maybe French Polynesia, and the plane suddenly nose dives. Next thing you know, you’re waking up a beach splattered in palm fronds with a bunch of people you wanted to kick while standing in line to board. Do you like these people? Would you rely on these people to strangle a pig with their bare hands so you could eat something other than coconuts? That’s something to think about the next time you are standing in a crowd of people whom you do not know. Why, a meteor could hit the earth and spare this circle of people and you.
Do me a favor and think about that the next time you ask this Sacramento real estate agent where the Russians live. You want a real estate agent who has more than 30 years of experience and is a top producer representing you? Sure you do. Then, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
