Darkness Can Not Fight Darkness

Pat and I had the opportunity to see a Bill and Ted's double feature last night at the historic Parkway Theater on North Avenue in Baltimore. What an awesome, old theater! Most of it is the original 1915 structure, with some updating such as the seating, the bathrooms, and the bar area.

This was the actually the concessions line

The ceiling

The original stage is behind the movie screen. The theater was constructed in 1915 and was originally a vaudeville stage.

Alex Winter -- Bill S. Preston, esquire, himself! -- was the guest of honor, and spoke on the making of the two movies, as well as answering a bunch of questions from the audience. It was cool to hear how much fun he and Keanu Reeves had making the films, even though they weren't even sure if they'd get released. 

We sat in the balcony seating, which was great for viewing the movie and not so much for viewing the guest

Back when Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was released, I actually saw the movie five times in the theater. I wasn't so into Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and this was probably only the third time I've seen it all the way through. Interestingly enough, Winter said that Bogus Journey was actually his favorite of the two, as the film's "darker humor" was more in line with his. 

Winter also mentioned a third movie is still in the works. When I posted something to this effect on Facebook, some of my friends said that it's been mentioned for a couple of years now, and in fact, IMDB has it as "announced" with Reeves and Winter as the only two confirmed cast members. Winter said he knew that eventually the movie "would get made," just like the previous two struggled to get made and distributed, and quipped it was going to happen even it was "shot on iPhones and posted to YouTube." 

Anyway, Pat and I had fun. The Parkway Theater has a great selection of craft beer on tap, including a lot of local Baltimore brews (including Diamondback, Union, Heavy Seas, Charm City Meadworks and more) as well as other crafts such as Right Proper's Haxan and Bell's Two Hearted. We'd taken Uber (btw, do all UberX drivers use Toyotas?) in so we didn't have to fight traffic or find parking. The event was sold out, so the theater was packed with fans, including one who was doing a spot-on cosplay of Ted "Theodore" Logan. 

And watching the irreverent film reminded me that there were certainly some messages sent that are still very true today, as they were true in the San Dimas of 1988 and will be in the San Dimas of 2688.