Last time, my sister, her fellow, and my brother had gone to the Greystone Mansion, La Brea Tar Pits and to Griffith Observatory that evening (archived online weeklyview.net at 11/26/23).
This day my daughter, son and grandkids went to The Academy Museum which opened in Sept. of 2021. It’s on Museum Row in Los Angeles on what they call the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard.
It is a large building (300,000 sq. ft.) with a restaurant, cafe, gift shop, movie theatres and viewing areas of movies running continuously. We were already hungry for lunch, so we ordered at the counter and sat in a nice dining room. I got avocado toast (sounded very “Hollywood”) which is something I’ve seen on menus, but had never tried — it was very tasty.
The Museum has rooms full of Oscars and the name of who they were presented to, and exhibits of room sets like the Godfather’s office. There are costumes including the infamous Bob Mackie “Mohawk” Oscar dress for Cher and the ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz. The devil costume from Elton John’s Rocketman was very memorable. Some props from E.T. to R2-D2 and Bruce the shark from Jaws are all on display too. You can see the horse head prop from The Godfather, the piano from Casablanca, and a Mount Rushmore backdrop.
One of my favorite exhibits was the video on how the sound effects are done in films (they used a scene from Indiana Jones as an example). The sound of the huge rolling rock was the sound of tires from an old Honda Civic (owned by the sound engineer).
There were screens showing iconic movies from the silent era (Charlie Chaplin) as well as forgotten gems and international classics. They show 10 different full length films every week in their spherical theatre.
We are a film loving family so we have seen many of the classic films, but could watch them over and over. My son knows Robin Hood as Errol Flynn and my daughter couldn’t believe in grade school when she dressed as Cleopatra for Halloween that the other kids didn’t know who Cleopatra was! My 14 year old granddaughter is taking a Film Studies class in 8th grade and just saw To Kill a Mocking Bird a couple of weeks ago. Her Mom (my daughter) took her to see the play version at Clowes last week with Richard Thomas as Atticus and the movie’s Scout as the grandmother.
I found the exhibit of Oscar acceptance speeches very entertaining. They had the videos on a continuous loop around a huge gallery with a platform displaying some memorable Oscar fashions in the middle of the room. Remember when Sally Field said “You really, really like me” and Halle Berry said— “It’s for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox” “And it’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened”? My late husband, me and our kids have always watched the Oscars. We make a list of at least 8 of the top awards and list our guesses. My husband usually won (bragging rights) even when he hadn’t seen but two of the new movies. When the kids became adults, we added a drinking game with a word or phrase the winners use like “I want to thank my mother or God”, etc. and then we take a drink of whatever is our favorite libation. My daughter likes hard seltzers, usually cabernet for me, a beer for my son and my husband loved Mountain Dew. I know I’ve written about this before, but we have a tiny plastic Oscar in my husband’s crematory display case at Washington Park. Steve could hear one line from an old movie or see one scene and know what the film was, what year, who the stars were and who wanted the lead, but turned it down. He couldn’t remember a doctor’s appointment, but never forgot an actor.
If you are a film buff this is the place to visit!
