Yesterday, I wrote some unkind things about the central Florida city that was my home for six years. In the interest of equal time, I should allow that there were plenty of places down there that we did like, that, in fact, I’ve missed since we’ve moved on. There are some good bars, BBQ shacks, and at least one constantly evolving coffee shop. There’s also a very nice movie theater that was our first real exposure to the sort of full-service evening out that is becoming more common in the land of moviegoing.

The Enzian was probably the first place we found in our new home that we considered ours in the way that places, bands, books, and indeed movies can speak to you so directly, so perfectly match your predispositions and passions that they are immediately feel like a personal belonging, even as you’re sharing them with a whole world of other consumers. It was an art house cinema, and that was probably enough right there as we were quickly becoming considered that we were in a city devoid of personality. But it also had table service with upscale food and topnotch beer during the films and a general commitment to celebrating the movies they showed. It was the sort of place that felt like they were showing movies because they liked movies rather than because they thought it was a quick, easy route to making money.

This atmosphere combined with the films themselves attracted a certain clientele. While there were plenty of people who were showing up as much to be seen at a cultural event as any other reason (like it was the local opera or a gallery opening), most of the crowd was there because they believed in the mission of the theater. They wanted to bask in the feel and flavor of films that operated differently than those shuttled in and out of the multiplex down the road.

I got a clearer picture of this during our first fall, when they booked Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It takes a special theater to play this sort of film, and it takes a special group of regular patrons to fill that theater. Even more, it takes a special group of patrons to happily, loudly, unashamedly sing-along when the appropriate moment comes up. I don’t miss central Florida, but I do miss the Enzian.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch, “Wig in a Box”

(Disclaimer: Really, there are ways to get this song. The original cast recording from the stage production is available, the DVD of the film is being offered at a nicely reduced price, and you can even get a version of the song on a tribute album that is also a fundraiser for a very good cause. The motion picture soundtrack, however, is strangely out of print. That’s where this cut is taken from. If anyone with due authority to so asks me to remove the song from this corner of the Interweb, I will gladly comply.)