Kubrick wears well, especially in Italy

For old-school movie fans, nothing beats watching a film on the big screen. And while today's theaters are ultra-contemporary, what with state-of-the-art digital projection and sound — not to mention adjustable reclining seats — some older theaters still offer the best experience.

Such a theater exists in Florence, Italy, in the Palazzo della Strozzino, just off the Piazza della Repubblica. It's called the Cinema Odeon Firenze, and it is especially valuable to English-speaking moviegoers when it screens American and British movies in "original language" presentations. Which means: no subtitles.

On Monday night, that's how I saw a revival of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Some movies you can see once and know you've learned all you need. Others you might wish you hadn't wasted the time. Kubrick's masterpiece — an overused word, I know, but appropriate in this case — is one you can see numerous times and still see (and maybe feel) something new.

This time I was intrigued to see, during Dr. Heywood Floyd's flight to the moon station, that a pair of flight attendants were watching what looked like a judo contest. As with many other Kubrick touches, that felt so utterly random that I actually laughed out loud. And yet it didn't spoil the overall, meditatively mysterious tone of the movie at all. 

I was fortunate enough to be part of a team that presented "2001: A Space Odyssey" at The Bing in 2015. It looked good then, and it looked even better at The Odeon, whose seats are as lush and comfortable as the theater itself is representative of old-world splendor.

I see movies at The Odeon every chance I get. If you ever visit Florence, and get tired of museum-hopping, you might seek it out. It's a real treat, especially during the hot, humid days of summer.

The short video below gives just a hint of how glamorous the theater is.