I have been racking my brain in a vain effort to remember a longer absence from the multiplex. I scoured the listings for the weekend of March 2 and found only one film that sounded remotely interesting, “The Iron Orchard.” I managed to resist the temptation, even though I do have a weakness for films about the oil industry.
In the 1940s and ’50s, my father was a wholesaler for the Sinclair Oil Corporation, so I grew up with the smell of the oil fields in my nostrils. I remember going with him in 1949 to see the movie “Tulsa”; it was very popular in Oklahoma and a distinct flop elsewhere despite an Oscar nomination for special effects.
In 1958, I saw the Clark Gable-Spencer Tracy highly romanticized 1940 film, “Boom Town” on late-night television and enjoyed it enormously. In 1973, I saw George C. Scott and Faye Dunaway in “Oklahoma Crude,” a realistic depiction of the early oil field, but also another commercial failure. In 2007, “There Will Be Blood” brought the darkest depiction yet of the early oil industry.
I know the drought will end, at least for a while, when “Captain Marvel” opens on March 8, just in time for spring break. I spent this past weekend reviewing “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp” just to be ready.