Sunday, June 19th at 1:00 p.m.at Loft Theater, 3233 E. Speedway
Admission: $8.00 general; $6.00 Loft members
35mm presentation

PLUS: see the new documentary, “HEY, BOO: HARPER LEE AND TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”, at The Loft on Wednesday, June 22nd at 7:30 p.m.!

Celebrate Father’s Day with the legendary Gregory Peck starring as Atticus Finch, one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest dads, at this special 35mm screening of the classic 1962 Oscar-winner TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD! Bring dad, mom and the kids (after all, who doesn’t love this movie????), enjoy a refreshing “Tequila Mockingbird” drink special (available at the snack bar), and sign up for our free “Dad Raffle” to win father-friendly prizes that will really make you say HEY BOO!

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel was vividly translated to the big screen in 1962 by screenwriter Horton Foote and director Robert Mulligan (Summer of ’42, Up the Down Staircase).

Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch, magnificently played by Gregory Peck. Finch puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson, a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. The trial and the events surrounding it are seen through the eyes of Finch’s six-year-old daughter, the rough-around-the-edges tomboy Scout.

While Robinson’s sensational trial gives the film its momentum, there are numerous occurrences and adventures rounding out the story: Scout’s ever-strengthening bond with older brother Jem, her friendship with precocious young Dill Harris (a character based on Lee’s childhood pal Truman Capote), her father’s no-nonsense reactions to such life-and-death crises as a rampaging mad dog, and especially Scout’s relationship with Boo Radley (Robert Duvall, in his star-making movie debut), the mysteriously reclusive “village idiot” who turns out to be Scout’s unexpected savior.

An instant classic and a perennial fan favorite (ranked #34 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Films), TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction, and is guaranteed to create a lump in the throat of anyone who has ever had a father.

I read this book years ago, and have seen this movie a number of times– a true classic, just in time for Father’s Day 2011. Happy day to all fathers!

For fathers, fatherhood is not the same as motherhood is for a woman who bears the child in her uterus. How could it be? There’s something miraculous about getting pregnant, watching your body grow & grow– knowing that you have the immense responsibility of physically bearing and bringing forth a child into the world. And 9 months is a long time to be pregnant, believe me.

For fathers, you can share in this pregnancy process as well, if you choose to stand by the mother and be supportive/helpful. And then one day, a child is born and you are a father of that new human being.

For my husband, it was “love at first sight’ at our son’s birth in Virginia. Though now I humorously tell people that my husband was shocked in the birthing room that a human baby actually came out of me, and I exhaustedly turned to him and said “what did you expect, an alien?”

And I know in my heart that my biological father Dr. Francis Sueo Sugiyama loved me a great deal too. I saw the love in his eyes — how he spoke lovingly to me and how he treated me, his only surviving daughter. (My parents lost their first child, my stillbirth sister).

Dad was the youngest of 8 children born to impoverished Japanese American immigrants, who was the first in his family to go to college, then dental school. He practiced dentistry & orthodontics in our rural home town in Hawaii for 30 years, but kept his practice open after he retired –to assist needy senior citizens. My father passed away 14 years ago at age 81, but I still miss his fatherly and sage advice.

So, Happy Father’s Day to you guys out there who are so lucky to be the loving father of a biological, adoptive, or foster child. Stepdads count too of course. And cherish and honor your father today (dead or alive).

I heard some actor in a movie (Denzel Washington perhaps?) say: “any fool can be father, but it takes a real man to be a daddy.” It’s supposedly a quote by Philip Whitmore, Sr.

Enjoy your day fathers!