First an apology for the extreme length of this entry. I’ll get to the column in a minute, first a look at last night’s show at Film Streams. How exactly do you review a movie theater? I guess you consider the environment, the seating, the picture, the sound, the whole experience. Taken as a whole, Film Streams gets four stars.

The facility has a classy, simple elegance, with its gorgeous lobby designed in the same concrete-glass-and-steel modern-Euro style as Slowdown. Clean lines, big windows that look out to the street. I didn’t get a chance to test the ticket window as entry was handled entirely by a guest list. Instead, the ticket booth was being used to film “testimonials” about the facility and the concept of Film Streams (Interestingly, Slowdown also has a ticket window, but I’ve never seen them use it). No idea on concessions as complimentary popcorn and soda were handed out. I didn’t see anything unique in the candy counter, but really, I’m not looking for anything beyond Milkduds. Eventually, the theater is supposed to also offer Blue Line coffee and baked goods. I’m not sure how that’ll work (actually, I’m not sure where Blue Line will be located in the new complex, I just know it ain’t open yet).

Onto the important stuff: The auditoriums. They were pretty much what you’d expect from a new, modern theater — high-back seats with drink holders, plenty of leg room (though, like every theater I’ve been in, still a bit tight for me, which is why I always sit in an aisle seat). Picture and sound were, of course, immaculate.

If I have a quibble, it’s with the large auditorium. The seating is done in typical “stadium style” — rows climbing up at a steep angle — a welcome innovation in theater design. The problem is that the screen seems hung too low. The best seats are in the middle rows. If you go too high, you feel like you’re looking too far down to the screen. If the auditorium were my living room, I’d either get a taller screen (probably not possible due to the theater’s width and aspect ratio issues) or move it up about 10 feet (there’s plenty of room to do that). The smaller auditorium has more traditional (non-stadium) seating, and feels more intimate. I kind of like it better, actually. The screen seems huge, and as a result, the best seats in that aud are in the last row (though, because the narrow slope of the rows, you my have a problem if you’re sitting behind someone with Marge Simpson hair).

Film Streams is doing another Alexander Payne presentation tonight for special guests, then tomorrow is opening day, with Seven Samurai playing in the big theater (Payne might introduce it?) and La Vie en Rose in the small theater. The long-term plan is to have the first-runs in the big aud and the retrospectives in the small room.

So how was La Vie en Rose? I knew next to nothing about Edith Piaf before going to this. I still don’t know much about her afterward, other than she lived a rather horrible, painful life that started drenched in illness and poverty and ended drenched in illness and loneliness. Along the way, there was plenty of great music and lots of morphine. Since the film is non-linear in nature, you don’t get a sense of story so much as a sense of being — not for who Piaf was, but what she was like. Great performances, especially by Marion Cotillard as Piaf (though she doesn’t do the actual singing in the film). Ultimately, it was an utterly depressing two hours of film, as you watch Piaf experience one personal horror after another, ending with her death at age 47 of liver cancer (which isn’t explained in the film). In French, with subtitles. If I were a movie reviewer, I’d give it three stars.

Speaking of reviews… I got out of Filmstreams at around 10:30 and high-tailed it to The Waiting Room in time to see St. Vincent. My take: She’s going to be as big as PJ Harvey. Maybe bigger. I was under the impression she’d be playing solo, but instead, had a three-member band in tow — a violinist, bass/keyboardist and drummer. Frontwoman Annie Clark impressively handled the lead guitar herself, with a tone reminiscent of Jack White’s work in White Stripes (though she varied between hard-edged fuzz and a gentler sound). When she ripped into the heavy stuff, the music was cathartic. I stand by my earlier opinion that her voice is similar to Carly Simon’s, especially on the more laid-back tunes, while it became chipped and PJ-like on the hard numbers (To give her vocals more dynamics, she switched between two different microphones — a standard mic and one piped through an effect’s pedal). After finishing her set, she came back alone to do a cover of Nico’s “These Days” sitting on the edge of the stage with an acoustic guitar, surrounded by fans bent close to hear her quiet voice. A star is born. See for yourself when she opens for The National at Slowdown in September.

Now onto this weeks column. Like I said earlier this week, I didn’t listen to a lot of music in Cape Cod, but I did on the flights out there and back.

Tonight at Slowdown Jr. it’s New York’s Vampire Weekend and Omaha’s own Landing on the Moon along with special guest Sad Sailor, a new 7-piece improvisational, psychedelic, group featuring Brian Poloncic of Tomato a Day. Get there early to check them out. $7, 8 p.m.

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