(02-05-2026, 09:59 AM)Greg Wrote: Young Sherlock. March 4. With more Guy Ritchie!

I didn't know who Bill Raney was either. The Nick has been down for the count for quite awhile, but back in the day, it was really the only place in town (Santa Cruz) to see cool movies. Especially after the Rio switched to a live performance venue. That Nick, the one next door to Zach Pitts' house...two doors down from Jack's Burger Stand.

https://www.goodtimes.sc/bill-raney-nick...anta-cruz/

Quote:‘Nick’ owner Bill Raney left behind a cultural legacy

Richard Stockton
March 4, 2026
Bill Raney, the founder and longtime owner of the beloved Nickelodeon Theater, died last week at 90, leaving behind a legacy that is deep in the cultural DNA of Santa Cruz. For more than three decades, he brought independent, foreign and classic films that helped form Santa Cruz culture.

When Raney and his first wife, JoAnne Walker Raney, opened the Nickelodeon in 1968, Santa Cruz was being shaped by the Summer of Love. The “Nick” culturally helped inform that ethos, as the town turned from a quiet beach community into something more expansive and revolutionary. The Nickelodeon arrived at a time when most theaters were showing the same Hollywood fare, as the Nick screened Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut and Kurosawa. It offered stories that felt urgent, intimate and often radical; the full-blown Rocky Horror Picture Show experience went on for years. For generations of UCSC students and locals the Nickelodeon was a gathering place for exploring the world beyond the mainstream.

Born in Grand Forks, ND, Raney’s life, like the films he loved, contained beauty and tragedy. Shortly after opening the theater, JoAnne died of an aneurysm. The couple had recently adopted a son, Zerky, who also died the following year. Bill’s son Zachary Raney says those losses shaped him deeply.

“There was a lot of loss. Zerky passed in ‘70, and then it was just me and him. He was so consistent and so caring and loving all the way through. I really don’t know how he was able to stay so strong through all of that.”
Bill remarried and continued building Santa Cruz film culture, expanded programming and eventually opened additional venues. Zach said, “My dad held his arms open for everyone, both in our home and at his second home, the Nick. The doors were open for the whole community. My dad embraced everyone.”

Not a loud man, nor one to chase celebrity, Raney’s contribution was steady, patient and rooted in the belief that if you give people access to art, they will grow, says his son, Zach. Even after he sold the theater in 1997, the ethos he created continued to ripple outward, influencing local festivals, the Del Mar Theatre’s revival, and the ongoing hunger for film as a community experience.
The Nickelodeon closed during the pandemic, a loss that still feels raw to longtime residents. Could the Nick come back? Zach Raney says, “I’m not going to say the Nick is going to open again, but there is some chatter. There are some structural things that have to happen in the building, but there is a dream to get it open.”

Bill Raney is survived by Nancy Raney, Zachary Raney, Julie Atkinson-Harrington, and Kevin Atkinson. In later years, Bill traveled widely and wrote about his experiences in Letters to Zerky, but seen from Santa Cruz, his greatest journey may have been the one he invited the rest of us on. In a moment when the world feels fractured and smaller, his gift feels larger than ever. Bill Raney helped Santa Cruz see a bigger world and helped us all open our arms wider.

Brendan Fraser plays a struggling actor who takes a job pretending to be a member of various people's families. Melodrama ensues. The whole thing takes place in Japan. I'm not really sure why the character Fraser plays is in Japan, he might have come for a job and never left. But he's there. There's two main threads. In one, he's a reporter talking to an aging actor suffering from early stages of dementia who wants to feel important again. In the other, he plays the absent father returned in order to help a young girl get into a prestigious school. In the end, of course, Brendan learns a valuable life lesson.

I was hoping for a more comedic take but that is not what comes up.

I'll fill this in tomorrow after the announcement. Super excited for that weekend - a wild 3-night run just lined up and I gotta pull it together for that. 

KB, tg - put this on your radar for Bicycle Day.

I found seasons 1 and 2, while pretty to look at, to be slow and meandering, leaning into boring. So epic...and simultaneously glacial. Hari Sheldon seems a super annoying know-it-all that you want to slap. I'm not fond of the cast of characters that follow him, either. Lee Pace as Day (the middle clone in Empire's 3 seats) is very wooden. 

I was going to give up and didn't bother with Season 3 even tho it came out awhile ago...but I started it and binged it this week. Much better. I barely remember where Season 2 left off, but this one is much better. Still beautiful to look at, but moves much faster, lots going on, but easy to follow. There's a new baddie, "The Mule" who easily controls people with his mind and intends to take over the galaxy and crush both Empire and The Foundation. Lee Pace's Empire discovers drugs and falls in love with a lady and gets to be "The Dude" from Big Lebowski for much of the season, but his acting is way better, especially after that part. The arc of Dusk (the eldest Empire clone) to Darkness is Shakespearean (possibly trying to hard to be so, but the sets and lighting that go with it are great)

There is a plot twist about The Mule revealed at the end that I'm not sure I can accept, but I'm not going to go back and watch the season over to see if it jives. There's a bit of "I'm going to tell you a story and all points are leading there...oh, I didn't tell you this one little thing..."

Anyway, recommended if you can slog thru seasons 1&2 (and I hear it got renewed for another)

--tg

(02-04-2026, 02:38 PM)Greg Wrote: Man on the Run.

Stacy’s dad. She visited him last week and the hospice nurse said it might be any day, or maybe a few weeks. He had cancer & onset of dementia. The last time I saw him was for his 85th birthday https://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFo...4#pid82384

He was pretty rough on his birthday, covered in lesions due to a bad reaction to a chemo medication. He participated in the conversation but he was clearly suffering. Stacy & Tara visited later and Tara said he spoke more then than she could remember (he wasn’t very talkative). Stacy said he hardly opened his eyes when she visited him a few days ago and seemed to be in even more pain.

Since the 60s, he was deep into cryonics. Stacy’s half brother got involved and it was he who texted Stacy, saying the cryonics pick up (which has to be quick) went smoothly. His head is now on ice in a cryonics storage facility. 

Stacy seems to be doing ok. Weirdly she lost her mom last March too. https://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFo...&pid=77102

We had such a lovely healing day. Now we’re back in the default world and mourning.

Surprised there was no thread for this. I guess DM's birthday was all anyone could think about.

I always liked him. He turned up in odd places occasionally and was good. And no one our age can forget him in Apocalypse Now.

This animated short was recommended on some feed…



—tg

The 2026 hesuipian rush is nearly over and the victor is looking like this:

(02-25-2026, 10:29 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: Pegasus 3