Now that the Oriental turns 80 -- or more accurately, turned 80 in July - it's got me thinking about when I moved to Milwaukee nearly 25 years ago and the Oriental was an oasis (which means I've been an Oriental patron for almost a third of its lifetime!).

That was back in the day when the Oriental was one, big, astonishing and breathtaking theater and the same words could be used to describe its printed schedule, which listed different films for nearly every day or every couple days.

There were themed double features -- like "Cat People" and "The Man Who Fell to Earth" which both featured David Bowie, for example -- and week-long events, such as a marathon of Kubrick movies.

Buying a 12 screening pass for $20 or whatever it was felt like a quick and easy way to a film education.

I saw obscure music movies about reggae music and punk, I saw all the Kubrick films, I saw "Metropolis," I saw Italian realist films, I saw risque French films, I saw "A Clockwork Orange" more than once.

While I don't question the changes made at the Oriental in the intervening years -- after all, the world and the movie business have changed -- I do miss the days when you could go in, bask in the unaltered splendor of Milwauke's last surviving movie palace and see some of the world's quirkiest movies. Unless you waited a day too long, in which case you'd have to see another of the world's quirkiest movies.