Sept films boast comedy classics, centennial celebration


Each year, the beginning of September signals the end of the major summer movie season, but this year has been pretty different.

Owing most likely to the production-halting SAG and WGA strikes of last year, this year’s summer season has felt a bit leaner and shorter on crowd-pleasing, feel-good fare than usual.

Save for the record-smashing “Deadpool & Wolverine” and (sigh) “Twisters,” the usually overloaded May-August season didn’t offer much designed to bring us all together in theaters to laugh and rejoice as one before we’re all sent back to the wet, cold, and school-filled side of the calendar.

So we’re in luck that OKC theaters are offering a handful of chances to catch some of the greatest and most groundbreaking comedy films of all time through September, meaning we can all still laugh our heads off together before things inevitably get less funny over these next few months.

‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ – Rodeo Cinema Stockyards – Official Centennial Celebration – Saturday, September 7th 

That’s right, the iconic theater space in the heart of the Stockyards is celebrating 100 years in operation this September.

It’s been a performance space, a vaudeville stage, and of course the one-time Oklahoma Opry, but before all of that, the theater opened in 1924 as a movie house screening the silent films of the time.

film
Bob Hoskins, and Charles Fleischer in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

A full hundred years later, Rodeo Cinema is keeping that same spirit alive as one of Oklahoma City’s premier indie art houses, regularly screening the most boundary-pushing and left-field films the modern world has to offer.

But for the official centennial celebration, Rodeo is falling back on one of the most beloved and groundbreaking fan-favorite comedies of all time, the unprecedented live-action/animation hybrid “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

The unmatched talent and creative mind of director Robert Zemeckis ushers us into a world where humans and “toons” live side by side, and where they even find themselves caught up in dangerously convoluted murder plots, Hollywood scandals, and real estate manipulation.

Over three decades on, it’s still shocking to know and accept that one of cinema’s most enduring Film Noir offerings is a half-animated farce starring an increasingly unhinged Bob Hoskins and a host of Disney and WB cartoon characters, but that’s just the way it is.

For times, tickets, and more information, including a look at the full weekend’s centennial celebrations, visit rodeocinema.org.

‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ – Femme Film at Oklahoma Contemporary – Thursday, September 12th 

The women-driven screening group Femme Film is back in its new home at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, presenting a monthly event showcasing the power and creativity of female filmmaking.

Femme Film was launched in 2020 by Paris Burris as a consistent force in local indie film screenings around OKC before taking some time away from the community screening game to focus on the Femme Film programming through deadCenter. 

film
Sean Penn, Katherine Hittelman, and Amanda Wyss in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

But they’re back on the scene now and kicking things off in September with director Amy Heckerling’s immortal “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

Easily one of the most legendary teen comedies ever produced, this slice-of-life glimpse at a group of high school kids came to define the youth of the early 80s and largely formed the template for practically every other teen movie that’s come since, even up to the present day.

Surely the most famous and quotable character in writer Cameron Crowe’s loosely fictionalized Ridgemont High is Sean Penn’s infinitely memorable stoner/surfer Jeff Spicoli. But it’s young breakout Jennifer Jason Leigh that gives the film its heart and undeniably realistic teenage soul in perhaps the first great role of one of modern cinema’s most awe-inspiring performers.

For tickets, times, and more information, visit okcontemp.org/femmefilm.

‘Funny Face’ & ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – Saturday, September 21st and Saturday, September 28th 

For many in OKC, the summer of 2024 will always be remembered as the summer of Edith Head, with the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s blockbuster exhibition “Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer” taking over the town and reigniting a burning passion for classic Hollywood in film lovers everywhere.

With the exhibition winding down at the end of September, OKCMOA’s Sam Noble Theater is set to present a couple of Head’s most famous costuming projects with “Funny Face” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” showcasing her incredible design work and one of the most inspiring performers of her career: Audrey Hepburn.

film
Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

The partnership of Head and Hepburn in this pair of era-defining romantic comedies produced some of the greatest cinematic fashions ever put to film and helped to solidify Hepburn’s place in the great pantheon of film performers and style icons.

There’s probably no better way for OKCMOA to wrap up their Edith Head Film Series than with this pair of irresistibly charming Hepburn vehicles.

And even if some of the humor and characters in “Tiffany’s” are outdated (to say the very least,) it’s still impossible not to be won over by Hepburn’s undeniable screen presence and Head’s breathtaking and indelible costumes.
For times, tickets, and more information, visit okcmoa.com/film.


Catch Brett Fieldcamp’s film column weekly for information and insights into the world of film in the Oklahoma City metro and Oklahoma. | Brought to you by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.


Author Profile

Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.