7 big lessons I’ve learned from a life of moviegoing — and why I’m overjoyed to return

Midway through the 1982 screen musical “Annie,” the characters stop and do something that’s incidental to the plot but essential to their pleasure: They go to the movies. Before the curtains part on “Camille,” a splendid weepie starring Greta Garbo at her finest, they’re treated to a proper billionaire’s welcome, first from a receiving line of ushers and then a chorus of Rockettes: “Let’s go to the movies / Let’s go see the stars,” they sing. A few weeks ago I bit the bullet and headed to my local Pasadena arthouse, the Laemmle Playhouse 7, to catch the scintillating, newly restored 1969 French thriller “La Piscine.” And as I write these words, I’ve just managed to score a coveted ticket to see Martin Scorsese’s “New York, New York” at the recently reopened New Beverly Cinema, where it will have three showings next weekend. I may walk out of the theater humming Kander and Ebb, but on the way I’ll probably be singing along with the Rockettes: “Let’s go to the movies … ” My affection for “Annie” has dipped over the years but I’m still fond of that interlude: Seeing it for the first time as a wide-eyed child myself, I couldn’t help but share in Annie’s kid-in-a-candy-store exuberance.