‘Gone With the Wind’ to celebrate 75th anniversary with theatrical screenings showing the movie as it was originally shown seventy-five years ago. I took my mother to see GWTW, and it was worth every second of the five hours we sat in that theater. Though the movie has a running time of 238 minutes (with overture, intermission, entr’acte, and exit music), the theater where we saw it apparently didn’t know how to run a movie. The intermission should have been 15 minutes, but due to technical difficulties was over 45 minutes. It was still worth it to see my mama enjoy a movie that she has loved since she was a teenager.

TCM is presenting screenings of Gone With the Wind on Sept. 28 and Oct. 1 in movie theaters across the nation. If you are a fan of the movie, it is worth the price of the ticket to see it (even if ticket prices are more than the $10 that was the cost to see the originally premiere in Atlanta with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the audience).

Because we still give a damn: Long considered among the greatest films ever made, Gone With the Wind starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland celebrates its 75th anniversary this month.

Here are the details from Fathom Events, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and TCM:

Scarlett O’Hara won and then lost Rhett Butler, Atlanta burned and the antebellum South was shown in all its splendor and decimation in one of cinema’s most treasured and most successful films, “Gone With the Wind.” And now, as part of the festivities to mark the 10-time Oscar©-winning film’s 75th anniversary, Fathom Events is joining with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Turner Classic Movies to bring “TCM Presents: Gone With the Wind” back to its original home in select theatres nationwide and presented in its original aspect ratio so audiences can experience it as it was originally shown 75 years ago. The film will be exhibited on Sunday, September 28 and Wednesday, October 1 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. local time.

In addition to the classic film, which starred Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Olivia De Havilland as Melanie Hamilton and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, “TCM Presents: Gone With the Wind” included a specially produced introduction by TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne.

As any fan of classic films or American literature surely knows, “Gone With the Wind” is the Epic Civil War drama about spoiled southern belle Scarlett O’Hara. Starting with her idyllic life on the plantation Tara, it traces her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes, her tempestuous relationship with roguish Rhett Butler and her struggles as Atlanta burns, her family home is decimated and she vows to never go hungry again. As has been evident from the enduring devotion that fans have for the story – on film, on the pages of Margaret Mitchell’s original novel, on TV and home entertainment formats – frankly, they DO give a damn about Scarlett’s triumphs, travails and ultimate will to survive.

Pitch Perfect is an enjoyably snarky campus romp that’s both wildly nerdy and somewhat sexy, which makes it totally my kind of movie. Set in the unlikely world of a cappella singing, this snappy, smart-mouthed comedy with tons of great one-liners and fantastic music, offers choice opportunities for a bunch of young performers to pop out of the crowd while playing game characters searching for modes of self-expression. Girls, gays and music fanatics represent the core audience, but the good times also should go down easily with a wider in-the-know crowd. Think Glee in college. And to add a little eye candy for the gay crowd there are plenty of sexy guys in this movie along with a few dorky types.

A too-cool-for-you smarminess sheathes the cutthroat competitiveness at Barden U., where, on club recruiting day, The Bellas, an all-female a cappella group, urgently need new blood to have a chance of beating male rivals The Treblemakers, who prevailed in the national finals the previous spring.

Debuting feature director Jason Moore, best known for having staged Avenue Q on Broadway, sets a quick but not frantic pace and keeps it there; one easily could believe he goosed the actors before every scene, so alert are they to everything going on. The unusually attractive cast, which is consistently filled with performers well over college age, is fun to watch. Among the Bellas, Anna Kendrick’s Beca appealingly blossoms from wary outsider to the one everyone counts upon; Anna Camp’s Aubrey seemingly would rather die than take off her self-imposed straitjacket; Brittany Snow’s Chloe receives some of the knocks she needs to begin straightening herself out; Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy has a hilarious arsenal of quips, looks and moves; Ester Dean’s Cynthia Rose shows the kind of right stuff you always want on your side; and, for maximal eye candy, Alexis Knapp’s Stacie is always towering voluptuously and informing everyone how much sex she has. You get the feeling all of these talents will be heard from more decisively in the near future.

Scarcely five minutes of screen time goes by without music, be it in rehearsals, impromptu challenges or regional competitions leading up to the national finals at Lincoln Center in New York, and the bulging soundtrack calls upon oldies, newbies and everything in between to be rendered vocally without instrumentation, with normally arresting results unless it’s supposed to sound bad. The choreography is similarly sharp without tipping over into the outlandishly professional.

As I was reading about this movie, I came across a review from a “religious” site called Dove Family Friendly Movies that reviewed it as “Not Recommended for Families.” Well, as Aubrey says to one character, “It’s time to get your head out of your ass, because it’s not a hat.” Yes, there is some language but nothing that’s not regularly on television. Dove Family Friendly Movies was too funny not to read their review. At one point they state, “The music is really quite good and except for one line uttered by a lesbian, ‘I’ll make you my queen,’ the soundtrack might be considered family friendly.” To top off their stupidity, this is what they said about nudity in the film, “close-up of boy in a speedo swimsuit; cleveage [sic]; two girls and a guy talking while naked in the shower (nothing shown on screen); girl with see-thru t-shirt; girl rips open blouse during performance.” The thing is there is absolutely no nudity in the whole movie, and “close-up of boy in a speedo swimsuit” just made me want to see it more.

A friend had sent the movie when he found out that HRH had passed. He said that I needed something that would help cheer me up. After watching this movie last night, I can honestly say it worked. I haven’t been in this good of a mood in nearly two weeks. Even before Victoria got sick, I had suffered from a three day migraine. So this movie was just what I needed, and I laughed a lot, something I haven’t done in a while. One of the ladies at school told me that she missed my smile. She understand though why I have been sad.

If you have not seen Pitch Perfect than you really should. It’s a fun and wonderful movie. I plan to watch this movie over and over again. This movie is perfect for putting me in a good mood, and I recommend anyone who has not seen it to run to the store and buy it.

On Monday, the same day I posted about my own battles with depression, Robin Williams committed suicide. Williams had been seeking treatment for depression. The Oscar-winning actor for years dealt with bouts of substance abuse and depression and referenced his struggles in his comedy routines. Just last month, Williams announced he was returning to a 12-step treatment program.

The circumstances of the death do not help explain what motivated him, suicide experts said. Understanding that would require a detailed “psychological autopsy” that includes the review of medical and other records, and interviews with family and friends. These experts stressed that suicide rarely is triggered by a single factor, such as depression or substance abuse. Typically there are at least two such influences, often compounded by acute stress, such as from financial hardship or troubled personal relationships.

I think that if you looked at any of Williams’s performances you will see one of the most explosively, exhaustingly, prodigiously verbal comedians who ever lived, yet you would also see an undertone do sadness. Maybe that is 20/20 hindsight, but Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam, Patch Adams, and so many others show a troubled man who also used humor to hide what was underneath, a great sadness.

The first “gay” movie I think I ever saw was The Birdcage. It showed men who were gay and were proud to be gay. It showed something that I had never seen before, and it didn’t degrade gay men, just used them as part of the comedy as any other character in the film was used. It’s actually the heterosexuals in the film that become the most ridiculous.

Robin Williams will be greatly missed. I am sorry that depression took someone who made so many people happy.

If the loss of Robin Williams was not tragedy enough, Lauren Bacall, the smoky-voiced movie legend who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in To Have and Have Not, died at the age of 89 yesterday.

Her death was confirmed by Robbert de Klerk, the co-managing partner of the Humphrey Bogart Estate with her son Stephen Bogart. “She passed away peacefully earlier today in New York,” according to family, De Klerk said. Some news sources state that she died of a stroke.

With an insinuating pose and a seductive, throaty voice — her simplest remark sounded like a jungle mating call, one critic said — Ms. Bacall shot to fame in 1944 with her first movie, Howard Hawks’s adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel To Have and Have Not, playing opposite Humphrey Bogart, who became her lover on the set and later her husband.

It was a smashing debut sealed with a handful of lines now engraved in Hollywood history.

“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve,” her character says to Bogart’s in the movie’s most memorable scene. “You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

The film was the first of more than 40 for Ms. Bacall, among them The Big Sleep and Key Largo with Bogart, How to Marry a Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, the all-star Murder on the Orient Express (1974), each are some of my favorite films. Those that you can see a hundred times and never tire of them.

In 1996, Bacall appeared as the meddling mother to Barbra Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces, a role for which she received her only Academy Award nomination as supporting actress.

She was considered a shoo-in to take home the Oscar but lost out to Juliette Binoche for The English Patient.

The actress told The Times in 1998 that she wasn’t bitter.

“The part I had in Barbra’s movie was a terrific part just on its own,” she said. “The opportunity to work with her was great, but you know, the whole thing of awards is a nightmare, I think. It has gotten out of hand. There are too many awards.”

She said she was surprised when she received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in 1997, calling it “a very special honor.”

“Listen, I never went into this business thinking of winning anything,” she said. “I went into it because I loved it and I wanted to be good at it. It was a form of expression for me. I love to hide behind characters. So [any recognition] I get is a perk. It’s just an extra. Just the fact that all that happened to me last year, it is — well — fabulous.”

Lauren Bacall and Robin Williams were class acts and their legend will continue. Of you haven’t seen one of their movies in a while, I encourage you to do so. It might just inspire you.