On Tuesday night, an old high school friend was in town and wanted to check-off two Boston "musts" that I had somehow never gotten around to during the years I've lived here: (1) eat dinner at the restaurant on the top floor of the city's second-tallest skyscraper, the Prudential Center, and (2) see a movie at the famed Brattle Theater in Harvard Square, where young cineastes have been screening classic movies since the fifties (when they famously championed Citizen Kane, which had been a critical and box-office failure during its initial run, and helped cement its reputation as the greatest movie).

After dinner at "The Top of the Hub," which was expensive but worth it if only for the amazing views of the entire city offered by the full-length windows, we rushed over to the Brattle for a 9:30pm screening of Raging Bull (1980), the second part of a double bill that also offered Rocky (1976) earlier in the night. Many critics (and moviegoers) believe the great Scorsese-De Niro collaboration is the best film of the last thirty years; I wouldn't go that far, but it's pretty damn good and holds up terrifically. (I'd obviously seen it before, but never on the big screen, and it was definitely neat to do so.)

Anyone who is in the Boston-area should make a point of stopping by The Brattle, especially over the next week or so, when it will continue to screen celebrated classics as one of the 20 select "markets of independent theaters and cinema houses in key cities throughout the United States" playing host to the United Artists 90th Anniversary Film Festival. (Not a bad promotional idea from the historic studio purchased by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner in November 2006, right?) A single screening costs $9.50, but there are several double features for which you get both movies for the price of one. You can click here to see the full schedule, but some highlights include The Manchurian Candidate (1962) on May 9, The Great Escape (1963) on May 10, West Side Story (1961) on May 11, The Apartment (1960) and Some Like It Hot (1959) on May 12 and May 13, Rain Man (1988) on May 14, and Annie Hall (1977) and Midnight Cowboy (1969) on May 15.