Colonial Theatre

At 6:15 last night, the Colonial Theatre's neon marquee buzzed and flickered to life for the first time in decades. The gold, red and blue light reflected in curbside puddles and brightened Bridge Street's brick rowhouses and shops - and the town's hopes for renewal. Police had stopped traffic on the downtown street, and a crowd of locals laughed and clapped; some stayed long after to gaze into the neon, the first time the Colonial Theatre had been lit like this since their childhoods.

When Phoenixville's old Colonial Theatre went up for sale in 1996, some residents were worried about the possible consequences - but six of them also saw it as a chance to bring new life to their struggling Chester County community. "We believed that a movie theater that was vibrant and alive, and had a lot of different programs, could help revitalize the entire business district," said Mary Foote, one of those six and now the Colonial's executive director. Since buying the 645-seat theater in 1999, the nonprofit Association for the Colonial Theatre has steadily transformed it into an art, independent and family film house, and a community center open seven days a week.

When The Blob arrived at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville in 1957, it literally oozed through the old movie house, swallowing up people and sending extras, playing moviegoers, running into the street, screaming in fear. Today, The Blob symbolizes the renaissance of the historic theater, which fell on hard times after the movie was shot there. The Blob, a sludgelike creature with a vast appetite that arrived in Chester County inside a meteor, put the Colonial on the map for fans of sci-fi flicks and nostalgic Americana.

The irreverent fun of Tony Richardson's Tom Jones (1963) is the overlay of 1960s bawdiness on this 1740s Henry Fielding story of a randy bastard child (Albert Finney) adopted by that pillar of rectitude, Squire Allworthy (George Devine). According to Hollywood lore, Richardson was unhappy with the stuffy costume drama he shot. So he used lightning edits and an ironic voice-over to give it the pep and wit of Fielding's 18th-century novel about whether nature or nurture makes the man. The results won Tom Jones an Oscar for best picture, catapulted Finney to international stardom, and still amuses audiences today, although Susannah York's 1963 coif looks as anachronistic as a peruke at a beach party.

Whenever the inevitable desert-island conversation comes up - as in which one movie would you pack? - I always think Ninotchka (1939). It stars Greta Garbo as a Communist envoy and Melvyn Douglas as a capitalist fool who meet up in Paris. They are temperamental as well as political opposites, she being as pragmatic as he is romantic, as puritanical as he is pleasure-loving. When he goes into seduction mode, she initially resists him, shrugging, "Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological, or shall we say, chemical, process.

It's February 1965, and Malcolm X drives to the rally where he will be cut down in a fusillade of bullets. The soundtrack of Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992) swells with the haunting, spiritual "Change is Gonna Come. " Lee's gripping and majestic movie is itself structured around change, transition and transformation. Millions of African Americans still await meaningful change, and the achievement of Lee's film - one of the indisputable and indispensable masterworks of the 1990s - is the connection it forges between an anguished present and the brilliantly evoked past of Malcolm X. Denzel Washington received a best-actor Oscar nomination (he lost to Al Pacino and Scent of a Woman)

Five years ago, when Stephen Berger moved to Phoenixville and saw the Colonial Theatre, he thought to himself, "That's the perfect home for a film festival. " So Berger started the Phoenixville Independent Film Festival the next year. This Saturday, it'll be the fourth year of the Phoenixville Independent Film Festival, a selection of 10 shorts less than 15 minutes long. There are a few films from Chester County, as well as some from as far away as France. Jeffrey Gangwisch of Downingtown created Radio, a comedy/mystery based on nostalgic fireside chats on radio shows.

It may not be surprising that every year in Phoenixville, a town of homegrown festivals and wacky artists, a sculpture of a phoenix is set on fire. This year, the wooden sculpture will be set ablaze at 8 p.m. Saturday during the town's Firebird Festival. Organizer Lynn Miller said, "The town was named for the bird," a symbol of rebirth. Legend goes that in 1813, the founder of the town's first iron company had a vision of a phoenix emerging from the flames and named his company Phoenix Works.

Put Romeo and Juliet in New York's Hell's Kitchen. Make his family native-born American and hers immigrant Puerto Rican. Set it to music by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins, maestros at the top of their game. The volatile result is West Side Story (1961), Robert Wise's and Robbins' explosive translation of the Broadway musical to the screen. Its creators put ear to manhole in order to listen to urban rhythms - and then cranked the volume up to 10. More attention was lavished on the music and dancing than on the acting by the nominal leads, Richard Beymer as Tony and Natalie Wood as Maria, and it shows.

Repertory Films Ambler Theater 108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler; 215-345-7855. www.amblertheater.com . Kiss Me Deadly (1955) $9.50; $7 seniors and students. 8/22. 7 pm. Bryn Mawr Film Institute 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr; 610-527-9898. www.brynmawrfilm.org . Airplane! (1980) $10; $7 seniors and students with ID. 8/23. 7 pm. The Music Man Sing-Along. $10; $7 seniors and students with ID. 8/24. 7 pm. Colonial Theatre 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville; 610-917-1228.

Repertory Films Ambler Theater 108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler; 215-345-7855. www.amblertheater.com . Film 101: Inside George Cukor's 'The Women'. $9.75; $7.25 seniors, students and children. 5/10. 7:30 pm. Asian Arts Initiative 1219-1223 Vine St.; 215-557-0455. www.asianartsinitiative.org . Kinowatt: Film & the Power of Change. $8; $5 students. 5/4. Bucks County Community College - Gateway Auditorium 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown; 215-968-8088. www.bucks.edu . Film Festival.