Entertainment : The only disappointment in seeing \'Get Low:\' Empty seats at Palace

A few weeks ago, Charles Osgood and his CBS Sunday Morning crew explored the decline in attendance at movie theaters across the United States.

The solution to that situation is on the Palace screen this week: If Hollywood wants more people to come to the movies, they will make more movies like "Get Low."

I had never even heard of "Get Low" until I went to the Palace to take photos of the renovation and installation of the new screen. I saw the poster. Then I began to read about the movie.

"This looks good," I thought. But then I realized I had to wait to the end of October.

"Get Low" is worth the wait.

The story:

Almost everyone, it seems, knows a man like Felix Bush. A loner who looks a little scary and becomes legendary for evil, even though most of the stories are quite untrue.

For 40 years, Felix has been living alone in a cabin he built on 300 secluded acres in Tennessee. Rarely do people dare to visit him; when they do, it's mostly young vandals.

Then one day, a preacher shows up to tell Mr. Bush that an acquaintance has died of old age. This gets Felix to thinking about his own life and his stories -- told and untold, true and untrue.

So he heads into town -- driving the only mule-powered vehicle in his small town during the early the age of the automobile. He asks funeral director Frank Quinn to perform a service for him while he is still alive, and to invite everyone from the area to come to tell the stories they have heard about him.

While on this journey, Felix bumps into Mattie Darrow, a one-time romantic interest who knows more about Felix and his stories than anyone else. She too, is looking for answers about the mysterious fire and the woman who appears in Felix's dreams.

To make sure that a large crowd comes to the service, Felix offers an incredible financial incentive to anyone who participates. This brings an ethical challenge to the funeral director, who has desperately been hoping for business to improve; and also to the funeral director's young assistant.

While confronting his own past, Felix finds a way to teach some meaningful lessons to everyone who crosses his path.

Why you should go: "Get Low" is original and thoughtful and absorbing. It's both challenging and fun to watch, and the camera crews do an amazing job of taking the audience to rural Tennessee in the early 20th Century.

What you should know before you go: There are not many movies like this. "Get Low" is proof that movie-makers are, indeed (at least at times) able to do something original and creative. The film is rated PG-13 for violence and thematic elements, but to me its content could have merited just a PG rating.

My favorite part: There are too many good lessons from the melancholy wisdome of Felix to mention only one. But I will mention two of them:

"Say what you mean. People never say what they really mean."

"There's dead and there's alive, and there's the place in between. I hope you never go to that place."