Meet Matthew Cooke, a Stranger reader who has vowed to do everything The Stranger suggests for the entire month of February. Look for his reports daily on Slog and Line Out. —Eds.

Ah, Wings of Desire. My old friend Colin and I had not seen it since our long, long-ago college years, and neither of us had ever been to Central Cinema. The space is great. I’m a sucker for exposed brick, and the enclosed bistro adjacent to the entrance is beautifully done.

Living in north Seattle, I often do the beer-and-a-movie thing at Cinebarre. I have to say I missed their tiered seating; the Central’s main floor is pancake-flat. Normally not a big deal, but with sub-titles, the head-shaped silhouette of the guy in front of you presents some challenges. The pizza was better than anything Cinebarre serves though, and our bottle of Malbec was well-priced and tasty.

Best of all, of course, was the movie.

Most of us, I think, flatter ourselves about the originality of our inner lives. We suppose that what passes through our heads is completely our own, intensely personal and unique. I love how Wings of Desire deconstructs that wonderfully arrogant notion, acknowledging both the loneliness that comes with it and the illusions that sustain it.

It’s a “greatest hits” compilation of angst, lingering on profound and introspective moments while leaving out the filler; listening to the anxieties and heartaches of the characters, we rarely hear anyone think about taking out the garbage. But the movie is told from the angels’ point of view, and it’s clear they’ve been around long enough to show us only what we need to know.

It struck me how much the angels interact not just with the people, but with the setting; could the movie exist anywhere but Berlin? I’ve never been particularly drawn to that city; it always looks so drab against the grandeur of other European capitals. By the end of the film, however, its ravaged soul is like another character, with contradictions and flaws but also a sort of resilient joy. It made me want to go there.

The head guy at Central, Kevin Spitzer, happened to be manning the door, and we fell into a conversation in which he told me about the background of the building. It’s had a busy life: car dealership, dairy plant, flophouse... Kevin converted it into an art studio initially, and then came up with the cinema idea. Seattle isn’t Berlin, but it still has plenty of stories to tell. In this wet forest of green and gray, we can only hope the angels listen to us too.