A Few Words About A few words about...™ The loss of the neighborhood movie theater (1 Viewer)

[Stephen_J_H]

It's funny, but since I moved to my current location, we have several neighbourhood theatres along the highway. In town, we have a 7 year-old twin theatre with stadium seating and digital sound, The nearest multiplex is a 10 screener with digital projection on about half the screens 20 mins away. The local theatre keeps its prices competitive and the average run for a movie is 2-3 weeks. 15 mins away is another neighbourhood theatre of considerably older vintage that has been twinned. Another pair of 4-screen neighbourhood theatres are 20 and 40 minutes away respectively, both with at least one screen digital. How do these theatres stay competitive? They don't charge as much as the larger multiplexes and the one in my town keeps costs low by running a cash-only business. Neighbourhood theatres can be viable, but only if we support them. I would also note that my local theatre does not run commercials before the show.

 

[bgart13]

We still have the Music Box in Chicago, at least:

http://lightboxed.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=9484&g2_serialNumber=2

 

We have the Hilbert Circle Theater in Indianapolis. It is now home to our symphony orchestra, but it was originally a movie palace. It is absolutely breathtaking. I had the fortune, during the annual Heartland Film Festival, to see the newly restored Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs there. Michael Gross introduced the film. Years later, I saw the digitally remastered The Little Mermaid there, with Jodi Benson singing after the credits. The theater also played host to the premiere of Disney's Squanto: A Warrior's Tale. We met the cast following the screening. But the Snow White memory will forever stay with me, as it felt as if I was transported back to 1937 in that beautiful venue.

 

[Steve Y]

With so many theaters closing and/or converting, I'm excited about the Alamo Drafthouse (famous for its Austin, TX location) coming to San Francisco:
http://drafthouse.com/blog/entry/an_alamo_in_san_francisco
They're planning to renovate the New Mission Theater (south of Market on 24th). Tim League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, writes: "We will be featuring a mix of classic film programming, our unique alternative content and live events, foreign films, independent films as well as some studio films."

 

[TravisR]

As a side note, the internet has made me appreciate the small theaters near me because I've seen people who have to drive 150 miles to get to a theater playing a revival or an independent movie and I have to drive about 10 miles. I never took them for granted but I'm surprised that in some areas, small theaters are that few and far between.

 

[TonyD]

Travis I didn't know we live so close to each other.
I haven't been to the Colonial but have been tempted a few times to drive up. Unfortunately the sound is a deciding factor so we usually end up at the KoP.

 

[NY2LA]

http://www.vintagecinemas.com/vista/vistacontact.html
http://sandiego.about.com/b/2011/06/28/coronados-village-theater-re-opens-with-a-new-glow.htm
http://www.ecoronado.com/profiles/blogs/step-inside-the-finished?xg_source=activity

 

[TonyD]

In the neighborhood where I grew up there was at least wo dozen movie theaters.
By the time was old enough to go by myself there was one. And that one closed in 1979.

All these theaters are walking distance from my house. My friend and I would walk down to K & A to the Midway on Saturday and pay 25¢ and stay in there al afternoon.

 

[TonyD]

Just before demolition to make room for a Burger King and a Rogers's Vision Center. Later a Pearl vision center.
it had a large balcony that was usually closed anyway and seating for nearly 3000.

Pics from when the real marquee was still there.
Opening in 1932

Late 60's

so many local screens there and just outside of our neighborhood, there were hundreds of theaters in this part of Philly up until the late 60's and early 70's.
Sorry did I go off topic?

 

[TonyD]

http://cinematreasures.org/

 

[NY2LA]

Reportedly set design for Oscars at (the theatre formerly known as Kodak) is to replicate an old 20s ish movie palace.
Check out Preserve me a Seat doc re community trying to save a landmark 60s Cinerama house.
LA has lost the National, (now an empty lot full of weeds) the Fairfax (lobby/garage of an apartment house) NuWIlshire (storefront), Showcase and Fine Arts and Majestic Crest (sitting empty .

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'll play. 

Our big local theater in Albany--The Hellman--was "twinned" before it became a multi-plex and then failed to compete with the cineplexes at the nearby malls.  So sad.

Our area doesn't have it as bad as most. Two of the biggest movie palaces I can think of are still open, and in excellent shape:
The Palace:http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/829562/width/421/height/842Proctors:[url=http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/829566/width/550/height/1100]http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/829566/width/421/height/842Both still show movies on a semi-regular basis. Although since the GE Theater opened in the Proctors complex, usually only silent films that require use of the organ are still shown on the main stage.

In addition, we've got three major chain multiplexes (Crossgates, Colonie Center and East Greenbush), a lovely arthouse theater in the Spectrum, and an absolute dive college theater in the Madison. Of those, I'm only really worried about the Madison not making it. More of a concern for me is the local drive-ins. We're blessed with a handful, and I'm not sure what happens to them if they can't get prints.

 

[Robert Harris]

Matt Leigh was kind enough to forward this link to me:

http://www.globaltvbc.com/ghost+signs+from+vancouvers+past+spring+up+to+haunt+us+still/6442587506/story.html?

 

[TravisR]

Travis I didn't know we live so close to each other.
I haven't been to the Colonial but have been tempted a few times to drive up. Unfortunately the sound is a deciding factor so we usually end up at the KoP.

Yeah, the Colonial is a little bit of a hike but I'm in the suburban Philadelphia area. The King Of Prussia theater is more of a drive for me but the quality of the theater does make it worth the trip.

 

[Jeff Job]

On one hand, I am thankful for the digital technology that makes it affordable for theater chains to show classic movies. I have taken my daughter to the Classics series at one of the large chains over the last few months, and it has given us both the experience of seeing films like Ben Hur, North by Northwest, and To Kill a Mockingbird on a big screen with an audience. On the other hand, the only thing that is lacking is the environment. The big, lavish theater used to be a large part of the experience, and made going to a "movie" feel like an event. Now, it is just not feasible or a priority for smaller cities to have a theater like the ones posted here.

 

[KPmusmag]

I grew up in a smallish Southern California town, Camarillo, which had one neighborhood theater called The Ponderosa. The screen was not huge but it was big enough that you felt like you were "at the movies". They normally played first run films as a double-feature, albeit a few months after their premier runs. The management must have gotten a cheap rate on AIRPORT '75 because it played opposite a variety of films, including THE SOUND OF MUSIC (which I guess this theater finally got very late in its 1973 re-release - a horrible print; during the thunderstorm scenes the optical soundtrack was visible on the screen - which was interesting but certainly not Robert Wise's intent). An unfortunate double-feature was AIRPORT '75 opposite MAME - inspiring jokes like: "I wasn't sure which was the disaster picture" or "That musical with Helen Reddy was OK, but Lucy in that disaster movie, not so much." [If anyone reading this hasn't had the pleasure of seeing AIRPORT '75, the musical comment comes from Helen Reddy playing a kind-hearted nun with a guitar who sings to a frightened child (Linda Blair) - wonder where they got that idea?]. Disclaimer: I happen to like MAME; the jokes were not mine, but one has to chuckle, anyway.
I loved The Ponderosa because they ran the movies back to back and you could stay and watch the pic over and over until closing if you wanted to. I think I watched THE STING 4 times in one day, and watched multiple screenings of WHAT'S UP DOC?, CABARET, SUPERMAN (78), PAPER MOON, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, JAWS, and others I can't remember. Sometimes the prints were pretty worn and I would grip the armrests in fear that the whole thing was just going to go all to hell; I envisioned springs and gears popping out of the projector and ribbons of burning film spilling around it. At the time, I honestly thought that this was the best the films could look and I was thrilled when beautiful clean copies started coming out on home video. But I miss the celluloid, I confess.
The best thing, however, about The Ponderosa was that every now and then the manager would schedule a week of classics. He would do a week of musicals, Hitchcock, etc. It was a great opportunity to see some of those films I had only seen on television, many of which, of course, were widescreen and looked terrible cropped on TV; the widescreen composition of some of them was a revelation, and I am so grateful to have had that opportunity. I am not certain when exactly The Ponderosa closed, but the building is now a church and well cared for.
I miss the neighborhood theater.
--Kevin

 

[zoetmb]

While there won't be 35mm prints for all films, there will still be 35mm prints for many films, at least for the next several years. And I think what independent theatres can do is promote the fact that they are still projecting FILM. And, in spite of home theatres, I think they can do more revivals of playing older FILMS on the big screen - "the way they were intended to be seen", etc. Of course, that will only work if the distributors don't destroy all their film prints.
The reality is that even if digital projection had not come along, we were losing the single-screen independents anyway. And for those who were in smaller cities and towns, they generally got used prints in bad condition and were really not a very good place to see movies in any case, except for the few surviving architectural gems.
And even for an independent, it's not impossible for them to lease a digital projector, unless it's a theatre that gets virtually no attendance during the week and just a few hundred people on weekends, but those theatres were never going to survive anyway.
I do long for my youth when we had the big roadshow reserved-seat theatres in Manhattan--when going to one of those films was a big deal, you dressed in your best clothes to do it and you treasured the program or other souvenir that you brought home with you. And when there were numerous neighborhood theatres to choose from, that while in decline, still had enough architectural elements to make you feel like you were in a special place. I was lucky enough to be a bus ride away from one of the Loew's "Wonder Theatres": The Loew's Paradise in the Bronx, which if you were bored by the movie you could stare at the the stars and moving clouds projected above the proscenium or choose to get creeped out by the imagined monsters lurking in the shadows of the statues and gargoyles. When I was in my 20's, you could still go to an independent neighborhood theatre in a working-class section of Brooklyn and see all the imported Truffaut films. (That theatre later became a porno theatre and is now a catering hall.)
But the other reality is that these theatres were going out of business even before the advent of home video. Energy costs, shifting populations, the decline of some cities, the decline of Main Street in favor of the mall and changing real-estate values all conspired to take them away from us. Add to that the fact that movie theatres are actually snack stands that happen to show movies (since in the opening weeks, 95% goes to the distributor) and it's amazing that we have more than a few theatres in each city at all. In fact, IMO, over the next 20 years, we're going to see a severe decline in the number of movie theatres that in retrospect, will make today seem like the golden age of movie-going.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by zoetmb /t/318779/a-few-words-about-the-loss-of-the-neighborhood-movie-theater/30#post_3900715
While there won't be 35mm prints for all films, there will still be 35mm prints for many films, at least for the next several years. And I think what independent theatres can do is promote the fact that they are still projecting FILM. And, in spite of home theatres, I think they can do more revivals of playing older FILMS on the big screen - "the way they were intended to be seen", etc. Of course, that will only work if the distributors don't destroy all their film prints.

I think your last sentence is what is happening already. After the Universal fire a few years ago, they did not replace a lot of the 35mm prints that were lost. There are not any large local depots where hundreds of prints were stored for rentals to drive-ins or as second features as there were up to the mid 80's. To get a classic 35mm print, a theatre has to pay the freight cost to and from the theatre to the studio's classic storage, which can equal up to $200.00 bucks then the theatre pays film rental and that does not help the theatre make money. As long as the film is considered in a domestic release, which it is until it appears on home video, then the freight costs are acceptable, around $45.00. Of course digital has brought even that cost down. The reason for that is the deal that Technicolor has for freight and the prints are stored in their depot.

There are a lot theatres that are playing Retro Cinema late shows and are very successful with it, but they are paying the film rental and using a DVD or Blu-ray through their digital projector. An example is Clearview's Chelsea Cinema uses DVD's and Blu-rays for their classic Thursday night series. Even today, the Film Forum uses collector prints for a lot of its film series since the studios either do not have a copy or their copy they have is so beat up that it is not worth running through the sprockets.

The deal between Technicolor and Deluxe where Technicolor has closed all labs in North America, except for a specialty lab in LA for large format prints is a huge sign on the wall.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/deluxe-technicolor-begin-orderly-retreat-212459

When the country finishes the digital conversion for the top 10 theatre circuits in the US, the studios will be junking the heck out of 35mm. The whole move to digital is to lower costs, and the studios are going to lower those costs for everything, even maintaining 35mm prints.

As bad as I dislike John Fithian's statement about go digital or you are out of business, he is right about what is going to happen. He is straight up an honest in what will happen and the studios do not care. The rentals from these small independent theatres is so small that if it goes away, they will not notice it.

Unless the individual towns that still have their local house running try to find a way to keep the marquee lite, it won't happen. Each community should start now to work on a way for it to keep those theatres open.

 

[zoetmb]

I didn't realize the Chelsea was using DVD or BD for those revival showings. Is that even legal? DVDs and BDs are licensed for home use only. If I went to a theatre and they played a DVD or BD and it wasn't advertised as such, I would ask for my money back. I knew some small independent theatres were doing this, but I thought they were flying under the radar.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

^ Buying a DVD or BD confers a license for home use only. Theaters are free to negotiate an additional license for public exhibition.
I'd feel gipped if I paid to see a DVD on the big screen, but I'm not so sure I'd even notice with a Blu-Ray. There isn't a huge difference between 2K projection (2048×1080) and Blu-Ray resolution (1920x1080).