comment #1

Freddie Mertz says ...

Amazing that this theatre is in its original form. Usually those bowling alleys are the result of making a grand single screen into multiple smaller, crappy screens. At least the seats aren't angled toward the middle of a former single screen. That is the absolute worst.

comment #2

Freddie Mertz says ...

Wow -- 4.5 hours from Bismarck and 3+ hours from Winnipeg. Literally the middle of nowhere.

comment #3

DeeZee says ...

Reminds me of that Laemmle theater in the Wilshire area.

comment #4

mutinyco says ...

When I first saw the photo at NYT earlier, I actually thought it was The Angelika...

comment #5

The Winchester says ...

That's not the Angleika? Fooled me.

Sometimes I miss that theatre, with the subways running by every few minutes.

Sometimes...

comment #6

Glenn Kenny says ...

Jeff, we gotta get you out to the Lafayette Theater in Suffern, NY, when its fall rep season starts. A real old-time movie palace, beautifully restored, with a big screen AND a fully equipped Wurlitzer organ. Saw a program of Chaplin shorts with live organ accompaniment there in the spring, it was movie heaven. As was the screening of a gorgeous vault print of "Anatomy of a Murder." Of course it also shows first-run stuff.

comment #7

Wrecktem says ...

Scope is more accurately 2.39:1

Just saying.

comment #8

rick blaine says ...

I saw 223 films last year (109 so far this year) - all on the big screen in various countries - but I've never encountered a cinema auditorium like the one in the picture. A friend tells me there are/used to be a couple of similar bunkers in the West End (London). I'd rather drive an extra ten miles to avoid that kind of torture.

comment #9

Yuval says ...

Hey Glenn, have you seen Inception?

comment #10

Robert Cashill says ...

I thought it was NY's Cinema Village.

comment #11

LexG says ...

It never ceases to amaze me how far back most people prefer to sit in movie theaters. Apparently, especially, critics, who frequently get the roped-off back section.

How can you even engage in a movie from that distance? Not saying you have to sit in some cramped front row UNDER the fucking screen, but a movie shouldn't like a 13-inch television from across the living room. It should fill your entire vision. Ebert sits notoriously far back-- too far, I'd argue. How does it not just look like bad television from that distance? The sound barely fills your ears and the picture looks muted.

Per this theater though... yep, LOTS of places look like that in the Ohio/WV/PA neck of the woods I grew up. And indeed, most of them are like this as a result of being sliced down the middle to make more screens in the mid 80s. Unbelievable.

comment #12

crazynine says ...

Rick-- I'm not sure, but I think this is a distinctively American evil. As Mertz said above, they chopped up old single-screen theaters to make multiplexes of horrible design.

I too recall more than one of these with the odd floor angles-- it'd ramp down to the middle, then ramp up to the screen, V-shaped.

Strangely enough, you only see these nowadays in arthouse theaters-- the big multiplexes all got torn down and replaced by proper seating (and stadium seating... not the same thing, don't get me started!), but some of the smaller boutique places don't bring in enough money to eliminate these things.

comment #13

drbob says ...

Lex G:

I don't sit far back because I want to be farther from the screen, but because I like to watch films from a slightly downward angle. It just seems natural to me. I believe this is Ebert's rationale as well.

comment #14

Jeffmc2000 says ...

Ebert's thing is like 2/3rds of the way back and on the aisle, right? I don't think that's so bad. Better than sitting too close, which can be a real pain. I saw the second Bourne movie from the second or third row and couldn't make heads or tails of most of it. Since then I've made a point of sitting closer to the back if I know a movie is going to have lots of shaky action.

comment #15

frankbooth says ...

Works just fine if you bring your own chair and sit in the aisle.

comment #16

Hip Hop Homey says ...

Saw BOOGIE NIGHTS the friday it came out in a place like that. But the film was projected at the right aspect ratio.

comment #17

Josh Massey says ...

"A friend tells me there are/used to be a couple of similar bunkers in the West End (London)."

The only theater I've seen like this was in London, when I caught a first-run showing of Memento. I remember walking downstairs and feeling like I'd entered a dank basement.

comment #18

erniesouchak says ...

The Los Feliz 3 is this bad.

comment #19

DeeZee says ...

Um, no.
RR ready to take on the Mad Man, but no new developments on Sin City 2.
Like it really matters how it's shot, when we all know TF3 gonna suck. Also, Cameron might do a concert film for Black-Eyed Peas.
Verbinski to keep on shockin'.
POTC 4, Real Steel, Millaketeer, and Fassbender shrinkage pics here, as well as other assorted posters.
Also via Dark Horizons, Saved by the Bug, the college">http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-motion-captured">college years.
Giamatti denies being a stooge.
Ghostface returns.
Bradley Cooper would rather have another Hangover then work with Shyamalan.
X-Men First Class learns to multiply.
Wright ready to do Don't's commentary.
Date announced for Carrell to get crazy and stupid.
Let Me In poster.
Look closer.
Le Piranha 3-D poster.

comment #20

Alvy Singer says ...

I like sitting in the back because I don't like people bumping or kicking the back of my chair. Plus there is something irritating about having people munching foodstuffs right behind me. In my mind, the back row is like royalty.

comment #21

Full Metal Sandwich says ...

The theater in the town where I grew up is featured in this article. It has two aisles, so it's not a bowling alley experience, like the place in the photo. (Eclipse was playing there over the weekend.)

comment #22

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

"Per this theater though... yep, LOTS of places look like that in the Ohio/WV/PA neck of the woods I grew up. And indeed, most of them are like this as a result of being sliced down the middle to make more screens in the mid 80s."

Dude, how long has it been since you've been out this way? The vast majority of places to view movies around here are stadium-sized seating multiplexes. It's been that way for at least five years or so. Now, granted, some of the arthouses still do resemble the above photo, but they probably represent about 1 out of every 10 theaters these days.

I would actually think you'd find yourself in this kind of venue more often in New York City, where there are more showings of small/speciali interest films and space is at a premium.

comment #23

LFF says ...

I believe the correct term for these is "Shotgun Auditoriums".

comment #24

BurmaShave says ...

Used to be 3 or 4 arthouses in D.C. with auditoriums like this, and there's not a week that goes by that I don't miss them.

comment #25

lazarus says ...

Reminds me of the two back screens at the Los Feliz 3. My god that place is awful. That one theatre (people I know call it "The Closet") has like a three seat row on one side and maybe five on the other?

Yeah it's still cheap, but was only worth it when they were charging $4.50 for matinees and $7 for evening shows; now that they raised the prices you may as well wait until it drops to $3 and see it at the Academy in Pasadena, which has its own Frankensteined layout but at least has more room.

comment #26

LarryGopnik says ...

"I thought it was NY's Cinema Village."

No Cinema Village theater could fit that many people..

comment #27

LexG says ...

I've heard SO much about the Los Feliz 3's misshapen tiny auditoriums over the years, I'm always tempted to check it out, but just never have... Odd, since I hit the Vista a lot and it's a closer haul than some of the other arthouses and second-run places I hit. Is it THAT small? I've heard at least the audiences are pretty good there... Closet-sized theaters are unbearable with a chatty audience, 'cause you can't escape to anywhere.

Some of the rooms at the Pasadena Laemmle's have this design, although they're typical Laemmle-sized and not this long and drawn out. I guess that kind of layout bothers the people who insist on sitting dead center, but even with stadium sitting I always aim for "off to the side," to avoid the riffraff.

Most theatergoers are so annoying, I never really get the seasoned movie watcher who HAS to sit DEAD CENTER even if it means having people all around him and elbow to elbow. Shit, move off to the sides... less claustrophobic.

comment #28

lazarus says ...

The audience is decent, Lex, but trust me it's just not worth it, unless you're going to see something you know is in Theatre 1, which is the opposite of the other two: long rows but only like 6-7 of them in the whole room.

As I said, if something mainstream I want to see doesn't hit the Vista (my preferred spot as well), I'll just go to Pasadena. I'd rather pay a few bucks for a subpar viewing than $14 (or whatever the fuck those rapists at Arclight hit up their bourgeoisie clientele for).

For the arthouse stuff, I tend to go to Pasadena again for the Laemmle's, as it's easier to get there for me compared to the Sunset 5.

comment #29

Gabe@ThePlaylist says ...

I like to go somewhere that shows good movies, period. God, I'm such a weirdo.

comment #30

Terry McCarty says ...

Reminds me both of the defunct Laemmle Grande in Downtown L.A. and the also-defunct Commonwealth Coronado Twin in Santa Fe, NM.

comment #31

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

One advantage of sitting dead center: no scrunching up in your seat (or even worse, the dreaded mid-film stand to give a particularly large party -- or person -- more room) for people coming into the film way too late, or chicks with small bladders, or restless dudes that realize after they've sat down they just can't go another minute without those hot fries and Sour Patch Kids.

Actually, that doesn't even always even hold true. Even if you're in the exact center of a row, you'll still get people that for some odd reason want to take the "scenic route," or have somehow convinced themselves that "the long way" is actually shorter (only to double-back after changing their mind...argh!).

Stadium seating was a nice innovation, but it's time for the next step-up in theater technology: the floating personal chair.

comment #32

LexG says ...

I have never, and will never, understand, The Guy Who Gets Up to Get Food During The Movie. When I saw Michael Clayton, at the 100-minute mark, with clearly no more than 30 minutes to go, if that, the douche next to me ran out and came back with a box of Whoppers, which he crunched over the finale. Like, you couldn't go thirty fucking minutes without stuffing more candy into your face?

Then again, on this topic: Go read some movie theater reviews on YELP. All the shit we complain about, which you'd think would be the major criteria for a movie theater-- auditorium size, projection and sound issues, whether or not the theater caters to chattering party elephants, attracts stupid teenagers, etc....

Nope. None of that even registers. Number one comment on every Yelp movie theater review?

"The popcorn was yummy." Or "The popcorn was stale." Or "I like the kettle corn they have at the Arclight." Or "What kind of theater offers Pepsi instead of Coke?"

Seriously, concessions are the TOP complaint or comment in every Eloi-penned review of every movie theater, and this is in LOS ANGELES, the alleged movie capital of the world. I look up reviews of theaters all the time, looking for Wells/Lex-style rants about "I paid 10 bucks to see THE A-TEAM and a junior high class of fat teenagers of uncertain ethnic stock sneaked iin at the 97-minute mark and started beefing with another crew," or "I was at the Arclight and some fat fuck snored all the way through Serious Man but because of the FUCKED UP ASSIGNED SEATING I was stuck next to him!"

But, nope... All you get, even at the venues with the shittiest thug audiences or worst auditoriums:

"My popcorn wasn't very tasty."

That's all anyone cares about when they go to the movies. Explains just about fucking everything.

comment #33

Marty Melville says ...

Weekday afternoons at Grauman's Chinese is probably the best way to go. Reasonable price, terrific widescreen projection, a sound system that could flip a Humvee and usually not too crowded.

The Egyptian is swell, too, with good sound and projection, but the front row seats are stationed on a floor that tilts upwards towards the screen... I always feel like an astronaut waiting for take-off down there. So second tier seats for the Egyptian.

And Lex, you're thinking the Vista is too small? Gosh, I think it's a perfect sized theater... don't remember the sound in particular, but the the seating, screen-size was fine.

There is no such thing as good popcorn outside the home anymore, so why bother.

comment #34

LexG says ...

I think you misread what I said. I said I go to the Vista a lot, then asked if the LOS FELIZ 3 was as small as reputed.

Didn't say the Vista was small. Love the Vista.

My only SLIGHT gripe with the Vista is sometimes the acoustics seem a little off because of the wood flooring... Rialto used to have this issue, where the movie was super loud and kind of echoed, and I'd miss crucial bits of dialogue. Seems like a number of things I've seen at the Vista, some dialogue bits were kinda hard to make out, not as clean and crisp as it would be at a regular multiplex.

Don't get me wrong, their sound system is loud and booming, and maybe it's perfectly calibrated if you sit dead center, but more than one movie I've seen there, I had a hard time making out a fair portion of dialogue.

comment #35

Gordn27 says ...

you know, Jeff has mentioned going to Union Square at least twice in this calendar year, and I've never once heard him rant about the rampant infestations of bugs and rats in that theater. I guess now I know why -- because it's got a big screen.

comment #36

Gordn27 says ...

"I have never, and will never, understand, The Guy Who Gets Up to Get Food During The Movie."

Lex - being fair, my uncle has done that a few times at movies I've seen with him. He's a diabetic, and his blood sugar was low.

So, possibly justifiable (although, yeah, buy ahead).

comment #37

Marty Melville says ...

By the way, the idea that the theater pictured up top could be celebrated as some kind of a "small town" celebration of people coming together is pretty creepy... the joint is spookily reminiscent of the Show and Tell Theater on 8th Ave. where Travis Bickle chewed on his ju ju bees and glowered at the screen.

comment #38

Josh Massey says ...

Anybody ever been to Cinema Treasures? Basically, just a place to talk about movie theaters, especially the ones that aren't here anymore. A good read, assuming your city has a lot of contributions.

comment #39

erniesouchak says ...

Lex: The Los Feliz 3 has one "big" auditorium, which has a somewhat decently sized screen (but, the last time I was in there, seats that were skewed not to look straight at it) & two that look exactly like this photo. I sat in a small one last week very close to the back, and on top of dealing with the big-screen-TV-sized screen, I could hear all the noise from the concession stand through the door. And they're charging $9.50 at night now.

comment #40

crazynine says ...

Burma-- the D.C. area is what I was thinking of. There used to be an arthouse theater up near Dupont, on Florida Ave, that had a screen just like this. I also remember a couple of screens like this at the old Skyline Theaters that only closed about five years ago. And the infernally awful Shirlington theaters still have quite similar screens.

comment #41

Chris Willman says ...

Does that really not look like an (approximately) 2.35:1 screen in that photo? I've been to my share of bowling-alley-shaped small-town theaters that only have 1.85:1 screens (and some big-city ones, too, like the Highland 3 in Highland Park). This doesn't look like one of them.

comment #42

Floyd Thursby says ...

Lex: Ever been to Butler, PA?

comment #43

LexG says ...

Floyd... Hahahaha... Yep, I have. Home of Bret Michaels, no? Didn't live there, but definitely know where it is, and have passed through. I think it's where the meatheads used to drive out to to go cow-tipping circa 1989.

comment #44

Floyd Thursby says ...

You shoudda seen it in 68 when it was barely breathing.