To me the Nuart has always been the West Los Angeles version of the Cinema Village — a certain storied, neon-marquee, down-at-the-heels atmosphere but never a theatre to get excited about attending, much less write home about.

If you ask me it peaked in the ‘70s and ‘80s, which many regard as the summit of L.A.’s arthouse era (Fox Venice, Beverly Canon, LACMA’s Bing, the varied Laemmle westside showplaces).

From a presentational or impressionistic viewpoint, the Nuart has always been a bowling alley-slash-quonset hut with a smallish screen.

My last viewing at the Nuart was the restored Becket (Glenville + O’Toole + Burton). The quality difference between that subdued, somewhat murky-sounding presentation and what this 1964 film undoubtedly looked and sounded like in big-city, first-run bookings, not to mention the first-rate Bluray….forget it, man.

The best aspect of the vaguely grubby Nuart is still the pinkish-red neon marquee, and even that isn’t what anyone would call spectacular. Okay, maybe I’m being too harsh.