Castro Theatre

Keith Arnold has been doing a tremendous job in making this amazing theatre palace, a TRUE definition of a Cinema Treasure (as opposed to some indescript soulless multiplex) as it celebrates it’s 90th birthday.

As tremendous as this past month of August has been, September kicks off with a 70mm screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”(on real film)– that has been recently named the best movie of all time. Advance tickets for this event are available here….

http://www.ticketweb.com/snl/VenueListings.action?venueId=10297

The Sing-A-Longs schedule includes the “The Little Mermaid” October 12-19 and “West Side Story” on November 11th.

Screen masking is used when widescreen films are shown to achieve a screen size with the appropriate ratio; the Castro can show just about any film format, including 70mm films (except, of course, for three-panel Cinerama). I saw “Lawrence of Arabia there some years ago; it looked magnificent. They will soon be showing a 70mm print of “Vertigo”.

A true cinema treasure is celebrating it’s 90th anniversary. Jesse Hamlin from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a really great piece about the Castro in today’s edition.

http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/SF-s-Castro-Theatre-celebrates-90-years-3755234.php

There’s some really great photos celebrating the history of this incredible venue.

I hope people attend and share recollections and treat this theatre with the respect it deserves here and not like some of the entries here in which certain people feel it necessary to post every time someone takes a bowel movement in a particular complex.

I met Keith Arnold, the Castro’s new programmer and general manager, by chance in front of the theater just an hour ago. He tells me the internet rumor that the theater will not be showing film after Dec 31 was spread by a disgruntled former employee and is totally false. This has also been confirmed on The Castro’s Facebook page.

link

Last week, my wife and I visited this neighborhood and passed by the Castro. While it was closed at the time, we really enjoyed viewing the terrific facade – and the tiles in the outer lobby were wonderful. This is something that you really have to view in the flesh.

I’ve posted information and photos from a recent visit here.

Thats a great photo from the 40s…the Castro is my favourite theatre on the West Coast…but its a long way from Brighton U.K :)

Thanks Chuck, you too.

A nice September 2009 photo is here.

It was nice to see on the Castro website that they have returned somewhat to the kind of programming that was typical of the 1980s; the screens even look like their brochures of that period.

I went to the Castro this week to see a double feature of Goodbye Mr.Chips, and Wuthering Heights. About halfway through Wuthering Heights, some people in the audience began laughing at the film in a mocking way.While waiting for the second feature, I formulated the following theory. At some point the people who were laughing had made an emotional connection with the film, but regarded themselves as too tragically hip to have that happen. So as a defense mechanism they mock.This happens fairly often at the Castro. It is especially bad during the annual Film Noir festival. You almost feel people are going to the movies to make fun of them. Comments anyone?

1947 Photo

1981 Photo

1986 Photo