Park Theatre

lostmemory on August 23, 2009 at 7:41 pm

Another photo of the Park Theater is here.

lostmemory on January 8, 2009 at 11:41 am

Here is a 2009 photo of the Park Theater.

DonLewis on December 21, 2008 at 11:19 am

A 2005 view of the Park Theatre in Vancouver.

Juliann on October 9, 2007 at 1:02 pm

The Park is a gorgeous theatre with a fabulous rich history behind it. As Jason states above, kudos to Leonard Schein for taking it over. It would be an incredible tragedy for the Park to go under, considering that we have very few classic cinemas left in Vancouver. We barely have any movie theatres AT ALL in the downtown core & the surrounding areas. Ridiculous when you consider that we’re a world class metropolis & the third largest city in Canada. Let’s hope that the Park continues on for many, many decades. When the Cambie line is finally built, the neighbourhood (which is attractive as they come) will hopefully get back to normal once again.

Jason Whyte on April 15, 2006 at 6:36 pm

I for one am very thankful that Leonard Schein rebirthed his Vancouver art-house chain, Festival Cinemas, and took this cinema back under his wing. As with Alliance Atlantis' run from 1999 to 2005, the theatre plays mostly art house and independent, with the occasional high profile blockbuster (Spike Lee’s flick “The Inside Man” was a recent film that played there).

The theatre is easily accessible by the #15 Cambie bus

I visited the cinema in about 2001 to see “Mulholland Drive” and was quite impressed by the large single screen cinema, although I found the rows to be very narrow and the seats somewhat stiff$. The Park also played 70mm for several films back in the day.

It has now been fully restored with new seats (very comfortable and with more legroom, making its seat total around 500 instead of 640 before), a gorgeous new screen that is adaptable to play pre-widescreen era academy ratio (1.37:1) films as well as the current flat (1.85) and scope (2.40) formats, and Dolby Digital.

My only gripe is that it is really expensive to see a movie here; $12.00 for an adult evening ticket, unless you have a $12 annual membership and that knocks the price down a few dollars. I am also cuirious as to how the theatre will stay afloat through over the next year or so of construction of Translink’s “Canada Line” skytrain which may make access to the cinema more difficult.

Still, The Park is a really nice theatre that is worth supporting; not just for the fact that these single screeners are struggling in Vancouver, but it has a more refreshing atmosphere than the overloud megaplexes out in suburbia.