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The latest movie theater news and updates
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January 19, 2010
Kenwood Place movie theater in works
CINCINNATTI, OH — The Theatre Management group, operator of the Esquire and the Mariemont theatres, are planning a new theater at Kenwood Place.
The theater would occupy 28,000 square feet in Kenwood Place, said Gary Goldman, president of Theatre Management Group in Cincinnati. The company manages the Esquire and Mariemont theaters for the investor groups that own them.
The space is being vacated by Henredon Furniture, said John Silverman, managing principal for Midland Atlantic Development Co., which owns the center. The project received approval from Sycamore Township’s planning commission on Monday, he said.
Read more in the Business Courier.
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January 18, 2010
Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ added to National Register of Historic Places
RED BANK, NJ — The Count Basie Theatre is pleased to announce that on December 24, 2009 the Director of the National Park Service announced the addition of the Count Basie Theatre to the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources. A treasure trove for professional historians, scholars, and anyone curious about American history, the National Register of Historic Places lists more than 80,000 properties.
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Ridgewood Theatre facade is a landmark
RIDGEWOOD, QUEENS, NY — Progress on the fight for the Ridgewood Theatre continues as the facade is landmarked.
After attending the Landmarks Preservation Commission 1/12/10 Public Meeting, I am elated to report that the historic Ridgewood Theatre was unanimously voted by commissioners as an Individual Landmark! A nearly 2-year effort under Friends of The Ridgewood Theatre as Chairman (since March 2008), in affiliation with various preservation and cultural groups, members of Cinema Treasures, elected officials, and a mass audience, truly paid off! I extend my thanks to the broad coalition of supporters, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission for doing the right thing on behalf of the people.
Read more at the Rego-Forest Preservation Blog.
Update: For video of this story, see NY-1’s coverage.
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Future for the Loew’s Canal?
NEW YORK, NY — The long dormant Loew’s Canal Theatre could have a new life as a local performing arts center.
Hidden deep behind a shuttered electronics shop on Canal Street is what an Asian-American arts group hopes will become the Lincoln Center of Chinatown — a massive 2,300-seat theater that’s been sealed off for three decades.
The former Loews Canal theater at the corner of Ludlow Street is a sleeping giant of a performance space that has been the target of a six-year-long effort to create a new cultural center in a neighborhood that has struggled to recover from 9/11.
But for the first time the project may have the backing of the building’s owners, local banker Thomas Sung and his family, who late last month agreed to launch feasibility studies for the arts project.
Read the full story in the New York Post.
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New screens coming to Rocklin, CA and Opelika, AL
SANTA ROSA, CA — A former Mervyn’s store in Rocklin, CA, a suburb of Sacramento, is being converted into a 16-screen multiplex by the SR Entertainment Group. The $10 million complex is expected to open in September.
SR Entertainment Group has four theaters in Sonoma County, including Roxy Stadium 14 in Santa Rosa and Airport Stadium 12 near Windsor.
The group doesn’t release sales figures, but business is booming, Tocchini said. With consumers cutting back on travel, movies are an affordable escape, he said. New generation 3-D films such as “Avatar” are driving record attendance, Tocchini said.
There is more in the Press Democrat.
According to this brief item in the Ledger-Enquirer, Opelika, AL, about 54 miles northeast of Montgomery, will be the site of a 14-screen cinema to be built by Revolution Cinemas in the Tiger Town Shopping Center.
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January 15, 2010
Save the Fairfax Theater
Thanks to Haeyong Moon for the video.
For more information about the future of the Fairfax Theater, check out this recent Los Angeles Times article.
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Charelston Film Festival March 11th to 14th!
CHARLESTON, SC — The Terrace Theater has announced dates of the Charleston Film Festival which will run from March 11th through March 14th.
The festival will also use downtown’s new Terrace Hippodrome.
The festival will have a new focus on local and regional films as well as films from around the nation. The after parties will be open this year to all film goers(complimentary) with a valid ticket stub.
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Booth Monitor wanted
Looking for a booth monitor made within the last 10 years to replace ours that was made in the last 40 years. Any leads on something priced to go, please email me .
Thanks
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January 14, 2010
Restored Fox Riverside reopening as performing arts center
RIVERSIDE, CA — It has had its ups over the years (as, for example, the site of the first public preview of a certain film with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh) and downs (as a porno house and pigeon roost), but $32 million and painstaking attention to detail has brought new life to the Fox Riverside. A gala reopening will be held on January 15 and the new center will be booked by the Nederlander Organization.
“There were piles of debris. It was dark and dangerous to walk around and you needed a flashlight because you didn’t know what you were stepping on,” said Peyton Hall, a principal at Historic Resources Group, a Los Angeles firm hired to help restore the theater.
Cleaning up that mess — and recreating the theater as it looked 80 years ago — was Wise’s job, with help from Hall and other experts.
There’s much more in this article at PE.com.
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Will “Avatar” be to 3D what “The Jazz Singer” was to sound?
NEW YORK, NY — In a recent article in the New York Times, writer Dave Kehr looks at the history of 3D and discounts the notion that “Avatar” in and of itself will establish 3D as the common mode of theatrical film presentation. He believes that if Hollywood can convince audiences that viewing just about any film in 3D should be the norm, then this time 3D might take its place alongside sound, widescreen, and color photography. He sees potential for 3D if it is used to connect moviegoers to the characters and immerse them in the world of the film rather than simply creating the illusion that things are being thrown at them.
If 3-D takes hold, it won’t be the exclusive doing of “Avatar,” but the result of a long series of small technological steps and tiny adjustments in audience expectations. The process is far from over, and its outcome is by no means clear.
The dream of producing 3-D movies goes back to the very beginnings of the cinema. Pioneers like Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers aspired from the first to make movies with sound, color and depth, and the basic technology (the separation of a scene into left-eye and right-eye images, brought back together when the spectator looks through filtered glasses) had been around since the magic-lantern days. Experimentation with 3-D films continued through the ‘20s, and at least one feature-length film — the now lost “Power of Love” (1922) — was produced but not released.
The whole article is here.