Comments from David_Schneider

Showing 351 - 357 of 357 comments

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theater on Jan 12, 2016 at 2:55 pm

In 1992 or 93 some scenes for the feature “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway” were filmed in the Miracle Theater. I remember reading a Miami Herald article about the screenwriter being from South Florida, seeing it mentioned on tv news, and walking by and seeing the area closed off for production.

When the film was released it played at the Miracle – and I just had to see it in the cinema where some of it was filmed!

I had the interesting experience of sitting there watching the film… and suddenly the scene on the screen is in the lobby behind me, that I had just walked through to get to my seat!

Richard Harris is a theater employee who takes the ticket of theater-goer Shirley MacLaine (if I remember all this correctly). They are standing by what may still be the restrooms on the right side of the lobby near a staircase. Then they are in a movie theater with a film playing – most likely in the same theater where I am sitting watching this, or in one of the adjacent others in the same building!

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Soyka Cinema on Jan 11, 2016 at 2:38 pm

The three guys who ran the Mercury/Soyka had been running the Absinthe House Cinematheque in Coral Gables when they opened their second location, the Mercury.

I walked by the Soyka a year or so after it closed and the space was a fitness club or gym. I don’t know what it is now.

The Absinthe, Mercury, and Astor Art Cinema were the places to see foreign and independent films in Dade county in the 90’s before all closed. Today new theaters fill that need: Coral Gables Art Cinema, the three branches of O Cinema, the Bill Cosford, the Miami Beach Cinematheque, the Tower. (The Tower had been around for decades but was renovated and taken over by Miami-Dade College and began showing a variety of foreign/independent fare.)

One of the owners of the Mercury told me back at the time it opened that some of the seats had come from the defunct Riviera on US-1 in Coral Gables near South Miami.

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Homestead Theatre on Jan 11, 2016 at 1:57 pm

Across the street from the Seminole Theater on Krome Avenue in downtown Homestead is the Homestead Historic Town Hall Museum. As of October 2014 when I last visited there were maybe 3-4 historic photos on display of some of the cinemas listed here on Cinema Treasures as formerly existing in Homestead. One may be of the Homestead Theater when it was called the Palms.

Walk to the back of the museum where the former jail cells are located, go left and look on the walls. I had noticed the same photos during visits in preceding years so I assume they may be on permanent display. The museum staff may be able to help you find them and other photos they may have.

Here is a link to the Museum’s Trip Advisor page:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60739-d4380026-Reviews-Homestead_Historic_Town_Hall_Museum-Homestead_Florida.html

I believe I was told or read somewhere that the Homestead Theater building was damaged enough by Hurricane Andrew that it was demolished shortly afterwards, though the theater apparently had already closed well before the storm.

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Carib Theatre on Jan 10, 2016 at 3:54 pm

I was startled to see it had been demolished when I walked by on December 30th, 2015. Several times over the years I used to gaze at the tall rectangular shape that was all that was left of the façade and imagine what the Carib may have been like in its day.

Based on photos I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard, this is one of the theaters I have felt I missed out on by not getting to visit. I believe an older person told me they even kept a pet parrot in the interesting lobby, if I understood correctly.

I noticed the demolition revealed some sort of old fashioned ad for a business painted on the wall on the right of the now open space.

Wow, check out this short b&w Youtube video of the Carib called World Premiere At Miami Beach Of “Sweet Bird Of Youth” (1962):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqp1PwQHXA

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Burien Theater on Jan 10, 2016 at 3:24 pm

While visiting Burien in October of 2015, I walked by this location after seeing it listed on Cinema Treasures. I glanced inside the restaurant and at the outside wall and imagined from the size and shape that it had been a cinema.

My favorite thing was the rectangular Bison Creek Pizza sign out front which I assume may have been the theater’s marquee. It had round white light bulbs around the perimeter. As they flashed I could hear what sounded like old fashioned circuits clicking on and off or open and closed, like the sockets/technology may have been original to the time of the theater.

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Seminole Cultural Arts Theatre on Jan 10, 2016 at 3:00 pm

Across the street from the Seminole is the Homestead Historic Town Hall Museum. As of October 2014 when I last visited there were maybe 3-4 historic photos on display of some of the cinemas listed here on Cinema Treasures as formerly existing in Homestead. (One may be of the Homestead Theater when it was called the Palms.)

Walk to the back of the museum where the former jail cells are located, go left and look on the walls. I had noticed the same photos during visits in preceding years so I assume they may be on permanent display. The museum staff may be able to help you find them and other photos they may have.

Here is a link to the Museum’s Trip Advisor page:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60739-d4380026-Reviews-Homestead_Historic_Town_Hall_Museum-Homestead_Florida.html

Glad to see the Seminole restored and open again for performances. The schedule looks great.

David_Schneider
David_Schneider commented about Riviera Theatre on Jan 10, 2016 at 2:00 pm

I lived two blocks behind the Riviera in the 1990’s and frequented regularly. In the early 90’s there was a box office attendant whom I went to U.M. with who looked a lot like a young Paul McCartney. In the mid-90’s there was another employee, a young artistic guy (possibly named Rene?), who would do murals on the ceiling of the lobby for big anticipated films featuring super heroes like Batman or science fiction characters like Star Trek.

I remember standing in a line that extended down the sidewalk all the way to Spec’s Music for the opening of “Independence Day” (sometimes abbreviated “ID4” in the advertising) right before July 4th, 1996. (After being in business for decades Spec’s closed in maybe 2013 and the Spec’s building was demolished and replaced by a Chase bank. Swensen’s restaurant next to it is still there. CD Solution next to that closed years ago and became part of Crown Wine & Spirits.) Other films I saw at the Riviera included “Forrest Gump”, “Star Trek: First Contact”, “X-Files: Fight The Future”… I may have seen a film there as a last hurrah a day or so before the Riviera closed though I can’t remember the name.

When the AMC Sunset Place 24 opened down the street I heard the Riviera might try to find a niche showing independent and foreign films, but it soon closed.

The front/lobby part became a piano store for maybe two years, and has since been a women’s fashion store. The front doors to the fashion store were the front doors to the theater lobby. The windows that jut out to the left of the front doors between the front doors and the breezeway is where the box office used to be. The triangular marquee still stands out front where the parking lot meets US-1. It and the remaining poster boxes in the breezeway advertise what plays are being performed on the stage that was constructed in the back portion of the theater at the end of the breezeway. (I was in there once to see a film being shown for one screening by an organization concerned about the Congo, but I couldn’t recognize anything that looked left over from the Riviera, as if this new stage/theater may have completely replaced what had been there before, or maybe what was left over was too out of context for me to notice.) The entrance to the stage/theater may be where the side doors to the Riviera lobby were that emptied into the breezeway.

Once, after seeing a film in the then recently opened (and short lived) Mercury Cinema (later Soyka, north of downtown Miami near NE 55th Street and Biscayne Blvd.), I stood chatting with one of the owners after everyone else had left. I mentioned the Riviera and he asked me if I find the seats in his new theater comfortable. I asked why and he said, “I hope you do, cause they’re from the Riviera”.