Angelika New York
18 W. Houston Street,
New York,
NY
10012
18 W. Houston Street,
New York,
NY
10012
25 people
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 119 of 119 comments
One of the most memorable engagements at the Angelika had to be Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. Management had posted up a ton of warning signs about how anyone leaving the film would not get their money back. Surely enough, people were tripping over each other to run out of the theatre during this film. One thrill was seeing star Tom Towles after the movie and the fact that he did indeed still have his head attached.
Look people, The Angelika is a dump! The Quad is a dump! The Cinema Village is a dump! The Film Forum is a dump! The Village East – with the exception of the original yiddish auditorium – is a total dump! With ticket prices now At $10.50, The Sunshine is THE only art-house worth attending. ‘Nuff said!
I also remember when the Angelika first opened there was kerfuffle with Dan Talbot & Lincoln Plaza. I don’t know much about the rules of exhibition, but there is the concept of exclusivity for a certain territory, which is New York City is no doubt measured in blocks. In any event Talbot tried to bar the Angelika from screening films that were playing at Lincoln Plaza.
And then Angelika, under different owners now, were threatened by BAM’s four-‘plex, three of the which screened art house fare. I don’t know if it has changed, but the Angelika wasn’t showing films that played at BAM.
I heard that the original owner of the Angelika, Joe Saleh (sic), sold the Angelika to City Cinemas because he was going through a divorce.
When the Angelika ran the 57th Street theatre for a couple of years the Avignon Film Festival was held there and Saleh was interviewed by Jonathan Rudes, who ran the Avignon fest. It was a real interesting discussion where Saleh talked about building the Angelika. He told that story about UA wanted to impose onerous terms on running the Angelika and talks fell through and he wouldn’t let UA take the equipment out of the theatres. He also said everyone tried to talk him out of using the first-floor space as a cafe; they said use that space for more screens, but Saleh felt the cafe gave the theatres a European feel. I think he was proved right. I also remember him saying that the Angelika, then anyway, had the highest percentage of seats sold of any theatre in the country.
And I remember there were several false starts before this theatre opened. The delays in openings were publicly linked to “plumbing problems” but I bet some of the contretemps with UA caused the delay.
The first film I ever caught there was “Hidden Agenda.” I’ve been back many times since.
In the weekly Angelika InFocus newsletter, the Village East is referred to as the ‘sister theater’ of the Angelika. (Also, to revise the information posted at the top of this page – the Angelika has six screens, not five.)
The Cinema Village is located on 12th at University Place; the Village East Cinemas are at 2nd Avenue and 12th Street.
Village Cinema is on 12th and 2nd ave.
Where have you all been? Cinema Village, 12th St @ University Pl. has been an art house for decades.
The Quad cinema has been an art house since it opened and continues to do very well.
I never minded the subway rumbling – it’s the theaters that are the killer. Imagine a movie theater without a single decent seat. It’s hard to do until you’ve been to the Angelika. Long, narrow, flat theaters with small screens and bad sound. This place did good business in the 90s when it was the only real arthouse in the city but the opening of the far, far superior Sunshine Theater has definitely hurt and the soon-to-open IFC Film Center should also draw away business.
The Angelika is located to two major subway lines: The BMT Broadway line and the IND that goes to Brooklyn Via Houston. The cinemas are probably closer to the Bway/Houston junction than the lobby is, which is at Mercer St.
Many NYC-area theatres are near subways. The rumbling, I find, is not all that intrusive, and oddly comforting at times.
I drove by here over the weekend and the outside is starting to get shabby looking. City Cinemas needs to redo the outside if they are going to stay competative with the Sunshine Cinemas.
BTW, Camden: What theatres are in closed subway terminals?
Once upon a time, New York City had cable cars, like San Francisco still has. The building housing the Angelika was originally the headquarters for the cable car company and the basement that is now occupied by the 6 theatres was originally where the motors pulling the cables were located. The building, now known as the Cable Building, was built in 1894 to the designs of McKim, Mead & White.
Like so very many New York theatres, I imagine the Angelika is a refurbished closed subway terminal, I don’t know. The criticisms are true, but it remains an institution that everyone attends from time to time, partly because of the ideal location between SoHo and both Villages. And you never know who you’ll bump into there, you really don’t.
Camden
Like I think is true with the vast majority of NYC art/indie film lovers, I cringe a bit when I see a flick in that vein opening at the Angelika as opposed to the Sunshine…
The Angelika may not be better than The Film Forum but it has shown a classic or two in it’s time. This is the theater that brought “Bubba Ho-Tep” to New York. It’s also the theater that showed the Italian Horror Masterpiece “The Beyond” uncut with Quentitn Tarantino in the audience and free eyeballs to the first 100 customers. It is also where I saw “Bad Lieutenant” for the first time and “Clockwork Orange” for the last. It was also the theater that introduced me to Japanese Anime Porn with “Legend of the Overfiend”. Angelika is convenient to get to and fun once you get there.
The Angelica still is the best place to see indie films in the city. Since that is thier speciality you dont have to worry about the blockbuster movie making the place crowded. Althought the theatres are small I think it works well. My first exposure to Anime(Akira )low budget indie (King Of New York) and foreign films was at this gem. Stiff competition in Brooklyn at the BAM Rose Cinemas. Can get very crowded on weekends but will have any film that has even the slightest buzz and also instrumental in creating buzz for and pushing a small film over the top.
It was great to be living in New York again when the Angelika opened and to enjoy a revival of Blue Velvet and a great film by Shuhei Imamura about Hiroshima called Black Rain (not the Michael Douglas Black Rain)there