Staying relevant. It is a fear actors, directors, content creators, and to be honest, most human beings grapple with constantly. The more than half-century year-old Sunset Boulevard exemplified this fear in the delusional Gloria Swanson. And while I’m sure this obsession is a random extraneous facet of the greatly evolved human consciousness, it may be spin-off on our desire to survive.
This wasn’t part of Birdman. This was Emma Stone actually telling MK the truth.
I have accepted that cinema is an ever-evolving medium. But I never expected our heritage to be at stake. This post is not a podium for me to exclaim film is superior to digital, nor will I be stating the digital conversion (or DC) was a poor decision of the industry. As a society furthering itself in the Digital Revolution, the DC was the most obvious future for the way we exhibit motion pictures theatrically. But I never expected this:
“We have decided to suspend theater operations…”
This is a re-post of an email I got from Film Forum. I thought you all should consider it. It is reprinted without permission…
Each of these NYC cinemas played provocative art films and/or classic revivals. But over the years they closed their doors for any number of reasons. Not one is in business today.
The Metro, The Baronet, Festival Theatre, Cinema Studio, 68th Street Playhouse, Carnegie Hall Cinema, Art Greenwich, Garrick Cinema, The New Yorker, Charles Theatre, The Little Carnegie, 55th Street Playhouse, The Gramercy, The Coronet, Embassy 72nd Street Theatre, Fine Arts Theatre, Sutton Theater, The Beekman, Bleecker Street Cinema, The Elgin, Cinema III, 8th Street Playhouse, The Biograph, Plaza Theatre, The St. Marks, First Avenue Screening Room, The Regency Theatre
What a great resource Cinema Treasures is! It’s got a listing of 1000s of cinemas.
And if you want Art Houses, PBS’ Independent Lens made this nifty map. Now you can find out where you want your film to play anywhere in the ‘ol USA. Hat tip again to MovieCityNews for leading the way with these pieces.
Finding the right place to play your film has never been very easy. That sort of specified knowledge has been one of the many reasons traditional distributors have hung around as long as they have. That’s all starting to change though. The Workbook Project has been doing a theater mapping project for years now. You’ve gotta love their map.
Of course if you want to start booking your own theaters, it’s not so easy. There are some nice new developments out there though.
Check out Good Screenings in the UK, and Open Indie here.
The NYTimes has a beautiful series on abandoned movie theaters. They are heartbreaking and packed with emotional metaphor.
Thanks to Phillip Lefesi for making sure I checked it out.
