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Book a Private Movie Night
If you want the ultimate movie night, now is a golden opportunity. Until this pandemic abates or is dealt with, movie theaters across the country are trying about anything they can think of to stay afloat. Between customers too scared to come in, capacity restrictions, or out and out mandatory closures, while actually competing with movie studios going right to streaming while still charging premium screening costs to struggling theaters, many theaters may not even be around in another year. So they’re innovating.
Since you are not legally permitted to publicly show anything in your DVD collection, but you can show it privately, theaters are letting you privately book their giant screens and sound systems, and let you see your favorite films “on the big screen” the way they were intended in the first place. Tonight we took up a local theater on the opportunity.
I don’t know how many movie theaters will survive the pandemic. Many were doing poorly before COVID anyway, and now they’re practically begging for customers. In recent years even the large multiplex theaters have been offering customers the ability to book a screen, but the pricing has usually been affordable only for businesses, and the times available have likewise been in the daytime. This makes sense of course, as these are large buildings to heat or cool, and to staff for concessions and cleaning, so if one is going to open up for a private event, it needs to be remunerative. In this, the smaller independent theaters have a bit of an advantage – they only a few people on duty. Our local theater has decided to get in on the act.
The Strand is one of the 10 oldest theaters left in the country. It passed its centennial recently. Like many old theaters, it was not originally strictly a movie house, having a small stage and dressing room for hosting vaudeville or other live acts. It also originally had a balcony, though it was never large enough for private booths. I do not know how many owners it has had over the years, but it is now run by the local college as part of their business school. Sometime in the 70s or 80s the theater closed its balcony and turned it into a 2nd smaller screen. In the 1990s they acquired storefronts on either side, turned one into a new concession stand, and hollowed out the other to turn it into a third screen. Only in the last decade, however, were the original restrooms finally gutted, with modern facilities added within the expansion space. All of the renovations of the last 20 years have been funded by the community – we’ve done our part to keep the old girl going. Modern seating arrived at last within the last couple of years, just in time for COVID.
You can see where the old balcony was.
As it happens, we caught the very last movie before Ohio shut everything down – Disney’s Homeward – we had the theater to ourselves as people were already keeping away in fear. During Ohio’s long lockdown on theaters, lasting from March through June, when theaters were at last allowed a limited reopening, The Strand offered weekend concessions – genuine buckets of movie theater popcorn and theater-sized candy boxes and sodas, strictly on a drive-up basis. They also had a fundraising drive to keep the bills paid on the place. They survived, but barely.
Down in front!
When they reopened they tried going back to first-run movies, but this has not panned out well. The studios are releasing everything simultaneously to streaming services, it seems, and even at greatly reduced ticket prices the theaters cannot attract the audiences. My wife beelined there to see the latest Christopher Nolan film this past summer – then regretted that Nolan is taking himself too seriously (I long ago wrote him off and refused to go see it myself) Even the big multiplexes are by and large showing classic films instead. I went with one daughter to see Beetlejuice last month – a film she never would have seen “on the big screen” otherwise, and the tickets and concession prices were the lowest I’ve paid since the early 90s. The Strand has tried this too, but it’s still not really paying the bills.
Vestige of old times.
Now, they’re letting you pick the film yourself – all you do is provide the DVD or BluRay disc, and for a fee you’ve got your own private screening. For an upcharge per head, they’ll include popcorn, sodas, and candy (no nachos or hot dogs, though, unless you’ve got a really big crowd). We booked the screen for this evening, called a bunch of friends and family, and watched Wallace and Gromit – Curse of the Were Rabbit. We have it booked again right before Christmas for a yet-to-be-decided Christmas movie. Where my sister lives, she and her friends booked their own screening of The Princess Bride.
Old backstage stairs
There’s something about watching a movie in a theater instead of from your couch. Even with today’s large high-resolution screens at home, the still larger theater screen help you to pick out details you are not apt to notice at home. Plus, for whatever reason, the kids shut the heck up in the theater, while jabbering endlessly at home (or checking their phones every second). The popcorn tends to be, well, not necessarily better at the theater (and you can have real butter at home), but there’s certainly more of it at the theater, to the point of rabid abundance. I’m not of an age anymore where the giant sodas hold any attraction for me, but the kids were happy to indulge too. With the decreased movie attendance and increased theater sanitation, the sticky floors are no longer a problem.
As for the movie we picked, Wallace and Gromit are old favorites, but only our eldest daughter ever saw the film on the big screen, and she was five at the time. Number 2 was present in the theater, but at only a year old she remembers nothing. The other 2 hadn’t yet arrived on the scene. With this sort of opportunity, we can at last show them all, and without all the previews and commercials to wait on. Right now The Strand is only allowing maximum rental blocks of 2 hours, so I can’t show them the old epics like Ben Hur, or It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but at some point perhaps we’ll have that chance.
And in the meantime, we and others in the community will keep doing what we can to keep the old girl going. If you get the chance, support your local theater too, while it’s still around. Many are already gone.
I have mixed feelings about this. I love the American spirit that is given lemons and works out a way to make lemonade, but I also wish there was more pushback against the tyranny which is being forced on us.
Great stories.
If family gatherings of over ten people are prohibited, and Thanksgiving dinners with anyone not in your household are also not allowed, how do you get away with this? Multiple families? Not permitted in our state today, and it is the businesses who are charged with enforcement.
That’s reasonable, though it precludes the films stuck with the rating from which I get my username.
Haven’t heard of the former, but the latter is a solid choice. Has me thinking what would be good choices for movies that never played theaters or were never meant to, e.g. TV movies and direct-to-video.
You’ve lived my dream. Waitress is way back in the Troma catalog, though I confess to never having seen their pre-Toxie sex comedies.
Regarding the movie projector: you’ll notice that both reels and all of the little in-between compartments that the 35mm film runs through have metal doors on them. With the reels in particular, they look like Thirties streamlining. But they were there for fire safety. The nitrate film used before 1948 burned like paper soaked in gasoline; reels have exploded and killed people. When the magazine doors were all closed, it wasn’t really airtight but it was close enough to contain a fire.
Was it Talleyrand who said that those who were too young to know life before the revolution have no idea of the richness and beauty of life? Well, that’s a fine analogy for the gallant, noble, vanished world of Troma sex comedies.
Troma was never a house of porn. Not exactly, anyway. Their stock in trade were called “nudies” in the business, to distinguish them from porn. Basically, despite constant hints and jokes, no onscreen sexual activity, but plenty of female nudity.
Can you imagine the Sturm und Drang if the next pile of Hollywood wokeness got steamrollered by a rerelease of Blazing Saddles?
Many a time and oft?
Keep an eye peeled – our local multiplex is screening Christmas movies over the holidays, and Christmas Vacation is definitely on the list.
They’re also showing a lot of Harry Potter, Christopher Nolan Batman movies, etc.
No, but I drive by them every day.
Now and then. The company that my dad worked for rented it out for its annual Christmas show. For a brief time, vaudeville was back, with dog acts, plate spinners, acrobats, all manner of stuff. Sooner or later, an organist fired up the Barton and cut loose with all the holiday classics. Kids got plastic stockings filled with candy and prizes.
Some male nudity too, but usually in service of eliciting a different type of response. The death of nudies will be forever mourned by me, though it passed before I knew such a thing existed. At least Russ Meyer’s oeuvre is on DVD and companies like Arrow Video are hard at work restoring Japanese “pinky violence” exploitation films of the 70s.
Mom took me to see a rerelease of Bambi at the Rialto. I saw Live and Let Die and The Sting there, too. The Sting was actually a sneak preview – some other feature ran first, but I can’t remember what I went there to see. It was pretty funny to be sitting in a theater in Joliet, Illinois when the graphic “Joliet, Illinois” appeared on screen.
This is extremely sad – and I have to add that we didn’t go much over the last few years because there was nothing decent to see. This at least puts an end to the comic book movies. Let’s hope by the time they release the new Bond movie, life will be a little more normal.
Yep. Of course the street names didn’t correspond to anything in Joliet, but who’s paying attention besides us?
“Mason Avenue station” still gives me giggles.
Ohio has been very different on this. Gathering sizes are limited by the venue capacity (usually 1/3 of the regular capacity), and by the current infection rate in one’s county. In a theater that could have seated about 200, there were about 20 of us, well under the limit.
Or as I like to call it, the 70s.
Hey, @thereticulator, for the benefit of our buddy SkipSul, do you know of any great, beautiful or profound holiday season movies from an eastern Orthodox country’s point of view? As much as I loved seeing Russian and Serbian films, and as many good ones as there are, I saw very few that were as explicitly Orthodox as, say, the Polish cinema is Catholic.
Obviously, given the high intellectual levels of both you and Skip, I’m not asking for their Hallmark movies, or the kind of schlock we used to turn out in between Christmas masterpieces. I can name films that would make a Lutheran proud, about subjects like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller. But I don’t know the same about our eastern brothers. Got a couple of titles?
But do the theaters require everyone to wear masks? What if the city/county/state says everyone has to? etc, etc.
I think if masks were required, I would pass.
Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back has a gag somewhat like that. The indignant stoners want to interrupt the filming of a Hollywood movie ripping off their lives, so they break onto the lot of Miramax Studios. The not-very-inside joke is there is no such thing, physically, as Miramax Studios, which was run out of a Manhattan office and never had a Hollywood back lot or studio facility of its own.
Yes, so long as you’re not eating popcorn.
But you know what they say?
In the dark, all masks are on…
Make popcorn with coconut oil again . . .
Holiday seasonal movies? New Year’s movies have been a genre since about the time that Stalin died, but as far as I can remember none of them is religious, much less Orthodox.
A couple of interesting movies from an Orthodox perspective are Ostrov (The Island) and Gruz 200. Seems to me we were discussing Ostrov here on Ricochet not too long ago. You could say it’s a beautiful movie in a beautiful setting (mostly). It’s a slightly-autobiographical film starring Pyotr Mamonov, a Russian rock star who later in life converted to Orthodox Christianity. His role in this film is a variant of the crazy fool or holy fool that is part of Russian culture.
One admiring reviewer in the U.S. said Gruz 200 was the filthiest movie he ever saw, and I couldn’t argue otherwise. It is set during the Afghanistan war, and was intended to be reminder to people who were taking an increasingly nostalgic view of the USSR of what had been going on in the country at the time. It includes a drunken argument about religion at one point, and ends with the professor of Scientific Atheism going into an Orthodox church and inquiring of one of the babushkas about the “procedure” for a baptism for himself. It claims to be based on true events, but I don’t know just what events. Gruz 200 means Cargo 200, and refers to the metal coffins that were coming back from Afghanistan. The director is the same guy who made Brat (Brother) which is probably a better known film outside of Russia.
There are references to Orthodox Christianity in a lot of films; in the later Soviet decades often mildly mocking. In the early Soviet days there were some that were a lot more overtly hostile. But I can’t think of others that were explicitly Orthodox.
I mentioned The Island in my review of Laurus a month or so ago. It’s a great movie.
The second Lupin III series had an episode set in the US with a scene where the characters cross the Tennessee border into New York (don’t remember the exact states, but they were nowhere near each other). Guessing the Japanese creators figured Americans wouldn’t be watching the show forty years later.
Adding Gruz 200 to my watchlist. Hopefully it comes to a streaming service soon. Sounds interesting.
But definitely do not see A Serbian Film, a rare movie that even I’ve avoided watching based on its content.
We did this at a theater in Texas in the summer, which was wonderful. It was the last time that I have been to a theater. We played the third movie from the LotR. No one cared about our masks in the dark, especially since we were super spaced. I haven’t gone to another cinema since they’ve opened up because there are few movies, and I refuse to sit there for 2-3 hours with a piece of paper obstructing my breathing. But the private rental was really luxurious, and I was super happy to support that particular business because it was like this theater: small and not part of a big chain. (Nothing against big chains, but they weren’t brave enough to open back then.)