posted 10-02-2009 01:34 PM                    

quote: Eric Hooper

---

The Century Theatres Berryessa 10 in San Jose, CA has no showtimes on Fandango past Sunday, and did not get any new releases this Friday. Smells of a closure to me. Can anyone confirm?

---

posted 10-04-2009 03:29 AM                   

quote: Michael McGovern

---

The theater in Danbury is currently an AMC. It was originally built as a Sony Theaters location about 15 years ago with only 10 screens. Sony eventually merged with Loews who then obviously merged with AMC. After the AMC merger, they did some major renovations and added six more screens. They do a ton of business at that location, and I've head recently that AMC plans to expand it even further to add a couple more screens including a Digital IMAX auditorium.

---

posted 10-10-2009 03:40 PM                       

quote:

---

It's show time! Capitol Theatre reopening means flicks and fun on the West Side
By Clint O'Connor, The Plain Dealer
September 25, 2009, 12:00AM

The opening of a movie theater is not typically a five-star event. But when it's in Cleveland, as opposed to some distant shopping mall, and when it's expected to ignite 15 blocks worth of civic revitalization, it's a rare beast indeed.

Like so many well-intentioned, let's-bring-back-the-city crusades that have sprinkled ethereal hope dust over Cleveland for the past 30 years, the restoration of the Capitol Theatre could have taken a big, fat belly-flop into the cesspool of broken dreams.

But no.

This elaborate renovation project connecting Cleveland's past with its future actually succeeded. The new Capitol, at 1390 West 65th Street just north of Detroit Avenue, opens next weekend.

For the city's cultural and nightlife scene, the theater represents something film fans have been requesting for years: a movie house on the West Side that's convenient for Clevelanders, within striking distance of Lakewood and Rocky River, and one that might offer the independent and foreign fare available for decades at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights.

The project worked for two reasons, according to Jeffrey Ramsey, executive director of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization. One was fresh financial sources: the federal New Market Tax Credit and Ohio's Historic Tax Credit.

The other reason: "This is not a stand-alone theater," he said. "It is part of a partnership with Cleveland Public Theatre, the Near West Theatre and the neighborhood."

If it had just been the Capitol Theatre, said Ramsey, it never would have happened.

Loads of determined folks within his organization and the Gordon Square Arts District, which runs along Detroit Avenue from West 58th Street to West 73rd Street, made it a reality, along with about $7.5 million from the tax credits, a city of Cleveland loan and grants from Cuyahoga County, the Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission.

Organizers hope the sparkling movie house, which took 16 months to renovate and will employ about 20 people, draws film-goers who will spill into shops, restaurants, galleries and bars in the neighborhood before and after shows. The area is already on the rise with choice eateries, such as Luxe, La Boca and Stone Mad Irish Pub, drawing good crowds.

The theater, which opened in 1921 as a vaudeville and silent-movie house and has been shuttered since 1985, used to seat nearly 1,400. It has been remodeled into three movie theaters. The main house will hold 420, while the two upstairs theaters, carved out of the old balcony, will seat nearly 100 each.

While the projection systems will be state-of-the-art digital, the renovation retained much of the site's original decorative touches, embracing the building's historic features. It's a great-looking theater, particularly the main house.

A gala fund-raiser Thursday night will be followed by a ribbon cutting and free movie Friday morning. Then, Friday afternoon, the theater opens to the ticket-buying public with three films: LeBron James' high school flashback, "More Than a Game"; Michael Moore's latest documentary, "Capitalism: a Love Story"; and the re-release of "Toy Story" and its sequel, packaged together in a new 3-D version.

The theatre hopes to draw 100,000 people a year. "The Capitol is the economic engine for the district," said Ramsey.

It's also just one step in the planned $30 million dollar project that includes a major overhaul of the Cleveland Public Theatre (which starts next month), performance space for the Near West Theatre (anyone have $3.5 million to donate?), and streetscape improvements that include widened sidewalks, new lighting and public art.

"Once the Capitol opens, there are going to be more amenities for my customers, more things for them to do in the neighborhood," said Raymond Bobgan, executive director of Cleveland Public Theatre, which is around the corner from the Capitol on Detroit Avenue. "They're going to be safer with the increased foot traffic and the improved streetscape, which will have more lighting and [better] parking."

There is also a presumed synergy that should benefit CPT. "I believe independent-movie goers would be the most logical place to expand our audience," said Bobgan.

Showing a mix of specialty, mainstream films

Which brings us to one perception that's worth clarifying.

Exhibit A. For years, this reporter has received dozens of phone calls and e-mails saying the same thing: Why don't we have a Cedar Lee on the West Side? Why do we have to schlep all the way to Cleveland Heights for foreign films, quirky indie fare and documentaries?

Exhibit B. Likewise, Cleveland Cinemas, which operates five theaters in Greater Cleveland, including the Cedar Lee, has received untold numbers of inquiries begging for alternatives to Hollywood hogwash on the West Side.

The Capitol, owned by the Detroit Shoreway organization, will be run by Cleveland Cinemas. You'd assume they'd be screaming from the rooftop, "Long suffering West Siders, your ship has come in. The Capitol will finally become a Cedar Lee of the West!"

Except it won't.

"It's not going to be the Cedar Lee," said Jon Forman, president of Cleveland Cinemas. "There will be mainstream movies along with some specialty programming. We want to make a commitment to showing specialty films at the Capitol, but we'll only be able to show them if the community supports them."

The programming at the Capitol will be akin to Shaker Square Cinemas, where more mainstream films drive attendance, with an occasional indie mixed in. If the Capitol sells enough tickets to, say, a dark, disturbing Danish drama, it will offer more subtitled cinema. If documentaries are a hit, it will schedule more.

One proven beneficiary of Forman's theaters is restaurants. The expansion of the Cedar Lee, which grew from one screen to six over several years, kick-started a restaurant revival along Lee Road. Ditto Shaker Square Cinemas, where the renovated former Colony Theatre, which Forman transformed into six screens, is the perfect complement to the square's buzzing restaurant scene.

It will take about a year before Cleveland Cinemas can truly gauge the success of the Capitol (the fall is traditionally a downtime for movie attendance). In the meantime, the re-opening lends the Capitol the duel distinction of being Cleveland's newest and oldest theater. The previous biggest overhaul was in the 1930s, when the theater was changed to accommodate a new invention: sound movies.

"It was a big deal to walk down to the Capitol," said Bernice Miller, who used to go to the theater with her girlfriends in the 1930s and 1940s. Even more fun was the roller rink in the basement (gone now, as is the old pool hall).

Movies cost 5 cents, and later, Miller managed to survive the outrageous price increase to 10 cents. Basically, for a quarter, you could take in a newsreel, cartoons, a double feature, grab some popcorn and candy and still have change.

Miller, nee Doy, now 82 and living in Brunswick, grew up near West 65th Street and Lorain Avenue where her father ran Doy's Candy Kitchen. When I first spoke with her, she couldn't recall the titles of specific films she had seen at the Capitol.

After consulting her childhood diaries, she called back a few days later to report that she saw "Jackass Mail" with Marjorie Main and Wallace Beery at the Capitol in 1942 and Lana Turner in the romantic "Marriage is a Private Affair" in 1945.

Miller hopes to return next week. "I want to see what they've done with the place."

---

posted 10-12-2009 03:01 PM                       

quote:

---

Oberlin's renovated Apollo Theatre to open
By Julie Washington, The Plain Dealer
September 29, 2009, 5:52PM

When audiences stream into the newly renovated Apollo Theatre in Oberlin the weekend of Oct. 2-4, they'll marvel at the preserved retro charm and crisp digital projection.

And they'll taste, for the first time at the nearly 100-year-old theater, fresh popcorn.

The old concession stand was too small for a popcorn popper. Now, with an expanded concession stand, customers will no longer have to eat stuff that was popped elsewhere and brought in bags from a vendor.

Popcorn lovers, film fans and the Oberlin community will celebrate the theater's $1.2 million renovation and reopening.

Television producer and Oberlin alumnus James Burrows; his wife, Debbie Burrows; and married actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman -- who are all major donors -- are expected to attend a private ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday.

Saturday is the official community opening of the Apollo, with a free screening of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," a picnic and other activities.

DeVito and other donors raised the entire amount needed to purchase and update the theater, said Sandra Hodge, Oberlin College's special assistant to the president for community and government relations.

DeVito and Perlman became involved because one of their children attends Oberlin. You remember DeVito as Louie on "Taxi." Currently, he stars in the cable series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Perlman was the caustic waitress Carla on "Cheers."

DeVito said he remembered being brokenhearted when the old movie palaces of his childhood were demolished. He applauded Oberlin's
efforts to give the Apollo new life.

"I thought the college was doing a really cool thing," said DeVito, calling from his home in Los Angeles.

Visitors this weekend will find a new Apollo that looks much like the old one. The renovations were done with an eye toward preserving the local landmark's architectural uniqueness. The 1950s-style marquee, outdoor ticket booth and vinyl-padded walls are still intact.

No screens were injured in the renovation of this theater. "We always said we would retain the Apollo as a single-screen theater," said Hodge, who was project manager for the renovation.

Oberlin College spent $1.2 million to meet building code and disability access requirements, add digital projection and sound, expand the concession area and add an indoor ticket booth. The theater, under the management of Cleveland Cinemas, will show first-run films.

Changes that made some areas larger took a bite out of the auditorium, Hodge said. The Apollo is down to 500 seats from the 800 it used to have.

The Apollo's owners put it up for sale in 2008. College Properties of Oberlin, a subsidiary of the college, bought it in February 2009 for between $300,000 and $350,000, she said. The theater had been closed since July 1.

The second phase of the renovations, which should start within the next two years, will add a media center for cinema studies in the second floor.

DeVito said that he does watch movies on his computer, but it can't compare to the experience of seeing a movie the way the director intended.

Thanks to Oberlin's efforts, that tradition continues at the Apollo.

"It's a real movie theater. It's the real deal," DeVito said.

---