|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about? (part 2)
|
Mike Frese
Master Film Handler
Posts: 465
From: Holts Summit, MO
Registered: Jun 2007
|
posted 07-30-2012 12:12 PM
Couple from Monatana opening up in St. Joseph, MO. Mike Blakesly, do you know these people?
http://www.newspressnow.com/news/local_news/article_9b9502cf-aae7-59cb-aee4-8805df3ef320.html
Drive-in theater to open soon
Riley and Vickie Cooke, owners of Cooke Brothers Drive-In, said they hope St. Joseph will embrace outdoor movies again. The new theater is set to open by the end of the week.
Riley and Vickie Cooke are nearing completion of a two-year project near and dear to their hearts.
The Cooke Brothers Drive-In should be open by the end of the week. The drive-in theater, 4814 S. U.S. Highway 169, is in the final stages and waiting on last-minute permits before opening.
The Cookes purchased the property two years ago after Mr. Cooke’s brother died.
“It’s always been my family’s property,” Mr. Cooke said. “Since the 1940s, we’ve had a presence in St. Joseph.”
For years, the site was home to the family’s implement store, Cooke’s Sales and Service.
The new theater will be similar to the couple’s drive-in theater in Montana. There will be two screens, with a double feature on each screen.
“We’re a movie theater, so we show new movies,” Mr. Cooke said.
Yet the drive-in theater won’t be able to list which movies are playing weeks in advance. Ms. Cooke contacts Hollywood companies such as Pixar and Lionsgate on Mondays for that coming Friday.
They don’t use a standard booking system.
Cooke’s won’t have two blockbuster hits in the double feature. One will be a blockbuster and one will be about two weeks old — but never more than six. It just isn’t feasible to have two major pictures back to back, Mr. Cooke said.
The Cookes have started to fight for film now that most theaters have gone digital. “I’ll have to go digital sometime soon,” Mr. Cooke said.
It’s a major investment, but one the Cookes are willing to do since they said they are in St. Joseph for the long haul.
“We know how to do this,” he said. “We’re not rookies.”
The couple operates a successful drive-in theater and a three-screen indoor theater near Billings, Mont. They built both from the ground up.
“We’ve been in the entertainment industry for years,” Ms. Cooke said.
The pair spent 17 years in the carnival business.
“I’m a ride man,” Mr. Cooke said. “I hauled around big scrap metal and set it up.”
Toward the end of that career, the Cookes had their own complete traveling carnival. They left to start their family, and have two daughters, one of whom will operate the St. Joseph theater while she goes to college.
The drive-in will be a family-friendly atmosphere that is easy on the pocketbook.
“For a $20 bill, you can have fun, don’t have to get a sitter and can get cheap treats,” Mr. Cooke said.
Patrons listen to the movie via their own FM radio and can control their own volume.
Besides the movies, there’s the food and the rides. In Montana, the Cookes' drive-in theater has a roller coaster. While the St. Joseph location isn’t quite ready for the extreme rides, there is a child-sized Ferris wheel and another roller ride.
The new drive-in has a full lounge area, as well as a kitchen offering treats ranging from pickles, popcorn and candy to soda and pizza. Large pizzas can be ordered and delivered to the car during the movie.
For now, the theater will be open every day of the week. After Labor Day, it will be open Fridays and Saturdays, with a possible Sunday special. The gates will open at 8 p.m., and the movies will begin as soon as it gets dark.
Back home near Billings, the Cookes have a core group of kids who have worked at their theaters for years. They’re hoping for that same relationship in St. Joseph.
Jennifer Hall can be reached
at jennhall@newspressnow.com.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
|
posted 08-16-2012 10:03 AM
This article includes some really great pictures of the theatre.
Toronto's last porn theatre goes back to its roots
quote:
Toronto's last porn theatre goes back to its roots
CBC News
Posted: Aug 15, 2012 11:33 PM ET
Last Updated: Aug 16, 2012 5:00 AM ET
Toronto's last adult entertainment theatre will soon reach back to its roots as an independent cinema, as two entrepreneurs try to give the Metro Theatre a new lease on life.
"I hope this will become the independent art house cinema in the west of Toronto," said Jonathan Hlibka, who along with business partner Nadia Sandhu hopes to revitalize the 1930s-era theatre.
When Toronto's appetite for porn in public gave way to VCRs, the theatre began its long decline. Most of the posters of scantily clad bodies lining the entrance of the theatre are faded, the marquee is missing a few light bulbs and there are no film titles displayed.
The Metro, as it's known, has been on the real estate market for a decade, and is listed at $3.8 million.
'We're coming up with a really detailed sterilization process.'— Nadia Sandhu
Hlibka and Sandhu see potential there and plan to show indie, art house and foreign films four nights a week, while the theatre will continue to show adult films in the afternoon. The pair will also hold events and parties to bring the community together.
Hlibka had been in talks for about a year with the theatre's owner, Karim Hirji, who came from Tanzania in the 1970s and bought the cinema with his father.
The theatre will open to non-adult films around Aug. 24 with the Irish film Snap. The grand reopening will happen sometime in September.
Metro always outside the mainstream
Ryerson University professor Paul Moore, who has studied the history of movie theatres, thinks the idea might work. The Metro, he notes, was never a mainstream theatre but was instead independent at its opening in 1939, showing a "scandalous" B-movie called, Delinquent Parents: The Unforgettable Drama of Modern Youth and Selfish Parents.
Though he says it won't be a theatre that will appeal to families or children, it will fulfil a niche in Toronto by having foreign films downtown.
"It's going to be for hipster, university students and esthetes that are interested in global cinema and adults and downtown cosmopolitan types that are interested in cinema," he said. "And I don't think that a downtown hipster kind of person is going to be that worried about this being a pornographic cinema in the afternoon."
The market for pornography in movie theatres was gutted when the VCR came along in the early 1980s. Adult theatres have also suffered for the same reasons independent cinemas have — competition from the Hollywood blockbuster, the mega-plex, and the internet.
"The ones that are left are serving an art house clientele or a very niche neighbourhood community-centre kind of model," he said.
Seats will be re-covered
Adult films will continue to be shown at The Metro during the day, and cleaning up the grime-covered theatre will take work and the entrepreneurs' own money.
The carpet will be ripped out and the seats re-covered, and there will be daily cleanings after the adult films let out.
"We're coming up with a really detailed sterilization process," Sandhu said.
However, the blood-red walls, gilded accents and crystal chandeliers will stay, as will the hand-painted Mary Poppins and Charlie Chaplin portraits — a counterpoint to posters of the porn industry's biggest stars, including one signed by Ron Jeremy.
Hlibka and Sandhu revived an old theatre in Toronto's east end last year and have faith in their plans for this one.
"It's the most diverse city in North America. We should have a place where we can come and share each other's stories on film," Hlibka said.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
|
posted 09-09-2012 03:32 AM
Not a open or closed theatre, but a converted theatre to a bookstore:
Link quote:
Stunning Movie Theater Turned Bookstore
106
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a fantastic church-turned bookstore in The Netherlands, and I loved that project so much that I started looking around for other bookstores that used to be something else.
The jewel of my findings so far is the El Ateneo in Buenos Aires. This gorgeous 1919 movie palace, complete with original frescoes and sculpted exterior carytids, was transformed into a drop-dead stunning bookstore in 2000. Working for the Brazilian publisher and bookstore chain El Ateneo, architect Fernando Manzone kept as much of the original theater as possible, including a cafe on the stage area, box seats that serve as reading nooks, and swirling, browsable balconies.
It is one of the busiest bookstores in the world: it has more than a million visitors annually and sells more than 700,000 books a year.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
|
posted 09-16-2012 09:17 PM
The Cottage View Drive-in, Cottage Grove, MN, will close at the end of the season. They're having an 'official' farewell party Thursday Sept 27.
I did a photo feature of the Cottage View on my old drive-in theatre guide back in the 90's. Need to dig up those pics and scan them for Adam.
Farewell to Cottage View
quote: St Paul Pioneer Press
A goodbye party for the metro area's second-to-last drive-in theater has been set for Sept. 27.
The owners of the Cottage View Drive-In Theater will host a free party and movie to commemorate 46 years in business. The drive-in is expected to be torn down and replaced by a Walmart.
The featured movie for the party is going to be a sing-along version of "Grease," according to Steve Mann, president of Mann Theatres, Inc., which operates the drive-in.
The doors will open at 6 p.m., and the movie will start at dusk.
Danette Parr, Cottage Grove's economic development director, said the first 100 people at the party would get a free DVD about the theater's history, and everyone would get a brochure on the same topic.
The Cottage Grove City Council approved the Walmart at a meeting Sept. 5. Groundbreaking is expected to be next spring, with the store opening 2014.
Theater operator Mann said the drive-in will be open during weekends until mid-October. When it closes, the only drive-in theater in the metro area will be the Vali-Hi Theater in Lake Elmo.
The Cottage View Drive-in is at U.S. 61 and Keats Avenue.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 56 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 54 55 56
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic