What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about?

[Mike Rivest]

AMC Dine-In Montclair Place 12 (Greater Los Angeles) opened on March 22nd, 2021 per
https://www.dailybulletin.com/2021/0...-in-montclair/

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's not like this Onion article feels more "personal" than most other articles, but I guess I'm not really the target of their kind of humor in general...

I sincerely hope Arclight and the Cinerama Dome will find a new home...

[Frank B. McLaughlin]

Saw "PAINT YOUR WAGON" (70mm) there on a visit to LaLaLand. We were two of less than a dozen. What a shame. And we were on passes.

[Mark Ogden]

Leave it to The Onion to make fun of this:

https://www.theonion.com/cinerama-bl...wat-1846676347


dome.jpeg

Cinerama Blames Closure On More Viewers Choosing To Watch Movies From Own Geodesic Domes

LOS ANGELES—In a statement touching on the rapidly changing realities of the industry landscape, theater chain Cinerama blamed its impending closure this week on more viewers choosing to watch movies from their own geodesic dome. “It’s a sad day, but ultimately many of our customers have decided that they could get the same experience screening a blockbuster in the comfort of their own concrete geodesic dome,” read a press release from Pacific Theaters president Peter Grouse, adding that the chain of 200 movie theaters simply could not keep up with the rapid proliferation of personal geodesic-dome-movie-viewing technologies. “Back in the ’60s, it was rare to find a single household that could afford even a small geodesic movie theater attached to their nook or living room, let alone one that could rival Cinerama for the sheer number of hexagons and pentagons it incorporated into its design. Now though? Most houses have at least two geodesic domes—the kids are watching Pixar films in their bedroom geodesic dome, while mom and dad are watching the latest Oscar contenders in their own. How are we supposed to compete with that?” Grouse concluded that he should have seen the writing on the wall decades ago when he saw the number of his neighbors with geodesic domes adorned with life-sized Shrek, Spider-Man, and Minion statues.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I don't think suspension of rent payments and mortgages etc going upstream is the way to go. I think it should be more of an eminent domain situation where the government pays the cinema for the "public use" of it. It would be expensive, but we would all share equally in the expense of preventing the spread of a pandemic. Meanwhile, I hope that as we come out of this, there are "lessons learned" as to what works and what doesn't, and the cost of various risk mitigation measures. The government should do what gets the most "bang for the buck" and make appropriate payments to minimize risk.

I think the intrinsic problem is the enormous debt that we already accumulated and are still accumulating with all those government-based rescue packages, no matter how we structure them, it has to come from somewhere. This debt, has to be paid back, so we're essentially just kicking the can forward, hoping that the economy not only recovers to pre-pandemic levels, no, it actually needs to keep on growing to not cause immediate problems and new debts.

The economy is a thing we, humans, created ourselves. The problem is that it's almost impossible to find a consensus on a global scale. But imagine if we could find one, we could simply move all the debts created due to this pandemic into one giant big bad bank. Once this pandemic is over, we simply pretend this big bad bank never happened. We simply eliminate the debt by eliminating the big bad bank.

While this would be entirely achievable, such a plan would simply fail, because of the mistrust between the parties at hand. It's not just national politics, but also international politics. Some countries might use such a thing to their advantage and for some countries such a "deal" could be more desirable than others. As such, it will never happen.

But the alternatives we see now are just pretty hard to swallow. While some people are profiting big time from what's happening right now, others are losing their livelihood. Large parts of our economy are being systematically destroyed. Not only will it take years to get this all back, it will take even longer before the trust in those businesses as a viable business will be at the same level as before the pandemic. The bad taste will linger for years to come...

[Steve Guttag]

If you have any actual record of that, I'd be interested. Nobody has produced any documents, that I am aware of, that show spreading traced to any cinema.

[Gordon McLeod]

I don't want to get political and I don't think it does but I don't see how a government can shut down an industry, like it did and not also shut down the consequences of their action. That is, any business that is mandated to shut down should not have to pay ANY rent/lease (and no back rent either when it opens) and it should roll right on up the line, landlords shouldn't be paying any banks on those properties nor any taxes...etc. Nobody should be making out here but, at the same time, nobody should be extra-penalized (forced to pay for a business that is being forced closed or not allowed to operate at profitable capacities).

And, for all of the well-intentions, I still don't think there has ever been a traced spreading to any cinema, anywhere in the world.

I believe there was several traced to a cinema Quebec. That said in some of our locations we closed because the public refused to obey the rules of wearing masks social distancing sitting in the assigned seats

[Harold Hallikainen]

I don't think suspension of rent payments and mortgages etc going upstream is the way to go. I think it should be more of an eminent domain situation where the government pays the cinema for the "public use" of it. It would be expensive, but we would all share equally in the expense of preventing the spread of a pandemic. Meanwhile, I hope that as we come out of this, there are "lessons learned" as to what works and what doesn't, and the cost of various risk mitigation measures. The government should do what gets the most "bang for the buck" and make appropriate payments to minimize risk.

[Rick Raskin]

I agree with Steve on extension of payments and the process has to go completely up the food chain. I'm not sure what impact that would have on the markets though with investors being excluded from earnings on certain investments. Clearly some relief has to happen, especially since certain business closures have been mandated by governments.

[Steve Guttag]

What seems completely unfair is a business like cinemas that are not only forced to shut down but are, even if allowed to suspend paying rent, can be forced to pay back-rent for when they were closed. That is absurd. We are no longer carrying our part because landlords are now significantly less-harmed than the businesses they collect from. Mind you, I don't think landlords should be compelled to pay their banks (if they own anything on the properly) nor the government be able to collect taxes (or back taxes). If one has a mortgage of some sort, the easy way out this is that there is zero "back" payments but merely tack those months onto the end. But for renters...that money should just be gone...just like the business was just gone. The burden should be as close to equally shared as possible. Leaving utilities and those, should be born by the government...which ultimately are the taxes people pay.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That's the sad truth indeed...

Here in the Netherlands, there have been some trial-events in the last few months and the latest conclusion was: There seems to be no quantifiable risk in passive sit-down events at 50% of seating capacity... So the general advise is to allow those kinds of events, which obviously includes cinema, to happen again, as soon as possible. The fact that no "super-spreading" event until now has been traced back to a cinema until now, only seems to back this up.

Meanwhile, cinemas in many areas around the globe have been closed for a year straight or at least many months in a row. Those that have been open have been largely devoid of any relevant product to show...

But I don't know a single government, even none of the more "social" governments, that's willing to pay the real costs of all this, while it is them who mandated the closure. I can understand that any government will say: We can't pay the FULL impact of this, in the end, we all have to carry our part in this, but at the very least they should carry a substantial part of it...

[Steve Guttag]

I don't want to get political and I don't think it does but I don't see how a government can shut down an industry, like it did and not also shut down the consequences of their action. That is, any business that is mandated to shut down should not have to pay ANY rent/lease (and no back rent either when it opens) and it should roll right on up the line, landlords shouldn't be paying any banks on those properties nor any taxes...etc. Nobody should be making out here but, at the same time, nobody should be extra-penalized (forced to pay for a business that is being forced closed or not allowed to operate at profitable capacities).

And, for all of the well-intentions, I still don't think there has ever been a traced spreading to any cinema, anywhere in the world.

[William Kucharski]

ArcLight was the last chain left that seemed to truly care about presentation other than Alamo Drafthouse.

Reserved seating before it was common, ushers, announcements before movies, no late admissions, and in my experience the two most important things, nice bright, in focus projectors and volume levels consistently set at 7.0 as intended. The only venue I've been to that was better was the large Paramount screening room on their lot.

Of course the Dome is irreplaceable and I am so grateful I got to see It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World there from a pristine print and How the West Was Won twice, for perhaps the last times ever, in three strip Cinerama.

I suspect the Americana and Grove theaters will be purchased by AMC, Cinemark or Regal and end up as more generic screens with slightly out of focus projectors and the volume set to 5.5 or below.

[Mark Ogden]

Terrible news. I have no doubt that these theaters will reopen under new owners, but I will miss the Arclight operating model; no ads, no more that three trailers, and some very good projection and sound. And the caramel corn, Jesus, I'll miss that.

I'll predict that the Pacific Grove will reopen by late summer under somebody, Cinemark or Regency maybe. There is no better situated multiplex in America and it's a pivotal draw for the whole Grove complex. That ain't gonna sit empty.

And racks containing Cinerama prints. I wonder what will happen to those?

I don't know if it's still the case, but there was, as of a few years ago, still a "Cinerama, Inc." that was run by John Sittig, the former head projectionist for Pacific/Arclight. I presume that he holds the rights to the films and whatever is left of the process.

[Bill Brandenstein]

Arclight dead? This is a nightmare. For those of us who love a great movie, care about presentation, and have some amazing memories in these venues (especially occasional 70mm or Cinerama revivals at the Dome over the course of three decades), this is a HUGE blow. Moviegoing done right is officially dead. There are some other fine venues around, but little compares to the memories of what I've seen in the Dome and how great it was. And of course, that Cinerama booth is chock full of all the right equipment to show just about anything. And racks containing Cinerama prints. I wonder what will happen to those?