This week I was intrigued to read this piece about the opening of Low Cinema in Ridgewood, NY.
A lot of movie theaters used to exist in Ridgewood, there were a handful of big premier theaters like the RKO Madison, which was 1000s of seats, a movie-palace-style theater, which is now a Liberty discount department store on Myrtle Avenue. But then there were a handful of second- and third-run theaters who would get the prints later, once they had already circulated through the bigger first-run theaters, and that's something that started to go away a little bit after home video, and especially with streaming. Those theaters could take more risks and not be so precious about what they were showing, and that's also part of the legacy that we want to revive.
Low Cinema is a repertory cinema — a term I had to google while reading the article. It means a cinema that’s not showing first-run films (new releases) but instead older, or artier, or just cheaper movies. Low Cinema wants to see these revival houses everywhere. It got me thinking about what it means to go to the movies these days.
There’s been handwringing about the “death of cinema” since the birth of the streaming era, and certainly since covid, and it’s not hard to see why. I love movies, but in a choice between watching one on my couch with the wine in the fridge and the snacks on the coffee table, or going to a grimy multiplex with a sticky floor and a bucket of popcorn that costs more than my car, I’ll take the couch nine times out of ten.
But last night I went to the movies to see the new Mission: Impossible. I went to see it in a 30-seater recliner cinema (inexplicably called Silky Otter — which absolutely sounds like a lube brand) where they brought my dinner and wine to my seat — about as close to the couch experience as it’s possible to get. I was very happy.
Ultimately, what’s actually on the screen might have little to do with it. What draws us out to the movies now is more likely to be an event — Barbenheimer, or dressing like a gentleminion, or dancing and taking selfies at The Eras Tour movie.
But I keep turning over this repertory idea in my head. That there’s something special in movies we’ve already seen before and love. A while ago, friends of mine in a social slack were discussing the movies that, if you’re in a hotel room and turn on the tv and discover one playing, you will not change the channel. The kind of “classic” that you’ll watch regardless of what point in the film it’s up to. There’s a good reddit thread of them here. One of our technically-minded comrades built us a continuous livestream of these movies that we call Little VCR Club.
There’s something retro and magnificent about Little VCR Club. Every time I turn on my tv I click on that app first to see what’s playing. Right now, while I write this, it’s playing Point Break — so obviously I’m not turning it off. It’s like the oldest of the original HBO, without pre-roll or ads. Just no-skip bangers, one after another. When Alex’s mother passed away we were all sitting around in an airbnb in Wellington dealing with funeral errands. Little VCR Club was the perfect backdrop. You don’t have to have a conversation about what anyone wants to watch, or decide between a thousand streaming services, it’s just what’s on and it’s good.
Repertory cinema feels like that to me.
Near where I live, you can watch movies in an old church hall, and again, they’re never new releases, but they’re a great place to take the kids during the school holidays, or just to feel like part of your neighbourhood.
Repertory lets cinemas create slates of films for their neighbourhoods. Line-ups that are the antithesis to the glut of corporate IP — for people who just don’t want yet another Marvel movie. This article goes deep on some of the motivations, The Future of Film May Just Be Old Movies:
This change has driven young, diverse programmers to create slates that have zagged away from traditional repertory’s ivory-tower, esoteric ([cough] white, male-driven) canon, motivated by local markets’ tastes. Few capture this current, populist, modernist spirit like Cristina Cacioppo, the former creative manager at Alamo Drafthouse NYC and the current director of programming for Nitehawk. Cacioppo’s light bulb moment—when she realized her audience’s taste was shifting—came with two screenings of Fear, the 1996 James Foley movie starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. “I had shown it at [New York culture and community center] 92NY, probably in 2010, and it was just a smattering of people,” Cacioppo recalls. “And then when I showed it at Alamo, probably in 2017, I believe it sold out a 92-seat theater. I think of films like wine; they have to sit and wait for their moment. I try to keep engaging with movies and not pretend the only good ones are from before 1990.”
In Toronto, Anthony Oliveira curates Dumpster Raccoon at the repertory Revue Cinema, screening trashy cult classics like Barbarella, Gremlins, Mommie Dearest, and CATS, accompanied by video pre-show and live performances by queer artists.
Repertory cinema is, in its own way, a kind of fan culture — lovingly curated, deeply nostalgic, driven by passion over profit.
Low Cinema’s owners hope that “someday there's as many movie theaters as there are bars in Ridgewood”. There’s something democratising and lovely about that wish — decoupling the idea of going to the movies from the giant corporate multiplexes with the overpriced post-mix sodas and the overloud sound systems.
Last summer at the lake in Canada we slung up a bed sheet and created our own log-cabin cinema to watch Romeo+Juliet:
There’s always going to be something a little magical about gathering together in front of a big screen in the dark — whatever form that takes.
as I keep thinking about discovery — what is the “new” Digg, how do we encounter things outside the algorithm — I love this new project from Spencer Chang. clone.fyi just presents you with a soothing, clean set of headlines. An easy way to find out what’s going on in the world without giving yourself an aneurysm.
sometimes I wind up on an absolutely magical place on tiktok that makes me unaccountably happy and this week that was “mascot reveals” — turns out that college mascots in the US often don’t tell anyone, choosing to reveal that they’re the mascot at graduation! Honestly, just search “mascot reveal” and you’ll be pleased you did.
since I wrote about my love of tiny things, y’all have been sending me the BEST recommendations, thank you. This week’s fave, Canadian tv show Best in Miniature, in which miniaturists compete each week in the classic bake-off format. I found a whole season on Youtube and it’s so good.
Adam continues to make me green with envy. Watch this tour of the place that manufactures Hollywood’s spacesuits.
Forward this email to someone you think will like it — ask them if they want to go catch a film.