The New Beverly Cinema, on Beverly just West of La Brea (official site and showtimes – please patronize) just got new seats. Sort of.

For the film people who attend screenings here on a regular basis, this is akin to something like Deep Throat finally coming forward (more on that in another post). This is quite a bit of news.

The seats are not new, and not the entire auditorium got retrofitted. One entire side, the first row, and the last few rows have all hung on to the old seats. But most of the auditorium has these newer seats with the grey plastic backs – which are bright enough to lighten the place up quite a bit. When I walked in last night for a show, I was startled, and it took a bit of looking around to finally pick out what it was that was throwing me off.

Congratulations, New Beverly Cinema, although there is a part of me that longs for the New Beverly that I have known for 20 years, bad seats and all.

A side note: After seeing The Godfather at the Egyptian in the early evening, I was treated at the New Beverly to a trailer for The Godfather, Part II and for Woody Allen's Manhattan – the connection being not only the Godfather films, but that all three were starring Diane Keaton.

A very funny exchange in the Manhattan trailer:
Yale: You are so self-righteous, you know. I mean we're just people. We're just human beings, you know? You think you're God.
Isaac Davis: I... I gotta model myself after someone.

What the fuck it is with this jacket?


May 25, 2005, Los Angeles, USA


June 05, 2005 Manchester, Great Britain


June 6, 2005, New York, USA


June 6, 2005, New York, USA


June 8, 2005, New York, USA


Unless Russell, of course, is trying to build up public awareness of the precious threads so that he can make a mint on eBay in order to pay off the concierge’s upcoming lawsuit. Also - why doesn't a multi-millionaire, globe-hopping movie star have his very own world-band cellie?

(Photos coutresy of http://news.search.yahoo.com/)

Burbank’s famed Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant, California State historical point of interest, has been shut down due to a cockroach infestation, KCBS TV Channel 2 reported on the 11 PM news earlier tonight. They said that Bob’s asked the County Health Inspectors to come back out in order to re-evaluate their “B” health rating. That is when the officials shut down the restaurant, making it a very public matter in the process.

KNBC channel 4 reports on their website that it was due to a rat infestation.

Whether it was cockroaches or rats or a cohabitation of both, the couple of times I was there with my Burbank coworkers last year, the food was barely a notch above McDonald’s.

AP: Lohan Says She's an 'Easy Target.'
AP: Russell Crowe arrested for throwing telephone.

Why, oh, why, couldn’t they have gotten together for an even better, all-inclusive story.


In the worst humiliation of all, the Aussie tough guy is being led through the crowd by a version of the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Woman.

The Cecchi Gori Fine Arts Theatre, last leased by Marc Cuban’s Landmark Theatres chain, closed it’s doors for the last time on May 18th. It went out with a bang – it played a four-month engagement of Downfall, a truly great film from Germany about the last weeks of Hitler’s life. Read that again – a FOUR MOUNTH engagement in a single-screen theatre in 2005. This is truly an anomaly these days, when a film travels through a 14-screen multiplex, all the way down to the smallest auditorium at the end of the hallway, in a matter of a couple of weeks.

The Fine Arts was a very good auditorium. The two Downfall shows I attended there were bright and perfectly in focus, which, in today’s exhibition business model, is not something to be taken for granted.

There have been quite a number of closings the past couple of years on the Westside – the Mann Westwood 4-plex on Gayley is now a Whole Foods, the Mann Plaza on Glendon was just recently demolished to make room for a new apartment/retail monstrosity on the opposite side of Westwood Village, and the United Artists Coronet 4-plex was converted into a much-needed Sav-On Drug store at the southern side (one block below Wilshire) a couple of years back. It is safe to say that I will not step foot in the Sav-On, ever.

Before Landmark, AMC ran the Fine Arts, and Laemmle before them (if my memory serves). The theatre played mostly foreign and upscale fare, something one may think would do very well in the middle of Beverly Hills. But the city’s incredibly restrictive street parking, in addition to the non-existent parking lot (they used to validate for the Flynt Publications building on the corner of La Cienega) did them in, I believe, no matter that the theatre was so much better then the nearby but tiny Landmark’s Westside Pavilion 4-plex or Laemmle’s Sunset 5, which all play roughly the same fare. The lot and building are for sale at $3.1M. I would hope that a film person would come through and keep it in operation, just as Robert Bucksbaum kept the Crest in Westwood alive after Pacific Theatres dumped it a couple of years back (although I do not think the Crest story is considered a success from a financial perspective, at least for Mr. Bucksbaum).

More info on the theatre can be found at Cinematreasures.org, a truly fascinating site I stumbled upon doing research on the theatre. The Fine Arts’ listing disappeared from the Landmark website, and only after calling the Cecchi Gori’s Landmark recording line did I hear the dreaded “After 68 years in operation…” message. The theater was (is, damn it) ornate on the outside and the inside.

For nostalgia’s sake, take a peek at Cinemetreasures.com – without a doubt, you will find the movie houses you visited weekly in the city of your childhood, and find out what became of them. A friend who grew up in England said most of her childhood theatres were demolished. Search by name, city, zip, etc.