Cinema? Why, I Hardly....

[captainsblog]

Today brought a few endings but a new-to-us film experience, all mixed together.

First thing this morning, I ended my latest season of online trivia competition with a likely loss to the #1 ranked player in my group of 20. Here's what I posted about it on one of their message boards back on Friday, with one result then unknown and one (today's) still to go:

I have consistently done better among those ahead of me than those behind. As I sit this morning just outside the top 3, I am 1-0-2 against the current holders of those promotion spots with two left against the second and third place players after today (about which I offer no comment). Losses have come against 7th, 8th (twice), 10th, 15th and 17th, with one to go against someone currently in the relegation zone.

Life imitates sport: I have become the Mets.

After confirming my Friday loss, I amended that:

So much for that theory. The last two components of my very (2007-08) Mets-like late-season slide have been a loss on Thursday against second place, surrounded nicely by losses to 14th and 17th (out of 20).

I end Monday matched against first place.  I will likely end at 10-10-5, putting me squarely in what the Indigo Girls famously called "the upper echelons of mediocrity." May the Mets do better between now and then.

Spoiler alert: They did no such thing.

That post, though, was followed by two others, one on their message board and one on Facebook. Both took me back to cinematic days, of old and to come.

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There was this, from a local chain of independent movie houses in our region:



Dipson Theatres is announcing the closure of their Eastern Hills Mall theatre.

Prior to the pandemic, this location was an independent art theatre for upscale and foreign films. These films became essentially non-existent. The company shifted to first-run movies after being closed for 16 months due to the pandemic, but with the location in proximity to major competition, it quickly became very challenging.

Dipson Theatres would like to thank their loyal customers for their decades of support.

Now more than ever, it is imperative to support your locally owned and operated businesses. Dipson Theatres is exactly that, locally owned and operated in WNY since 1939.

All of our wonderful team members have been offered positions at our other Dipson locations.

While we can remember seeing any number of films there under their management, the venue was more meaningful to me for its original legacy as a three-screen build-on to that mall by the General Cinema chain that once dominated Western New York. There were theater chains on Long Island when I was growing up- United Artists and Century, plus a few smatterings of others- but these were mostly leftover single-screens from the 50s and earlier. A "twin cinema" was a big deal, as was pair we got when Jerry Lewis came to town, and the even more memorable a few miles north where I saw the original Star Wars on its first run release at the Hicksville Twin North and South, one of only 32 theaters in the entire country to book it at first. On arrival in Ithaca the following fall, I encountered my first true multiplex- at Da Mawl, with four whole screens! My East Meadow friend David would drive us there in his Caddy, he'd take off his shoes and socks and put his feet up on the seat in front (like Margot Robbie did, only uglier), and we were eventually banned in those pre-cellular days after the time he asked the box office cashier to borrow the phone (heh heh, for a ride home, heh heh) and instead called Hong Kong and ordered a chow mein dinner. To go.

But Buffalo became the big time for the big screen for me. My law school apartments weren't far from the Holiday 6! or the Como (count'em) 8, but closest to home was the "Boulevard I-II-III" across the car park from the original Amherst Wegmans and where the current one now stands. That was my first General Cinema experience, which got bigger and better when they added the University VIII (eight, man!) across Maple Road. But those three screens in the back of Eastern Hills Mall on the edge of town were also regular stops on my cinematic rounds. I remember one of my Korean first-year roomies (they of the dreaded waffle iron and kimchi pot) driving me there to see a film with him. I have no recollection at all of which movie it was.

But I remember the gummy bears and the candy band:

Watch on YouTube

Those preview and feature jingles remain firmly planted in my head, over 40 years after I first heard them and a good 20 since General Cinema bit the bankruptcy dust. In between, I, then we, added their Rochester outlets to the list. A two-screen in the oddly named Todd Mart Plaza was where I think Eleanor and I saw Terry Gilliam's Brazil on our first date in 1986. Later, they would add a six-screen in the nearby Pittsford Plaza, and a humongous outbuilding to Marketplace Mall with seven screens.

All, save the mall one here and Pittsford Plaza there, went the way of the wrecking ball in the years since, leaving not a trace. When Emily was at RIT, her mom and I met her at the Pittsford one, which had reopened under local independent management, to see,.... I forget. Loving Vincent, the animated Van Gogh, maybe?  This, anyway, is how it more or less looked then:



- and must've still even through this year if it was showing Everything Everywhere, but it retained its internal GCC features much as Eastern Hills did. Alas, it does not now and likely won't, as it takes on a new Job(s) in life:

This fall, Apple Cinema will be replacing Pittsford Cinema, which is closing Sunday, June 5, after 20 years of business. The Apple-owned theater will include full in-seat dining, where the customer's food will be served to them at their seats.

 

The existing theater will be renovated to include eight screen and a full kitchen, and new ACX theater rooms will feature luxury seating and 4k projection.

No word on whether they will be going full Alamo Drafthouse and serving beer. Not that I particularly care unless Siri starts ordering the shit for me when she knows I won't drink it:P

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Bringing these two stories together, though, was me seeing a post on another Learned League board:

A movie I co-star in and co-produced is out in wide release in theaters. It's called "Bros", it's a gay romantic comedy, and it takes place in a queer history museum so you can use your trivia brain to spot all the exhibits in the background and figure out who they're about. In conclusion, it's a very funny movie and you guys would enjoy it, so please consider going.

The "I" of that post would be an actor named Guy Branum, who plays the dude who introduces the two main characters to each other early in the film.  He has also been outed as the actor who appeared previously on Hacks and earned fame for a scene in which he gets Jean Smart's character to autograph his bald head.

Not an hour before I read that post, Eleanor independently told me about the film and asked if I wanted to go see it. Between the trivia group connection and the Eastern Hills closing, I quickly moved from the "let me find out a little more about it" category right into "AWHELLYEAH." We want to be allies not only to this kind of film, but the kind of cinema that will screen it.....

Which, in this case, was Regal Transit, the 800-pound King Kong that killed the three-screen of my past a mile north of it on Transit Road. But it was showing this film in an auditorium with conventional seating rather than recliners, which we both (and Eleanor especially) found very uncomfortable our last time out to a film.

Bros is wonderful. We laughed, we felt,  at least I noticed that the love interest is in a Buffalo Sabres tank top in one scene and that he's from the distant and homo-nonfamiliar-if-not-phobic land of "upstate."  It makes serious fun of Hallmark romcoms while meta-following their formulas almost to the second except for the occasional moment of kink.

Sadly, we had Theater 11 to ourselves, and the whole place looked dead on the ways both in and out. Those little triplexes may not be the only things hitting the cinematic skids if this continued resistance to "going out" keeps up.

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ETAs:

(1) I got a sportsballish prediction right for once:

The results for LL94 Match Day 25 are now available. In that match, you lost to SwedlerD, 4(3)-7(4). You finished LL94 in 9th place in Rundle D Memorial Div 3, with a record of 10-10-5.

(2) I fixed the spelling of Guy's name above. Fortunately, spelling (usually) doesn't count in this competition.

(3) Another film to recommend connected to that departed venue: King of the Corner, a 2005 piece directed by and starring UB alum Peter Riegert. Probably best known to most for a small role in Animal House, we came to love him for his starring role with future Doctor Peter Capaldi in the wonderful indy film Local Hero. A review from its local release mentions that Riegert gave a talk about his film after its screening at Eastern Hills; we saw King of the Corner (but missed the talk) in that auditorium. Hopefully the gummy bears kept quiet.

(4) And while we were warm and dry inside the cinema last night, the Mets were rained out while the team ahead of them kept our faintest of hopes alive for the division title, by losing to the same Very Bad Team who knocked us out in 2007 and won one or two too many games against us this year.

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Guy Branum, or is that coincidence?

[captainsblog]

Yarp, that's him!

[weofodthignen]

Then if you have some non-blog, non-social media sites to reference, you can update it :-)