I’d imagine every one of us, despite our individual life situations, however privileged or difficult they may be, wouldn’t have too much trouble coming up with a pretty long list of people and circumstances for which to be grateful, during the upcoming week traditionally reserved for the expression of thanks as well as throughout the entirety of the year.
Even in our brave new world, where gratitude and humility and generosity of spirit often seem to be in short supply, at the mercy of greed, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, and megalomaniac self-interest cynically masquerading as an aggressive strain of nationalist, populist passion, there are good, everyday reasons to look around and take stock of blessings in one’s immediate surroundings.
And speaking specifically as one who has the privilege and opportunity to occasionally write about matters concerning the movies, and even a (very...
Even in our brave new world, where gratitude and humility and generosity of spirit often seem to be in short supply, at the mercy of greed, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, and megalomaniac self-interest cynically masquerading as an aggressive strain of nationalist, populist passion, there are good, everyday reasons to look around and take stock of blessings in one’s immediate surroundings.
And speaking specifically as one who has the privilege and opportunity to occasionally write about matters concerning the movies, and even a (very...
- 11/23/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
The delightful British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth headlines a great Saturday matinee offering from the UCLA Film and Television Archive on June 25 as their excellent series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” wraps up. So it seemed like a perfect time to resurrect my review of the movie, which celebrates the collective experience of seeing cinema in a darkened, and in this case dilapidated old auditorium, alongside my appreciation of my own hometown movie house, the Alger, which opened in 1940 and closed last year, one more victim of economics and the move toward digital distribution and exhibition.
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“You mean to tell me my uncle actually charged people to go in there? And people actually paid?” –Matt Spenser (Bill Travers) upon first seeing the condition of the Bijou Kinema, in The Smallest Show on Earth
In Basil Dearden’s charming and wistful 1957 British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth (also...
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“You mean to tell me my uncle actually charged people to go in there? And people actually paid?” –Matt Spenser (Bill Travers) upon first seeing the condition of the Bijou Kinema, in The Smallest Show on Earth
In Basil Dearden’s charming and wistful 1957 British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth (also...
- 6/18/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
This is definitely the time of year when film critic types (I’m sure you know who I mean) spend an inordinate amount of time leading up to awards season—and it all leads up to awards season, don’t it?—compiling lists and trying to convince anyone who will listen that it was a shitty year at the movies for anyone who liked something other than what they saw and liked. And ‘tis the season, or at least ‘thas (?) been in the recent past, for that most beloved of academic parlor games, bemoaning the death of cinema, which, if the sackcloth-and-ashes-clad among us are to be believed, is an increasingly detached and irrelevant art form in the process of being smothered under the wet, steaming blanket of American blockbuster-it is. And it’s going all malnourished from the siphoning off of all the talent back to TV, which, as everyone knows,...
- 1/9/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
A longtime employee of L.A.’s New Beverly Cinema says Quentin Tarantino’s new management has forced her out and is ruining the beloved repertory theater. Julia Marchese, one of a few staffers who stayed on through Tarantino’s takeover last month, was told she would be co-manager of the New Beverly when it re-opened this month after renovations. She says this week she was demoted and unceremoniously forced to quit by Tarantino’s longtime personal assistant Julie McLean, who is now acting as General Manager.
“I went through the last six weeks really thinking Quentin was going to make it better,” Marchese told me today. “The thing that’s most shocking to me is that he’s allowing it and I can’t even talk to him about it. To not even be allowed to state my case is unfair.” She says through the Tarantino-led renovations and October 1 re-opening,...
“I went through the last six weeks really thinking Quentin was going to make it better,” Marchese told me today. “The thing that’s most shocking to me is that he’s allowing it and I can’t even talk to him about it. To not even be allowed to state my case is unfair.” She says through the Tarantino-led renovations and October 1 re-opening,...
- 10/15/2014
- by Jen Yamato
- Deadline
The latest wrinkle in owner Quentin Tarantino's takeover of the New Beverly Cinema is a blog post "I Will Not Be Censored" from disgruntled ex-employee Julia Marchese, who was hired at the theater in 2006. At first, Tarantino's team offered her a much better salary to co-manage the theater after he took over operations on October 1, but she was then "frozen out" by Julie McLean, the new general manager of the Beverly, who demoted her as "not manager material," Marchese writes. "I am done." There's been some controversy about Tarantino letting go of Michael Torgan, who took over the day-to-day running of the theater when his father Sherman died in 2007, as well as Tarantino's insistence on showing films in 35 or 16 mm only. "I want the New Beverly to be a bastion for 35 millimeter films," he told the La Weekly. "I want it to stand for something. When you see a...
- 10/15/2014
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino is now in control at the New Beverly Cinema. After having been closed for a month, the venerable L.A. theater reopened Wednesday with Tarantino in charge of programming. Tarantino, who has owned the theater for seven years but had only intermittently made suggestions to the schedule, confirmed last month in La Weekly that he has now taken over for previous manager Michael Torgan. The theater, known for doubleheaders of older films, marked its rebirth by showing the late Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Blume in Love. Read more Quentin Tarantino to Film 'Hateful Eight'
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- 10/2/2014
- by Ryan Gajewski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Quentin Tarantino officially begins his tenure as film programmer of the New Beverly Cinema tonight when he re-opens the La institution after a monthlong remodeling. On the docket is a Paul Mazursky double feature of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Blume In Love, which kicks off three months of Tarantino-programmed films, as Deadline reported last month. Many of those films, screened on film either on 16mm or 35mm, will come from Tarantino’s personal vaults. Tonight’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice print is the best known print out there, according to Tarantino, who was gifted with the newly struck print after his Django Unchained opening.
After floating the beloved New Beverly business for years, Tarantino took over as manager and programmer last month from owner Michael Torgan with a renewed commitment to screening movies only on film. New features and upgrades inside the historic theater include the addition of mechanical masking,...
After floating the beloved New Beverly business for years, Tarantino took over as manager and programmer last month from owner Michael Torgan with a renewed commitment to screening movies only on film. New features and upgrades inside the historic theater include the addition of mechanical masking,...
- 10/1/2014
- by Jen Yamato
- Deadline
As if he isn't busy enough gearing up to shoot "The Hateful Eight," last month Quentin Tarantino put another job on his CV, taking over the gig of head programmer at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. Tarantino saved the long-running cinematic institution years ago from redevelopment, but this time around he felt compelled to act when the theater upgraded to digital projection. This was too much for Tarantino, who took over the head programmer job from Michael Torgan and vowed to only screen movies from prints, and saw to it that in addition to the already installed 35mm projection system, a 16mm projector was added. After being closed for the month of September, the New Beverly will reopen in October, and the first slate of Tarantino approved movies has been unveiled. And as you might have guessed, it's eclectic. While exact titles are still coming together, Variety reveals...
- 9/29/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
For those who live in the Los Angeles are or have visited the home of Hollywood, we hope you've been lucky enough to pay a visit to the New Beverly Cinema. The niche revival house has a documentary looking at the unique theater's efforts to keep celluloid alive, showing prints of old movies all the time, traditionally in the form of double features. The programming for the theater has been in the hands of Michael Torgan, son of the theater's founder Sherman Torgan, but now La Weekly has confirmed that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who actually owns the theater, is now taking over as full-time programmer. That's awesome! When asked why he's now taking on this responsibility, he says: "I want the New Beverly to be a bastion for 35 millimeter films. I want it to stand for something. When you see a film on the New Beverly calendar, you don’t...
- 9/5/2014
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
Quentin Tarantino is not only a rabid defender of 35 mm as the best medium for shooting films, but for projecting them in theaters as well. While Christopher Nolan and others agree that celluloid cameras are still superior to the highest HD, most industry professionals understand that the story is over for 35 mm projection in this country. It's done. But not for Tarantino's New Beverly. The landlord of the venerable Los Angeles repertory cinema is so anti-digital (see Cannes press conference) that he pulled out the digital projector installed without his knowledge alongside the 35 mm projectors last June by Michael Torgan, who's been running New Beverly's day-to-day theater operations since his father Sherman died in 2007. When Tarantino found out about the digital projector, he decided it had to go-- and so it will. And now Tarantino tells La Weekly that he will not only ditch digital, but he will also assume Torgan's role as Head.
- 9/5/2014
- by Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Say what you like him about him, but there's no doubt that Quentin Tarantino takes in film the way the rest of take oxygen. The writer/director has an encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema that trumps just about anyone in the world, that shines through both in his work and in everything he does and says. Back in 2007, Tarantino put his money where his mouth was, and saved Los Angeles' historic revival theater the New Beverly Cinema from redevelopment by buying the building and maintaining the theater, which suspended usual programming for an extended run of "Django Unchained" two years ago. Now Tarantino is getting even more involved. The director has given an interview to La Weekly in which he confirms that "after seven years as owner, I wanted to make it mine," and that Michael Torgan, son of the theater's founder Sherman, is stepping back as programmer, and that Tarantino is,...
- 9/5/2014
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
Quentin Tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema bought a digital projector shortly before the “Kill Bill” director decried digital projection as “the death of cinema” at the Cannes Film Festival. Michael Torgan, who operates the L.A. repertory theater, told The Wrap that the New Beverly purchased the projector early last month in order to have greater access to current movies. Tarantino is the landlord for the New Beverly and does not handle its day to day operations. See photos: Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, and John Travolta Celebrate ‘Pulp Fiction's 20th With Beachside Screening “I was running into situations when...
- 6/25/2014
- by Eric Czuleger
- The Wrap
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