Local News
Independent cinemas in Los Angeles are finding their audience – NBC Los Angeles
On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.
The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalon braved Los Angeles’ infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino’s historic theater.
This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.
“I always say it feels like church,” he said. “When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I can’t really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we’re all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid.”
Streaming — and a pandemic — have radically transformed cinema consumption, but Villalon is part of a growing number of mostly younger people contributing to a renaissance of LA’s independent theater scene. The city’s enduring, if diminished, role as a mecca of the film industry still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation after the pandemic.
A revival in the City of Angels
Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, salvaged amid looming closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain kind of theater experience in Los Angeles.
Kate Markham, the managing director at Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.
“They know their audiences or their potential audiences, and they are curating programs and an environment for them to have an exceptional experience,” she wrote in an email.
Tarantino pioneered the trend when he purchased the New Beverly in 2007. After Netflix bought and restored the nearby Egyptian Theater, which first opened in 1922 as a silent movie house, the company reopened it to the public in November in partnership with the nonprofit American Cinematheque. It’s now a bustling hub, regularly welcoming A-list celebrities premiering their projects as well as film buffs willing to stick around for hourslong marathons, like a recent screening of four Paul Thomas Anderson movies.
Further east is Vidiots. Previously existing as a Santa Monica video store before it closed in 2017, Vidiots reopened across town five years later with the addition of a 271-seat theater, bar and new crop of devotees.
“It’s literally my favorite place to be outside of my own snuggly home,” said filmmaker and actor Mark Duplass, a financial backer of Vidiots alongside dozens of other high-profile names, including Aubrey Plaza and Lily Collins.
What’s bringing people in?
What draws people to independent theaters can vary, from older programming to elevated food-and-drink offerings to lower prices. But many agree, above all, there is a communal aspect chains can’t match.
“The bigger places obviously have premium formats and stuff like that. But I think there’s a lot less communal connection” said Dr. Michael Hook, who attended a matinee of “Seven Samurai” at Vidiots with a Children’s Hospital Los Angeles co-worker. “You’re not just milling around with people who also have selected to go to a three-hour-long 1950s Japanese movie.”
Although the pandemic was a blow from which the box office has yet to recover, it also served as a pruning that made the movie theater landscape more sustainable for the streaming era, according to Janice O’Bryan, Comscore’s senior vice president.
“COVID weeded out some of the stuff that needed to close anyway,” O’Bryan said of the more than 500 theaters that closed nationwide. “I think that it made everything healthier.”
The theaters that survived have found niches, sometimes purposefully eschewing the chains’ 4DX, reclining seats and dining services.
“For the types of films that we show, I definitely don’t want waiters walking around, bringing stuff to people and hearing the scraping of cutlery on plates,” laughed Greg Laemmle, who co-runs the Laemmle Theaters, a fixture of independent cinema in Los Angeles for nearly a century.
But Laemmle acknowledges the importance of giving audiences options beyond popcorn and soda, especially as an additional revenue source. Embracing food and drinks can sometimes turn the theater into a unique destination.
“When I normally go to a movie theater, I show up two minutes before the movie starts,” Duplass said. “I go to Vidiots like 45 minutes before the movie starts so I can get my chilled Junior Mints, I can have a drink at the bar, see some people. I go and walk around the video store.”
In February, more than 30 filmmakers — including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan — acquired Westwood’s Village Theater in an effort to preserve it. Also coming to the red-carpet premiere favorite? A restaurant, bar and gallery.
Not without challenges
Like the rest of the country, LA movie theaters have had their share of pandemic-inflicted challenges — some exacerbated by last summer’s strikes — including fewer movies to show.
And not all theaters have found their Tarantino or Reitman. The iconic Cinerama Dome’s closure was a blow to the city’s cinephiles. Though owned and operated by the ArcLight Cinemas chain when it closed in April 2021, the Dome was a kind of singularity in Hollywood, a regular premiere spot memorialized in film and a symbol of the city’s place in the industry.
Its fate remains in limbo, with reported delays to the targeting reopening date, despite parent company Decurion Corporation, who couldn’t be reached for comment, being granted a liquor license for the multiplex in July 2022.
The venues that have been preserved often have done so through some form of benefaction or aid, like the $16 billion federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which Laemmle used during the pandemic. He said the funds were a needed bandage in June 2021. But a full recovery has been slow.
“It provided some some stability. How much remains to be seen,” he said. “The waters are still muddy.”
Only in Hollywood?
In some ways, thanks to the city’s history, culture and surfeit of theaters, this renaissance is most apparent in Los Angeles, admits Bryan Braunlich, the executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners Cinema Foundation.
Tarantino, who declined to be interviewed, is less likely to purchase a dying revival house in Peoria, Illinois. But, Braunlich argued, that doesn’t mean this trend can’t have an impact there.
“Hollywood and filmmakers are saying, ‘Hey, movie theaters matter,’” he said. “There are amazing independent theater owners that are thriving across the country. And I think they get a boost of confidence of like, ‘Yes, this is a great business to be in. This is a great business to invest in. And we’re not alone as film nerds doing this.’”
As Duplass reflected on his own introduction to cinema growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, he recalled a trip to Vidiots to see “Raising Arizona” with his parents.
“I realized that I was the same age now that they were then when we first saw it in the movie theater together. And I got to hold my dad’s hand as we cried in that last scene,” he said. “We shared that movie, but we shared the passing of time in our favorite church, which is the movie theater.”
Local News
Replica image of second-most visited Virgin Mary visits SoCal – NBC Los Angeles
The replica image of the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos will visit several parishes in Southern California from Friday through Nov. 3.
The welcoming ceremony will be held at St. Joseph’s Church in La Puente at 6 p.m. and will beled by Fr. Luis Ramiro Martinez, who accompanies the image from the Diocese of San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico, said Miguel Gonzalez, coordinator in California of the Diocese of San Juan de Los Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico.
The image of the virgin will be at St. Joseph’s Church until Oct. 6. A farewell mass will be held with Mariachi music that evening.
The image of the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos receives almost 6 million visitors each year, making it the second most visited image in Mexico after the image of the Virgin of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Here is the list of churches where devotees can see the replica image of the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos:
- Oct. 4-6: San Jose Church, 550 N. Glendora Ave. La Puente, California 91744
- Oct. 7-8: Santa Marianna de Paredes Parish, 7930 Passons Blvd Pico Rivera, California 90660
- Oct. 15-16: Guadalupe Church, 4018 Hammel St. Los Angeles, California 90063
- Oct. 24-28: Rosario Church, 14815 S. Paramount Blvd, Paramount, California 90723
- Oct. 29-30: Talpa Church, 2914 E 4th St. Los Angeles, California 90033
- Oct. 31-Nov. 3: Guadalupe Church, 427 N. Oak St. Santa Paula, California 93060
According to the Diocese of San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico, the veneration of the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos began in 1623, with the miracle of a young girl, a member of a family of acrobats, was recorded. The young girl, along with her parents, was traveling to Guadalajara when she suffered a fatal accident during a performance. The girl tragically fell from a trapeze and died. An Indigenous woman, moved by the family’s grief, asked for an image of the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos to be brought to her, and when it was placed on her body, the girl was revived.
It is believed that after the incident, many heard about the miracle, and the figure has since led millions of faithful to visit the Basilica-Cathedral of the Diocese of San Juan de Los Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico where the original image lives.
Local News
Doctor in connection with Matthew Perry’s death to plead guilty – NBC Los Angeles
One of two doctors charged in the investigation of the death of Matthew Perry is expected to plead guilty Wednesday in a federal court in Los Angeles to conspiring to distribute the surgical anesthetic ketamine.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 54, of San Diego, signed a plea agreement with prosecutors in August and would be the third person to plead guilty in the aftermath of the “Friends” star’s fatal overdose last year.
Prosecutors offered lesser charges to Chavez and two others in exchange for their cooperation as they go after two targets they deem more responsible for the overdose death: another doctor and an alleged dealer that they say was known as “ketamine queen” of Los Angeles.
Chavez is free on bond after turning over his passport and surrendering his medical license, among other conditions.
His lawyer Matthew Binninger said after Chavez’s first court appearance on Aug. 30 that he is “incredibly remorseful” and is “trying to do everything in his power to right the wrong that happened here.”
Also working with federal prosecutors are Perry’s assistant, who admitted to helping him obtain and inject ketamine, and a Perry acquaintance, who admitted to acting as a drug messenger and middleman.
The three are helping prosecutors in their prosecution of Dr. Salvador Plasencia, charged with illegally selling ketamine to Perry in the month before his death, and Jasveen Sangha, a woman who authorities say sold the actor the lethal dose of ketamine. Both have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Chavez admitted in his plea agreement that he obtained ketamine from his former clinic and from a wholesale distributor where he submitted a fraudulent prescription.
After a guilty plea, he could get up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced.
Perry was found dead by his assistant on Oct. 28. The medical examiner ruled ketamine was the primary cause of death. The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor in a legal but off-label treatment for depression that has become increasingly common.
Perry began seeking more ketamine than his doctor would give him. About a month before the actor’s death, he found Plasencia, who in turn asked Chavez to obtain the drug for him.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texted Chavez. The two met up the same day in Costa Mesa, halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and exchanged at least four vials of ketamine.
After selling the drugs to Perry for $4,500, Plasencia asked Chavez if he could keep supplying them so they could become Perry’s “go-to.”
Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on “Friends,” when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC’s megahit sitcom.
Five people have been charged for various offenses contributing to Matthew Perry’s ketamine death. Though Matthew’s personal assistant has already plead guilty to a relatively minor federal charge after administering the final fatal dose, could the state seek even more serious punishment?
Local News
What the East and Gulf coast port strikes mean for the Port of LA – NBC Los Angeles
Dock workers, nearly 45,000 of them from as far north as Maine to as far south as Texas, have dropped their hardhats for a hard stance as they begin walking the picket line.
But the strikes haven’t had any direct impact on the West Coast, including the Port of LA — at least, not yet.
Ports in California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and British Columbia are unionized under the “International Longshore and Warehouse Union” instead, or ILWU. The ILWU isn’t expected to hold a similar stoppage. It ratified its most recent six-year contract last year, which garnered 75% overall approval from workers.
The potential long term effects on the West Coast are still ambiguous. In an interview with CNBC Tuesday morning, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said several importers have “fractionally shifted” some of their allocations to the twin ports of LA, busiest container port in North America, and Long Beach.
Seroka said the ports are prepared if the strike forces a diversion of shipments from the East and Gulf coast ports to Southern California.
“The underlying US economy remains strong,” Seroka said on CNBC. “These purchase orders that go in from retailers and manufacturers typically start off the process 90 to 100 days before cargo makes its way here to the West Coast. Those numbers continue to be strong.
“On the ground, for about a year and a half now, folks have been a little bit worried about protracted labor negotiations, and have told me they fractionally shipped some of their allocations over the past months here to Los Angeles and Long Beach.”
Seroka also said Southern California ports are currently operating at 80-percent effective capacity and that they “still have room to grow.” There are no backlogs, he said.
CNBC reported the areas most affected by the strike stand to include auto parts, apparel, home furnishings, and sporting goods.
NBCLA has reached out to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for more details.
According to NBC News, the work stoppage is expected to cost the U.S. economy between several hundred million, and $4.5 billion per day.
About $34 billion in cargo is currently en route to East Coast ports. Just a one-day strike could create nearly a week of congestion. If the strike reaches two weeks, congestion could extend as far as 2025, deeply affecting the upcoming holiday season.
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