Greetings from Portland, the city that apparently has more movie theater seats per capita than any other city in the country. My man Jason and I are out here visiting my brother, Bill, who is a huge film lover--6-foot-4, to be exact (so sorry for the bad pun). For people who are into great community film-watching experiences, this seems to be the place to live. Not only are there theaters all over the city keeping up with the first-run pace of much larger cities like New York and LA, there are several alternative theater experiences to take advantage of. Personally, I'm much more excited about these than I am about catching a new film now that will hit my local art theater back home two or three months later. I can wait. What I can't do back home is drink a good microbrew while I'm enjoying an affordable, well-chosen film in a community setting (ie: not my livingroom).
Take the Laurelhurst Theater. This movie theater landmark since 1923 shows second runs and classics on four screens for $3 a show, while you fill up on pizza and wash it down with microbrews. The McMenamin brothers have also made a huge name for themselves in Portland, by refurbishing historic buildings, showing $3 films, and serving exceptionally delicious pub grub and their own micro-brewed beers. They have four theater locations, including one in an old elementary school. And get this: The Academy Theater not only has "real" food, beer and wine, it also offers inexpensive babysitting on site! A complete date at an affordable price--what a novel concept!
So all of us not from Portland (or Austin or the few other places in the country that have their theater groove on) are thinking "Of course! That's the way to see films! That's the way to keep historic theaters as theaters, and to repurpose other great old buildings into film destinations rather than driving film-lovers all out to the suburbs!" If we're all thinking that, where are the McMenamins of Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and Louisville? When will every other place jump on the train? Are the rest of us really not cool enough to support these kinds of theaters in small and mid-sized cities across the map?
