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I’ve never really had that moment of “Oh shit, I’m turning into my father” that many people experience. That’s mostly because I’ve been a carbon copy of him since before I can remember.
He was obsessed with sports and taught me to read through the morning NHL box scores. He worked at the newspaper where I am now employed. And, most importantly for the purposes of this article, he loved movies.
The two quotes of his that I remember best are “a hotdog always tastes better with a baseball game in front of it” and “a movie theatre needs to smell like popcorn”.
It’s the latter one that I’m constantly reminded about when my friends talk about going to the latest action flick in La-Z-Boy recliner chairs for $45, complete with servers that are ready to waltz over with rare steak or a Monster Burger if you’re willing to throw caution (and your wallet) into the sun.
A recent visit to one of Cineplex’s theatres ran me about $9 for a small popcorn. And no, I didn’t pay the $1.50 for butter out of principle.
The modern theatre doesn’t exist for any other purpose than to gouge people for more money at every possible chance.
So as I sit here, lamenting the end of a theatre that used to not be like that, I’m sad.
This all needs more context. One summer in the early 2010s while home from university, I interned at a record label during the day and worked concession at Fifth Avenue Cinemas at night. It wasn’t particularly great work (sweeping theatres isn’t exactly glamorous), but there was fun to be had. A lot of that fun was interacting with my fellow employees, talking about the movies we saw with our free passes to the theatre, and chatting with the audience after they’d seen something that blew their minds, or pissed them off.
Back then (I know I sound old; I guess I am), ticket prices were around $10. A small popcorn was under $5. We did not charge for butter and yes, thank you, we knew to layer it, you did not have to ask us (many still did).
A few years after I stopped working there, Fifth Avenue’s umbrella company, Festival Cinemas, sold it and the one-screen Park Theatre on Cambie Street to Cineplex. (It also shuttered the beloved Ridge Theatre years earlier.)
Cineplex took over both and infused in them its corporate sameness that we’ve come to know and, like some of my friends, actually prefer.
And I know, the price of everything has gone up. There’s no real use in complaining about that. But in other places like Ottawa and Toronto there still exist real cinemas. Places where you can sit in the chairs that have the smell of popcorn embedded in their cushions and get taken away to a magical place. Sometimes they have couches that you can grab on a first-come, first-serve basis. They are places where the trailers mean trailers, not 15 minutes of ads before your movie starts.
Fifth Avenue and the Park Theatre kind of still have that memory entrenched in them. They aren’t the VIP AVX BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME that other theatres around town advertise with glee. They are stripped down and mostly absent of the robotic corporate persona of today’s times.
So I was sad when it was announced today that Cineplex will be closing what was left of the Park Theatre this week and taking out the 70mm projector that so impressively showcased films like the recent One Battle After Another.
I have many memories of going to that theatre—standing in a massive line for The Dark Knight at midnight, or seeing all of Quentin Tarantino’s latest works in 70mm at the man’s insistence, for instance.
Those theatres felt like more than just a money-grabbing opportunity; they felt like community hubs.
During the Festival Cinemas days there was a membership program and regulars who cared about the quality of the films and keeping the city’s institutions alive. There were bulletin boards with community happenings and newspaper clippings about the films. There was life. Now there’s mostly robotic nothingness attached to condos and Air Hockey that doesn’t work.
It’s unknown what will happen to the physical space the Park is set to depart. Figuratively, it will undoubtedly leave a massive hole in the city’s cultural fabric. It’s also a huge loss for Cambie Village.
The Park’s final day of operation will be October 26. I plan to stop by there before then to smell the popcorn.
