One of the most wonderful surprise moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had was on a brief trip to Los Angeles back in 2010. My last night there, a friend and I went to the New Beverly Cinema to see The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Being the revival-house enthusiast that I am, I wanted to check out the New Beverly before I left, as I'd heard it was La-La Land’s most revered spot to see revival films.
It was certainly a special night. How special, you ask? Peter Weller, Buckaroo Banzai himself, showed up before the movie to discuss making it and also drop anecdotes about working with brilliant weirdos Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Lloyd. It was a packed house, which my anxious, claustrophobic ass usually hates.
But my fears and worries soon subsided when I watched the movie (which the theater showed on pristine 35mm, by the way) and realized everyone in the audience was there to enjoy it the same way I wanted: No talkers. No texters. No dickheads who were only there because they got in for free. (My Hawaiian pal Gary refers to them as “passholes.”) I was having such a good time, I hated that I had to duck out early so I could catch my flight back home. If I lived in L.A., I would be seeing flicks at the New Beverly all the time.
The former porn theater is still around, keeping California-based cinephiles and film geeks happy. But there has been some backstage turmoil of late that makes me wonder if the joyful, communal feeling I experienced that night will be there again if I ever revisit.
In a nutshell: Filmmaker and New Beverly cheerleader Quentin Tarantino, who became the landlord when the original property owner was looking to shut the theater down a few years back, has taken control of the theater and its programming, vowing to only show films in 35mm. As admirable as Tarantino’s efforts have been to keep the film projector rolling in this place, the story goes he had to squeeze out theater owner Michael Torgan (who ran everything after his father, Sherman, passed in 2007) in order to do it. After passionate staffer Julia Marchese got her own walking papers — a move that's inspired much debate among regulars on various blogs — she recently wrote a lengthy blog post about how stifling and dictatorial the Bev is becoming under Tarantino’s reign.
The irony is that Marchese has made a documentary about the theater that now serves as a warning of what could be lost if the theater becomes a vanity project. It's called Out of Print, and it's available through a Vimeo link of at the end of her post. (“I was planning a big premiere at the New Beverly in January — on a 35mm print,” she wrote. “Obviously, that isn’t going to happen.”) Maintaining a savvy, impressive pace while splicing in movie clips, retro concession-stand trailers and other celluloid ephemera, the movie proves her to be a skilled documentarian.
Noted by fans among the Bev's clientele for her plucky spirit and continually changing hair color, Marchese amasses many credible talking heads for testimonials. Along with rounding up longtime employees and patrons to share their memories, she gets proud proclamations from a rogues’ gallery of filmmakers — genre legends (John Landis, Joe Dante), B-movie masters (Lloyd Kaufman, Fred Dekker), in-demand young guns (Edgar Wright, Rian Johnson) — who’ve either screened their movies there or curated a week of programming.
But Print isn’t out to be a swinging infomercial about a cinematic clubhouse. Halfway through, Marchese solemnly shifts gears as she and her interviewees preach not just the importance of 35mm film preservation, but how most revival houses all over the world — including The Belcourt right here in Nashville — rely upon film prints to stay in business.
Even though Print doesn’t make Tarantino out to be a villain — Marchese does give him props for saving the theater — it’s during these moments that the movie inadvertently reveals how egotistical his mission to become the savior of 35mm truly is. Judging from many of the interviews I’ve heard and read, Tarantino acts as though he’s the only one who gives a damn about keeping 35mm alive. (Never mind that Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson put their respective digital-crazy studios in check by filming their heavily anticipated upcoming movies on film.) As the well-done Out of Print shows, this party has been going on way before he showed up and decided to become the DJ.
