Happy Birthday New Beverly

Apologies in advance for this LA-centric post, but in the big picture, what’s good for cinema in one place is good for cinema everywhere. LA’s New Beverly Cinema is a part of the continuum of movie-going goodness and by making LA a better place, in its own small way it makes the world itself a better place. Let me hear you say “Amen.”

Anyway, what with all the blogging and focusing on new movies in the last year, I haven’t been doing enough to give the New Beverly its due. It’s too bad because the theater has been on quite a roll lately, at least since Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse Festival last year. The untimely passing of owner Sherman Torgan last July was tragic, but it’s wonderful to see the theater thriving the way it has been. It’s cool to hang out at the New Beverly again.

I mention all of this for a couple of reason. For one, Joe Dante’s Dante’s Inferno Festival just wrapped up last week with a rare screening of Joe’s famed The Movie Orgy which I regrettably had to miss, but you can read some nice write-ups of the movie and of the evening at Dennis Cozzalio’s Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Christian Divine’s Oh My Blog, and Jeff McMahon’s When The Dead Walk the Earth. It was apparently quite something to see.

Second, and most importantly, the New Beverly turns 30 in May and the May 2008 calendar is a show-for-show recreation of the theater’s first month in operation. The only film missing is Logan’s Run, for which a suitable print is not available. Westworld is showing in its place May 4 - 6.

Besides all the great pre-1978 films, there will be the usual compliment of weekend midnight shows and another entry in the Grindhouse Film Fest on May 27. As always, except for the midnight shows, one $7 ticket gets you in to both movies. You can barely buy a latte in LA for $7. Not to mention the fact that the concessions are the cheapest in town.

This post marks my renewed dedication to the New Beverly. I hope to visit more regularly in the coming year and I hope to write about my experiences in these pages. If you live in LA or if you find yourself passing through town, I hope you’ll join me.

Here’s the full May schedule:

Apr 30, May 1

• The Silent Partner (1978)
• The Candy Snatchers (1974)

May 2, 3

• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• Last Tango in Paris (1972)

May 4-6

• Soylent Green (1973)
• Westworld (1973)

May 7, 8

• Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
• Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

May 9, 10

• Forbidden Planet (1956)
• The Time Machine (1960)

May 11, 12

• Where’s Poppa? (1970)
• A Thousand Clowns (1965)

May 13

• Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
• Tender Flesh (1974)

May 14, 15

• Bananas (1971)
• Sleeper (1973)

May 16, 17

• Performance (1970)
• O Lucky Man! (1973)

May 18-20

• Chinatown (1974)
• Day of the Locust (1975)

May 21, 22

• Psycho (1960)
• Frenzy (1972)

May 23, 24

• Next Stop Greenwich Village (1976)
• Harry and Tonto (1974)

May 25, 26

• Cabaret (1972)
• Sweet Charity (1969)

May 27

• The Grindhouse Film Fest

May 28, 29

• Bedazzled (1967)
• The Ruling Class (1972)

Midnight Shows:

Fridays:

• May 2 - The Multinauts (2008)
• May 9, 16, 23, 30 - Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Saturdays

• May 3 - Burnt Offerings (1976)
• May 10 - Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
• May 17 - Midnight Grind: From the Attic
• May 24 - The Creature from Black Lake (1976)

Filed under: Miscellaneous

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