Plaza Theatre on the brink
15 Jan
We have it on good authority that the Plaza Theatre could be closing within the next week or so. I don’t know if it’s for sale or any further details, but it wouldn’t hurt to go see something there this week in case it’s your last chance for a while or ever.
I guess if we were real journalists we would call the owners to verify the facts and get a quote, but hearsay from someone’s old roommate with very close ties to the Plaza is good enough for this blog.
The Plaza is one of few remaining examples of late 1930s streamlined moderne design and the last theatre of its kind in Atlanta.
In other theatre news, Midtown Art Cinema allowed its wine and beer license to lapse, so for the time being you’ll have to go dry when you find out the hard way that Juno and The Orphanage aren’t as great as you were led to believe.
Tags: midtown art cinema, plaza theatre
This is very, very sad. I hate those small Cineplex boxes and the giant Galaxy theatres are impersonal, utterly devoid of charm. These old movie houses are treasures but because they tend to be situated downtown, straddling expensive real estate, developers are more than willing to knock them down and throw up (I like that term in this context) another block of condos for nouveau riche assholes.
Sad, sad, sad…
I spoke to the owner of the Plaza Theatre this afternoon:
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2008/01/15/plaza-theatre-not-closing-says-owner/
Well, that’s a relief. But I can’t see it hanging on much longer.
I can. Maybe. The Plaza was once about the only place folks in Virginia-Highland/Poncey-Highland would go because it was able to be walked to andthe Righteous Room was right next door. Believe it or not, I used to be in Atlanta nearly every weekend circa 2001 and I was at The Plaza each time. And I was always accompanied by regulars and residents.
I love The Plaza Theater. A good reason that places like this don’t make it or fold after several decades in business has to do, not with big-box cine-plexes or the fact that they run second-run movies but the fact that even the people who say they like charming, old theaters like The Plaza still have so much of the gotta-have-it-now mentality that they’ll drive to the suburbs to catch a movie on its opening weekend rather than simply wait to see it a month later and enjoying the atmosphere of The Plaza while at the same time supporting a culture they give lip service to.
Look, developers and yuppies are always going to exist. The only real way they win over the culture is by infecting our minds with their cynical, cold, keep-up-with-the-Jone’s attitude. We may say we love the old-timey, two screen theaters but unless we’re actually willing to spend our money there then it’s all just a load of crap.
We wouldn’t accept generic, poster-plant art no matter how convenient or cheap or up-to-date it was so why accept that we must be entertained at the very moment a piece of entertainment is released? We wouldn’t choose fast-food over a gourmet meal that took some time to make,would we? no, because we understand that to enjoy the latter requires some waiting and since we like the experience of the latter, as experience and not simply the act of being fed, we will gladly wait.
Ultimately, when places like this go out of business it’s often not the fault of competition but the fact that they were abandoned by their own customers in favor of convienience.
it’s often not the fault of competition but the fact that they were abandoned by their own customers in favor of convenience.
I just realized the above line might seem redundant. What I meant was that the “competition” may offer convenience but it cannot offer the same experience.
I also misspelled “convenience” in the above post. Sorry.
Well, I don’t know if it’s in danger of developers buying it out and I definitely don’t think developers are going to tear it down. I think it’s just not making a lot of money.
They do some really creative things over there that I support in theory – I’m happy to post about them here – but I probably won’t patronize (e.g. I’m not really a fan of gore movies, but I think their Splatter Cinema series is a great idea).
But for independent-type movies that don’t run for very long at Tara or Midtown Art, the Plaza is perfect because they’ll pick up those films and show them for a month or more. I think a lot of people are too lazy or busy to get around to catching a film with a two-week run at a larger arthouse theatre so they end up at the Plaza, and no one minds that.
a local filmmaker posted on the ATLANTAFILMS forum about Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” at the Plaza. I’m not a film buff, but know enough to know the name, and thought oh, this’ll be great, and will be packed with the atlanta film community.
nope.
maybe 10 people in there.
now, maybe they went to the one other screening that night, but i doubt it.
people are so apathetic.
i love generalizing!!!!!
AND blame-shifting!!!
I’d say there were about 15 people at Blade Runner last night.
What they really need at the Plaza is a blog so they can capitalize on (a) the free publicity that concerned blogs give them and (b) to let me know what’s playing.
I found about the 400 Blows screenings the afternoon they happened, and certainly would have made plans to be there if I weren’t already busy by that point.
Additionally, they could have a great Flickr account with things like the Rocky Horror Fridays, the Grease Sing Alongs, and when they have, say, the stars of Hot Fuzz come and talk about the film.
I’m not saying it’ll pay the bills right away, but it would certainly entice me to make a point of buying their popcorn more often.
They have a MySpace account that’s quite active:
http://myspace.com/plazaatlanta
but you’re right, a blog with lots of photos would make for an added boost. That theatre has a really rich history and they continue to keep it interesting with their screenings – so tell us about it, Plaza!
Okay, so I made you a Plaza Theatre blog.
I will work on it as much as possible!
Thanks for the input!
http://plazaatlanta.wordpress.com/
Johnny and Gayle of the Plaza have made a home for us huge horror and cult cinema fans out there. With MONTHLY horror screening events such as the Silver Scream Spook Show bringin us the classics like King Kong and Frankenstein with a real live SPOOKSHOW( no other city has something like this folks!!!) and Splatter Cinema bringing back the days of grindhouse and splatter films with classics like Blood Feast and the ORIGINAL Hills Have Eyes, along with art shows paired with retro cult cinema like Repo Man and She Devils on Wheels. Need i really go on? Grease SIng-a-longs…Elvis Shows….Buffy? Find me a theater anywhere else in Georgia that does stuff like this. True independent theater..NOT a corporate theater showing independent movies regulated by studios, but an independent theater showing whatever they want whenever they want and however they want! Come out to any of these events and expect to see a packed house of some of the greatest people in Atlanta. Like this tuesday for Splatter Cinema’s I DRINK YOUR BLOOD…a true grindhouse movie from 1971 shown in an original grindhouse style theater!!! Without the Plaza theater there would be hundreds of local film fans out there left homeless and empty without their cult cinema fix.