Local cinephile David Enos offers a remembrance:
In 2007 I saw Blade Runner here for the first time – I’d never been interested, it looked too boring when I was growing up. They had the re-release for a couple weeks. Anyway, a memorably good time. It was freezing cold outside, and during the movie it started raining loudly on the panels of the ceiling. [link]
Sad beans! Beasts of the Southern Wild opens there tomorrow; shall we? Here’s everything else that’s playing.
Also, let’s all go patronize the Roxie a bunch before they have to shutter too.
I can’t tell you how many “art” movies I watched there, over the years… I think the last was the Harvey Pekar movie in ’03. And then Netflix came along…
Bummer. When I used to commute on the California St. cable car I would see stuff there all the time.
I saw the Blade Runner “Final Cut” there in 2007 as well. Also a great film called “Mafioso” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056210/), which had just been released after being kept unreleased for 40+ years. Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Steamboy” as well, IIRC, and others too.
Lots of good memories in that place.
I saw Pulp Fiction at the Lumiere in 1994. and many other films there with friends over the years.
goodbye to still more of SF’s cool.
the town’s become Mallhattanized, soon to be Honk Kongified and I miss the old, cool town.
Thankfully, there’s Oakland.
I lived in the ‘hood mid 80′s…… drove by recently after at least a 7 year absence. They say change is good, but that Starbucks on the corner of California and Van Ness was certainly startling……..
The fakers will say we’re living in the halls of past glory. And so shall it be. A storied past is greater than a soulless future.
Lol, if the owners of Sam’s (that hole in the wall grungy Chinese food place) can remember me by my order 15 to 20 years after the fact……. I have to bring Misses Pito and the 10 year old to the old haunts…..
So, speaking of the old ‘hood, the Rose & Thistle….
sweet spot.
I worked there for a while in the early 2000′s. It was a pretty wild place to be in the early hours of the morning. We made a haunted movie theatre movie there, I’ll try to put it up sometime.
please do. my boyfriend lives nearby & I am very sad about this.
Sad… Not as sad as I was when Red Vic closed.
Still have the Roxie and Castro, for the time being.
I like the Balboa, too.
I love the Balboa. We go there at least once a month.
Don’t forget the 4 Star on Clement! Where else can you see a movie in a 30-seat theater with 2 other people?
The 4-Star lives in my memory because I saw Repo Man there in ’84, and the theater had a one sheet poster out front signed by Harry Dean Stanton, with a comment about, if memory serves, how great the actor who played Miller (Tracey Walter) is.
I saw the Japanese anime version of Metropolis here in the summer of 2001.
I was at that showing of bladerunner. It’s my standout memory of lumiere, too. It was the directors cut. It was a helluva loud storm outside and like watching a 4d movie when the rainy scenes came on screen.