Sunday, March 14, 2021

Cinema Pandemic Paradiso

 


 

Queens Chronicle

A reopening is finally in view for Kew Gardens Cinemas.

Andrew Elgart, the theater’s head technician and son of its owner, Harvey Elgart, said when he was working on the marquee recently several people would ask if it was open.

“It felt good,” he said.

March 5 marked the first day theaters in the city could open, almost 12 months to the day they were closed.

The plan is for Kew Gardens Cinemas to open near the end of the month.

While many theaters are playing the same movies, such as “Tom and Jerry,” “Boogie” and “Chaos Walking,” Elgart said the six-screen theater may look to play some more critically acclaimed movies such as “Nomadland” starring Frances McDormand, and independent films.

Elgart also said playing some classic films is a possibility. Some theaters on Long Island, which reopened last October, have been showing old movies in addition to new releases.

Elgart said he wants to see how Williamsburg Cinemas — which his father owns along with Cobble Hill Cinemas — is received by moviegoers in terms of feedback he could take for Kew Gardens.

He’s hoping the vaccines will ease the concerns of seniors, who make up a lot of business for the theater.

“They might feel a little more comfortable coming and the younger people might be more bold in general,” Elgart said.

He said he upgraded the air filters to the improved MERV-13 system and that arm rests will be cleaned after screenings.

Schedules will be staggered, perhaps with 40 minutes between showtimes instead of 25 or 30.

Elgart said he will likely close off the waiting room in the theater lobby, which has old movie posters and magazine covers on the walls. “I’m sure people will be a little upset,” he said. “We don’t want people just standing around.”

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Donald of Jamaica,Queens is gone, reopen the movie theaters it was all a scam to remove Trump.

Anonymous said...

What is a movie these days $10 ?
This to sit with a bunch of assholes and watch multicultural people humping or killing each other on a screen.
It seems the same group of writers, producers, director, and actors are making most the movies. They have ruined almost every movie made in New York City.
One may as well pay watch Saturday Night Live, and NO Fggen thanks on that !

Do people really go to movie theaters these days ?

Anonymous said...

The Donald of Jamaica,Queens is gone, reopen the movie theaters it was all a scam to remove Trump.

Worldwide?

Harvey’s couch said...

I haven’t been to a movie in years. The people who make movies actually hate your guts.

Even harder to watch now since Harvey Weinstein. To distracting to think of the actress on screen blowing and sleeping with complete animals to get a part. Gross!!

With that said good luck to them.

Joe said...

>>To distracting to think of the actress ON screen blowing and sleeping with complete animals to get a part<<

Exactly, and its true, both the Men and women.
And its worse then that.
To even get a 5 word dishwasher part they actually check you out to see what kind of fundraisers, events you attended, your memberships, clubs, political affiliation and stuff. You need to have somebody or people on "the inside" to vouch for you, casting calls are just for pretend-show
And if you didn't attend gay day parade, that Clinton, Sanders or Obama event or whatever other flavor event, not a registered democrat FORGET IT!!
Its the dirtiest business on the planet, worse then politics.
Almost every director, executive and field producer is a Harvey Weinstein who haven't been caught or had the money to pay somebody off in exchange for a signature on a Confidentiality of Disclosure Agreement in a lawyers office .

Because Harvey Weinstein got handed a prison sentence EVERY prospective worker, actor, journalist, reporter, promoter is asked to consent to confidentiality agreement before they are even selected for the gig. This prevents them from disclosing private information about the actor's & producers but also included a long list of “offensive/inappropriate/underhanded/corrupt material” they may be exposed to in the development of films and other projects they agree to never disclose.
Now since Harvey Weinstein & Jeffrey Epstein, you have perhaps a 1000s more like them freaked out "Oh shit we can actually go to jail" protecting themselves by 100s more levels of legal barricade, disclosure agreement's and payments.
Weinstien got busted because women outside his "network umbrella" confidentiality agreement protections came forward.
I worked at NBC (now GE/COMCAST/NBC/UNIVERSAL)
I told them FU when they came at me with a non-disclosure agreement and left (got fired) the business because of all the dirty, leftist LBGT clubhouse, old men, perverts, photographers asking young female interns for dates and never ending PC bullshit. I couldn't take seeing the same shit anymore(and it was escalating rapidly) That was 10 years ago so just imagine how bad and ramped it is now in 2021
All garbage !!

-Joe

georgetheatheist said...

-Joe, always appreciate your inside take on what's really happening. Thanks.

On the movie theater cleansings: you mean to tell me some theater staffer is actually going to disinfect each and every armrest in the seating areas? With a sponge? A wipe? A shpritz from an aerosol can?

Anonymous said...

I'll have a Large Coca-Cola, a box of Dots and a COVID please.

Harvey's Couch said...

Thanks Joe, I didn't want to mention, and can't bare to think what these whore parents do/allow to happen to their children to make little Susie and Johhny famous.

Barf!!

Anonymous said...

In the past I've tried a number of times to go to Kew Gardens Cinemas. But I could never find parking in the area.

Joe said...

At Harveys Couch:
Many women deliberately do casting couch "night dinners" at these predators homes to get parts, these woman even encourage the new "young ones" to do so also.
One actress told me screwing pigs like Weinstein goes real quick, gives a sense of empowerment and guaranteed work.
She also receive a finders bonus if she "discovered" any a fresh young talent.
Its real bad because the older people in the industry actually encourage these casting dinners. The young newer talent looks up to them like "fans"

About 25 years ago I was on the Joe Franklyn show, I remember he (Joe Franklin) was bugging the chick singer in my band to "come over to dinner Friday evening". What was he 70 years old at the time? After the taping in some shit studio out in the Jersey swamps she came out of his office white as a ghost and shocked, I said: "What the hell happened" A:"He keeps asking me to come to his house for dinner" The episode did air because it was property of WOR-TV but needless to say we never played on that show again but .
The shits been going on forever in that industry, its just now the bad guys have more money & power to buy protection.


-Joe

Julie B. said...

The movie theater experience sucked when I dated my husband decades ago--don't see how it would have improved since then. Rude audience, filthy, expensive. People throwing food everywhere. Why would young people go with streaming platforms?

Anonymous said...

@Julie B. said... That's why most men today want a "Man Cave" !
Last time I went to a movie on a date was in the mid 1990's.
Never again, Drive-Ins are OK up in the Hudson Valley !

georgetheatheist said...

@Julie B

Great for a first or second date. For making out? Copping a feel?

georgetheatheist said...

Plus Kew Garden Cinema is an art house not the usual multiplex monstrosity.

Joe said...

Why would young people go.

@Julie B and George
Penn Gellette asked the same question in Las Vegas where I setup a sound system for a DJ and some dance event, rave whatever they call it.
Penn: "What the F_ is this, I don't understand it"
My reply was: "I think the DJ is just a noise and a lighting director.
The people on the floor seem to be making themselves the entertainers, look at all the people recording on cellphones. All trying to out do each other, the costumes, people stripping, anything for attention. This crap seemed to have started when with social media went video and high speed internet came around"

I think it may be the same case in movie theaters, brats doing every possible thing they can to outdo each other. They don't give a shit about the actual movie or watching the screen.
Does that make sense?

Millennials are all fucking retards IMO, something has gone seriously with them.
I will no longer attend a concert unless I have working crew credentials to hang on stage in the wings, usually behind the monitor board or FOH stack. That or up in a catwalk. No friggan way standing in the crowd with these assholes let alone 90 minutes confined to a chair with them.
Id end up in jail.
PS The last movie I paid to see was Spaceballs at the Squire in Great Neck, blurry dim screen, dirty, sticky floor, lousy sound. That was it for me.
It must suck even more with these new MP4 projectors where the theater owners are constantly dimming them out to save $$ on the $2500 lamp modules that only last 800 or so hours.

-Joe

JQ LLC said...

@Joe

You need to get a medium or substack account to document your wild times working for and under the suppressive political environment at Saturday Night Live and NBC.

What really sticks out to me from your stories is how these enlightened "liberal" elitists wouldn't stand for Nora Dunn when she refused to perform with Dice Clay hosting and SNL dropped her like a bag of dirt.

JQ LLC said...

@GTA re: arthouse

That's actually true. Of all the theatres I've went to, Kew was the most aesthetically pleasing and puts the reputed arthouse theatres like the Angelika in Soho to shame. (Angelika is basically no different than an AMC cineplex)

Joe said...

At JQ LLC

They weren't going renew Nora's contract and planned to ax her at the season wrap party. The writers and other cast members like Franken and Miller hated her and Jan Hooks. I think they wanted to bring in Jon Stewart who was a friend of everybody in.
Nora and Jan were nice people (and talented) they would come up with their own material but never allowed to use it. (handed her roles as prostitutes, lesbian psychiatrists and other tortures to get her to resign early)
Nora was great, she wasn't having any of the bullshit from all those ultra liberal Canadian assholes and weirdo's writing and producing that piece of shit.
Nora, Jan Hooks and Jimmy Brewer were friends in that den of snakes. Colin also, but they axed Colin (and he didn't give a shit, was glad to get released) after he did standup a benefit at Roseland Ballroom for a police officer. I was in one of the bands along with Eddie Money who's brother Dan set it up. And yea--they got rid of Jimmy too. Fond memory: Dinner time 6PM IATSE curfew break Prince came to hang out with us in the paint area with the crews, he was all pissed off about some stupid shit they tried to make him do, sat up on a ladder "fuck these people" "This Peacock lost its feathers David Sarnoff and The Banana Splits are rolling in the grave"
Prince in person off camera was a really nice normal person wanting no part of these assholes either. I think we were all eating Pizza & Chinese food out of tins which was the ONLY takeout you can get walking distance in the Rockefeller center area

-Joe

georgetheatheist said...

Only on Queens Crap - @ -Joe, the Earl of Enlightenment! Thanks for all this inside info!

Anonymous said...

>What really sticks out to me from your stories is how these enlightened "liberal" elitists wouldn't stand for Nora Dunn when she refused to perform with Dice Clay hosting and SNL dropped her like a bag of dirt.

Really wish the media would do that with modern day cancel culture attempts. Don't want to be on the same show as someone because you dislike their politics or work? Great, scram.

Anonymous said...

❝Hollywood has ALWAYS been used to deceive the American people, not to educate them; it’s been used to degrade them, never to uplift them.❞ ——Henry Makow

❝I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me.❞ ——Dylan Thomas

❝We cannot use the word 'hope' if we refuse to face the truth. ALL hope rooted in self-delusion is fantasy.❞ ——Chris Hedges

❝Life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. When they're gone, you can't tell where——or what the devil you did with them.❞ ——Ray Collins (Uncle Jack Amberson, talking to George Minafer, played by Tim Holt)

❝My importance to the world is relatively small. On the other hand, my importance to myself is tremendous. I am ALL I have to work with, to play with, to suffer and enjoy. It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but of my own. I do not intend to let myself down more than I can possibly help, and I find that the fewer illusions that I have about myself, or the world around me, the better company I am for myself.❞ ——Noël Coward

Anonymous said...

❝Marlon Brando said in an interview for Esquire Magazine that the movies degraded and humiliated every group on the planet——especially the Blacks, Indians and Chinese,' ... but never their own——the Jews.' I personally think that 'What Makes Sammy Run?' by Budd Schulbeg is a great novel that simply tells the story of a cut-throat, go getter, and you don't have to be Sammy Glick to be one of those, but it is interesting that no studio ever made a film of it. Although, it was a Broadway musical with Steve Lawrence, and a TV drama, both marvelously done.❞ ——Anonymous

❝Hollywood has ALWAYS been used to deceive the American people, NOT to educate them; it’s been used to degrade them, never to uplift them.❞ ——Henry Makow

❝If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed——and, LOVING the people who are doing the oppressing.❞ ——Malcolm X

❝Keep people as slaves and pets LONG enough——and, eventually they will SEE their kidnappers as their saviors.❞ ——Anonymous

Anonymous said...

❝Marlon Brando said in an interview for Esquire Magazine that the movies degraded and humiliated every group on the planet——especially the Blacks, Indians and Chinese,' ... but never their own——the Jews.' I personally think that 'What Makes Sammy Run?' by Budd Schulbeg is a great novel that simply tells the story of a cut-throat, go getter, and you don't have to be Sammy Glick to be one of those, but it is interesting that no studio ever made a film of it. Although, it was a Broadway musical with Steve Lawrence, and a TV drama, both marvelously done.❞ ——Anonymous

❝Hollywood has ALWAYS been used to deceive the American people, NOT to educate them; it’s been used to degrade them, never to uplift them.❞ ——Henry Makow

❝If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed——and, LOVING the people who are doing the oppressing.❞ ——Malcolm X

❝Keep people as slaves and pets LONG enough——and, eventually they will SEE their kidnappers as their saviors.❞ ——Anonymous