A Theater by Quentin Tarantino
I wrote this two weeks ago and forgot to publish it, sorry
When my daughter doesn’t know the word for something (granola, a discarded doormat, a large decorative propane tank looming over a propane supplier we once drove by) she looks at my husband and I and asks, “helpwhatisthis?”
For years, I would ask myself a somewhat similar question when I drove by a certain stretch of Beverly Boulevard. There always seemed to be a long line of people with a certain “look” waiting for something. The “look” was that they were men. A lot of times when you see a long line of mostly men waiting for something in Los Angeles it has to do with sneakers, but the demographic of this particular crowd didn’t seem like the streetwear type (they had beards). Eventually I put two and two together (used Google Maps) and realized they were all waiting to get into movies at The New Beverly, a theater owned by Quentin Tarantino (interestingly, a beardless man).
The words “Quentin Tarantino” can inspire a range of emotions. For today’s purposes, I want to assure you that we are focusing on his contributions to preserving classical cinema and the movie-going experience, which I believe to be worthy causes in our increasingly isolated world. As recent events have proven, there are worse things wealthy men can do with their free time.
And so my husband (bearded) and I (un-bearded with an occasional chin hair) joined the line of people waiting to see cinema, on film, the way God and Quentin Tarantino intended.
We chose to go to this particular movie—film—more due to start time than subject matter. The start time was 6:30 PM, which meant we could go out to dinner and be home asleep by 10 PM. The subject matter was a man plotting an escape from a Nazi prison camp during World War II. This was based on the director Robert Bresson’s own experience escaping from a Nazi prison camp during World War II. The fact that it was called A Man Escaped kind of gives away the ending, but in a good way. Sometimes you want to know you’re not going to leave a movie completely broken.
The outside of the movie theater has a nice old-looking marquee, so you kind of think the inside is going to match, but I would say the inside looks more like a “cinema” you might find in an art museum or on a college campus. The floor is carpet, the seats are blue, the screen is up front.
Probably the best thing about the theater is that concessions are normal prices and normal sizes. It’s not somewhere you can get a full pizza or nacho bites, but you can get a nice little thing of popcorn and a root beer for under $100, which we did.
They also sell t-shirts that said “A film by Quentin Tarantino.” I did not buy one.
There were plenty of bearded men but there were also a smattering of non-bearded men there, too. A bearded man introduced the film which was being shown on film. He told us talking and cell phone use were prohibited and policed. They played a Bugs Bunny cartoon and some old trailers for other old movies—films—and then the movie—film—began.
Most of the film takes place in the protagonist’s prison cell as he narrates dismantling the sparse contents of said cell and refashioning them into tools of escape (spoon into chisel, light fixture into hooks, sheets into rope). It was interior, intense, and meticulously lit which meant that someone to our right fell asleep and started audibly snoring halfway through. Since he wasn’t using a cell phone and he wasn’t talking he was allowed to keep snoring, on and off, the entire time.
By 9:30 PM the protagonist was a man escaped and my husband was a man escaped and I was a woman escaped because the movie—film—was over. It was good, which was a nice bonus to the fact it started at 6:30 PM. Ultimately, eating reasonably priced popcorn while watching a film in a dark theater is one of life’s great pleasures, especially when you think about the alternatives (being placed in a prison camp) which are increasingly happening to really people all around you every single day.
Film at 11.