TCL Chinese Theatre

I have a feeling they might be getting Night At The Museum 2 since Arclight is getting Terminator which opens the same week.

Arclight Hollywood has advance tix on sale for Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Night At The Museum 2, and Terminator Salvation. They are getting all the major May releases except Wolverine. The Pixar movie UP will play at the El Capitan of course. This really sucks.

All the Trek movies played at Graumans. All the Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones movies played at Graumans, but Episode III, Dark Knight, and Crystal Skull wound up at the Dome. Harry Potter 6 will probably wind up at the Dome even though all the other Potter movies played at Graumans.

Here is a circa 1964 photo from the USC archive:
http://tinyurl.com/c4ec8p

advance tickets are on sale for Wolverine.

Here’s a 1983 photo of the Chinese:

View link

I went to the Chinese to see Fast & Furious (both the opening weekend Thursday midnight and Saturday night shows).

The biggest mistake Mann seems to be making with this theater (other than the bookings, obviously) is that they really seem to be going out of their way to make this theater a tourist trap. Unlike the Dome or the Village, where you really have to make an effort to go to those theaters, the Chinese grabs people off the street with nothing better to do. For the Thursday midnight, that wasn’t a problem because only people who really wanted to see the movie were on Hollywood Blvd at that time. The Saturday show was another story entirely with families and yapping teens and crying babies all over the place! Just a really horrible experience. The majesty and the experience of the Chinese is essentially wasted on these people who would be just as happy in a 100 seat AMC auditorium.

After spending so much time with the Arclight and the Dome, the Chinese is really starting to become a disappointment. Mann should be spending more time trying to improve the overall experience for people who make a point to go to the Chinese and less time worrying about pulling people in from the courtyard who are going to see a movie there once and then never come back. The tourists come and go, but the movie-lovers are what has kept that theater successful for decades.

Sadly, it’s a shadow of how mighty it once was. I wish Mann would just get out of the movie business already and let someone else (preferably Pacific) put some muscle behind it.

Here is a postcard, perhaps late twenties or early thirties:
http://tinyurl.com/cvna7r

Are Mann Theatres attempting to kill off this famous theatre? The “B” grade bookings of late would seem to indicate the end is near. Do Mann Theatres no longer have any importance with major studios? Would not be surprised to see a policy of Z-grade double features programmed soon in an attempt to justify closure.

Street Fighter is on its 3rd week at the Chinese when most any other theatre has dumped it. Will it do a 4th? Really, if they cannot get good bookings they should show a classic (2001? Lawrence of Arabia?) or plan a week long festival (Classic SciFi? Star Trek I-VI) in the interim to make good use of the theatre that might actually bring in an audience.

Grauman’s Chinese continues to spiral down. I’ve been wanting to go see a film there but they continue to get crappy bookings. I thought maybe with all the March releases they would have something I could go see. But EVERYTHING seems to be going to Arclight. Even next week with DUPLICITY, I LOVE YOU MAN and the crappy type of Chi film the Chinese has been getting KNOWING are all opening at Arclight. Are they keeping STREET FIGHTER for another week? Nobody wanted to see it opening weekend. They must be running the film with empty audiences at this point. Mann is a mess, they need let someone else book this theatre. It is a landmark theatre that is turning into a dumping ground for mediocore films. It is very sad.

Check the first photo, far left.

I would gladly go to Grauman’s more if they showed movies I wanted to see. Ditching the Screenvision preshow would also help too.