The Conical Glass: 2006's Best Thing

Monday, January 01, 2007

2006's Best Thing

I was fed up with the Bay Area -- the crowds, the traffic, the high cost of living, the noise, even the fog. I was also fed up with my building, which I will never be able to afford to leave as long as I continue to live here; it has all the charm of a concrete slab and the floor plan seems to have been drawn up by someone high on magic mushrooms. I needed an intervention. Send me a sign that I should stay here!

And then it came, toward the end of the year, a glorious, brightly lit beacon rising high above a strip of auto body repair shops, fast food emporia and payday loan outlets. It was... a movie theater.

But not just any movie theater. No, it was a restored art-deco two-screen movie theater. And so many things about it were perfect:

The admission charge is only $6, with two-for-one admission on Wednesdays.

If the listing says a movie is going to start at 9 PM, it starts at 9 PM on the dot. No ads, ever, and any previews or cartoons (yes, they show cartoons) are screened before the advertised movie time.

Sick of noisy teens disrupting your moviegoing experience? Monday through Friday, only patrons over the age of 21 are admitted.

The snack bar serves alcohol.

And food -- fabulous popcorn with real butter, but also healthy stuff like hummus, garden burgers and veggies & dip.

They show today's big hits, but they also screen older movies, from cult classics like "The Princess Bride" and "The Big Lebowski" to golden oldies from the 1930s and 40s.

If your response is, why would anyone pay $6 to go see an old movie they could Netflix and watch at home?, then you and I have deep and profound philosophical differences that can never be bridged. If, on the other hand, you think it sounds fab, join me at the Cerrito Speakeasy Theater. I went there six times in December, most recently last night to see "After the Thin Man." The place was packed, and it did my heart good to see a wildly diverse crowd enjoying a 1936 classic. For all the disadvantages of living here, I'm pretty sure that only a densely populated metropolitan area could support a place like the Cerrito.

The Cerrito is owned by the same folks behind Oakland's Parkway, which has been a favorite of Joe's and mine for years now. The Parkway has the nuisance factor of being far enough away from where we live that it's entirely possible you could get stuck in traffic while en route. The Cerrito, however, is conveniently close, and while during the planning stages some people in the community groused about the theater's lack of a parking lot, there are tons of spaces in the area, which until now has been pretty much a dead zone in the evenings.

This is what the Cerrito looked like back in the olden days; it was used as storage space by a furniture store for decades, and the fact that it was restored so beautifully is a movie lover's dream come true. Here are some photos of the renovated Cerrito. It's a real jewel. Every Monday, I anxiously await the e-mail with the following week's schedule; so far, the programming is crowd-pleasing without being predictable. For instance, their Christmas weekend selection was "The Bishop's Wife," a 1947 Cary Grant holiday charmer. In January, they're doing a Hitchcock mini-fest.

The Cerrito is the sort of community-focused, locally-owned business that people should support wholeheartedly. I know I will continue to do so as often as possible in '07 and beyond.

posted by 125records @ 10:51 PM

3 Comments:

At 5:26 AM, Josh said…

Aw, man, now I'm jealous. Someone needs to send this Web site to the guy who runs the Senator ... he just keeps endlessly whining before each show about how we need to tell all our friends to come and that we need to hate the Charles for stealing all the movies he wants to see.
At 10:59 AM, 125records said…

I spent many an hour at the Historic Senator Theater in my youth. Do they still play that recording before the screenings: "Now that video has brought the movies into our homes, we must remind you of our ONE HOUSE RULE: No talking!" or does he do it live now? Seriously, dude, start selling pitchers of beer at the concession stand and you'll be making $$$ in no time!
At 5:15 PM, 2fs said…

Like Josh, I am jealous. Like Josh, I have a beard.

Uh, that's about it.