Movie review

I was scrolling through the local news last week when an item of interest crossed my browser page. At the onset of the pandemic last year, one of the first theatres to close in our region was the Tivoli over in the University City Loop area of St. Louis. After the Fabulous Fox and our own Wildey Theatre, this is of the last great movie palaces that St. Louis offers. It was originally built in 1924, but the current iteration is a thing of beauty reopened by Joe Edwards after a $2 million renovation in the mid-90s. I fell in love with it during my first visit, as best I can remember, in 2000 to see Christopher Nolan’s monumental picture “Memento”. It was one of my first great forays beyond my own neighborhood multiplex and reminded me of what the grandiosity of early cinema once was for Americans. Other than having seen “An Affair to Remember” at the Fox, this is the most romantic venue in which I’ve screened a movie. I’ve gone back many, many times over the years. They have a beautiful marquee with a majestic sign that sits to your left as you prepare to turn off of Skinker onto Delmar; look the other direction and you’ll see The Pageant mimicking the same style a block up to the right. Parking isn’t always convenient. The snacks are a little pretentious. But this Art Deco three-screen is the place for me. Or it was.

The larger part of my attraction to the Tivoli is that this is one of the few sites around that routinely shows only independent cinema, documentary films, and small-platform releases. This is the “art house” of our metroplex because of the lease operated by Landmark Theatres to run the place. That is their business model, after all. These types of movie have mass appeal; it’s just not to the same masses that appeals something like “The Avengers” or its franchise brethren. I fear this may all be about to change, however. Landmark has withdrawn from its lease and Edwards has recently sold the Tivoli to One Family Church, a tenant that has been holding Sunday services in the main auditorium for years. The press release indicates they plan to resume showing movies in the Fall, but I have my doubts that a church’s agenda will extend much beyond a slate of boom-sale titles or family brands. I wish them well and will be first in line to check out the new digs, but can it ever be the same?

Fortunately for all of us, we still have Landmark doing business in town. They have long run the charming mall theatre at Plaza Frontenac. I will cop to frequently making the hour drive to see movies that quite literally never have engagements anywhere else in our market. The concept of an ‘exclusive engagement’ was of paramount to the success of exhibition back in the days when theatres were run by the same studios that made the movies. The issue is a minor marketing move now, but one that still manages to land when buzzy, word-of-mouth motion pictures pack a punch.

This no-frills walk-up next to Neiman Marcus is where I saw most of this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best International Feature (where I suspect “Quo Vadis, Aida?” will bring a win for Bosnia and Herzegovina) and short subject (the animated “If Anything Happens I Love You” had the whole house in tears). I’m going again tonight because we are in the throes of Oscar Quest 2020, are we not? I’ve seen forty of the fifty-six nominees and this is my last column before Oscar Night on April 25th. Take a peek for yourself. A lot of these wonderful films can still be found in theatres or on Netflix quite easily. I watched two on YouTube last week and found another on a new streamer called Pluto TV (it was free and looks promising). My vote is cast for “Nomadland” in the Best Picture race. I hope you love it, too.