The theater that Tarantino now owns is called "The New Beverly Cinema" (he kept the old name). It has long been a revival theater and almost always shows two different movies each day (a 'double feature' as we older folks call it). I saw the "Das Boot" Director's Cut version there last year and enjoyed the film very much, but I would have loved to have seen the uncut version on full theater screen much more.
I have also had a long time interest in Japanese films and Los Angeles once was probably the nation's best place to see Japanese films on a full size screen. There used to be three theaters affiliated with major Nippon studios here: Toho La Brea (Toho Studio), Shochiku Kokusai (Shochiku Studio), and the Linda Lea (Toei Studio). The Toho and the Shochiku presented mainly classic Japanese films by major directors, although the Toho would occasionally show movies considered to be less artful, 'Zatoichi', etc. The Linda Lea showed triple-features of purely popular films broken down as one 'chambara' (kind of like samurai meet western meets kabuki), one yakuza, and one more film, usually either a 'pink' (a softcore, R-rated type sex farce) film or an over-the-top violent action-thriller that was kind of like a live action manga comic book. These theaters are all gone now, victims of the home video boom in the eighties, but while they were around, I was able to see many, many of the great classic films as they were intended to be seen, on a full theater screen. My most vivid memory was seeing "Kwaidan" at the Kokusai. The theater manager came out before the showing to announce that due to a delivery error, the final sequence would not be shown. This was the famous 'Earless Hoichi' sequence featuring an amazing battle scene shot to mimic the artwork of Japanese block prints. Refunds were offered to those who did not want to see an incomplete film, but only a few people took up the offer. The film is made up of four separate ghost stories and when the third one was nearing its end, quite a few people started to leave the theater. I am one of those people who stays for the end of the credits. Instead of abruptly ending, the missing segment suddenly appeared on the screen. There was a wild rush of people from the back of the theater to reatke their seats and I could even hear some voice yelling to those who had already made it out the front door. The manager later told me the missing segment had made it to the theater just before the end of the third segment and he did not have the time to make an announcement. I felt sorry for those who took the refunds or who left early and were out of the theater out of earshot.
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