Lou Bard Playhouse | |
 | |
 | |
| Address | 4473 Sunset Drive Los Angeles, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°05′54″N118°17′13″W / 34.0984°N 118.2869°W |
| Owner | Quentin Tarantino |
| Operator | Vintage Cinemas |
| Type | Egyptian |
| Capacity | 400 [1] |
| Construction | |
| Opened | October 9, 1923 |
| Reopened | 2023 |
| Architect | Lewis A. Smith [2] |
| Website | |
| www | |
Vista Theatre is a historic single-screen movie theater in Los Angeles, California, located in Los Feliz on the border with East Hollywood.
Vista Theatre opened on October 9, 1923, [3] as a single-screen theater. In addition to screening films, the theater also showed vaudeville acts on stage. [2] Originally known as Lou Bard Playhouse on opening day in 1923, the cinema played the film Tips starring Baby Peggy. [4] The original seating capacity in the auditorium held space for 838 seats. The owners later removed every other row to allow for increased legroom, reducing the number of seats to 400. [1]
It is one of the remaining historic structures from the 1920s, when Hollywood was first developed and began attracting residents to its new suburban homes from areas near downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles, which, at the time, were middle-class and wealthy areas of Los Angeles.
Until its refurbishment by Thomas Theaters in 1980, the theatre showed softcore pornography, then moved to hardcore porn and finally gay porn for 20 years. It also showed gay-oriented non-pornographic films, including the local premiere of The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). [5]
The theater is a local landmark. It was renovated to play new release movies, and retains its historic architecture. The theater's forecourt features cement handprints and footprints of notable film figures.
The Vista has drawn many famous actors and directors to attend, host, or sometimes surprise audiences at screenings of their films there. Anne Hathaway, Taika Waititi, [6] Lupita Nyong'o, [7] John Cho, [8] Zoë Kravitz, Chris Hemsworth, and Tessa Thompson have attended screenings of their films at the Vista since 2018.
In July 2021, director Quentin Tarantino revealed that he had purchased the theater. [9] Tarantino plans to operate a cafe and mini screen room that will offer beer and wine. [10]
The Vista is officially reopened on November 17, 2023. [11]
The "Walls of Babylon" scenes from D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance (1916) were filmed on the site before the theater was constructed, and the completed theater first appeared in the film The Crooked Web (1955). [12] The theater was a shooting location in 1980 for Charlie's Angels (season 4, episode 16). In 1989, the theater appeared in Christopher Guest's comedy, The Big Picture , where it was showing the incongruent double-feature of Tess and Hardly Working . The theater later appeared in the film True Romance (1993), as the place where Clarence and Alabama first meet. [13] The Vista also appears in the made-for-television film Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (2003).
The Vista is pictured on the cover of Suicidal Tendencies' album Lights...Camera...Revolution! (1990). [14] It also appears in the nighttime portions of the music video for Pharrell Williams's 2013 song "Happy", from the film Despicable Me 2 .
On December 15, 2021, the Vista appeared in a new official music video for George Harrison's 1970 song "My Sweet Lord", directed by Lance Bangs and created as part of the ongoing 50th anniversary campaign for Harrison's album All Things Must Pass (1970). [15]
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue including a pervasive use of profanity, and references to popular culture.
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre is a historic movie theater located on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Opened in 1922, it is an early example of a lavish movie palace and is noted as having been the site of the first-ever Hollywood film premiere. From 1998 until 2020, it was owned and operated by the American Cinematheque, a member-based cultural organization.
The Cinerama Dome is a movie theater located at 6360 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Designed to exhibit widescreen Cinerama films, it opened November 7, 1963. The original developer was William R. Forman, founder of Pacific Theatres. The Cinerama Dome continued as a leading first-run theater, most recently as part of the ArcLight Hollywood complex, until it closed temporarily in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California. The ArcLight chain closed permanently in April 2021, with the theater never having reopened. In June 2022, it was announced that there were plans to reopen it and the former ArcLight Hollywood under a new name, Cinerama Hollywood.
Video Archives was a video rental store located in Manhattan Beach, California, and later moved to Hermosa Beach, California, owned and managed by Lance Lawson and Rick Humbert. Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary and Daniel Snyder worked there before becoming successful in the film industry. The store was also frequented by screenwriters Josh Olson, Jeff Maguire, John Langley, and Danny Strong.
A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film-programming strategy dating back to the early 1920s which continuously showed films at cut-rate ticket prices that typically rose over the course of each day. This exhibition practice was markedly different from the era's more common practice of fewer shows per day and graduated pricing for different seating sections in large urban theatres, which were typically studio-owned.
El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.
Taika David Cohen, known professionally as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor and comedian. He is known for directing quirky comedy films and has expanded his career as a voice actor and producer on numerous projects. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Grammy Award, as well as two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.
ArcLight Cinemas was an American movie theater chain that operated from 2002 to 2021. It was owned by The Decurion Corporation, which was also the parent company of Pacific Theatres. The ArcLight chain opened in 2002 as a single theater, the ArcLight Hollywood in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and later expanded to eleven locations in California, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois.
The New Beverly Cinema is a historic movie theater located in Los Angeles, California. Housed in a building that dates back to the 1920s, it is one of the oldest revival houses in the region. Since 2007, it has been owned by the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
The Cinefamily was a non-profit cinematheque located in West Hollywood, California, at the historic Silent Movie Theatre. The Cinefamily's mission statement was to "reinvigorate the movie-going experience by fostering a spirit of community and a sense of discovery."
Thor: Ragnarok is a 2017 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Thor, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013), and is the 17th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Taika Waititi from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and the writing team of Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, and stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor alongside Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor must escape the alien planet Sakaar in time to save Asgard from Hela (Blanchett) and the impending Ragnarök.
The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern, as eight dubious strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War.
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a 2019 epic historical comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, and Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures, it is a co-production between the United States, United Kingdom, and China. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Set in 1969 Los Angeles, the film follows a fading actor and his stunt double as they navigate the rapidly changing film industry, with the looming threat of the Tate murders hanging overhead. It features "multiple storylines in a modern fairy tale tribute to the final moments of Hollywood's golden age."
Jojo Rabbit is a 2019 war comedy-drama film written and directed by Taika Waititi, adapted from Christine Leunens's 2008 book Caging Skies. Roman Griffin Davis portrays the title character, Johannes "Jojo" Betzler, a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member who finds out that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. He must then question his beliefs while dealing with the intervention of his imaginary friend, a fanciful version of Adolf Hitler with a comedic stance on the politics of the war. The film also stars Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, and Alfie Allen.
Thor: Love and Thunder is a 2022 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the character Thor. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and the 29th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Taika Waititi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor alongside Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Waititi, Russell Crowe, and Natalie Portman. In the film, Thor tries to find inner peace, but must return to action and recruit Valkyrie (Thompson), Korg (Waititi), and Jane Foster (Portman)—who is now the Mighty Thor—to stop Gorr the God Butcher (Bale) from eliminating all gods.
Next Goal Wins is a 2023 American sports comedy-drama film directed by Taika Waititi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Iain Morris. It is based on the 2014 documentary of the same name by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison about Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen's efforts to lead the American Samoa national football team, considered one of the weakest soccer teams in the world, to qualification for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The film stars Michael Fassbender as Rongen, alongside Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Will Arnett, and Elisabeth Moss.
Team Thor is a series of American direct-to-video mockumentary short films produced by Marvel Studios, featuring characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Initially released from 2016 to 2018, they were included as special features in the MCU films' Blu-ray and digital distribution releases and are the sixth through eighth Marvel One-Shot short films. The series consists of Team Thor, Team Thor: Part 2, and Team Darryl, all written and directed by Taika Waititi.
Star Trek 4 is the working title of an American science fiction film in development at Paramount Pictures based on the television series Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. It is intended to be the 15th feature film in the Star Trek film franchise and the 5th of the franchise's reboot films. There have been several different iterations of the film in development since 2015.
The 24th San Diego Film Critics Society Awards were announced on December 9, 2019.
Jonathan Hammond is an American film director, film editor, screenwriter and film producer known for Expect A Miracle: Finding Light in the Darkness of a Pandemic (2020), Isabel (2018), Kathy (2018) and We All Die Alone (2021). Hammond won the Copper Wing Award for short film directing at the Phoenix Film Festival and received multiple nominations for a Pacific Southwest Emmy Award at National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.