Reading, Watching, Listening 6/28/2024

A few words about landlords

Hello! This is my first Friday post. Each week I’ll use this space to, as the title suggests, talk about some of what I’ve been reading, watching and listening to beyond the other coverage you’ll find in this newsletter.

I’ll also use this space for announcing whatever business I’ve got, and for other small musings the week has left me with.

For example: some of you may know, but other not, that I have been out of a job for many months now, and despite some savings, that has over time been depleted, in part thanks to the lawsuit I’ve been forced to file in order to extract a reasonable severance from my inhuman, heartless former employer. As such, I have decided to turn on paid subscriptions. These first regular posts are free, but in the next few weeks I will begin locking certain posts behind a paywall. If you’d like to receive all my newsletter updates, or if you just want to help a struggling writer out, signing up for a paid subscription would be a massive help to me, and I would be eternally grateful. I’ve already gotten a few subs this week, and the kindness of those people brought tears to my eyes.

The Revue Cinema

First thing’s first. If you’re a movie fan in Toronto (and perhaps even if not), you may have heard that the wonderful Revue Cinema out on Roncesvalles in the city’s west end is being threatened with closure. The Globe and Mail and other media outlets have already covered the story since the Revue made the announcement on Thursday afternoon. One thing needs to be made clear up front: the theatre is not in financial trouble. In fact, as I wrote about last year in The Star, the single-screen cinema and Toronto’s oldest operating movie theatre is coming off its best year ever. This comes 17 years after wealthy businessman and real estate owner Danny Mullin bought the Revue in order to help save it, leasing it to the non-profit Revue Film Society. Over that period, the team at the theatre have done a remarkable job transforming it from just another flailing second-run theatre in the city, into one of the best rep houses in the world, with audiences coming regularly in droves to check out a wild, diverse slate of classics and cult films.

It seems, though, that despite loving all the positive media attention he got back in 2007 when he first bought the Revue, Mullin has long been at odds with the cinema’s operation. That finally came to a head this week, after some tense negotiations over the Film Society’s lease renewal. Despite agreeing to a staggering (and frankly criminal) 50% raise in rent, Mullin suddenly informed them that he would be taking over operations of the theatre effective Monday, July 1. Staff at the theatre, who have been its proud and loyal stewards, were told that they could stay on if they wanted to, but the entire volunteer board of the theatre must be removed. Not a single staff member would ever entertain such a proposition. At a screening last night, I heard tell of Mullin’s contractor, who had been helping with some repairs to 112-year-old building, and who in recent weeks had been snooping around, asking questions about how to run a theatre. Little did he seem to comprehend that running a theatre is no simple task, from programming, to basic operations, to projection. As The Globe’s article points out, the Film Society bought the digital projector on which most screenings must run. Mullin, who is 96-years-old, clearly has no idea what he’s doing.

Which gets us to one of the worst, most sickening problems plaguing the City of Toronto—and many other municipalities across North America, and perhaps the world—that is, the fact that so much of our public space is owned and controlled by mercurial rich landlords who have an almost sociopathic disregard for the communities their business and services are a part of. Toronto has seen this before in the cinema space. The glorious Royal Cinema in Little Italy, which prior to the pandemic had been steadily growing into the city’s rep cinema beating heart, re-opened when COVID began to subside, except not to regular film screening. The jerks who own and operate the theatre, apparently, have no interest in preserving the historic single-screen movie theatre as a movie theatre, instead leasing out the front lobby to a boutique bottle shop that sells $12 cans of sardines, and using the screening room for live events like comedy shows. Many nights of the week it is simple closed. That movies could easily be programmed during those open spaces in the schedule seems to offend the sensibilities of the owner, who evidently preferred to see a burgeoning community of movie fans cut down.

We see it with venues and other great cultural institutions in Toronto closing, only to be replaced by anonymous condos and cannabis stores. And that’s not even getting into the vandalism of the provincial government, who are set to destroy the legacy of the waterfront park Ontario Place and the corrupt closure of the iconic Ontario Science Centre. What will be left when all this is done? Why even live in the city anymore?

For the moment, the great hope for the Revue is that the immediate public shock, anger and media attention (there were TV crews at the theatre on Thursday, and one regular moviegoer zip tied himself to the front door in solidarity) will impress upon Mullin that for whatever else he’s accomplished in his life, if he does this, his entire public legacy will be trashed. He will forever be known as the sad, mean man who destroyed one of the very best things in Toronto, for no good reason. In that light, I would encourage you, especially if you are a Toronto resident or have been to the Revue, to sign this petition to save the theatre. Let’s make sure we don’t lose such a rare and treasured space to a fucking landlord.

Reading, Watching, Listening

Here, at the end of these Friday posts, I will recommend some of the things I’ve been reading, watching and listening to. Despite absolutely tearing through books while I was away in Thailand for several months earlier this year, I’ve once again lost my patience. Chalk it up to anxiety. So articles is what I’ve got for you.

• The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tours, by the wonderful Zach Schonfeld, is an incisive look at the problems of tour booking since the initial post-pandemic boom. We’re talking about acts like The Black Keys and JLo cancelling their tours, while others struggle to fill the large venues they’ve booked, and still others contend with bookings in venues that are simply too small. Zach expertly tells the story of how this all came to be.

• Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+, created by David E. Kelley, is the show that’s got me these days. Jake Gyllenhaal stars in the role previously played on the big screen by Harrison Ford, as a prosecutor who becomes the main suspect in the murder of his colleague and lover. The 1990 film is a solid legal thriller of its era, based on the novel by Scott Burrow. The TV series doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, either for the thriller or the prestige drama, but Kelley (of Ally McBeal, Boston Legal and Big Little Lies fame) is a smart TV writer. Here he’s delivered a very good process-driven drama with crackling dialogue delivered by some of the best actors around. I’m talking Ruth Negga, Renate Reinsve, Peter Sarsgaard, Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp. Watching Marvel and Camp act against each other is pretty much all you can ask for from a TV show. I’m also really taken with the performance of O-T Fagbenle, who plays another lawyer in DA’s office, and who I just saw in the Apple TV+ comedy Loot. He’s very good looking, first off, but he’s also got an incredibly compelling energy about him, and I would not be surprised if he starts to break out in the coming years. I’d like to see that.

• Chappell Roan. Sorry everyone, but I finally listened to Chappell Roan’s music. She’s the real deal. What are they calling her fans? Pink Ponies? Chappies? Consider me a member of the club.

Thanks everyone for reading, and once again, consider subscribing if you can.