Wednesday, October 11, 2006

leave the theater alone!

Man, everbody is using the Tower records closing as a chance to bust Tower theater's chops left and right. The womens bathroom is normal, is the mens bathroom still totally nasty? I don't think people understand that the Tower was not built to be a picture palace like the Crest or the Alhambra (remember!). And why does this editorial specifically target the theater but lets Robbie Fong off scott free? That idea about a Powells book store is stupid. Sac can barely supposrt the used bookstores we have! We're not the worlds most literate city if they haven't noticed.

25 comments:

fft said...

The Bee usually lets Fong be.

And in as much as I enjoy going to Tower and have loved that theater for a good 15 years, Reading Entertainment is as shitty as Regal, Century, etc etc. They don't give a fuck about movies, good presentation, etc etc. So fuck em.

beckler said...

Yes, Reading is not such a great company, but what is your specific beef? The theater definitely has a negative aura around it and people complain but when I go there to see a movie I have a totally normal movie viewing experience, so I don't know what you're referring to. I'm actually asking, not being snippy.

Anonymous said...

I don't get it- I love the Tower Theater. Sure, they don't get every movie I want to see, but most of the times i see a movie in Sac, it's at Tower. Sure, it could be better, but what couldn't?

Anonymous said...

The sound system is a subpar, but on the other hand the employees are always very friendly, particularly compared to the Crest, where all the ticket takers all seem to be college students doing homework. It's like, "Could you glance up from that textbook for a sec and sell me a ticket?"

beckler said...

It will always suffer in comparison with the Crest, but like I said, it's not a gleaming palace. Neither is my apartment but I don't write editorials in the Bee about needing to clean the toilet. Stupid Crest, ruining everyones self esteem.

fft said...

sound is bad, films often have not only run of the mill scratches, but also emulsion scratches, which are inexcusable. from what i gather, it's projection by committee over there, which is typically is a bad idea. matting aspect ratio is usually wrong. sometimes they forget to put dolby on and i have to go tell em. films are often not framed correctly (fault of the bad matting and bad trailer reel--gotta pay attention). i spent 4 years in a projectionist booth so i'm a bit of a stickler on these things. house lights too bright, often not dimmed. killing movies before the credits are over. starting movies early. starting movies late. hey, i love tower and the dudes that work there, but the place is a major bummer, moviegoing-wise. and i'm just one of those asshole customers, so ...

Anonymous said...

Well, it's not the crest.. I'll give you that. But, i've never really noticed the other flaws. not saying they're not there, but I guess i'm not a corksniffer.

As long as it's actual film projected on a real screen, I'm pretty happy.

Anonymous said...

What the fuck? We lose an independent local bookstore and record store and the solution is to bring in a chain from Oregon? Don't get me wrong, the big Powell's books is a thing of beauty, but the smaller stores have as much personality as a Barnes and Noble.

Uh, fuck you, editorialist!

Love,
Beers Books

Anonymous said...

Tower Books was a corporate chain store, not an independent.

Anonymous said...

They always considered themselves "independent" and were biggest money earner and supporter of NCIBA, the Northern California Independent Bookseller's Association. I DO know what I am talking about. It always made us other truely independent booksellers shake our head in wonder, but basically without Tower's huge contribution, the NCIBA couldn't exist and they did a lot for smaller bookstores.

g bomb

Anonymous said...

a whole 15% independent. :)

i love all this hate on my neighborhood. i love how K street was overhauled with city funding yet can't muster any foot traffic on a Sunday - yet Broadway's streets are littered with all different types of people each day of the week.

regardless of Tower Theatre's condition or Reading's motives - the theater will be the one left standing after they soon bulldoze the record, book and video stores.

Anonymous said...

I always found the men's room to be the BEST part about Tower Theatre. The movies are fine, but that restroom....mmmmmmmm, yeah!

Anonymous said...

They should bulldoze the video, books, and record stores and put up a high rise loft complex that will soon shut down Willie's late night burger business through noise complaints.

Anonymous said...

I think they should completely bulldoze Sacramento & build one massive loft & everyone could live in it. And then in a few years the city would try to convince us that that loft sucks & they should knock it down & buld a new loft with an arena in it. Just my 2 cents.

miller

Stephen Glass said...

This young man has an excellent idea.

beckler said...

The best thing they ever did for that neighborhood was build a freeway through it, cutting it off from the rest of the city and giving it a survivor/island style mentality, complete with its own fashion and slanguage (for example: in Towerland slang the bathroom is called the shrimp shack). My proposal: build a freeway perpendicular to the freeway that is there, thereby dividing it into quadrants, so that each can be colonized by a different tribe. My quadrant is going to be bike messenger land and will also include Willys and the Willys guy (with his willies chili fries)

Anonymous said...

> I think they should completely
> bulldoze Sacramento & build one
> massive loft & everyone could live in
> it. And then in a few years the city
> would try to convince us that that
> loft sucks & they should knock it
> down & buld a new loft with an arena
> in it. Just my 2 cents.
>
> miller

Dang you Loft punks. What is to become of the True Love element?

Anonymous said...

The eye-watering stench where I'd go to the cafe has been reduced to a "not so good" stink.

Sacramento needs to finance a local person (Beckler?) into buying the theatre. The New York City based international corporation doesn't know or care what Tower is to Sacramento. They could make the tower part itself into a loft.

Anonymous said...

I heard the Tower mensroom stinks so much cause they let Armenians take shits there. We banned Armos from our theatres years ago which is a shame as they are good looking and quite charming.

Anonymous said...

here is an article on japanese ekiben...sanma from wakayama...

http://www.japangets.com/wakayama.html

the tower was always cool kinda like the greasy spoon of theaters..unless ya wanna count the madison theater $1.50 place which is now a chevys..

Sacto is goin total logan`s run..Are they gonna build a carousel??? take care---jay

beckler said...

as of today, these inflammatory statements made by talat pasha are illegal in france. way to go france!

http://www.a1plus.am/en/?page=issue&iid=41904

werenotdeep said...

I love Tower Theater because it generates about a third of my income right now, dispite that it's one of the most boring jobs I've ever had, while simultaneously degrading (though hardly in the top three most degrading). I guess you could say I have a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Tower Theater.

It also allows me to hang out with DP a lot more, and that alone says volumes.

I actually like the idea of there being a Powells books in Sacramento, but that's one of those wishful thinking kinds of things. It wouldn't float on what little money I'd spend there alone, that's for sure.

Miller's idea is pretty great, too. I mean, nothing cool about sacramento really has much of a chance of being preserved any more. It's all rotting and dieing on the vine. Sure, the actual brick-and-mortar Tower Theater building will always be there, sure, but it will slowly and steadily decline and eventually close and in 50 years, it'll be a big empty movie theater.

I'm going to make this statement as somebody who admittedly only reads the first few paragraphs of articles, but I can't beleive that the bankruptcy auction was won by a company who wanted to liquidate everything.

Sure, FYE isn't that great, but FYE is a lot better than the other floundering, crippled retailers that it bought out like the Wherehouse and Sam Goody. Why would you want to instantly put thousands of people out of work?

Anyway, I think the tower records buildings should be made into all-male strip clubs.

beckler said...

thunder from down under! thunder from down under!

J. Griff wrote a grumpy column about Tower in this weeks SN&R. He sounds like Andy Rooney.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A227323

Anonymous said...

What the fuck is wrong with this board!!? All these comments on the "Tower District" (Whatever the fuck that is) and no one even mentions the words NObro and SObro. That's North of Broadway and South of Broadway. Don't let the City Council hear that - the loft space will come.

Skipper said...
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