LOS ANGELES -- On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976's “All the President’s Men” and 1999's “Dick.” But Villalon braved Los Angeles' infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino's historic theater.This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.“I always say it feels like church,” he said.“When I go to AMC, I just sit there.
And I can’t really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we’re all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid.”Streaming — and a pandemic — have radically transformed cinema consumption, but Villalon is part of a growing number of mostly younger people contributing to a renaissance of LA’s independent theater scene.The city’s enduring, if diminished, role as a mecca of the film industry still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation after the pandemic.
Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, salvaged amid looming closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry.Experts see a pattern of success for a certain kind of theater experience in Los Angeles.Kate Markham, the managing director at Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.
“They know their audiences or their potential audiences, and they are curating programs and an environment for them to have an exceptional experience,” she wrote in an email.Tarantino pioneered the trend when he purchased the New Beverly in 2007.After Netflix bought and restored the nearby Egyptian Theater, which first opened in 1...