A FAREWELL TO THE LANDMARK

The Landmark Theatre on Pico closed its doors yesterday.

That's sad.

Growing up in a city where there were several options to see independent cinema, listen to jazz, eat pizza and get a real bagel or Chinese food; the transition to Los Angeles back in 1991 remains painful. Yeah there's the weather and sports starts earlier here (don't have to watch Mets games starting at 10PM) but that's about it. Going to see independent films in Los Angeles required a bit of a schlep but it was generally worth it.

The Landmark and the Laemmle Town Center or Royal were our go to theatres. Before the pandemic we would go virtually every weekend and, in retirement, during the week where we were often surrounded by ten or so people. When the world changed, out movie consumption changed with it. We were not alone in this and now our favorite theatre is gone.

The Landmark had around 8 or 9 screens including one set up as a living room with couches. We saw "Lambert & Stamp" in that venue. It was awesome.

The attendants were friendly and helpful and the popcorn was fresh. They would have someone introduce every movie and the audience would always applaud. You came up the escalator (the theatre was on the second and third floors of a shopping mall) to the lively main area. We would often run into people we knew. For some reason we would see Henry Winkler there quite often. I would remind him that I sent him an entire season of 24 when he was working in Europe. It was a community.

What I especially liked about The Landmark was it was the first place you could see the newest independent films, often a week or so before they would spread to the Laemmles. It was always  a "be the first kid on your block" experience to see films like "Moonlight", "Lady Bird", "Whiplash" or "Phoenix" there.

My favorite story was going to see "La La Land" the night it opened (one of the few venues in LA). We were walking out in front of an elderly couple. The woman calmly asked her husband what he thought of the movie and he shouted in that cranky old man voice "I HATED IT". We all got a good laugh.

When we first started going to The Landmark there was a Barnes and Noble connected to it and that became part of the experience. That shut down as well as the Nordstroms which occupied the mall's east side of Westwood Ave. The whole area eventually became a ghost town.

And now it's gone. Maybe we should have made more of an effort to head down to Pico and support it (our local independent theatre also closed down recently) once it became a bit safer and we were triple vaxxed but we didn't. So I'll just say thank you to all who created a comfortable venue for independent films.

Hopefully others will fill the void.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE 2022 UPFRONTS

 CBS revealed their 22-23 schedule this morning. I would often wait for the CW announcement to pontificate but, really, why bother. I think David Zaslav and the WBD possé has declared themselves the fifth "network" so here are some thoughts and impressions.

I'M SO HAPPY I'M NO LONGER IN THE BUSINESS. That's it. Next.

WE HAVE TO BE NEAR THE END OF THE TRADITIONAL NETWORK UPFRONTS AND THE BEGINNING OF THE DISNEY+, PARAMOUNT+, PEACOCK, WARNER DISCOVERY, FOX/TUBI. The broadcast networks are part of a studio/multi-platform delivery eco-system. More ad money will be moving into that system and out of traditional broadcast. within a year or so WARNER DISCOVERY will be the model for these presentations.

AVOD will be the growth area and, as I predicted, NETFLIX will get into the advertising game. The beauty of streaming and advertising is, for now, you can't fast forward through the ads....for now.

SOMEONE IS GOING TO INVENT THE NEXT ITERATION OF "TV GUIDE" AND MAKE A FORTUNE. Right now figuring out what to watch and where to find it is a mess and most streamers don't make it easy for their own users. There's money there.

FBC NEEDS TO GO COLD TURKEY FROM THEIR FORMER STUDIO PARTNER. They dodged a bullet this year and, no matter what Charlie said, they held off announcing a schedule because two of their successful scripted shows were being held hostage. Those 20th Television people were assholes when we were all under one roof, I can only imagine the negotiations now that they are separate entities. Animation will be the next battleground.

YOU GOTTA LOVE CBS. Rudyard Kipling said it best:

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

They continue to use the playbook with the frayed yellow edges with a binder that is falling apart.....but it works. If the other networks acted this way there would have been far less erosion over the past decade.

I'm not going to bother evaluating every network's schedule but some observations:

Back in the day you were always looking for a "big move" by one of the networks. I was part of several of them. It was a way of announcing that these schedules matter and where shows go impacted the other networks. These moves were far less risky than portrayed by the press but they got the networks "ink". That has been replaced by "stability"...fewer new shows and fewer time period changes. There is little showmanship here and that has been the case for a while.

The "colonized nights" are the way to go because.....

......network TV is becoming like radio. You can turn it on at 8PM and stay for three hours and you get the same stuff. If there was one questionable (to me) scheduling move it was ABC separating it's colonized "The Rookie" show from the mothership but.....

.....don't expect networks to change their schedules based on the competitors schedules. Another lost art. Back in the day I would study the other skeds and if my spidey senses tingle I would suggest a tweak to my bosses who generally trusted me.

Heroes, heroes, heroes and healers. Cops, Firefighters, EMT, FBI, Doctors, Prosecutors. You know what won't work? ALASKA.

Sci-fi pretty much gone from the network schedules. This increases the chances of success. You have LA BREA returning from last year but that was starting to fade which is common for the genre. QUANTUM LEAP is IP and high concept but much closer to TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL and HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN....the feel good anthology.

ANOTHER WAVE OF THE VIRUS AND ALL THIS WILL TURN TO SHIT REAL FAST.

Good luck to everyone involved and it's gonna be real interesting to see where the money goes, what measures are being used and how guarantees are handled.