I have so many movies on my “must-see” list yet I decided to go see The Reader tonight because it was showing at the Paris Theater. I’ve passed this theater so many times, always wondering what it’s all about, but never had physically entered its doors until tonight. I may have been disappointed by the film, but I was not let down by the theater - it was beautiful and felt like a place that has seen a lot of metropolitan change. A New York Times article last August described it as such: “The Paris is what people of a certain age once referred to as “a classy joint.” There is no on-screen advertising or any of the other packaged sludge that most theaters inflict on their clientele. The staff is renowned for its courtesy. Before the curtains part, the audience is treated to thematically appropriate music selected by the projectionist, Marty Knopf. Jeffrey Jacobs, the film buyer and managing director of the theater, said in an interview that the raison d’être of the Paris was “to continue in the tradition of the great moviegoing experience of a different day in New York.” The last sentence in the above statement really rang true. I wouldn’t say I was expecting the same ol’ movie-going experience, but I was surprised by zero movie previews, lack of advertising, or kids kicking my seat. As soon as I sat down, I immediately could tell that all the intellectual sophisticates filling the seats were in on the theater’s secret long before I entered the picture.
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I have so many movies on my “must-see” list yet I decided to go see The Reader tonight because it was showing at the Paris Theater. I’ve passed this theater so many times, always wondering what it’s all about, but never had physically entered its doors until tonight. I may have been disappointed by the film, but I was not let down by the theater - it was beautiful and felt like a place that has seen a lot of metropolitan change.

A New York Times article last August described it as such:

“The Paris is what people of a certain age once referred to as “a classy joint.” There is no on-screen advertising or any of the other packaged sludge that most theaters inflict on their clientele. The staff is renowned for its courtesy. Before the curtains part, the audience is treated to thematically appropriate music selected by the projectionist, Marty Knopf. Jeffrey Jacobs, the film buyer and managing director of the theater, said in an interview that the raison d’être of the Paris was “to continue in the tradition of the great moviegoing experience of a different day in New York.”

The last sentence in the above statement really rang true. I wouldn’t say I was expecting the same ol’ movie-going experience, but I was surprised by zero movie previews, lack of advertising, or kids kicking my seat. As soon as I sat down, I immediately could tell that all the intellectual sophisticates filling the seats were in on the theater’s secret long before I entered the picture.