While the city’s attention was focused on the TTC fare hike, news broke that Cineplex will be shuttering the Carlton Cinemas (caution: French link) next month. Declining attendance and outdated design, it seems, were the primary factors in the decision. The multiplex is scheduled to close Dec. 6.
Like most Toronto movie buffs, I’ll miss the old shoebox. I’ve got a lot of fond memories of the Carlton I saw This Is Spinal Tap and Blue Velvet there on their original Canadian runs, back in the ’80s, and Hal Hartley’s The Unbelievable Truth, and dozens of others.
Back when the theatrical life of a feature film was measured in months instead of weeks, the Carlton was a self-contained art-house circuit, keeping foreign films and documentaries alive long after they’d ended their first-run engagements, and even completed the repertory cycle. (I seem to remember the Noam Chomsky doc Manufacturing Consent playing there for a year or more – though that might have been The Corporation.)
Through the ’90s and well into this decade, the Carlton was where unconventional movies went – not to die, but to linger. A title that played at the Bloor or the Kingsway for three nights would be in its tenth week at the Carlton sure, you paid a little more for the ticket, but you could catch a screening on your schedule.
I’m hesitant to let nostalgia take over completely, though. The Carlton has been sliding into decrepitude for years now, stuck with an antiquated design left over from the original Cineplex Odeon school of no-frills presentation. The seats aren’t built for comfort, the screens are small and the projectors aren’t in the best of health in the last three or four years, a press screening at the Carlton meant there was a 50-50 chance that the film would be out of frame, out of sync or on fire – and if you didn’t encounter projection problems, you’d leave with a crick in your back from those damned plastic seat backs.
The death knell for the Carlton was rung in the spring of 2008, when AMC opened its megaplex just down the road at Yonge and Dundas. Two dozen screens, all with comfortable seating and state-of-the-art digital projectors – meaning smaller distributors could slot their wares into the AMC without spending thousands of dollars on a 35mm print. The resolutely analog Carlton just wasn’t made for these times.
Once larger distributors like E1 made a habit of booking the AMC for boutique releases like Tell No One and Séraphine, it was inevitable that others would do it as well. That new Coen brothers movie? It’s at the AMC. And if you want to see it in 35mm, there’s always the Cumberland – or the Canada Square, another set of aging screens that Cineplex doesn’t quite know what to do with.
Perhaps the Carlton will end up as the next Rainbow Cinemas outlet that chain did a decent job converting the Promenade and Market Square into low-priced cinemas that show first-run features at second-run prices, and there’s certainly room for a cut-rate art house in this town. As long as they replace the damn seats.[rssbreak]
