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San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Kimchi, burrito bowls, KFC: People love sneaking food into movie theaters. Here's why you should stop
Bottles of wine. Chipotle burrito bowls. Entire buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Bay Area movie theater owners and managers have some wild stories about things patrons have snuck into cinemas — whether it's because of seemingly high prices, the thrill of breaking the rules or just someone's twisted and very specific desire to eat a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme while watching 'Sinners.' 'I'll catch them with drinks or snacks, and I'm like, 'Really?'' Buck says. 'If you bring your own bowl to our theater, it costs $4 to fill it with popcorn. And you can bring a really big bowl.' Chronicle restaurant critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan recently wrote about the strange trend of people bringing outside food into restaurants — a masterful exploration of the social contract with a side of egg salad. It got me thinking about my personal red line: Never bring outside food into an independent movie theater. My hatred of outside food in the theater solidified during my 18 years as a Chronicle movie critic, when I would often go to advance screenings, filled by people who won radio contests. As if the free tickets weren't enough, many brought their own full dinners. (I'll never forget the woman who pulled out a Ziploc bag full of kimchi, and as the lights went down, started eating it with her fingers.) The concession stand prices can seem to justify the crime. The AMC Metreon in San Francisco sells a large popcorn for $11.79. Red Vines are $6.99, more than triple the cost of an identical box an escalator ride away at Target. (Independent theaters often have better deals, like the Cameo's bring-your-own-bowl $4 popcorn special. The Grand Lake Theater's popcorn prices range from $5 to $7, with real butter.) Truth be told, I hauled a Matson cargo ship worth of candy into theaters as a child, and in college wore a trenchcoat in summer weather so I could smuggle burritos for me and two friends into 'Days of Thunder' at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo. Let he who is free of Skittles in his pockets cast the first stone … And yet as a journalist, I've written too many stories about historic Bay Area theaters going full 'The Last Picture Show' and closing forever. Others seek non-profit models, GoFundMe campaigns and personal debt to stay afloat. If you love movies this should feel personal. And when it feels personal, paying $6.50 for a diet soda should feel less like robbery and more like a carbonated civic act. My first call is to Allen Michaan, who owns the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and has been managing theaters since Aug. 16, 1972, when he took over the Rialto in Berkeley. 'The food subsidizes the operations of the theater,' Michaan begins, before giving a lesson in cinema economics. Theaters give between 50% and 65% of ticket sales back to the studio, with the blockbuster films that fill theaters all summer usually on the higher end of that range. And some studio films require a minimum length in theaters. If they bomb, theater owners are stuck with near-empty rooms. 'The remainder (of ticket revenue) is not enough to cover the operations of the theater,' Michaan said. 'We absolutely rely on the food sales to get us into the black.' For Cameo-owner Cathy Buck, being in the center of Wine Country has meant Wine Country problems. 'Before we had our beer and wine license, we used to have full wine bottles all the time in the theater,' she said. Michaan's darkest years just passed. For decades, a KFC was across the alley from his theater. 'We used to have people try to sneak in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was always smelly and a mess,' he said. 'Thankfully the chicken place isn't next to the Grand Lake any more. Now it's a Starbucks.' When considering outside food, I place the corporate multiplexes in a different category. What you do there is between you and your god. But everyone I've met who runs an indie movie theater is hustling, and no one is getting rich. Michaan lost money on the Grand Lake for years — I wrote about it in 2010 — subsidizing the theater with his successful auction and antiques fair businesses. If there's an owner who is using those $6 boxes of Junior Mints to fund a stable of race horses, I haven't met her yet. However, one recent trend is combatting the outside food urges: better movie theater menus. The Alameda Theatre near my home partners with the adjacent Cinema Grill to offer movie-themed food and drink specials that align with what's playing. (Currently serving: 'The Human Torch,' a Fireball/Rumchata drink for the new 'Fantastic Four' movie.) The Balboa and 4-Star in San Francisco, both run by Cinema SF, have better beer selections than some local bars. The New Mission in San Francisco and New Parkway in Oakland have particularly robust menus; the Parkway's Peruvian tacos with slow-roasted pork and a pineapple-cabbage slaw are the best thing I've consumed in a movie theater. Buck offers her foodie clientele all-local fare, including partnerships with wineries, two different chocolatiers and two companies providing gelato. Her plans for the new 'Downton Abbey' movie out next month are a galaxy away from the Dune popcorn bucket. 'We're serving bubbles, English breakfast tea, both hot and cold, two kinds of tea sandwiches and two kinds of scones,' Buck said. 'We only have five seats left.' And though theater owners would prefer you hit the concession stand, they also say they're not aggressive about enforcing the outside food policy. 'We're not a police state about it,' Michaan said. In fact his biggest outside food problem, decades ago at a theater in Menlo Park, came from a manager who took the policy too strictly, at one point interrogating a couple with a small child. 'She made them pour out the formula in the baby's bottle, because it was outside food,' Michaan said. 'And I fired her! I mean, it's possible to take these things too far.'
Los Angeles Times
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Anora' season once again in full swing
Would you pay a trillion dollars for California? Isn't that what a home in Santa Monica goes for these days? I'm Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope's Friday newsletter. Anyone know where I can get a good Danish? Upstairs at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Sean Baker is talking shop with Ivan Rothberg as the veteran projectionist threads the fifth reel of 'Anora,' Baker's Oscar-nominated crowd-pleaser that won top honors from the directors and producers guilds last weekend. Looking out the booth's window onto the sold-out theater's screen, we see that Igor (Yura Borisov) has just handed a red scarf to Ani (Mikey Madison) to buffer the frigid night air, so we have some time before Ani's journey ends. We head to a tiny office around the corner where Baker plops down next to his wife and producing partner, Samantha Quan, and fellow producer Alex Coco. We're surrounded by shelves stacked with boxes of Red Vines, Kit Kats and sparkling water. Quan grabs a pack of Cheez-Its. You take sustenance where you find it. Loyal readers of this newsletter might remember a mid-October edition that went out with the subject line ''Anora' season is upon us.' And here we are, four months later, hanging out with Baker and the movie's producers, asking, 'Well, how did we get here?' When I sent Baker a text Saturday night after 'Anora' swept the PGA and DGA awards, he wrote back, 'I'm hoping I wake up in the morning and it's still true.' He followed that message with another one that sported a cartoon image. 'That's my dog with an 'Anora' thong.' That's peak Sean Baker. Anyway, we had fun talking upstairs at the Aero the other night, musing about why, out of all of Baker's films, it's 'Anora' that's connecting with moviegoers and awards voters. Plus he tells stories about John Carpenter and trying to make Christopher Nolan happy. And Quan offers tips for falling asleep when your brain is wired. You can read the story here. The Oscars are a little more than two weeks away, and an old friend was asking me this morning if I've seen all the nominated short films yet. Sheepishly (well, maybe only a little bit), I told him that I really enjoyed 'The Only Girl in the Orchestra,' the documentary short about Orin O'Brien, the first full-time woman member of the New York Philharmonic. It's on Netflix, and it's lovely. But outside of that and 'Yuck,' a charming animated short about kids being disgusted by the idea of kissing (though they can't stop talking about it), I've been remiss. I have work to do. Fortunately, Michael Ordoña has me covered, telling me all about the movies nominated for animated short, live-action short and documentary short. Robert Abele will be reviewing them for The Times, as he always does, and his thoughts will be up on our website tomorrow. As these are the three categories that can make or break Oscar pools, you can bet I'll be spending part of my weekend watching them and assessing their chances. Seriously, the amount of time I spend obsessing over these races is nothing short of pathological. I'm going to need a box of danishes to get me through. See you Monday.
Los Angeles Times
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Director Sean Baker doesn't know he's the front-runner with ‘Anora'
Upstairs at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Sean Baker is talking shop with veteran projectionist Ivan Rothberg as he's threading the fifth reel of 'Anora,' Baker's Oscar-nominated crowd-pleaser that won top honors from the directors and producers guilds over the weekend. Looking out the booth's window onto the sold-out theater's screen, we see that Igor (Yura Borisov) has just handed a red scarf to Ani (Mikey Madison) to buffer the frigid night air, so we have some time before Ani's journey ends. We head to a tiny office around the corner where Baker plops down next to his wife and producing partner, Samantha Quan, and fellow producer Alex Coco. We're surrounded by shelves stacked with boxes of Red Vines, Kit Kats and sparkling water. Quan grabs a pack of Cheez-Its. You take sustenance where you find it. It's been more than 48 hours since 'Anora' swept top prizes at the Directors Guild of America and Producers Guild of America awards, and they still can't believe it happened. 'When we got to the producers, I was just shut down for the night,' Baker says, noting the stress that came with winning the DGA and having to make a speech he wasn't at all prepared to deliver. He won the DGA prize at 9 p.m., posed for pictures and then hopped in a car for the mile-long trip from Beverly Hills to Century City for the final moments of the PGA ceremony. 'It was extremely weird to hear them call out 'Anora.'' 'I thought we were going to blank the whole weekend,' producer Coco says. Referring to the Critics Choice Awards held Friday, he adds, 'I figured it we didn't win there, that's our obituary.' 'I didn't think of it that way,' Baker says, 'because I don't really know the game that well. People are telling me now that we're actually in the conversation again because of these wins. See, I didn't know these wins would get us back into the conversation.' But then Baker, two weeks shy of his 54th birthday, never expected to be in the awards conversation in the first place. Adept at making movies illuminating the underrepresented, Baker broke through in 2015 with 'Tangerine,' the micro-budgeted tale of two trans sex workers working at the seedy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Hollywood. Baker famously shot the movie on iPhone 5s. He followed that two years later with 'The Florida Project,' another look at people on the margins, in this case, the residents of a rundown motel in the shadow of Disney World. Willem Dafoe, playing the motel's beleaguered manager, earned the movie's only Oscar nomination. 'I thought, 'OK, I don't think I'm going to get any more higher-brow than 'The Florida Project,'' Baker says. 'Like, that's the top of my brow there. So if they're not into that, if I'm scaring people off with that, then I'm not meant for this world.' Baker followed 'The Florida Project' with 'Red Rocket,' again mixing hilarity, honesty and heartbreak in its story of a middle-aged porn star fleeing Los Angeles for his small Texas hometown. And then came 'Anora,' the fractured fairy tale about a Brooklyn sex worker's heady and, ultimately, devastating relationship with the son of a Russian oligarch. 'There was not one moment when we were making 'Anora' that I was like, 'I'm doing this for a mainstream audience,'' Baker says. 'To tell you the truth, it was very like, 'I'm making this for the people who like my crazy stuff. I'm making this for the people who like 'Red Rocket.' I'm going to be giving it to them.'' 'Except for when we were leaving for Cannes and you said, 'This is going to be a nice relaxing trip,'' Quan reminds him, teasing. 'You thought it was too commercial, so it wasn't going to win anything.' 'I also thought it was too funny,' Baker replies. 'Historically, comedies haven't won too many awards there.' 'Anora' ended up taking the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize. And Baker finds himself nominated for four Oscars, as a producer, director, writer and editor. Which raises the question: Why, out of all of Baker's films, is 'Anora' the one that's connecting with moviegoers and awards voters? Baker shrugs his shoulders. 'It's very difficult to say. Maybe it'll take a few years where you can look back at an era and have perspective on what was going on, culturally and politically.' Coco thinks people are responding to the title character. Quan offers that it might be the 'strange family' that forms between the film's characters, all of whom are recognizable and human. 'And they're all of a similar class,' Coco says, 'all beholden to this family that has all the money. They're trying to survive that.' When Baker won the Palme d'Or, he shared a stage with George Lucas, one of his many heroes whom he has met the past few months, a list that includes Pedro Almodóvar and Christopher Nolan, the latter who presented him with the DGA award. 'I wasn't expecting that,' Baker says, noting how much he appreciates Nolan's movies and work in film preservation. 'So when I went up there, I was thinking I was definitely going to try to make him happy and talk about theatrical windows and shooting on film.' We all laugh. He turns to Quan. 'Was he smiling back there?' She assures him he was. Baker met another one of his idols a few days ago when he picked up the Los Angeles Film Critics' Assn.'s best picture award on the night that the group honored John Carpenter's career. He didn't know Carpenter would be there and Quan says her husband was 'freaking out.' 'I'm never fully informing myself, so I didn't know he was getting the career honor that night,' Baker says. 'He's such a hero. I still have the 'Escape From New York' poster on my wall. I had 'Assault on Precinct 13' above my bed in seventh and eighth grade. And, of course, 'The Thing' means so much to me.' When the evening ended, Baker approached Carpenter and asked for a photo. The two posed together, giddily making metal signs with their fingers. If it's not Baker's most cherished moment from the past few months, it's high on the list. When I suggest that 'Anora's' ending, a perfect, ambiguous moment of release for its title character, might be another reason for its appeal, Baker circles back to Carpenter, saying he wished he had mentioned that aspect of the genre master's filmmaking. Carpenter had a way with ambiguous endings. 'He taught me that,' Baker says. 'All of my favorite movies have open endings. You're putting the audience in an uncomfortable place where they're asked to do the work. But too bad. It's like, 'I'm trying respect you guys. I know you can do it.'' The night they won the DGA and PGA honors, Coco headed to Akbar in Silver Lake with some friends. Baker and Quan went straight home to bed. The director had an early morning photo shoot he was leading the next day for W Magazine. 'I was buzzing,' Baker says. 'It was hard to settle down.' So how did you go to sleep? Quan looks at me like I'm a child. She closes her eyes and mimes her head hitting a pillow. 'I gotta to go to sleep. If I don't, I'm dead.' 'We're trained to do that,' Baker says. 'My brain is like, 'If you don't fall asleep, there's going to be a domino effect.' This ability will come in handy over weekend. Baker will be traveling to San Francisco Thursday for an academy screening of 'Anora,' then to New York Saturday for the Writers Guild Awards and finally to London the next day for the British Academy Film Awards — though, apparently, much of this is news to Baker. (Remember that earlier comment about 'never fully informing' himself?) 'Wait a minute,' he says, looking at Quan and Coco. 'I'm doing WGA?' 'Yes, Saturday,' Coco tells him. 'Then BAFTA Sunday.' Baker slumps in his seat and starts laughing. Or is he weeping? 'Oh, God! Oh, God!' he says. He's editing a movie he produced and co-wrote with Taiwanese filmmaker Tsou Shih-Ching titled 'Left-Handed Girl,' and they're trying to finish to make festival deadlines. 'I have like another 10 days,' he says, shaking his head. 'He's had another 10 days for like 100 days,' Coco tells me. 'No, this is really pushing it,' Baker says. 'It's incredibly scary.' This is scary? What about the Oscars? 'Well, one step at a time,' Baker says. Rothberg doesn't have any more reels to change. It's time to head down to the theater for the Q&A. 'Anora's' journey is almost at an end.
