Huzzah for Christine Vachon. Yesterday's NY Post Page Six led with the item"Indie Queen Blasts Angelika." Apparently Vachon, the indie film producing stalwart who I interviewed last year for Gothamist, is coming out with her memoirs, and according to Page Six, she "viciously attacks the Angelika Film Center - the beloved Houston Street mecca for independent releases."
"Beloved?" By whom, exactly? Apparently, as the story also notes, the Angelika "was voted best New York City movie theater in 2004 by the New York Press." Obviously, that must have been a pretty small sample of judges.
The Angelika is the one theater in New York I absolutely refuse to go to. Page Six quotes Vachon:
"The seats are uncomfortable, the sound is crummy, you can hear the 4/5/6 train rumbling underneath you, and the film projectors are terrible," Vachon rants. "Don't even get me started on how the Technicolor [in] Far From Heaven looked on their screens. I couldn't watch."
I think Far From Heaven was actually one of the last films I saw there, and she's write: the lush technicolor that Todd Haynes used so effectively to recreate the mood and style of old 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas was virtually ruined. In fact, the only thing that Vachon isn't right about in that quote is the subway: I'm pretty sure it's the B/D/F/V trains that rumble beneath you every 3 minutes as they travel east right before stopping at the Broadway-Lafayette station a block away. The 4/5/6 trains are a little further east, you know, but big deal. You can hear -- and feel -- the subway.
The Angelika is a monstrosity that should be bulldozed. Hell, much grander and more important film palaces have suffered that fate in this town. There was a time when it was the only place in the city where you might be able to catch certain small films, but in the last five or six years with the opening of the Landmark Sunshine and the IFC Center, not to mention the Regal Union Square and the 42nd Street theaters, there is rarely, if ever, a time when a film sees its only NYC exposure at the Angelika. Occasionally, a film might play there for a week before opening elsewhere, but it seems that most of the time, if something receives downtown exclusivity at the Angelika, it often also plays at the Lincoln Plaza on the Upper West Side. I live in Brooklyn now, and if you give me the choice of the Angelika or traveling an extra half-hour to go to the Lincoln Plaza, I'll be heading up to 62nd and Broadway every time.
But again, the Angelika (thankfully) doesn't seem to get that many exclusives anymore. The Sunshine is the exact opposite of the Angelika -- one of the nicest places to see a movie in the city. The IFC Center has only been around a year, and although some of the sight-lines present too dramatic an angle to the screen and I personally find the armrests on the seats a bit low, the projection is phenomenal and the movie-watching experience generally comfortable. (AND, although it's directly on top of the West 4th Street train station with the A/C/E and B/D/F/V traveling below, I've yet to hear or feel the trains.) The Cinema Village on 2nd Avenue and 12th Street seems to exhibit more indie fare these days, especially after the initial couple weeks of release.
And in terms of the NY Press calling the Angelika NYC's best in 2004, it was only the year before that Time Out did its big report card of all the movie theaters in town, bestowing a C- on the Angelika -- one of the lowest grades given to any theater.
So basically, I'm not sure what kind of payola was involved -- maybe Richard Johnson now gets free admission to the Angelika for life. Of course, if I were him or the other Page Six staffers, I still wouldn't want to use it. New York thankfully has enough alternative options now; we can let the Angelika rest in peace, and good for Vachon. The Angelika deserves her "blasts" -- as apparently does Page Six.
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