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Wall-E and the Restored Alameda Theatre

Jul 7, 2008
By .
Movies

Last night, my brother and I saw Pixar's new film Wall-E. Between Alameda's gorgeous new theatre and the film, It was a beautiful experience.

First off, the theatre. Sadly, in this age of megaplexes, the classic old movie houses are disappearing. In San Francisco, the old Alhambra Theatre (a beautiful morrocan design) is now a health club. The beautiful art deco Alameda theatre has been in disrepair since it went out of business in 1979. Since then it has been a roller skating rink, a gymnastics studio and an abandoned building. It reopened this year, improbably restored to it's art deco glory. The lobby is beautiful, with gilded fixtures and ornate roof tiles. My favorite story are the chandeliers.

The theatre's original chandeliers were stolen when the theatre closed. No one knew what happened to them. When it was announced that the theatre was reopening, the chandeliers were anonymously returned. A thief with civic pride!

The theatre is beautiful, but it cost the city a pretty good chunk of change, and is independent (ie not a chain theatre, which is very rare in the Bay Area.) I wonder what that means for it's ability to continue to get first run films without bleeding money? The bottom line is, I can walk to the movies in a beautifully restored art deco theatre with a lobby that makes me want to wait for my movie, and I'll definitely be spending my movie going dollars there.

Oh yeah, the film. Wall-E is Pixar at it's best. It has a story to tell, and a message. It's actually a much darker film than I was expecting. It also finally washes the taste of Cars out of my mouth.

I am amazed at how much life and emotion they give these inanimate objects. I am also amazed that the first hour of the film contains almost no dialogue not from Hello Dolly. In fact, there were one or two instances in the beginning that definitely made me think of the opening of Fallout. It's also the first Pixar film to include live actors, in a neat touch.

This is a children's movie that has so much to say. There is no chance that adults will become bored during this film. Joe-Bob says check it out.

Last 5 posts by Ezra

7 Comments
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7 Comments

  1. Ken  •  Jul 7, 2008 @12:27 pm

    Katrina took the kids to see it yesterday. It was a bit over their head at 7 and 5.

    Golden-age theatres rock. We have one — the Alex Theatre near us. It was a first-run theatre when I was growing up — I remember seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark there. Now it does stage events and classic movies. I'm hoping to see Lawrence of Arabia there this summer.

  2. Brandon  •  Jul 7, 2008 @1:19 pm

    I saw Wall-E with my girlfriend and her 6 year-old daughter yesterday. The GF and I loved it, but we had a similar experience that The Feds did with her little one; she was bored after the first 20 minutes. I suspect the lack of blatant expository dialog and narration (like so many mainstream movies seem to have in abundance these days) was the culprit. Parents of pre-schoolers and early school-agers, beware.

    Aside from this, Wall-E was a wonderful movie, and I can't recommend it strongly enough. Unfortunately, we had to see it in one of the janitor's closets at the local multiplex. No classic, old movie houses around here anymore :( .

  3. Ezra  •  Jul 7, 2008 @1:47 pm

    One of the best parts of going to the Alameda Theatre is the little kitschy video they show before the movies explaining the history of the theatre and the project. I loved it, and now you can to! Check out http://www.alamedatheatres.com/ it has the short on the site.

  4. Patrick  •  Jul 7, 2008 @2:33 pm

    The nod to Joe Bob Briggs in his glory days as a movie critic, before he became a half-baked political columnist, was appreciated.

    "Now I'm not talking about some exorcism or pointing a mirror at these things. No, Sam Raimi understands that there's only one way to deal with the undead.

    We're talking total bodily dismemberment."

  5. Ezra  •  Jul 7, 2008 @2:45 pm

    I was trying to work in a traditional Joe-Bob movie breakdown, but there aren't any breasts in the film, so he wouldn't review it.

  6. Bruce  •  Jul 7, 2008 @5:30 pm

    For my bi-annual movie trips I go to The Sun Theatre. Another beautiful, art-deco restoration piece.

  7. Scott  •  Jul 9, 2008 @10:38 am

    We saw Wall-e this weekend with our 4 year old. He certainly doesn't have the credentials of Joe-Bob (he loves everything on a screen, probably because he doesn't get to watch a lot) but he loved it. Not as much as Cars, but still. I have heard from several parents that their kids weren't into it, which surprised me. Pixar conveys a lot without dialog and I would expect kids to really enjoy it since they are lower on the verbal ladder.

    That said, I really enjoyed it. The content was not aimed at kids, but the message was loud and clear. I wonder if the anti-corporate consumerism message would have been green-lighted if Disney had owned Pixar when the film was still in development.