Ray Pride

Some movies are inseparable from where you see them. My example: Oak Street's 70-year-old deco dowager, the Esquire. In 1982, I saw "Blade Runner" there five, six times. That creepy, crapped-out metropolis is stuck in the same zone of memory as the bold, stories-high vertical neon marquee outside, Vangelis playing across huge curtains, forty feet high. Subdivided and sold several times since then, the Esquire closed last Thursday: as the developer who's bringing the wrecking ball phrased it to the Sun-Times, the up-up-upscale environs of Prada-era Oak Street are missing "a restaurant component." Loews and most recent lessor AMC, for whatever corporate interests, let the joint, like many before, run to ruin. Posters on the walls include "E.T." (also 1982), and "JFK" and "Bugsy" (both 1991). Advertisements are the modern decor, and I get a coupon for $5 off at Old Navy, expiring the next day. Cup and napkin cartons are stacked in the foyer. A print of a Fox picture in two cans awaits an empty dolly at the other end of the lobby.

The metal doors clap loudly against each other with each entrance. At "The Devil Wears Prada," a clutch of thirteen watches Stanley Tucci's character talk about the proud tradition of fashion as art, forehead foreshortened by the projectionist. The overhead fans are off. Two abandoned poster cases flank "World Trade Center," where, inside, fourteen viewers are trapped underground with Nicolas Cage. I expected the dank smell of dirty carpet, but the third floor reeks of cherry Twizzlers. But the ivy-patterned carpet holds deep crimson and black stains, like shadows in shallows beneath the surface of a stream.

This final show is at 7:40: "Scoop." A tiny woman as old as the theater sits in the back row, platinum hair high, an immense tub of fluids in lap. A trailer for "Hollywoodland" plays. "If it stops one person from a buying a ticket, I have to stop it," a character menaces. The animated AMC filmstrip leaps about and the stereo's off-whack, but Woody Allen's a monaural man. Allen's familiar white typeface against black pulsates, the dim, picture flickers. Twenty-four people watch without audible complaint.

There are intermittent open holes along the balustrade where footlamps once beamed. This place was thrilling once. In one abandoned marble-counter ticket booth, paint peels, the board that covers the gape of a missing machine is smashed. Back on Oak Street, the night smells of rain and the lake. Beneath the marquee, there are burned-out or missing small white bulbs. Across the street, a woman works angles with a flash disposable. A chubby man behind a tripod focuses on the orange and white light of the marquee that will be doused for good, seconds from now.

(2006-09-19)

Also by Ray Pride

Threeness Abounds
Novelist James Ellroy is one of the politest of interviewees, even when he's telling a story off the record that breaks your heart
(2006-09-12)

Tip of the Week
Weirdly joyous, Stefan Schwietert's Swiss-Austrian "Accordion Tribe" (2003) is a rich, emotional documentary that follows five accordion composer-players on a European tour, unfurling their cultural idiosyncrasies and their diverse approaches to making beautiful sounds from the underappreciated instrument
(2006-09-12)

Truth, Justice and the American Way
A kaleidoscopic take on the vicissitudes of fame, "Hollywoodland" is a sweetly seedy anecdote, a termite rhapsody to the first Superman, 1950s television star and ultimate suicide George Reeves
(2006-09-05)

Tip of the Week
In the run-up to the fall release of Pedro Almodovar's latest, "Volver," Sony Pictures Classics has restored and re-released seven of his films, all being shown at the Music Box
(2006-09-05)

Mirror Mirror
(2006-08-29)

The Grand Illusion
(2006-08-29)

Tip of the Week
(2006-08-29)

Snaky Horror Picture Show
(2006-08-22)

Tip of the Week
(2006-08-22)

Conversations about one thing
(2006-08-15)

Tip of the Week
(2006-08-15)

Tip of the Week
(2006-08-08)

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