Variety 5/18/2022

I felt ill when the news broke May 11 that my go-to cinema, Landmark Theatres’ flagship Westside location on Pico Boulevard, was shutting down at the end of the month. I have been going to this complex religiously — call it my house of movie worship — ever since its founding 15 years ago. For at least the past decade, my partner and I would have date night there nearly every Saturday night after enjoying dinner downstairs from the theater at the now defunct Westside Tavern. It was a weekly ritual I always looked forward to, until the COVID pandemic kept us from going these past two years. There is just so much I cherished about the theater. You could always catch the latest and greatest firstrun indie and foreign…

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The looming closure of Landmark Theatres’ Pico location is a significant loss for L.A.’s independent movie scene, already missing the shuttered ArcLight Hollywood. Getting art-house audiences to return to cinemas has been challenging during the extended pandemic, and now the question is whether the city that makes movies has enough theaters to show them. “Around the country, including in Los Angeles, there are just fewer theaters and fewer screens than there were before the pandemic,” says IFC Films and IFC Midnight distribution head Jasper Basch. “The Landmark Pico’s closure is going to contribute to this problem.” And it could hit Hollywood where it really hurts: Oscar consideration. “It’s going to be a problem for Academy runs,” predicts Sony Pictures Classics co-president Tom Bernard. So without Landmark’s popular Westside location, where’s…

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