In his 2021 ode to picnics, Max’s Picnic Book, noted celebrity chef Max Halley wrote that the modern picnic “needs a hand. It’s become this sort of Sound of Music, Mary Berry’s birthday party, chintzy thing covered in rose-tinted goo, when lunch on a train is a picnic! Lunch in the motorway service station car park is a picnic! Lunch at your desk is a picnic! And these are all opportunities for deliciousness that we too often let pass us by.” Now, I don’t know shit about picnics, but I share the same sentiment when it comes to movie theatres. The house of cinema has become too stale, too conservative, and too proper in its quest to meet the standards of all.
Every city has the same theatre. The same torn recliner. The same bland popcorn. The same shitty screens. The same commercials. We’re so bored at the theatre that we open our phones. And rather than ask for a better theatre going experience, we stay at home and stream the same film, missing out on what we crave from a theatre in the first place, community. The monoculture of movie theatres has robbed us, and gate keepers would rather die than experiment and work hard to bring in unique communities because they go against the ethos of what they are.
But I see hope in the future. Hope in the dingy and cheap. In the wild and free. I see hope in the micro cinema.
I first came across the idea of a micro cinema ten years ago when I was living in Toronto. A friend of mine was working at a local record shop—Sonic Boom in Chinatown—when he had the idea to turn the basement of the shop into a midnight movie theatre. He pitched it as a place where film weirdos could gather, drink some beer, watch a movie, and hang out.
Justin had always been ahead of the curve when it came to community gatherings. Back in university, he organized vinyl listening parties at local bars, where patrons would come in and play one side of a record in its entirety. It was a simple setup: a record player, a PA system, two speakers, and a bunch of beer. But it drew crowds because no patron was denied. You could easily hear one side of Wolves in the Throne Room’s Celestial Lineage, followed by Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby. It was a great way to cross-pollinate, meet fellow music lovers, and felt like an extension of how we used to hang out in dorm rooms listening to records.
The setup of the basement movie theatre was both elaborate and shoddy. A 35mm projector sat next to folding chairs and a small screen. The local Cineplex had 30+ flavours of pop, IMAX, Dolby sound, reclining chairs, and oodles of cash. The basement had a film, popcorn, and two beers for five bucks. Not bad for a guy who made minimum wage.
Every screening I went to was packed. It turned out that people were more interested in seeing a blood-red print of Godzilla vs. Mecha Godzilla than the latest Marvel film. Sorry, Thor, but you got nothing on a man in a kaiju costume flying through the air.
As time went on, the screenings became more interactive. Speeches and presentations were delivered before the film, and people were invited to sell their wares. The world’s biggest The Gate fan came out for a screening of the film and set up a whole museum of memorabilia, including monster costumes that were in the film.
People often got together before or after the film. It didn’t matter if you showed up alone or with a group of friends, because there was always a conversation to join in on. “What did you think of The Neon Demon?” or “Yeah, Sisters is great, but have you seen Blow Out?” I met friends through those film nights.
Years later, I still see Letterboxd reviews mentioning the midnight movie nights at Sonic Boom. If Justin had shown me anything, it was that the community has a big part to play in movie-going.
People want to watch movies and do it as a group. They want it to be unique and fun. The basement screenings I attended showed that cinema doesn’t need blockbuster budgets or fancy theatres to create excitement, just community and creativity. A presentation explaining the sexual status of a lead actor can be more engaging than a pre-show car commercial, and audiences are often more forgiving of a film reel breaking down than an actor in front of a green screen.
My business partner, JP Meldrum, and I started our own micro cinema to showcase DIY films. Fearing that no one would come, we paired the screenings with local DIY music acts. Showing a horror film? Pair it with a harsh-noise act. A slow cinema film? Make it an ambient night.
Monoculture movie theatres fail because they try to do the same thing everywhere. If it doesn’t work, they blame the audience and say they are dying. A self-inflicted gunshot wound if I’ve ever seen one. Micro cinemas, by contrast, have the flexibility to evolve. They are rooted in thriftiness and DIY.
We’ve tried everything, from community theatres to traditional theatres to a white wall at the back of a clothing shop; always pairing it with an event. People show up because they crave uniqueness and human connection.
Cinema is not dying. It is changing, moving into the hands of local communities. Even independent theatres are experimenting. At the beloved Revue in Toronto, for example, a film series might feature a host who does trivia, a presentation, or even a drag performance. Cinema is becoming unique again. It is precious, but human; ugly and forgiving.
Micro cinemas can be small or large, but they are always rooted in the community. Look around you. Pair Spring Breakers with a volleyball night. Ignore the rules of consumer protection of bylaws. Set up a screening of The World’s End as a pub crawl, or show Blade in an alleyway. You can always watch Blade again, but you can’t experience it like that every night.
When I saw Interstellar for the first time, it was on a plane. As we descended into Pearson Airport, Matthew McConaughey was falling into a black hole. The plane shook as he fell into infinity. I was sucked in. That’s a micro cinema right there.
The micro cinema is an attitude. If a picnic can be a hard-boiled egg with a bag of chips eaten on a ferry, then a micro cinema can be three kids watching a video on the Skytrain talking over each other. It can be you and your best friend hitting play at the same time while half-way around the world. Next time, it can be a group of friends.
Set up a social media page, order a bluetooth speaker and cheap projector off of Temu, and find a white wall. Pick a film you love or one you’ve been dying to see. Order a pizza or say it’s pot luck. Is it a one-off or the start of a series? Contact a local bar that looks the other way, or invite friends to a park with a laptop. The future of cinema does not have to exist in a singular space next to a mall. In this utopia, everything is a cinema.
