Beverly Center Cinemas 13
8522 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
8522 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
16 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 178 comments
I went last night for the final showing of “The Runaways.” There were about 10 of us milling about afterward as an employee put up “Theater Closed” on the marquee outside. No cake, unfortunately, unlike the night I helped close down the Orpheum in downtown L.A. Anyway, the place was much better run in these latter days than most people remember it. I wish someone had made it into a cinema bistro or done some other radical rethinking, but maybe nothing could have prevented it becoming a retail space. Anyway, I concur with what many are saying: absolutely no reason to ever enter the Beverly Center again.
I just read about this on LA Observed. I’m sad. It’s been a couple of years since I saw a movie there, but I still live in the neighborhood and over the last nearly 30 years saw dozens and dozens of movies there. They weren’t great theaters, but it was still nice seeing a movie without distractions in one there, rather than on TV.
Will always remember this place as the theater where I saw “This is Spinal Tap” in 1984. Memorable if for that, but the theaters left much to be desired.
End of an era. Will probably never visit the Beverly Center again. Not even for dinner.
It’s mere coincidence.
Was it intentional or a coincidence that the last show ever will be HOT TUB TIME MACHINE? I can think of no more fitting way for the theater to go out than to go back to the 80s where it began. Hope it gets shifted to Theater #1?
“A Night In Las Cruces” is presented in DLP Digital Projection and “Blood Into Wine” was from a Blu-ray disc. Info from Movie Tickets .com
The theatre’s last engagements:
The Back-Up Plan
Date Night
Dreamkiller
Greenberg
Hot Tub Time Machine
How To Train Your Dragon (in REAL-D)
Just Wright
Kick-Ass
Kites (on two screens, one screen playing the recut version known as Kites: The Remix)
La Mission
Mother and Child
The Runaways
and a pair of documentaries, A Nightmare In Las Cruces and Blood Into Wine
Edward: Jeff Arellano is trying to get ahold of you on CInematour. He wants to come photograph/document the theater.
View link
BTW Edward: Sorry your cinema is closing but kudos for trying to make the Beverly Center step it up a notch.
Would anyone in the nearby area be able to go to the cinema and photograph it head to toe? I’m hoping Edward can do some photos but it would be nice to have someone else with a SLR or high quality camera to do some photos. (I would gladly volunteer but I’m stuck up in Western Canada!)
I am fascinated by this cinema. It really is part of history and like Mark, I would love to see shots of every auditorium, lobby, auditorium hallways, booths and so forth.
Edward, try to take photos of each auditorium with the house lights on. There’s a few I have not seen…
The best I can research, only Foot Locker, Victoria’s Secret and (at least until Thursday) the theatre are the only three original tenants at the Beverly Center that are still open.
I too remember Starky’s Deli, quite fondly in fact. As an assistant at the theatre nearly 20 years ago, I would regularly find myself on my break in the arcade, spending a single quarter to play the T2 pinball game for half an hour, before giving up the game and whatever free games I had accumulated to some kid watching me play. I think the downfall for Starky’s, though, was the night in 1992 when there was some kind of commotion that caused hundreds of kids to come running out of the place for their lives and to the only place that was still open at the time: the theatre (we did midnight shows every weekend). I heard it was a shooting, but I was never able to confirm it.
Yes, there is a lot to say about the closing of the theatre, but now is not the time to say it. I will try to take some pictures Thursday night, but it’s going to be an incredibly busy night, closing a theatre one last time. Plus, we have a screening of the Maynard James Keenan wine-making documentary Blood Into Wine that night, which should take us out with quite a bang.
I’m really sad to learn that this theater is closing. Yes, it is completely outdated and most of the screens seem to be about the same size as the flatscreen tv in my living room. But growing up in Beverly Hills in the 80s, this was the place to hang out and see a movie, along with Westwood Village. In the past year or so I rediscovered the theater and really enjoyed catching second run films there on lazy Saturday afternoons with the wife. We caught “How to Train Your Dragon” in theater 2 yesterday.
I’ll remember Starkey’s, Heaven, and now the Cineplex Odeon Cinemas. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Sbarro (even though it moved accross the food court a few years ago) and Mrs. Field’s cookies (original location) have been there since the mall opened.
Looks like 21 will be taking the Champs space as well. It’s closed and already boarded up. Decades ago, there was another corrodor of stores to the right of the cinemas in that same location. One was a “make your own video” place where people would jump around in front of a green screen sporting silly wigs and props. Ahh, the 80s.
Too bad the Fairfax is closed. With the Beverly Center closed it could have had a jump in business. Perhaps the Showcase could make a comeback as a second-run house!
I think once the ‘niche’ element of the 1980’s wore off and the expansion of the nearby area (i.e. The Grove, Arclight, AMC Century) took over, these screens lost momentum. It was no longer a cool place to see a film. Moviegoer’s shifted during the early 2000’s, and as we know the once ‘hot’ screens like the Beverly Center, the now gone Beverly Connection, Westwood Village and Hollywood Boulevard were no longer so. Now with the these screens, the Showcase on LaBrea and the Fairfax gone this zone pretty belongs to The Grove.
Even considering how maligned this place came to be, it’s hard to imagine LA moviegoing without it.
I never experienced it in its glory days, but I still have a soft spot for it. My first day living in LA, I headed for the overhyped Grove, only to not find a place to park in time for the show. Aimlessly driving around trying to find my way back to the freeway, I stumbled upon the Bev Center and remembered there was a theater inside. Sure, it was essentially a nasty Mann-years experience—the print was scratched and there were some creepers there for the late set—but there was something special about seeing my first film as a Los Angeles resident not in one of the city’s many palaces, but a 40-something seat shoebox.
Hopefully Edward havens or somebody will go through and take photos of all the auditoriums, booths etc and send them to Cinematour.
Forever 21 gutted the former Virgin Megastore in Times Square which had the Loew’s State Theatre 4 plex in the basement. Which was the former site of the Loew’s State Theatre.
Was there earlier today and was told everything is going to soon be gutted & replaced by a Forever 21. The mall is supposedly going liquidate equipment & peripherals.
Got it from the horse’s mouth – yes, sadly it’s true. A major retailer made an offer for the entire space, and the mall accepted. Their last night of operation will be Thursday, June 3rd. Better catch up on all those movies you missed in the next four days, because once this place is gone, finding anything resembling second-run in Los Angeles is going to get even harder. :(
I heard a rumor that the theater would be closing in June. Rave just took over the lease last September so it would seem a bit premature – anyone have solid information?
Jordan (and everyone else), if you haven’t seen the South Korean western “The Good, The Bad, The Weird” yet, I highly encourage you come see it at the Beverly Center. It starts Friday, and will be in the big house at least for the first week. I caught it at the 2008 AFI Film Festival, and it’s an incredible trip. A wonderful re-imagining of the classic Eastwood/Leone classic shot in anamorphic widescreen, and it’s going to look and sound awesome in that theatre.
My wife and I saw Runaways last weekend in Theater #1. I forgot how large that screen was! Really impressive. Ususally I associate the Bev Center with the unusually small screens downstairs. I think the last time I was upstairs was to see “Dying Young” with Julia Roberts almost 20 years ago. I’ll make and effort to go back the next time something decent is playing in #1. Can’t beat $7.00 a ticket for a late Saturday afternoon flick these days.
Movie was really entertaining as well.
By the way, out of curiosity I peeked into Theater #2 and Avatar was playing. As soon as I opened the door, I could smell that someone was smoking weed in there. I guess that’s who’s still seeing Avatar in 3D nearly 4 months after it’s release… Hope they had a great time :)
Yes, the Beverly Center opened in July 1982 with 14 screens. The theatre had so much success in its early years, the decision was made a couple years after opening to convert two smaller theatres into one, and then gut the two largest houses in order to build two even larger auditoriums on the roof of the building, which brings us to the current 13.
Did it originally have 14 screens? I wondered about that when I posted the 2/20 ad from 1983.