I lived down the street from The Cinema for almost two years while in college. It was easily my favorite place to see a movie in Rochester. Second-run, three-dollar double features were the main attraction. As well as the simple Art Deco design, comfy seats, house kittens who sat on your lap, and the fact that I could look down the street, see the Marquee, and decide if I wanted to venture down the block or not. I saw many memorable double bills here, easily ingratiating myself as a regular. The staff were always super-friendly with me and obliging with the free refills.
I haven’t made it back to The Cinema since I left Rochester but I am happy to hear this place is still up-and-running. In two years, it will hit the century mark, perhaps making it the longest running independent movie house in the Northeast? I don’t know for sure but I do know that The Cinema is a treasure and a bargain.
The Oneonta Theatre, aka The Oneonta 1 & 2, was actually my least favorite of the three Oneonta movie joints available to me growing up. The main auditorium was really nice, with beautiful vaudevillian ornamentation and a huge screen. A little run-down, it had a shabby retro-chic that I admired. But the acoustics of the main room were a huge problem. If you sat under the balcony, the sound was super-compressed, muffled, and difficult to hear. If you sat closer to the screen, the open-air acoustics absorbed most of the dialogue. Sound in the balcony (which was rarely open during my time there) wasn’t much better. That room was great for live theater (The Orpheus troupe performed there often) but was pretty dismal for films.
The second room was built off the balcony and was also pretty pathetic. Super-tiny, it held only 200 people and had two huge support pillars jutting up through the floor into the ceiling, obscuring the view if you didn’t sit dead center. The sound was fine, however, and it was in this room that I first saw “Pulp Fiction,” which was a minor epiphany at the time.
The 1 & 2 stopped showing first-run movies sometime around 2006 and the building has since been completely restored and repurposed as a live event space hosting minor circuit touring bands. I am glad it was saved and restored and think it will live a better life as a concert hall than it did as a movie theater.
The Uptown is still open, now running as “The New Uptown Theatre” though the only thing new about it is the management and the fact that they occasionally have live performances. I haven’t been there since it re-opened. My memories of The Uptown was that it was basically a dump, the kind where you could see a second-run film for pretty cheap, which for me was a the draw. I didn’t care that the seats were old and uncomfortable, that the popcorn was often stale, and picture slightly blurry as The Uptown came as close to a grindhouse aesthetic as I could find in Upstate NY at the time. You could go to the diner, bowl two games, and still see a movie there for less than the cost of seeing a similar film elsewhere. It was that cheap, so of course it was imperfect. The managers were totally cool too, allowing the occasional sneaked food or drink. I think we ate a pizza in there once.
I never get around to Utica much anymore. But if I did, I would definitely revisit The Uptown. I’m curious to see what they’ve done to the joint.
This place wasn’t great but I have two strong memories from attending films here as a teenager. One was seeing “Casino” with my Father and the theater actually booked an intermission (as in they deliberately cut the film at roughly the 90 min mark, raised the lights, and had an attendant come in and yell “intermission”) so my Father and I just went outside and stood in the sun for 10 minutes. The other memory was skateboarding in the parking lot with my friends and being chased off by security, which meant we missed our showtime. Don’t think we actually saw a movie that day.
This place was sold just before I moved back to the States from Montreal but I didn’t know it had been closed. I had some of my favorite Montreal movie experiences here: laughing out loud so hard to Anchorman that I fell out of my seat; sneaking into The Two Towers even though I had already seen it; drinking beers on the sly while watching Land Of The Dead, hoping the beer would make the film better.
The Eaton was great: decent screens, cheap(ish) concessions, a chill staff who didn’t care if you stayed all day so long as you were discreet about it.
Along with Cinema Du Parc, it was my prime cinema viewing station for those three years I was a grad student in Canada.
I loved The Showcase and despite moving away and not seeing anything there after 1998, I was sad to hear that it had closed. I remember seeing Braveheart there like five or six times and having the owner smile and let me in for free that last time. He also would re-fill my sodas sometimes. It was a nice small place. They had a weird set-up in the back where there was just one single seat by the rear entrance and I used to take that when I went to films by myself. I believe the building has since been torn down.
I saw many movies here before it closed in November, 1987. I was young and impressionable then, just a kid learning to love film. This place had a huge influence on me. I remember seeing E.T., Return Of The Jedi, Harry & The Hendersons, The Aristocats, Transformers: The Movie, The Great Mouse Detective, and Pinocchio. I also recall posters for Predator and The Black Cauldron. And even though it was technically called “The Cooperstown Theater,” everyone in town still called it “Smalley’s.”
The theater’s closure in ‘87 was a huge loss to the community but it just couldn’t compete with the mall theater in Oneonta in terms of new releases. As well, the first video stores were starting to open so the writing was on the wall, I guess. The son of the last owner still projected films from time-to-time in our High School afterward. I remember attending a screening of “The Soldier Of Orange” that he held at a local church.
The marquee is still there, lit up at night, though it is starting to look old and a little run-down. It’s a shame the Baseball Hall Of Fame didn’t step in and save it, use it to run baseball films or something, instead of turning it into another tourist trap souvenir stand.
I lived down the street from The Cinema for almost two years while in college. It was easily my favorite place to see a movie in Rochester. Second-run, three-dollar double features were the main attraction. As well as the simple Art Deco design, comfy seats, house kittens who sat on your lap, and the fact that I could look down the street, see the Marquee, and decide if I wanted to venture down the block or not. I saw many memorable double bills here, easily ingratiating myself as a regular. The staff were always super-friendly with me and obliging with the free refills.
I haven’t made it back to The Cinema since I left Rochester but I am happy to hear this place is still up-and-running. In two years, it will hit the century mark, perhaps making it the longest running independent movie house in the Northeast? I don’t know for sure but I do know that The Cinema is a treasure and a bargain.
The Oneonta Theatre, aka The Oneonta 1 & 2, was actually my least favorite of the three Oneonta movie joints available to me growing up. The main auditorium was really nice, with beautiful vaudevillian ornamentation and a huge screen. A little run-down, it had a shabby retro-chic that I admired. But the acoustics of the main room were a huge problem. If you sat under the balcony, the sound was super-compressed, muffled, and difficult to hear. If you sat closer to the screen, the open-air acoustics absorbed most of the dialogue. Sound in the balcony (which was rarely open during my time there) wasn’t much better. That room was great for live theater (The Orpheus troupe performed there often) but was pretty dismal for films.
The second room was built off the balcony and was also pretty pathetic. Super-tiny, it held only 200 people and had two huge support pillars jutting up through the floor into the ceiling, obscuring the view if you didn’t sit dead center. The sound was fine, however, and it was in this room that I first saw “Pulp Fiction,” which was a minor epiphany at the time.
The 1 & 2 stopped showing first-run movies sometime around 2006 and the building has since been completely restored and repurposed as a live event space hosting minor circuit touring bands. I am glad it was saved and restored and think it will live a better life as a concert hall than it did as a movie theater.
The Uptown is still open, now running as “The New Uptown Theatre” though the only thing new about it is the management and the fact that they occasionally have live performances. I haven’t been there since it re-opened. My memories of The Uptown was that it was basically a dump, the kind where you could see a second-run film for pretty cheap, which for me was a the draw. I didn’t care that the seats were old and uncomfortable, that the popcorn was often stale, and picture slightly blurry as The Uptown came as close to a grindhouse aesthetic as I could find in Upstate NY at the time. You could go to the diner, bowl two games, and still see a movie there for less than the cost of seeing a similar film elsewhere. It was that cheap, so of course it was imperfect. The managers were totally cool too, allowing the occasional sneaked food or drink. I think we ate a pizza in there once.
I never get around to Utica much anymore. But if I did, I would definitely revisit The Uptown. I’m curious to see what they’ve done to the joint.
This place wasn’t great but I have two strong memories from attending films here as a teenager. One was seeing “Casino” with my Father and the theater actually booked an intermission (as in they deliberately cut the film at roughly the 90 min mark, raised the lights, and had an attendant come in and yell “intermission”) so my Father and I just went outside and stood in the sun for 10 minutes. The other memory was skateboarding in the parking lot with my friends and being chased off by security, which meant we missed our showtime. Don’t think we actually saw a movie that day.
This place was sold just before I moved back to the States from Montreal but I didn’t know it had been closed. I had some of my favorite Montreal movie experiences here: laughing out loud so hard to Anchorman that I fell out of my seat; sneaking into The Two Towers even though I had already seen it; drinking beers on the sly while watching Land Of The Dead, hoping the beer would make the film better.
The Eaton was great: decent screens, cheap(ish) concessions, a chill staff who didn’t care if you stayed all day so long as you were discreet about it. Along with Cinema Du Parc, it was my prime cinema viewing station for those three years I was a grad student in Canada.
I loved The Showcase and despite moving away and not seeing anything there after 1998, I was sad to hear that it had closed. I remember seeing Braveheart there like five or six times and having the owner smile and let me in for free that last time. He also would re-fill my sodas sometimes. It was a nice small place. They had a weird set-up in the back where there was just one single seat by the rear entrance and I used to take that when I went to films by myself. I believe the building has since been torn down.
I saw many movies here before it closed in November, 1987. I was young and impressionable then, just a kid learning to love film. This place had a huge influence on me. I remember seeing E.T., Return Of The Jedi, Harry & The Hendersons, The Aristocats, Transformers: The Movie, The Great Mouse Detective, and Pinocchio. I also recall posters for Predator and The Black Cauldron. And even though it was technically called “The Cooperstown Theater,” everyone in town still called it “Smalley’s.”
The theater’s closure in ‘87 was a huge loss to the community but it just couldn’t compete with the mall theater in Oneonta in terms of new releases. As well, the first video stores were starting to open so the writing was on the wall, I guess. The son of the last owner still projected films from time-to-time in our High School afterward. I remember attending a screening of “The Soldier Of Orange” that he held at a local church.
The marquee is still there, lit up at night, though it is starting to look old and a little run-down. It’s a shame the Baseball Hall Of Fame didn’t step in and save it, use it to run baseball films or something, instead of turning it into another tourist trap souvenir stand.