0:00

What Happened The night Chicken Austin

0:02

activist Oscar Gomez died. There needs

0:04

to be some rest. There needs to

0:07

be some closure. We follow the

0:09

lead on Imperfect Paradise, The

0:11

Forgotten Revolutionary. Wherever you get

0:13

your podcasts, Hello

0:17

L they were taking back

0:19

to the movies. Familiar

0:26

Ceos This is how to allay

0:28

the so that helps you discovery

0:30

York City. Where

0:32

back with another episode? Ever live A

0:35

house? Our love letter to vintage An

0:37

independent movie theaters around Los Angeles. Brains.

0:41

It is a fashion brand that's

0:43

been around L A for years.

0:45

You may have seen it's skate

0:48

and punk inspired pieces on cool

0:50

kids around town. It was from

0:52

film and Music that I learned

0:54

the anything about fashion. Well in

0:56

October twenty twenty Braindead reopen and

0:59

iconic movie theater with a long

1:01

messy history and it's like the

1:03

state or can catch a break.

1:05

So today we're driving down Fairfax

1:07

to the old silent movie theater

1:09

or as it's. Know now rains

1:12

that studios out early. Producer Victoria

1:14

The handle is can it's a

1:16

gift from here. We

1:19

a cafe and patio in the

1:21

back and retail show room upstairs.

1:24

Reynard Studios feels so cute! The

1:26

combo of movie theater, arts space and

1:28

have a seating makes it such and

1:30

inviting place. I. Realize that I

1:33

want to create a place where. It.

1:36

Was more inclusive and more inviting

1:38

to an audience that maybe never

1:40

felt like they're being spoken to

1:43

by the repertory cinema. This is

1:45

Brandon founder Kyle Any. And what we

1:47

want to do it because wear clothing brand

1:49

we could take. Risks. And

1:52

do things to make this

1:54

theatrical experience a little different.

1:56

we're talking in the movie theater on one

1:59

hundred and six a 63-seat theater with

2:01

digital and 35-millimeter projection capabilities. It's just

2:03

up the street from the iconic Cantor's

2:05

Deli, and it originally opened in the

2:07

40s. Originally this

2:10

theater was a silent movie theater, and

2:12

obviously that represents something. It's a niche

2:15

space where you're watching a specific style of

2:17

film. Then it became Cine

2:19

Family. Cine Family was an incredible place. Obviously

2:22

it's had its, kind of say,

2:25

bad times. More than a few,

2:27

I'd say. This theater has

2:29

a long, tangled

2:31

history. I'm tapping

2:33

in film professor and theater historian Ross Melnick

2:35

to help me out. This theater

2:37

was built actually by its original owners in

2:40

1942, which was John Hampton and Dwight

2:42

Dorothy. John Hampton was a massive

2:44

silent film nut, if you will.

2:46

He loved silent cinema growing

2:49

up in Oklahoma. At the

2:51

time, real estate in Fairfax wasn't that

2:53

expensive. John bought the lot and built

2:55

a movie theater. Melnick was a classic

2:57

mom-and-pop operation. Dorothy sold tickets

2:59

and worked in session stands. John was up in

3:02

the projection booth, and what they wanted to do

3:04

at their new movie theater called

3:06

Old Time Movie was to

3:08

show silent cinema and old

3:10

films, and he used prints

3:14

that he collected. That's right folks,

3:16

in the 40s, silent cinema was old

3:18

news. So the silent movie

3:20

theater was a theater with a niche,

3:22

preserving and screening silent film classics. John

3:26

was a major collector of film prints, and

3:28

something you might need to know, silent

3:30

film is harder to preserve than other

3:33

kinds of film. Silent

3:35

films were often shot on nitrate, an

3:37

incredibly fragile, incredibly flammable film

3:40

stuff. A lot

3:42

of silent film was lost to poor

3:44

preservation practices, so something like the silent

3:46

movie theater was an archival treasure trove.

3:48

And they screened for 38 years. They

3:51

had this kind of amazing partnership, where

3:53

six days a week, they were showing

3:55

silent film classics again. Six

4:00

days a week they were showing movies to people

4:02

who would come from all over, especially as it

4:04

was known as the silent movie theater. So this

4:06

was a unique space. There's no other silent movie

4:08

theater really in the United States like this. But

4:11

we all know things change. By

4:15

1980 audiences were dwindling. This is actually

4:18

not impacted by home video, right? This

4:20

is already happening before that rise. John

4:22

had been having health issues and financial troubles and

4:24

had to sell about half of his film collection.

4:28

Now don't worry too much. A lot of those films

4:30

ended up in the archive at UCLA. John

4:34

died in 1990 and then

4:37

trouble broke out in his family. The nephew

4:40

came in during a cleaning

4:42

spree and just threw out hundreds

4:44

of rare prints, posters, lobby

4:47

cards, all that would be worth

4:49

today probably millions of dollars. There

4:52

was a lawsuit, Dorothy retained ownership, but

4:54

the theater itself just languished there on

4:57

Fairfax. In 1991 theater was

4:59

saved when a family friend who loved the

5:01

space talked to Dorothy and started running the

5:03

theater. His name was Lawrence

5:05

Austin. He improved the theater,

5:08

brought in a live organist, and so it

5:10

was again humming as the only

5:12

operating silent movie theater in the country, again

5:15

attracting people from all over the

5:17

world, not just those here in LA. But

5:20

in 1997 the seeds of tragedy were

5:22

planted. Lawrence's financial

5:24

and life partner, James Van Sickle,

5:26

was the theater's projectionist and

5:29

the sole beneficiary of Lawrence's

5:31

million dollar estate. And

5:34

so for about $30,000, Van Sickle hired

5:36

a man named Christian Rodriguez to murder

5:39

Lawrence Austin. Lawrence

5:41

was shot and killed and the woman working

5:43

concessions was shot and survived. And

5:46

she lived and identified something of what

5:48

he looked like. Actually

5:51

after a series of interviews it was a

5:53

nationwide case. After many interviews they

5:55

realized it was Sickle and Rodriguez working together, both

5:58

of whom were sentenced to life in prison. So,

6:01

as you can imagine, the silent

6:03

movie theater closed. In

6:06

1999, it was purchased, renovated, and reopened

6:08

with silent films, a cafe, and live

6:11

acts and private party rentals. But

6:14

the new owners' health declined and the theater hit the

6:16

market again in 2006. We're

6:18

into like tragedy number three or

6:21

four. Yeah. Oh

6:23

my god. Stan and Sammy Harkum bought the

6:25

space. They brought in film producer Hadrian Belove

6:28

and opened Cine Family. The

6:31

decade between the opening in 2007 as

6:33

the Cine Family at the silent movie

6:35

theater and the eventual closing

6:37

of the Cine Family in August 2017, it was probably,

6:39

I think it's fair

6:44

to say, one of if not

6:46

the hottest place to go see

6:48

movies, revival, independent, cult, you name

6:50

it. There were a star study

6:52

list of people on the board. They were always, you know,

6:55

celebs coming in and out and like

6:57

doing series, hosting screenings, hosting, and there's

6:59

all kinds of things. You could see

7:01

everything again from silent films to black

7:03

exploitation to European cinema to

7:06

art health classics. It was everything and it

7:08

was always kind of, it was all given

7:10

this kind of veneer of cool. But

7:13

under the surface, there were allegations of harassment

7:15

and abuse that came to light in 2017.

7:19

And after a wide investigation, a number

7:21

of public apologies, it was the

7:23

end of the Cine Family. Though

7:26

there were apologies and an investigation with

7:28

findings that were, quote, not conclusive, but

7:30

that the board was able to work

7:32

with, end quote, executive

7:34

director and co-founder Hadrian Belove

7:37

and board member Shadi Elmeshai

7:39

resigned and denied all allegations

7:41

of assault or harassment. Dan

7:44

and Sammy, the owners of the space, tried

7:46

to reopen the theater detached from any

7:48

former Cine Family members involved in

7:51

the allegations. That was in

7:53

December 2019. So

7:55

of course, a few short months later,

7:58

the theater was empty again. this time due

8:00

to the pandemic. Okay,

8:04

so a dark,

8:06

sad history that's hopefully finally

8:09

ended. I think

8:11

spaces always have a history

8:13

and you have to either learn and adapt

8:15

and I think that's what we're trying to

8:17

do. That's Brain Dead's Kyle

8:19

Ng again. Let's go back and

8:22

catch up with him about what the theater is

8:24

bringing to the community today. We

8:27

have obligations to our

8:29

community and have obligations to

8:31

each other to inspire each other as

8:34

creatives and that's what makes

8:36

me happy and sleep at night. We'll

8:38

be right back with that after this break. Imagine

8:44

if you could charge your electric vehicle

8:46

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8:48

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8:50

the movies, on your weekly grocery trip

8:52

or running errands at your local mall,

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Volta EV charging stations are built around

8:56

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8:58

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EV charging made convenient. Download the Volta app

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to find your new favorite place to charge.

9:15

And we're back in Brain Dead Studios. I

9:18

realized that I wanted to create a place

9:21

where it was

9:23

more inclusive and more inviting to an

9:25

audience that maybe never felt

9:27

like they were being spoken to by

9:29

the Repertory Cinema. Because we're a clothing

9:31

brand, we could take risks

9:34

and do things to make the

9:36

theatrical experience a little different. So when

9:39

you come to our space, we

9:41

program it and create,

9:44

hypothetically, a monthly

9:46

program that feels inviting to

9:48

the audience that we

9:50

want to cater to or explore. And that

9:52

audience is generally pretty young and they have

9:55

a say in what gets screened here.

9:57

It's really cool because I think we

9:59

definitely a younger audience for the most

10:01

part and when we we have

10:03

a monthly membership and when we write to

10:06

have people sign up they say what they're

10:08

interested in. Is it comedies? Is it is

10:11

it anime? Is it old titles?

10:13

And most people wrote old titles

10:15

and the cool thing is that old titles

10:18

is so subjective to our audience because an

10:20

old title might be lost in translation or

10:22

it might be a 90s film

10:25

and that was really cool to think about

10:27

and what we realized was that our audience

10:29

is mostly interested in I would say

10:31

is late 80s to contemporary now. So

10:34

a good example is if we show

10:36

in Sofia Coppola film that would be

10:38

a sold out audience. If we show

10:40

films like Tank Girl there's definitely interest

10:42

even like Speed Racer where you know

10:44

these films are not always

10:46

shown out in the world as much. But

11:01

I think there is a validity

11:03

especially from an aesthetic as well

11:06

as a cultural side that is

11:08

under serviced right. That curated

11:10

programming means that everything feels really

11:12

geared towards creating a cohesive community

11:15

that celebrates nerds, skatepunks and

11:17

artists. Here we can

11:19

have a skateboard premiere we've

11:21

got a rollerblame premiere we've had Carano

11:24

here we've had Marvel films premiere

11:26

here we've also had Magic

11:28

Gathering tournaments in the back and we've also

11:30

had Super Smash Brothers tournaments here

11:32

we've had Danny Brown do a live video

11:34

game playthrough and

11:37

then we have Reggie Watts do a

11:39

live score. So I think there's so

11:41

many different ways of and touch points

11:44

for different types of communities if we

11:46

want to explore and experiment with different

11:48

things and I think curiosity is the

11:51

most important part about life and

11:53

through curiosity we learn

11:55

and get excited about different things

11:57

we've never learned about. That curiosity

12:00

is kind of what led Kyle from film to fashion

12:02

and that. I mean, fashion

12:04

and film has always been really connected.

12:06

It's just storytelling. I mean, I originally

12:09

picked up a Res magazine when I

12:11

was in high school, and it was

12:13

a magazine that was filled with like

12:16

multimedia art, music videos, independent films, and

12:18

design, and I realized that

12:20

all of this was connected. Coming up

12:22

in indie rock and punk rock, like

12:25

you explore all the things that come with

12:27

that aesthetic, right? So you learn about Jim

12:29

Jarmusch, you learn about punk films, you learn

12:31

about art and design that's kind of connected.

12:34

And when I moved to LA, it was originally

12:36

for film, to like try to shoot music videos,

12:38

et cetera. Kyle started hanging out with

12:40

Rick Stelloe, the guy who ran the DVD section

12:43

of a comic book shop called Meltdown Comics. And

12:45

he carried very rare, hard

12:48

to find official Asian DVDs

12:51

at the time when Old Boy and

12:54

Battle Royale were coming out. So like,

12:56

there's mostly bootlegs, but he only wanted

12:58

to carry like the region-coded movies

13:00

so they were official. And I

13:02

was really obsessed with that. So through

13:04

that, that's where I met a lot

13:07

of people within streetwear and fashion, and

13:09

that got me into clothing. So it

13:11

was from film and music that I

13:13

learned about anything about fashion. And

13:15

that passion for multiple arts shows up in

13:18

the fashion brand too. Brain

13:20

Dead releases special collaborative shirts for

13:22

different directors and studios. Last

13:24

month's director spotlight was on French filmmaker,

13:27

Michel Gondry. Why remember a destructive

13:29

love affair? Here at lacuna, we

13:32

have perfected a safe, effective technique

13:34

for the focused erasure of troubling

13:36

memories. And the eternal sunshine of

13:38

the spotless mind shirts that Brain Dead released

13:40

to celebrate are all sold out. Remember,

13:44

try your best. This

13:50

month's feature director is Wong Kar Wai, which means

13:52

you'll be able to catch films like Chunking, Express,

13:54

and In the Mood for Love. And

13:57

now with the theater, it's really great, because now I

13:59

don't have to make. anything and I could just

14:01

at least present the things that I love

14:03

and every month we also do a signature

14:05

drink in the back with Heavy Head Cafe

14:07

and we're going to start serving wine so

14:09

there's going to be a lot more night

14:11

events but I think we're really focused on

14:13

telling the best stories with the

14:16

cafe product as well as the theater

14:18

so we get special guests to come

14:20

through and I think that's what

14:23

yeah we're going to be doing for the next couple months it's just

14:25

every month something new. And Braindead

14:27

isn't looking to just stay in the screening

14:30

space. And we've been able to produce a

14:32

couple films or co-produce like Carpet Cowboys with

14:34

Memory which is an amazing documentary and we

14:36

did a lot of shorts so when you

14:38

come to the movie theater we have a

14:40

lot of different short animations that we helped

14:43

produce so you'll see

14:45

like exclusive animations from Taranabu

14:48

Asano who was Ichida Killer or

14:50

incredible short films and animations by so

14:53

many different artists. We just don't want

14:55

to be a higher-end brand that is

14:57

unattainable we want a place where you

14:59

can just come and see a film for

15:02

$13. Kyle feels

15:04

a drive almost an obligation to

15:06

keep screenings accessible and to keep

15:09

this theater thriving. The thing

15:11

during COVID that scared me the most was

15:13

that if a place like this cannot stay

15:15

open knowing that this is what inspired me

15:17

like going to DIY shows and

15:19

warehouses when I was a kid is

15:22

what made me excited about

15:25

being creative and I think the

15:27

key is that we need to

15:29

keep places like this alive to

15:31

inspire generations. I think from our

15:33

side is I look at stuff

15:35

as ethical commerce where as

15:38

we become more and more successful

15:41

we need to try to

15:44

explore ways to give back to our community. We're

15:50

a small brand so this is not like

15:52

we have millions of dollars to throw into

15:54

a space so even if it's hard we

15:57

will do our hardest to make sure

15:59

that this place always has his life on

16:01

and you know has films. It's simply

16:03

not a cash cow

16:06

but I think you have to

16:08

understand what's the reason that

16:10

we do things and I think the

16:12

deeper reason is that we have

16:15

obligations for our community and have

16:17

obligations to each other to inspire

16:20

each other as creative and

16:22

that's what makes me happy and sleep at

16:24

night. That's

16:28

it for us today on Revival House. Go

16:30

check out Braindead Studios on Fairfax, catch a movie

16:32

or an event, grab a coffee and keep your

16:34

eye out for more cool film collabs coming out

16:37

of their fashion brands. See

16:39

you at the movies. Thanks

16:42

for listening and that is it for us

16:44

today. How to LA will be back Friday

16:46

with another episode all about food. Join

16:49

me as I stuff my face with pizza

16:51

all over LA. Now

16:53

if you like this episode give us

16:56

a like, review and subscribe and catch

16:58

y'all next time. This

17:00

episode is produced by Victoria Leandro. Our

17:03

other producers are Monica Bushman, Evan Jacobi

17:05

and Megan Botan. Erica

17:08

Washington is associate editor for Hado

17:10

LA and Hazmik Pagostian is our engineer.

17:13

Megan Larson is the executive producer and

17:15

I'm your host Brian De Los Santos.

17:18

Support for this podcast is made possible

17:21

by Gordon and Donna Crawford who believe

17:23

that quality journalism makes LA a better

17:25

place to live. I'm

17:49

Julia Paskin host of Weekend Edition. Join

17:51

me as I talk with NPR Sarah

17:54

McCammon about her new book The Ex-Fangelicals

17:56

loving, living and leaving the White Evangelical

17:58

Church. She's not alone. in leaving

18:00

the church, she's found she's among a

18:03

rising generation fleeing the fold. That's April

18:05

25th at the Crawford in Pasadena. Tickets

18:08

at laist.com/events.