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The David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum is a modern movie palace with a wide range of programming, where tickets are always just $10.
Why it matters: With the rise of streaming, and the continued effects of the pandemic, many have closed — including, just last month, the nearly 100-year-old Highland Theatre in Los Angeles.
Why now: The Academy Museum has been screening more contemporary films like Nope or even Twister, and Gen Z is responding.
Go deeper:
It’s no secret that movie theaters have been hit hard in recent years. First, pandemic shutdowns in 2020 and then a dearth of product during the dual SAG/WGA strikes of 2023.
Approximately 2,000 screens across the nation have closed. That includes independent movie houses and chain multiplexes like Regal Cinemas. In the last few weeks, theaters in Cincinnati, Dover, Denver, and Boise, have joined L.A.’s Highland Theatre in saying goodbye.
But as we’ve been sharing in recent weeks, there are theaters that have found renewed life, especially around Los Angeles. Whether it's because of celebrity intervention or a serious dose of blood, sweat and occasional tears, one thing unites a lot of these places: repertory films.
The David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum is a red velvet marvel of a space. The walls, the ceiling, the seats envelop you in a red-carpet-red dome. While it doesn’t have the classic 100-year-old architecture of a place like the Egyptian or the Chinese, it’s a modern movie palace that might be showing anything from 2 Fast 2 Furious to Showgirls to Soy Cuba or Spellbound.
From the street on Wilshire, in the Miracle Mile neighborhood near LACMA and the La Brea Tar Pits, the suspended spherical structure looks more like the Death Star than a 952-seat movie theater. And despite its location, you don’t have to purchase entry to the museum to catch a movie here, and tickets to screenings are just $10, regardless of the movie or guest speaker. (Christopher Nolan on-stage? $10.)
Underground is the Geffen’s sister cinema, the Ted Mann. (The theaters are named after the entertainment magnates and museum’s major donors.)
“Saying that the cinema is in the basement is not doing it justice,” says Academy Museum director of programming, K.J. Relth-Miller. It’s a 277-seat theater that is a visual counter to the Geffen’s overwhelming red — instead, draped in a cool green. Relth-Miller shares: “When the experimental filmmaker Mike Kuchar came into the space, he walked in and said, ‘I'm going to get lost in the cinema forest.’”
Both theaters are truly state of the art — equipped with multi-format projection (that’s the full range of 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, and digital) with Dolby vision and sound.
The screenings at the David Geffen and Ted Mann theaters will always nod to the Academy’s history, with programs like Oscar Sundays, celebrating films that have been honored at the awards. Or, the Branch Selects series, chosen in partnership with the 18 branches of the Academy, each representing a different craft or discipline in filmmaking.
But that doesn’t mean the only films they program are Academy Award winners or nominees. Relth-Miller notes that “the ceremony is one marker of cultural excellence, but we're really interested in moving beyond that.”
Programming at these theaters also explores counter-cultural trends and movements that may not have been recognized by the Academy, like screenings of cult classics by John Waters or talks with filmmakers like punk icon Penelope Spheeris.
And there’s an appetite for this kind of film programming among audiences.
Relth-Miller had been programming films in Los Angeles at UCLA for about six years, screening in the Billy Wilder Theater. There, she had been working with an audience that was skewing 50 and older before the pandemic shut their doors in 2020.
Now at the Academy Museum, which opened its doors in 2021, Relth-Miller is seeing the majority of audience members at screenings are under the age of 40.
(It should be noted that the New Beverly Cinema, just north of the Academy Museum in the Fairfax District, also reported younger audiences coming to the theater post pandemic).
“That's actually a different demographic than what we were seeing citywide in the repertory scene before the pandemic,” says Relth-Miller.
But it was not an easy road getting here.
Architectural plans for the museum’s building were first presented in 2008, shortly before the housing market crash. The initial land purchased for the museum site was sold and plans were put on hold.
In 2012, new plans were presented by architect Renzo Piano for a new location in the former May Company building, a historic Streamline Moderne structure on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. The estimated opening date was 2017, but amid fundraising slowdowns, budget increases, and leadership changes, the museum’s launch was pushed to December 2020. That was announced before COVID shutdowns began. Then the museum’s opening was eventually set for September 2021.
”We have had to build an audience from a post pandemic reality,” Relth-Miller says.
The shifting age demos and trends around repertory screenings have opened doors to what is considered a “revival” film.
A successful screening of Twister (1996) took Relth-Miller by surprise. When she first started programming theaters in L.A., less than a decade ago, she recalls, “I felt like it was hard to get folks out for a film from the 90s because the films still felt fresh to the majority of the people who were going out to see repertory screenings, right?”
But younger generations who didn’t have a chance to see those films in theaters, and who are developing a cinephilia on platforms like Letterboxd, are clamoring for an experience.
“Gen Z did not have a chance to see something like Twister in the theater, and so they're gonna show up and see it on 35mm, and sometimes in their first ever opportunity to have a communal experience with it," Relth-Miller says.
In reporting out this series, every cinema operator or programmer I’ve spoken with has talked about movie theaters as a source of memory. Maybe you don’t even remember the movie itself, but you remember the company, the seats, the popcorn. And screening films can be an act of recall too.
“We're like activating ghosts, right?” says Relth-Miller. “We're watching people come to life. We're bringing Katharine Hepburn back to life when we show something like Christopher Strong, and when we screen Spellbound, we're bringing Gregory Peck back to life, before our very eyes.”
The David Geffen and Ted Mann theaters are only three years old — most of their history is yet to come.
“We can feel a sense of history the older a place becomes,” says Relth-Miller. “I think what's the most exciting thing to think about is what this theater will feel like in 20 years…because of the people who have come through it.”
Upcoming film programs include The Sewing Circle: Sapphic Icons of Early Hollywood, In the Midnight Hour: A History of Late-Night Movies and Forever a Contender: A Centennial Tribute to Marlon Brando. You can find a full calendar of screenings here.
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Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight on Monday launched a new tracking system to document possible misconduct and abuse during federal immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration, according to Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the committee.
The details: As of Monday, the the new dashboard listed 252 incidents dating back to Jan. 26. Only incidents verified by reputable media outlets or referenced in litigation are included, according to the committee website. Social media videos without corroboration are not included. Each incident is categorized as either under one or more of the following types of possible misconduct: "concerning use of force," "concerning arrest/detention," "concerning deportation," and an "enforcement action at a sensitive location.” Incidents involving U.S. citizens are categorized with a "U.S. Citizen" tag.
The backstory: Immigrant rights organizations and many Democratic leaders have long expressed concerns about the practices of federal immigration authorities carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan. “Our Dashboard shines a light on the harmful actions perpetrated against U.S. citizens and immigrants across the country,” Garcia said in a statement.
In-custody deaths: More than 40 members of the U.S. House, including 15 representatives from California, are also demanding answers from federal authorities about the record number of people who died in immigration detention this year. Fifteen people have died so far this year, including two at the Adelanto immigration detention center.
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A study from UCLA found that in drier years, larger animals are more likely to head closer and closer to where people live.
What’s driving this: It depends on the animal, but food and water are the main factors. Less rain means less standing water and less vegetation for herbivores. As these animals look for food and water in more populated areas, omnivores and carnivores also follow them.
What animals are affected: Among many others, deer, elk, squirrels, mountain lions, bobcats, and black bears are all inclined to leave their natural habitats to seek out supplemental food sources in yards and agricultural areas.
Read on... for more on what the data tells about our wild visitors and what are climate has to do with them.
If you’ve noticed more wildlife visiting your yard in recent years — maybe digging up your vegetable garden or even drinking from your pool — you’re not alone.
A recent study from UCLA found that larger predators like mountain lions and bears are more likely to interact with humans and travel closer to population centers in drier years. To determine this, the researchers analyzed state data collected on reported property damage, nuisances, conflicts and sightings.
“It kind of runs the full gamut of how people interact with wildlife around their neighborhoods and their homes,” said UCLA postdoctoral researcher Kendall Calhoun, the lead author on the study.
As you might expect, different animals might have different reasons for entering populated areas. But in large part, Calhoun said, it comes down to animals’ survival instincts.
The primary motivator for many herbivores is likely to be food. That’s because with less precipitation, there’s also less plant material for them to eat. (Don’t forget: even with all the rain we’ve had recently, much of Southern California is still in a drought.)
“ Deer and elk might be pushed to find those food resources in places that they normally wouldn't go, like agriculture, crops, things from people's yards, persimmons from your tree,” Calhoun said.
And as herbivores get pushed toward humans, the animals that prey on them are too. In fact, the species that saw the highest increases in clashes with humans were omnivores and carnivores, specifically mountain lions, coyotes, black bears and bobcats.
But even these animals have varying reasons for getting close to people.
“Mountain lions might be more inclined to look for supplemental food in livestock — that might be a sheep or a goat,” Calhoun said. “Black bears may be more willing to go into your trash to look for food to help supplement what they're missing in their resource-scarce natural areas.”
Meanwhile, animals of all kinds might enter a yard even when they have enough food to look for standing water.
Researchers analyzed data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that were reported over the last several years as part of a citizen science initiative.
One important caveat is that the researchers primarily looked at conflicts between wildlife and residents, and there may be differences in how these interactions are reported.
For example, you might not report a deer eating fruit from an overloaded tree as a nuisance, but even a peaceful black bear digging through your trash could raise alarm bells.
"People also really value having wildlife living alongside them," Calhoun said. "It really is important for us to try to strike that balance where there's pros for both sides, without some of the negative interactions that come with living in close proximity with wildlife species."
There’s more background on the research on UCLA’s website, and you can find the full study here.
You can also learn much more about interactions between humans and wildlife in LAist’s Imperfect Paradise podcast series, “Lions, Coyotes, & Bears.”
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Fast, affordable internet service in parts of L.A. County is expected to become available soon and organizers say now is a good time to sign up for alerts when the program goes live.
How much will the service cost? There will be different plans available — low income, market rate and small business — at different internet speeds and fixed price rates. The low-cost service plan will start at $25 per month for qualifying families. Those who don’t qualify could also purchase plans starting at $65 a month.
How will it work? The internet provider, WeLink, will install a Wi-Fi router inside a home and a 4-inch radio on the roof that will then connect to the internet network.
Why it matters: About 23% of households in East L.A. and Boyle Heights, and more than 40,000 households in South L.A., don’t have home internet.
Read on … for how to stay in the loop when the service rolls out.
Low-cost internet service will soon roll out in parts of L.A. County at the end of this year, and organizers say eligible households can sign up for alerts when the service becomes available.
The service — a partnership between L.A. County and internet provider WeLink — is the latest project from the county’s “Delete the Divide,” an initiative meant to bridge the digital divide in underserved neighborhoods.
Major funding for the project comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, as well as a grant from the California Public Utilities Commission.
About 23%, or more than 20,000, households in the East L.A. and Boyle Heights area don’t have home internet, according to Delete the Divide.
The service will also soon be coming to South L.A., where more than 40,000 households were identified as lacking home internet.
There will be different plans available — including low-income, market-rate and small business options — at fixed prices. The low-cost plan will start at $25 per month for qualifying families. Those who don’t qualify could also purchase plans starting at $65 a month. Monthly rates are fixed until at least September 2027.
Every plan includes unlimited data, a router and parental controls.
WeLink will install a Wi-Fi router inside a home and a 4-inch radio on the roof to connect the household to the internet.
Interested households can sign up for updates and be notified by WeLink when service is available here.
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A program that offers CalFresh recipients an extra $60 a month to spend on fresh produce at participating stores and farmers markets is restarting thanks to renewed state funding.
The backstory: The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Project was most recently funded at $10 million, but that was only enough to run the program for about three months.
How it works: When CalFresh recipients spend money on fresh fruits and vegetables at participating locations, their EBT cards are immediately rebated the amount they spend, up to $60 a month.
Funding boost: Thanks to a boost of $36 million in state funding, program organizers are hopeful it will last about 10 months. The renewed funding comes after food banks and meal programs in Los Angeles were forced to scramble to serve a rush of people looking for help during the longest government shutdown in American history.
The quote: The continuation of the program was a priority for State Sen. Laura Richardson, who represents cities including Carson and Compton. “You know, people are hurting," Richardson told LAist. "The number one thing that we hear that people are concerned about is affordability."
Find participating locations: There are about 90 participating retailers and farmers markets. You can find a list here.
