The Brief

This isn’t a story of stylish renovations, or of celebrity filmmaker intervention. This is the story of one family who fell in love with a movie theater and did (and even lost) everything to keep it up and running.

The single-screen Gardena Cinema has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and has always figured out ways to serve its community — even through some very difficult financial times.

After struggling through a pandemic and ill-fated efforts to bring people back through its doors, Gardena Cinema finally hit some success after it stopped dealing with first-run releases and pivoted to repertory films. Many nights at this South Bay theater, you can catch a newish — or oldish — classics like La La Land and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Kim family

The Gardena Cinema has always been a movie theater. It opened in 1946 as the Park Theatre, and operated consistently through the years showing first and second run feature films until it went up for sale in the 1970s.

That’s where the Kim family comes in. John and Nancy Kim immigrated from South Korea and had the goal of operating their own business. They dabbled in a few different industries when Nancy found the theater.

“My mom fell in love with it as soon as she came and saw it,” says current Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.

It's an incredible space, tucked between a gym and a Superior Grocers on Crenshaw Boulevard. It’s way bigger inside than it looks — at 800 seats, it’s easily one of the biggest theaters in the city. For comparison, The Chinese in Hollywood seats 932.

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#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.

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#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.

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There are still fireproof window covers in the projection room, a holdover from old film screening safety practices. And there are “cry rooms” upstairs from the 1940s, balcony seating with speakers and a glass window where patrons could sit with a crying baby and not interrupt their viewing experience.

Kim reminisces about her father using a pole hand to change the letters on the marquee. However, she admits that she lacks the arm strength for such a technique, which led her to invest in a scissor lift.

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Kim updates the marquee letters approximately once a week to reflect the upcoming movies that will be showing at the theater.

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Now it's got that vintage hue.

“Now it's cool! It's really cool!,” says Kim. “Now that I have dreams of trying to raise money to make changes, people are like, don't change anything!”

The early days

When the Kims bought the theater, they saw an underserved audience in Gardena. There was a drive-in theater nearby in Torrance called the Roadium that played Spanish-language movies every Wednesday, and the place would be packed.

One day, Judy Kim says, her parents decided to change the format of the theater from English speaking second-run movies from Hollywood to second-run Spanish language movies. In the 1970s and the 80s, the Kims named the theater Teatro Variedades — “variety theater” in Spanish — and focused on Spanish-language films and live events with Latino filmmakers and actors. If the Torrance drive-in was ever rained out, or if folks wanted to catch a movie in Spanish on another day of the week, they’d head to the Gardena.

“It was meant to be like a neighborhood theater that was typical in the post-war era,” says Kim. “There was always a neighborhood movie theater that you could walk to from your home, just a few blocks away … all of those theaters are now gone.”

The Kims held on to their theater and in 1995 renamed it the Gardena Cinema. Judy Kim and her brother helped run the theater and neighborhood kids showed up too, offering to clean or help out in other ways in exchange for a movie ticket.

It served as a community hub.

“We were almost kind of like a Boys and Girls Club,” recalls Kim. After the movie, kids “would hang out in the lobby, and we would play video games, or talk about what was cool and what was not and, as an adult at that time, I made sure that all the kids that were here did their homework.”

“I tutored them,” she adds. “I made sure that they were doing OK in school.”

Kim always expected them to go to college.

Trouble sets in

Despite the joy found in the theater, like most teens, Judy Kim wanted to get away from her parents and spread her wings, so to speak. She left for college out east and had dreams of moving to New York and becoming a Broadway producer.

Then the calls started coming — a lot of calls from her parents. Sometimes twice a day, begging her to return to L.A. She didn’t really understand what the urgency was all about, but she came home and found her parents — and the theater’s — finances in disarray.

“I realized that they were under extreme financial hardship, and they were embroiled in lots of legal problems,” she says.

Kim explains that her parents had been defrauded multiple times. The Kims lost their house, their car. To help, Judy Kim went to law school, became a lawyer and dug in to help untangle them. It took almost 15 years to get everything sorted. “We were basically surviving off of, like, 99 cent hamburgers,” she says.

The upside in all of this — and the part of this story that might be the reason Gardena Cinema is still around — is that about five years ago, Kim negotiated the purchase of a parking lot.

It was a big-time play. Gardena is one of very few independent theaters in L.A. with its own parking and, says Kim, “it saved our butt when the pandemic came.”

“Nobody was open and I had this big parking lot that I could show movies outdoors where people could sit in their car, safely, away from other people and watch a movie,” she says. “All they had to do was tune into the FM station that I told them to tune into.”

A bumpy road to recovery

As theaters in the city started welcoming folks back inside, the Kim family then had to navigate another major loss. “That time period is when my mom was fighting cancer,” says Kim. Nancy Kim died in 2022.

An altar of Kim's mother, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim, is placed in the lobby of the theater in remembrance of her beloved mother.

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John and Judy Kim closed the theater and took a few months to grieve. Judy Kim sold her condo and moved in with her father, putting that money towards the cinema.

“And then I said to my dad, we’re running out of money.”

The Gardena Cinema reopened with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, expecting it to be a huge hit. But only 10 people showed up to the first screening. Reopening the cinema with first-run movies meant that Kim was actually losing money.

New releases are “loss leaders” for movie theaters. Most of the ticket price is going straight back to the film’s distributor, and contracts mean that new films have to be shown for a certain number of weeks. If a theater isn’t bringing in enough audience members to turn a profit on concessions, theater owners are spending more than they’re making by running a first run film.

“So 2023, I’m running out of money,” says Kim. She says her father was ready to retire and use his “senior citizen card for all the national parks.” Why not sell the theater? Neither Kim nor her brother have children, so “there’s nobody to leave the theater to,” she says.

The theater hit the market, but didn’t sell.

Judy Kim made another last ditch pivot and came up with another plan: “I’m going to set up a nonprofit organization.”

With her father’s blessing, Kim began the process in April of 2023. The theater got official recognition as a nonprofit in July. Between that and the success of summer films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie, the Gardena Cinema had a future.

Volunteer 'grandchildren'

Judy Kim was now running a theater and a nonprofit entirely on her own. But, as she learned years earlier, you can’t underestimate the number of people willing to trade work for a free movie. It took months, but Kim now has a team of 40 volunteers who help her run the theater.

“I’ve got a really good core group of people that are very supportive.”

It’s those volunteers who convinced Kim to move away from first-run movies and start programming repertory screenings. Without the strict scheduling and tiny profit margins of a first-run movie, Kim suddenly had a lot more flexibility. If she needed to step away and take care of her father, or just close the theater on a slow night, those options were now on the table.

Movie posters adorn the lobby walls of the Gardena Cinema.

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The Gardena Cinema volunteers are invaluable to the space. They run concessions, clean the theater, sell tickets, run the projector — and this past November, Kim left the theater in their hands entirely to take a trip with her father. “They did a fantastic job … it’s still standing,” she says.

Cifen, a local filmmaker, helps organize events in the theater. He put together a singles’ night and a screening of his independent film, Age of Embellished Relic, this past February. He calls the theater a “safe haven.”

Conor Holt makes the drive to Gardena from East Hollywood. A former ArcLight Cinemas employee, he says he cares about making sure cinemas stay open. “If you care about something, you gotta go the extra mile.”

Adela Tobon used to manage a single-screen movie theater in Northern California. A friend told her about the Gardena Cinema and she says, “I just lost it. I’m like, this is exactly where I belong.”

And Bill DeFrance has taken over a lot of John Kim’s duties in the cinema — cutting trailers, ripping tickets at the box office, building the show in the projector.

It’s a family affair for DeFrance too. On Valentine’s Day, he programmed Wild at Heart — his and his wife’s favorite movie. “I programmed it for Valentine’s Day so I could be at the theater and on a date at the same time.”

A sign his daughter made hangs on the side of the ticket booth, and boldly states in red crayon: “NO PRANK CALLS!”

“For a long time, my dad was like, well, we don’t need to leave a legacy. There’s no grandkids,” says Kim. But the volunteers pipe up with a chorus: “We can be your grandchildren!”

Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.

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Judy Kim is now planning on leaving an endowment for the theater, so it can continue after she and her family have moved on. And intentional or not, the Gardena Cinema now has a legacy of community building and a fighting spirit.

Keep an eye on the Gardena Cinema’s calendar. You can catch anything from a karaoke party screening of La La Land to Dawn of the Dead in 3D to film festivals featuring shorts from local filmmakers.

California Democrats are targeting a handful of vulnerable GOP state legislators in hopes of flipping their seats blue.

What are their chances? Tuesday’s election results will offer an early clue.

Embattled Republicans from Sacramento to San Diego have drawn a crowded field of Democratic challengers. The primary, where the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party, will decide which Democrats will face off against those GOP incumbents in November.

Democrats in those competitive districts are banking on President Donald Trump’s waning popularity and the impact of his policies — chiefly high tariffs, immigration crackdowns and the war in Iran — to hurt Republicans. To fend off the challenges, GOP incumbents have tried to keep Trump’s name at a distance while appealing to their base of Trump loyalists.

In Riverside County, expect a rematch between Assemblymember Leticia Castillo, a Corona Republican, and Democratic Riverside City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, who lost two years ago by a razor-thin margin despite amassing a significant war chest. Tonight’s election will likely foreshadow the results in November, when the two will meet again for a final matchup.

In the Coachella Valley, three Democrats are vying to unseat GOP Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez of Coachella, who has adopted a more moderate perspective on immigration than his fellow Republican colleagues. Similarly, in three other purple districts, from northern Sacramento County to Orange County, tonight’s election will test the Republicans’ popularity.

Democrats are also playing defense in Southern California: Sen. Catherine Blakespear, an Encinitas Democrat, faces Republican challenger Laura Bassett tonight in the toss-up district in San Diego County.

In some of California’s deepest blue corners, Democrats running for open seats are fighting each other to break through. In the coastal Southern California district that includes Malibu and Santa Monica, half a dozen Democrats are vying to succeed Sen. Ben Allen, who is running for insurance commissioner. In Los Angeles, a fierce five-way race has split some of the most powerful labor unions and Democratic groups to replace Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gipson, who will term out by the end of the year.

In San Diego, the race to replace GOP Sen. Brian Jones, who is also terming out, is a battle between two Republican factions that offers a glimpse into the future direction of the party: Will a moderate San Marcos city councilmember endorsed by Jones be more palatable than a far-right firebrand? We’ll find out.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Some elected offices are pit stops. California’s lieutenant governor is one of them.

Voting ends on Tuesday and voters are choosing between an unusually competitive roster of candidates for the No. 2 job in the state, an office few aspire to without one key disclaimer: It’s a step on their way to another job in politics.

The lieutenant governor wields little power beyond stepping in when the governor leaves the state. But it’s been used as a slingshot to the governor’s office before, by Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Gov. Gray Davis, and seeking the office is often a signal that its officeholder has higher political ambitions.

State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Newsom administration official Josh Fryday and former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs are the leading Democratic candidates in a top-two primary that will send two candidates on to the November general election. Fryday, who heads volunteer programs for the state, has amassed the biggest treasure chest — nearly $4 million — and is backed by teachers unions and the governor.

Ma, a longtime politician with deep roots in San Francisco, has endorsements from influential labor unions and has raised about $2.8 million. But her run for the second-highest statewide office is shadowed by 2021 sexual harassment allegations that Tubbs supporters have latched onto. Ma has called the allegation “frivolous”, but the state paid $350,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by one of her former employees.

Tubbs was among the first to announce his campaign in 2024. Once a progressive star, he rose to political stardom 10 years ago as a young big city mayor who piloted a guaranteed income program in Stockton. Ousted by a Republican newcomer, his political career seemed to fade and he went on to lead Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, an advocacy organization. It’s his first crack at public office since then, and he’s garnered support from progressive Democrats and the powerful union SEIU California.

Longtime state lawmaker Gloria Romero is the leading Republican. Romero spent 12 years representing east Los Angeles in the state Legislature as a Democrat. She switched parties in 2024.

Higher education at the forefront

The major Democratic candidates have struggled to set themselves apart on policy. Because the lieutenant governor sits on all three college governing boards, each has claimed they would work to make universities build more housing and lower tuition costs. This has included practical solutions from directing Federal Student Aid applicants to food assistance program CalFresh, to more far-fetched ones such as free tuition for in-demand programs such as nursing.

The lieutenant governor also sits on the commission responsible for millions of acres of public land. Fryday thinks identifying more undeveloped land to build student housing on will help lower tuition costs.

Ma wants Cal State universities, which rely heavily on state funding, to find other revenue sources through partnerships with private companies.

At an April candidate debate in Los Angeles, Tubbs said he supports freezing tuition but did not elaborate on how he would make up the loss in revenue.

Romero seeks greater transparency about faculty, salaries and housing allowances and would push for more student representation on the UC Board of Regents.

To set themselves apart, the Democrats have leaned on their distinct backgrounds. Fryday has made clean energy a core part of his campaign as a former executive of a clean energy organization started by billionaire gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer. Ma has framed the job as another bulwark against the Trump administration. Tubbs, who works as an unpaid economic adviser to Newsom, has focused on affordability and cutting tuition for low-income families.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A quiet primary race for state superintendent of public instruction is winding down Tuesday, with no clear front-runner emerging from a wide field of well-qualified candidates for California’s top schools job.

Ten candidates — including several legislative veterans — are vying for the opportunity to oversee the state’s 10,000 public K-12 schools during a tumultuous time. Schools are grappling with AI in the classroom, budget uncertainty, declining enrollment, lackluster test scores and other challenges.

The job itself is also up in the air. Gov. Gavin Newsom in January proposed an overhaul of California’s school governance structure, with far fewer duties for the superintendent. Instead, the State Board of Education, an 11-member body appointed by the governor, and a newly appointed education commissioner would hold most of the decision-making power. The superintendent would act as more of a policy advocate.

The shift would streamline a cumbersome and often opaque bureaucracy, adding transparency and accountability, Newsom said. It would also align California with most other states. Candidates for the superintendent position blasted the proposal, saying it takes away power from voters and concentrates too much control with the governor’s office.

Newsom and the current superintendent, Tony Thurmond, are both termed out this year.

Charter schools are no longer a divisive issue

The race for superintendent — at times, in previous election cycles, one of the most expensive and contentious races on the ballot — has been unusually quiet this year. In the most recent poll, conducted in April, no candidate garnered more than 10% of voters’ support, and 32% of voters were undecided. As of last week, no candidate had raised more than a few hundred thousand dollars. That’s in contrast to the 2018 superintendent race between Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive, which generated more than $50 million in donations.

But there have been a few surprises in the race. The California Teachers Association and its historic nemesis, the California Charter Schools Association, endorsed the same candidate: Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside San Diego until this year. Both groups cited his accomplishments on the school board and his commitment to public education.

The dual endorsement shows how much has changed in education debates. For the past two decades, charter schools have been the No. 1 division in the superintendent’s race, generating millions in campaign donations from both sides. This year the subject has barely been mentioned, probably because charter school enrollment appears to have plateaued and both types of schools are now dealing with the same issues.

Another surprise has been the popularity of Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board. Shaw made headlines in 2023 when she took on Thurmond over the privacy rights of transgender students, and has made anti-LGBTQ policies the focus of her campaign. In the April poll, she was tied with Barrera.

Other top candidates include: Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, former head of the Assembly education committee; Josh Newman, former head of the Senate education committee; Anthony Rendon, former speaker of the Assembly and a longtime early education program administrator; Nichelle Henderson, a Los Angeles Community College District board member, and Ainye Long, a teacher in San Francisco Unified.

The nonpartisan position pays $210,460 a year.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Californians finish voting Tuesday for who they think can best tackle one of the toughest jobs in the state: insurance commissioner.

The commissioner is responsible for regulating the nation’s largest property insurance market that includes home and auto, plus health, pet, ride-hailing and life insurance, as well as workers’ compensation.

But the hot topic in the past few years as wildfire risk has increased has been home and fire insurance. The next commissioner will face many challenges that include trying to balance property insurance availability with affordability. Some insurance companies that had stopped renewing policies or writing new ones in the past few years are now taking advantage of new regulations that allow them to use new tools in setting their rates. This generally means premiums will rise as the Insurance Department, headed by the commissioner, is likely to keep approving increases in homeowners’ insurance premiums.

The new commissioner will also have to deal with the aftermath of last year’s Los Angeles County fires. Insurance-claim delays and denials are a key part of the slow pace of rebuilding and recovery. State Farm, California’s largest individual insurer, and the FAIR Plan, the state-mandated fire insurance provider of last resort, are both facing lawsuits from homeowners and legal action from the insurance department over their handling of claims from those fires.

The leading Democratic candidates are state Sen. Ben Allen, who will be termed out of the Legislature; Jane Kim, head of the California Working Families Party who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; Patrick Wolff, a financial analyst who has never held public office; and Steven Bradford, the former state senator and assemblymember. Neither of the leading Republican candidates has held statewide public office, either: Stacy Korsgaden, a longtime insurance agent, and Merritt Farren, an attorney who lost his home in the Palisades fire last year.

The candidates CalMatters interviewed mostly agreed on the problems that need to be tackled but proposed different solutions. A few of them have called for increased financial involvement by the state: Kim wants to establish a state authority for wildfires and floods funded by a portion of policyholders’ premiums. Farren wants to create a state reinsurance authority funded by a fee insurers charge their policyholders, something both Kim and Allen have expressed interest in. Bradford said he would study a public-private partnership to help keep insurers writing policies in California.

Consumer advocacy groups and former insurance commissioners say the job is complicated and involves a “brutal balancing act” that takes into account the needs of homeowners, business owners, landlords and renters while keeping insurance companies confident that the rates they’re charging match the growing risk of wildfires in the state.

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, the Democratic congressman whose district includes much of Contra Costa and Solano counties, was the state’s first insurance commissioner and held the position two different times. He told CalMatters that the commissioner job is “complex, hard, detailed work.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.