More Than Just a Movie
In the past few years, The Revue Cinema has focused on eventizing its programming, and it is paying off
Foreword
I initially wrote this piece for a class back in April. I have been pitching it around to different Toronto-based publications ever since. However, due to recent events, this story is now more important than ever. On June 27th, around 5 pm, The Revue Cinema announced on their Instagram that they were unable to secure a renewal on their lease and may be unable to open past June 30th if no deal is made with their landlord.
Update (June 28th, 2024): The Revue was able to secure an injunction and halt the proposed eviction. The theatre will remain open, and the landlord is not allowed to interfere with The Revue Film Society’s operations until an upcoming court date.
Update (September 10th, 2024): The Revue and their landlords have signed a new five-year lease, keeping the theatre open permanently.
Even though this article is now out of date, I hope it can be used as a call to arms. It was already my attempt at a love letter to one of my favourite buildings in the city. One that brought magic to a community full of curious and compassionate movie lovers every night. Feel free to share this piece with your friends, family, and those who may not know about this very important institution. There is a limited amount of information out there right now on the situation, and my feelings are beyond words. Hopefully, this article is enough to live up to the experiences and happiness The Revue has given me throughout the last few years.
LONG LIVE THE REVUE!!!
The Revue
The summer of 2023 was a special time for the theatre industry. Barbie and Oppenheimer were both released on July 20 and would go on to make $2 billion at the worldwide box office. As a movie fan, I took part in Barbenheimer and saw both movies on opening day. However, the day after, there were bigger fish to fry at The Revue Cinema, a not-for-profit theatre on Roncesvalles in the west end of Toronto. The curatorial movie series Dumpster Raccoon, which prides itself on reintroducing audiences to forgotten pop culture artifacts and is known to have pre-show drag performances and themed cocktails, was screening 1993’s Super Mario Bros. on 35mm. Super Mario Bros. is not a good movie. This was back when Nintendo made the fatal mistake of selling their rights to just about any filmmaker who walked through the door. Ironically, another Mario movie came out that summer and had its own box office success.
For The Revue, success takes on a different meaning. Theatre patrons hooted and hollered as a drag performer danced on stage dressed like a Piranha Plant. Dumpster Racoon’s programmer, Anthony Oliveira, addressed the crowd in a Bowser costume, saying, “Has anyone seen Barbie yet?” The audience laughed. The audience wanted more than a movie; it wanted an event, a night out with their friends, something a step removed from the mainstream. The Revue has found its niche and offers an experience that other theatres do not.
All the staff at The Revue have a deep passion for the movies, and Serena Whitney is no different. “I watched movies that were probably too mature for me at a very young age,” she says. Whitney’s series Drunken Cinema has been a successful addition to The Revue’s schedule. It delivers a twist on the regular movie-going experience. Once you walk through the box office, you are handed a playing card with a prompt that you must drink if the corresponding action occurs in the movie. The box office is an old-fashioned cubicle-like room that only fits a chair where the manager is seemingly trapped and scans a QR code on the customer’s phone. Whitney admits the front box office is falling apart and is looking to renovate soon, but believes that “what we lack in aesthetics, we make up for in vibe.” However, many regular customers of The Revue would argue that the nostalgic charm of the theatre adds to the experience. Even if the theatre needs renovations, the movies are important, not necessarily the building.
“They are not going to turn it into a condo and make a million dollars,” says Brandon Lim, one of the theatre’s programmers. “They don’t have to worry about that.” The Revue’s business plan revolves around the fact that they want to remain a movie theatre. The Revue is not-for-profit, short-staffed and has a volunteer board of directors to keep costs low. Lim says The Revue may have its flaws. The walls are too thin, so you can hear the popcorn popping during the movie. The door to the projection booth is through the washroom. The cloth seats are prone to stains and get covered with plastic bags, marking them as out of service. The lineup to the concessions booth bleeds into the theatre, leading to a traffic jam when people are trying to find seats. To Lim, the defects pale in comparison to the theatre providing the best service in the city.
“The whole reason for what we do is to bring people together in a communal way,” says Whitney. “They can experience a movie with a bunch of strangers. That’s the beauty of going to the movies. That’s why The Revue is sold out almost every night of the week because we’re able to cultivate the group of people who want to experience that together.”
Independent theatres in jeopardy
According to the March executive summary from the Network of Independent Canadian Exhibitors (NICE), Canada’s independent film exhibitions industry is in crisis. NICE reports that 60 per cent of independent film exhibitors were operating at a loss by the end of 2023. Independent theatres across the country are important because, in many small towns, these locations would be the only entertainment option in the area. Even though Toronto is very fortunate to have the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and an enthusiastic movie-going public, the only popular independent theatre options in the city are The Revue and The Fox, each on opposite sides of downtown. The number of theatres in Toronto today is a departure from what the city once had. Some of these closed Toronto theatres include The Rio, The Metro, The Bloor Cinema (now Hot Docs) and Famous Players Canada Square, to name a few.
The Revue must be doing something right, as the theatre reported it had 148 sold-out screenings from a total of over 440 events, attracting more than 71,000 guests in 2023. Those stats make The Revue one of the top independent theatres in the country. “There is a lot of power in putting a face behind a programming choice,” says Emily Gagne, co-programmer of the We Really Like Her series that focuses on women in film. “This was not programmed by a machine; this was programmed by a human person who has opinions and emotions that you can relate to. That is why people love coming to The Revue.”
Corporate multiplexes such as Cineplex do not have the personal element that programmers bring to screenings. “At Cineplex, you just pay your money and get out,” says Lim. Brad Simon is a regular at The Revue and says that going to rep theatres after a childhood of only going to multiplexes changed his perspective of what movie-going could be. “What is awesome about The Revue is that it only has one screen,” says Simon. “You become familiar with that one screen, and it’s bound to play something pretty interesting, or at least something that the multiplexes aren’t.”
Simon remembers working at his local Landmark Cinema multiplex in Whitby and says he and his friend were the only employees interested in movies. “Everyone treated it as only a job.” At The Revue, excitement is always in the air, and the night is programmed by people who care about the audience experience.
According to the NICE report, many independent cinemas in Canada are calling for the end of clean runs and zones. Clean runs are when a studio asks a theatre to play their movie during every time slot on a single screen, while zones force independent theatres to wait for nearby multiplexes to finish playing a movie until they can play it as a second-run release. These agreements affect customer turnout because they limit movie selection for independent theatres. Whitney says that not focusing primarily on first or second-run releases is part of The Revue’s success. The theatre focuses on personally curated older films and exciting pre-shows. “We didn’t look to other theatres to figure out how to become successful,” says Whitney. “We did it on our own.”
Changes during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many things to change at The Revue. In March 2020, Revue programming director Eric Veillette wrote an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail about his decision to close his theatre. He said that The Revue, which opened in 1912, was forced to temporarily close six years later because of the Spanish Flu. The theatre would be tested once again by the pandemic.
The Revue had to close in 2006 as well, after the death of building owner Peter McQuillan and the fall of the Festival Cinemas chain. A volunteer board of directors called The Revue Film Society was formed to preserve the cinema. After a fundraising effort from the community called “Save the Revue,” the theatre reopened on Oct. 4, 2007. The Toronto Preservation Board also gave a historic designation to The Revue cinema because of classical details dated to the World War One era.
Later, in 2020, Whitney took over Veillette’s programming job and leaned into turning regular screenings into events. Her job was to find a way to get people back into the theatre when they could just as easily watch the same thing at home.
The Revue established different revenue streams through the pandemic. It hosted virtual tweet-along fundraisers, sold its concessions for pickup or delivery, sold merchandise, and even engraved names of loyal customers into its seats as another fundraiser. Staying afloat financially was the obvious pressing concern, yet Whitney kept an eye on the future, which, for her, was attracting an even greater audience coming out of the pandemic.
Whitney emphasized attracting a younger audience as they can spread word of mouth online. She started advertising on Instagram stories and posted links to tickets. “It’s something I do every day, it’s time-consuming, but it’s worth it,” says Whitney. The posts let movie-goers know how many tickets are sold for a screening, whether it was 50 per cent sold or only four tickets left. “People are all about the fear of missing out. When they see our posts, they buy tickets faster.”
Whitney wanted to hire more outside programmers around the city to give her scheduling a personal touch. “My goal was to look for people entertaining others during the pandemic through virtual events.” When The Revue reopened in February 2021, the theatre added two notable series: Neon Dreams, which explores the neo-noir genre, and Black Belt Cinema, which focuses on martial arts films. Neon Dreams was programming virtually under the name Neon Streams and was not able to continue showing films at its usual theatre, The Royal, whose business was focusing less on movie screenings.
The life of a movie programmer
Lim, the Black Belt Cinema programmer, is seated in his living room over a video call with only a microphone in hand. It was as if he was about to deliver a comedy special. Undoubtedly, he was comfortable using a microphone and was a natural-born entertainer. Many other programmers’ faces lit up when I said I had spoken with him.
Lim has had a passion for sharing and curating films since first spending time at a bar called Dundas Video, which had an ‘80s VHS-era inspiration. “They had little old television monitors set up all around the bar. You could pop in videos or play Mario Kart on Super Nintendo,” says Lim. When the bar was looking to have movie nights, Lim started his first programming gig, Tapeworm Tuesdays. He would hook a VHS player up to the projector, which was quite challenging because the VHS did not work, or the wiring was off. “I’m showing a movie in a bar,” says Lim, “but there’s also people that just want to be in that bar talking and drinking beer.”
Lim moved his programming to a video store called Eyesore Cinema. Friends of the store would gather in the back room to screen movies. He started teaching himself to use Photoshop and create movie posters and trailers to accommodate his screenings. “That’s when I realized I wanted to do this, not professionally, but on a level that I felt was providing a fun, entertaining experience,” says Lim.
Beginning in July 2021, The Revue reopened its doors temporarily for a month and sold private screenings every day for $300. Lim booked one of these private screenings for himself and his friends but also took the opportunity to pitch his own series to The Revue, where he edited a trailer that featured Whitney as a “villain.” “What he did was very inventive, and it was a risk,” says Whitney.
Later, Lim invited Whitney to one of his events hosted in a parking lot behind his apartment, the genesis of the Black Belt Cinema series. “Nobody knew the magnitude of the pandemic. We probably should have been staying home, but I was trying to host films outside in the safest way possible,” says Lim. He took folding chairs from Eyesore Cinema, his projector, and a PA system. “Not only would I screen a movie, but I have friends who are musicians, like me, and we would perform a live score to a 30-minute short film.” Music is integral to Lim’s screenings, combining his two passions.
There would be about three to four of these events over the summer. Lim sold kombucha and snacks. About 30 to 50 people showed up, some of them neighbours, and most were there to complain about the noise. Whitney was impressed and gave Lim the opportunity to run Black Belt Cinema at the Revue.
I visited The Revue for a sold-out screening of Raising Arizona, part of the UnCAGED series, which exclusively curates Nicolas Cage films. Since the actor has been in 124 films, the series will not run out of material soon. Raising Arizona was a part of volume three of the series, which covered Cage in the ‘80s. What caught my eye was how the front of The Revue theatre became a Cage flea market before the screening. Artists were selling shirts, fanny packs, totes and even trading cards, all Cage-themed. Lim was selling a shirt he had designed based on the film Face/Off. The long-sleeved shirt featured a wide-eyed, slack-jawed Cage on the front.
“I had so much free time during lockdown, so I started teaching myself some basic design skills,” says Lim. The design for his first shirt was for a film called Johnny Mnemonic, and long-sleeved punk or metal shirts inspired the style. Lim started selling his shirts on Instagram. After selling around 100 of them, he was surprised that anyone would buy his shirts, let alone make enough money to cover his costs and have some money for his rent. “Imposter syndrome is always creeping up on you, and that’s a good motivator, but it can also drive you nuts,” says Lim. “It was hard to get comfortable with the fact that I was coming up with competent designs. I just kept at it and learned something new with every design.”
When Lim started curating films at The Revue, he would sell shirts supplementary to his screenings. “If you’re doing a sold-out screening and there’s a bunch of people there with money to spend, they’re going to buy a shirt,” says Lim. The product’s supplementary factor and scarcity sets him apart from other artists on websites such as Etsy. Lim usually creates 50 shirts for a screening, and the product will be inseparable from the experience of being at that specific event. It’s a unique opportunity. “If I were only curating movies and not working on posters, trailers and shirts,” he says, “I would probably be bored.”
Past series in the city, such as Kung Fu Fridays and Laser Blast Film Society, helped inspire Black Belt Cinema. Lim felt there was a void in curated martial arts films. “I grew up watching many of these movies,” he says. “Since I’m half Chinese, my experience with that side of my culture has come through film and television.” Programmers who curate international films for wider audiences are important to him, especially during the age of streaming when seemingly everything is available to consumers. “My friend, David Bertrand, programs a lot of Bollywood cinema,” says Lim. “I don’t think I would be watching any of that if it was not for him. He is taking the time to connect with the material. He researches the stars, the culture, and the history behind them. Not everyone has to do that for themselves.”
One of Lim’s favourite memories of programming at The Revue involves screening Miami Connection every summer. The film is about a group of orphaned taekwondo students who play in a rock and roll band and attend university. The band in the film is called Dragon Sound, and they play “super catchy” ‘80s rock music. “It’s one of the reasons people love the film so much,” says Lim. For his screening of Miami Connection, Lim assembled a cover band called Dragon Sounds with his friends. He made custom t-shirts, and they played all the songs from the film. The screening sold out.
A year later, Lim found out that there was another Dragon Sound cover band in Toronto. “My drummer, Bertrand, ran into someone at The Beer Store wearing a Dragon Sound shirt.” They realized they were both in a Dragon Sound cover band. The cover band twin invited Bertrand to a friend’s birthday party, where his band would perform. The two bands would later become friends, and Lim needed to find a way to incorporate everyone into the next screening.
“We had a band battle,” says Lim. “Bertrand actually gets killed by a ninja throughout the process, and that is what made us unite. Like, ‘Oh my god, it’s gone too far.’” The first band battle was Lim’s favourite screening he ran because the pre-show possessed many intricacies like skits, dialogue, a script and cues. “It felt like what I wanted to be doing with film programming.”
The business side of an independent theatre
New series at The Revue are pitched to Whitney to attract new demographics of movie-goers. Steven Landry, a programmer of Nightmare Alley, which screens horror films before the year 2000, says you can not begin showing obscure films too early into your series, or else the audience will not be interested. “It makes sense to show popular films to get your foot in the door,” says Landry. A programmer has to gain the trust of their audience before screening something nobody has heard of before. When Whitney first brought in Landry, the Revue Film Society was concerned that they were showing too many horror movies and wanted to accommodate different genres and audiences. However, because Drunken Cinema was popular and proved that horror was doing good business, they decided they could open the genre up to another series.
The programmers are encouraged not to overlap when choosing films and to stick to their parameters. If The Revue had shown the same movie previously and had a mixed reception, or if Whitney felt a series suited a movie better, she would tell them. “Serena is good at being honest with us in terms of what she thinks will make us succeed,” says Gagne, “not just from a money standpoint, but also keeping the series going strong.”
Programmers usually have to go up on stage to introduce their movie as well, something not easy for cinephiles, who are typically not the most extroverted people. “Everyone has a hard time public speaking. Having to tell an audience about a movie they have maybe seen even more times than you have is not an easy task,” says Lim. The audience at The Revue is never overtly academic at screenings—they’re not looking for a serious contemplation on the film, which reassures Lim. “If you don’t hear anyone clap at a Revue screening, that’s odd,” he says. All he has to do is bring that same energy to his introductions, and he enjoys feeding off the atmosphere. To Lim, he’s building a collective fantasy, experiencing escapism together.
Film prints are an added incentive to some screenings that draw in the most dedicated fans of The Revue. “People love to see things on a different medium,” says Whitney. “The texture is different, and there’s something nostalgic about it.” The Revue is fortunate to get locally sourced prints from collectors or TIFF because importing prints from studios in the US is expensive. “A regular 95-minute film in a couple of big metal cans weigh over 50 pounds, and the shipping costs get pretty exorbitant because the studio is not going to pay for that,” says Landry. Since The Revue has been doing well, they could invest more in booking these prints. Some films can only be screened in the 35mm format because the studio does not have a digital package (called a DCP) which is more commonly used. In these circumstances, a film print is the only way to see a movie, especially in the way it was originally shown theatrically.
Booking prints are important when scheduling screenings in advance. Whitney says that popular theatres in North America are taking notice and booking prints before them during the busiest season in October for Halloween. “It’s friendly competition,” she says. “We are not in any wars with other theatres. It’s a good feeling that there are so many filmgoers that sell out multiple Toronto theatres in the same day.”
A happy cinephilic marriage
The Revue’s programmers and customers have enjoyed the opening of a video store across the street. Vinegar Syndrome is a film restoration and distribution company based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Its Toronto location opened in October 2023 and has received celebrity acclaim from renowned filmmaker and city resident Guillermo Del Toro. “I think the audience of The Revue and the customer base at Vinegar Syndrome are the same. They’re people willing to put out money to watch a movie or buy a movie or movie soundtrack,” says Gagne. The store regularly donates free Blu-rays to the theatre to use as trivia prizes.
Andy Williams and Chris Colohan, who own Vinegar Syndrome, specifically chose their location to keep the film community in one place. Williams used to work at a Vinegar Syndrome warehouse that shipped physical media across Canada. There was so much demand for their product that the space grew from 200 to 3,000 square feet in a few years. At that point, Williams knew it was time to open a store. “There is a misrepresentation where people believe that they’re getting rid of physical media and are instead streaming their movies,” says Williams. “There are still people who stream, but there are also those who want physical copies with special features and packaging.” To buy a disc from Vinegar Syndrome, he believes, is to support the work of preservation. All the money they make goes back into that process.
The importance of The Revue and Vinegar Syndrome facing each other along Roncesvalles cannot be understated. The interaction between movie-going and physical media collecting solidifies the significance of the film form. Colohan says that whenever a movie is screened, the more that movie is recommended, the more it is bought physically, the more it is preserved and is never going away. Being a movie fan is not just consumption; it is a process of survival and keeping the art alive. The programmer is the mediator, pointing out what is good and worth investing in.
The Revue helps surrounding local businesses on Roncesvalles. The doors to The Revue are always open 30 minutes before showtime, meaning there is usually a long lineup wrapping around the block. Whenever there is a sold-out screening, pubs such as The Local and Loons are always full, so much so that they need to hire more people. When Oliver Hodo opened Loons in 2000, he was already collaborating with the theatre by paying for ad spots. He says that his bar regulars are never surprised whenever a crowd arrives before heading to a Revue screening. Hodo hopes to continue to build a relationship with The Revue so that both businesses can accommodate customers during peak hours. Williams and Colohan frequently schedule their hours around The Revue’s programming to capitalize on the crowds as well. The Revue is a major player in keeping its community successful.
The Revue community has remained strong ever since its initial opening in 1912. The theatre would experience its fair share of closures. The neighbourhood surrounding the building would change, but The Revue has always stood in place. Passionate Revue regulars such as Seth Cochrane love how the employees at concessions remember their order of one medium popcorn with layered butter, a white cheddar flavouring packet and a cup of iced water. “They care enough to acknowledge the fact that a large group of us continuously go back over and over again.” Even though the theatre has a long history, new movie-goers find its doors daily. At a screening of Constantine, I turned to the man beside me as trailers ran and asked him what he thought about the theatre. He said it was his first time. When I asked him how he found the place, he simply replied, “Yelp.” I smiled and replied, “Welcome to The Revue.”