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Episode 12 - Nat Taylor's Load-Bearing Drywall
49 Plays2 months ago
Did you know that if you are good at drywall or stucco, you can split up a movie theatre so you can watch two movies at the same time in the same building? How about split it again and have three or four? Or thirteen? Or fifteen?
In this episode, we learn how much we hate Cineplex and everything it is attached to in this country.
Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1emfvw9/i_completed_the_metro_vancouver_skytrain_speedrun/
Our SkyTrain speedrun:
https://cohost.org/Cariad/post/2682895-we-re-the-world-reco
Heritage Moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFB2iyVx6LM
We now have a Patreon!
https://patreon.com/shawiniganmoments
Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Dog's Cone Struggles
00:00:00
Speaker
So I've been angling the food bowl, like I propped up the food bowl on a little pedestal and I've been angling it towards her. But she always starts from the far side of the bowl and works her way back because she's a little fucking goober. So she keeps trying to do that, but the problem is is like then her cone blocks her from actually like reaching the food bowl. And her genius dog brain then decides, I know, I just need to push harder. So she'll push the cone into the food bowl
00:00:32
Speaker
which causes it to flatten and cover the entire food bowl, except for a little gap. So what why I was late is I was trying to fix her like position here, because what she was doing is she was smashing the food bowl and through the tiny little gap between the edge of the far side of the bowl and the edge of her cone, she was like snaking her tongue down to scoop up individual kibbles and like bits of cottage cheese.
00:01:01
Speaker
I want to laugh at this, but knowing that because your dog lost one of her eyes, I i feel like I'm a huge bitch if I go and start laughing. But also it's it's incredibly funny. Yes, in a very dark way, like your dog lost her one of her eyes like what, two, three days ago?
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. If I lost one in my eyes, i I'd have a hard time being made fun of. Well, then again, I wouldn't have a cone around my neck. Yeah, the most of her struggles has been her just unwillingness to adjust to life with the cone, ah because she she like walks through the hallway in the apartment building like a rat like whiskers to the wall, basically, um which means that she's constantly just like slamming the cone on things. Oh, ah see, those dogs rely a lot on their noses, right? She is at least able to sniff where she needs to, right?
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, well, so the thing that necessitated her getting her eye removed was she injured her eye and ended up blind in that eye. So she we were dealing with that for quite a while. um So she's fairly adjusted to having vision just in the one eye. ah So it makes sense that it's the cone is the big difference here, that and being high out of her gourd on painkillers. One, two, three.
Introducing the Podcast & Hosts
00:02:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Schewinnegan Moments podcast. My name is Heather and I use she or they pronouns. My name is Tamarack and I use they them or it its pronouns. So we have some interesting news today, but it's not from the news sort of it's from Reddit.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:58
Speaker
I have had that audio file saved in my archives forever because I was like i figured I'd have a use for this. like A long time ago, I got all the station announcements from TransLink out of a FOI request. I don't know what this one is here in particular. It might be this. Hold them.
00:03:14
Speaker
Hold them. So I have every single station that's on the Millennium and Expo line as of 2020. Actually, no, 2017 is when I got these audio files back in 2023. Tamarack and I were having a couple of drinks, which is kind of how, which is actually how this podcast started.
00:03:34
Speaker
We just kept drinking. But no, not that time that we were having some drinks. The other time we were having some drinks and came up with an insane idea that we then did. So we had a free Saturday. Was it 2023? It
Vancouver SkyTrain Record & Speedruns
00:03:51
Speaker
was February 2023. We did this, I believe. Good grief. Yeah, so you don't look at the show notes because there's something in there I want to show you for that. I want you to not look up to see. it Yeah, it was February 18, 2023 is when I posted it on co-host.
00:04:03
Speaker
And Tamarack and I decided to ride the entire SkyTrain system, which is 79.6 kilometers long. And we documented the whole process on cohost dot.org. and I'll put the link in the show notes. And we started at, ah what what time was it?
00:04:22
Speaker
like 12 27 in the afternoon and we finished it by two about three three oh seven so it took us a grand total of two hours 49 minutes and eight seconds we had to do i think it was like eight transfers well i don't not necessarily we had to make transfers sometimes we were able to stay on the train but you know we had to do eight total stops right in order to go like from train to train or whatever right For about six months, we were blissfully unaware that we had beaten the Guinness record for this particular stunt. We weren't even seeking to defeat the record. I mean, we weren't not seeking to defeat the record. Yeah, but it wasn't like on our agenda. Like it was just sort of like, I wonder how long it takes not can we beat the person who has the record because we didn't even know the record.
00:05:19
Speaker
True. Yeah. So Steven Quinlan is the official Guinness World Record holder for writing the entire system. And it took him a grand total of two hours, 49 minutes and 37 seconds, meaning that we beat the guy by 30 seconds. Yeah, it was real close.
00:05:39
Speaker
But again, like we just didn't know. and But we only had a stopwatch that was on my... Or rather, we didn't have only had a timer that was on my stopwatch. site we didn't I was not interested at all in submitting this to Guinness. It just didn't make any sense. I wanted to submit it to speedruns.com.
00:05:56
Speaker
I do not want to manage a speedrun.com page specifically for doing SkyTrain. But it would be cool. yeah No, because I've already dealt with managing stuff on speedrun.com and there's a reason why I don't want to do speedrunning anymore because it's just too much work for no benefit. all right That's why I do podcasting.
00:06:17
Speaker
So a couple of attempts have been made to do it further because we did this on social media. Steven Quinlan didn't. Steven Quinlan actually did this for charity. It's on the website fastestguytrain.ca. He was doing this to raise money for L.O. at addiction services.
00:06:36
Speaker
It's like a substance literacy program of some sort. I don't know much about it personally, so but considering the fentanyl crisis that we have still ongoing, despite the fact that we're hitting a decade since it was like made an emergency, it's... Oh, yeah. I i live in the thick of it.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, like if you hear sirens on the recordings, it's generally it's coming from Tamarac, not from me. And oftentimes that it is it is OD response, although we do have we do have bicycle paramedics who do a lot of the helping people out and most folks around here have naloxone kits.
00:07:11
Speaker
somebody has attempted to beat us apparently but and there was this lovely woman from ah somewhere in the United Kingdom which I was just in a couple weeks ago and she attempted to do this took her about two hours 54 minutes and 30 seconds so she was five minutes off considering like there's a lot of construction on SkyTrain at the moment because they're adding a new extension, they're adding new switches for another extension. Like by the time 2030 rolls around, it'll go from 79.6 to like a hundred kilometers. It'll be a pretty lengthy network and still one third the size it was when the BC Electric Company was running into turbines, just to give you an idea of what was shipped from the city.
00:07:50
Speaker
We will, it's slowly trending towards just ah returning to 1920s service. <unk> I would say mid-1940s, because that was kind of the peak of it. Also, check out Vancouver Hidden Transit on co-host. Yeah, it's co-host.org slash Vancouver Transit. It's run by an incredibly nice person that ah we we all like. That's me. Including you. Yes, you, listener. You like her too. I generally like me.
00:08:19
Speaker
So I'm glad I'm glad I like you too. I like you too. So Epic Elite 333 posted in our Vancouver that they had completed the Vancouver SkyTrain speed run and got a time of two hours, 47 minutes and 53 seconds. Meaning they beat us by about a minute, a minute and a quarter, something like that.
00:08:42
Speaker
And they documented this much better than us because we weren't exactly speedrunning Skytrain. We were just timing it, which I guess you could say it's a speedrun. And and ah what's really funny about this is this person in particular, they are a... I think they're a university student because they were visiting the city. I don't know what I... Like I haven't read the post in a while and of course I should maybe pull up in a tab. Yeah. So I have actually been quoted in a bunch of articles because being that Tamarack and I were the record holders, but I was the one posting about it. Everybody comes to me.
00:09:19
Speaker
and so I was interviewed by... As an independent game developer, my my ability to market is like somehow negative. I fucking hate social media. And there's like a reason why you don't see me as terribly online. It's just I don't have time to post and dunk on shitheads and all that. But yeah the CBC reached out to me and they did a podcast recording about this. I don't know if it's been out yet. um The reporter, she told me that she would let me know.
00:09:48
Speaker
I've gone and googled a couple of times, haven't heard anything since. Admittedly, she recorded the show while we were on a SkyTrain itself. And some of the sections of SkyTrain could get pretty fucking loud, so I'm pretty impressed if she can pull it off because I wouldn't want to do ADR-ing in SkyTrain. I think it would be nightmarish.
00:10:06
Speaker
Do you know what show it was from? It's on CBC podcasts or it will be. I don't know where it's at. But anyway, we're getting on the sidetracked here. We're no longer the world record holders.
History of Movie Theaters
00:10:17
Speaker
Some people have asked me, are you going to try and reclaim it? And I'm like, no. Yes.
00:10:20
Speaker
You can do it, I don't care. you You're welcome to do it by your yourself, friend. we're gonna ah We're already doing something done with a train next month. we have We have some plans for railways in the future. I like trains. I'm kind of a trains person, if you know what I mean. I like riding trains, um but yeah. All right, well, that's that's the news. We actually didn't do anything special beyond that. But hey, you know what we can do? We can close this segment.
00:10:54
Speaker
Tamarack, I'm going to start this episode off a little differently. Oh yeah? Because I'm not going to play the clip just yet. Oh, we got preamble. We got preamble. But I'm going to ask you. I was going to fuck with my folders in Caden Live. So I have a question for you. And I have a feeling you might have the same answer I will have.
00:11:16
Speaker
All right, what's the question? What is your favorite movie theater at all of Metro Vancouver? Realistically, the Rio. Of course you did. Of course you would. Of course, of course.
00:11:27
Speaker
For pure like, because it was at a very specific time in my life, I actually really impartial to the park theater. Okay, that's what that's reasonable. But why the park theater park theater specifically because one of my friends in college lived in that live nearby and would always invite me out to kind of the, the like off like didn't quite make it into the major theater circuit screenings that would go into the park and it was it was just nice i just had a nice time and there was a pretty good it's still around as a chain now and it's fucking awful don't go there but it's called beer craft and it was like one of the earlier like
00:12:08
Speaker
you know, n billion ah beers on tap sort of places. ah So we would drink Belgian beers and watch kind of independent films that were that were screened there. And it's just really nice. The one thing I'll say about beer craft is it used to be called Daddy O's. And that was because it was brought over from a restaurant that was in Edmonton. I don't know if the Edmonton location is still there or not.
00:12:31
Speaker
But back when I ate meat, I ate a lot of po' boys and Daddy-O's was just phenomenal of its po' boys and it had a really good beer selection. So yeah, you picking beer craft as a place to go is not really a terrible ah choice in my mind. Yeah. It's like, it's just a nice time in my life. Things were stable. I didn't have to have gender.
00:12:55
Speaker
So I was a huge fan of the Rio or rather I am a huge fan of the Rio. Yeah, the Rio is fucking amazing. It's a great theater and it's a multi-purpose theater these days, but it does play movies. I was recently there to see a double bill of Fury Road and Furiosa, although I'd rather it's the other way around because that's the timeline. I only watched Furiosa because I developed a massive headache because I'm i'm an idiot and I won't yeah that's I'll just leave it there. and so But the thing is, is's like I've gone to see movies at the Rio numerous times. I've seen burlesque shows, I've seen comedy shows, I've gone there for some sort of talk, and I can't even remember. This is going back like 12 years. But the Rio has been an independent theater since 2008 and was also instrumental in changing a lot of the liquor laws in British Columbia to not be so, how can I put it, nanny state-like.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's the one theater where you can grab a beer and watch like a Studio Ghibli triple feature. It is. And of course, that did not like that was not legal until 2012. And it was because ah the Rio theater actually made it, you know, they campaigned on it.
00:14:07
Speaker
it There were some complaints I could make about the Rio, but I can understand why. like During COVID, the sports bars were allowed to operate, but the Rio wasn't. So the Rio in protest turned itself into a sports bar. It would play sports on the te on the giant screen.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yes, like I can make complaints about that. But I can also understand their position on this too. So sure. The only thing I wish that they would have done as a sports bar as a flex for the kinds of films that they normally screen, they should have been screening like old hockey games.
00:14:41
Speaker
like like the world the world juniors against the Soviets or like yeah fucking Gordie Howe's entire career. i don't want I don't want to get too focused on Mr. Hockey Triple Feature. Let me speak.
00:14:57
Speaker
that I don't want to get too fixated on on movie theaters in Vancouver, per se, because I do want to talk about one movie theater here, and then I'm going to play the clip. um But I want to talk about the history of movie theaters, or cinemas, as somebody else would call them. so but So let's go back way before movies, and we're going to talk about the like the first known example of a show taking place solely on a screen was in 1799, when Etienne Gaspar Robert, AKA Robertson, moved his Phantasmagoria show
00:15:29
Speaker
from a cloister in Place Vendôme in Paris. This involved taking like skeletons and placing in front of a bright light to create shadow effects. So that's kind of one of the no earliest earliest known examples of a screen play, I guess you could say.
00:15:44
Speaker
and Through the 19th century, various forms of this art would become popular with the use of mechanical shapes, lanterns, skeletons, and dissolving views. The latter being a system of lanterns that would show an image of one dissolving into another. In 1833, the stroboscopic disc was invented, otherwise known as a fanscope, or, and I'm going to say this word in the best way possible, a phenakistiscope.
00:16:09
Speaker
Those are sounds. Yeah, so that's that's a word. It's P-H-E-N-A-K-I-S-T-I-S-Z-O-P. Try and get that out. One of the most popular examples of this was in 1847 when Ludwig Dobler used it in his magic hat at the Joseph Staats's theater in Vienna. This proved so popular it led to sold out shows throughout his European tour.
00:16:36
Speaker
Now, I don't want to dwell too much into the history of film because that'll take fucking forever. And we're both photography nerds, so even more so than me. But like, yeah, like chronophotography, otoscopy, or idol scopy, I think is how you say it. Those are just going to ignore. But by the early 1900s, advancements in film permitted the creation of purpose-built movie theaters or cinemas. So before we go into the rest of the episode,
00:17:02
Speaker
And this is why I didn't want you to read the script here just yet. I want to talk about the first movie theater in Canada and also the second in North America. Now, do you
Nat Taylor & Multiplex Evolution
00:17:11
Speaker
have any guesses where the first one was?
00:17:13
Speaker
a I'm gonna guess in Montreal. It was actually on Cordova Street in Vancouver and it opened in 1898. It was a temporary structure. A Swedish-born man named John A. Schuberg, sorry if you're Swedish, I don't know how to say this, after having grown up in Minnesota and got a start in the entertainment business with a lung tester machine, and also doing Punch and Judy shows. Tamarack, do you know what a Punch and Judy show is?
00:17:39
Speaker
I do know what a Punch and Shootie show is. I fucking hate them. They're not that popular in Canada anymore, but if you go to like England and you go to somewhere like, I don't know, Dover or... like Are they popular or are they just like a cultural staple? I would say a cultural staple, but you like you went you could find them in like Dover or Brighton or something like that, like somewhere that's a beachside area. Because there's like a bunch of like Canadian like carnival and festival like staples that I think are just there because they're there. They're there because they're always there.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, no. All I know is like they're not that common in North America anymore. like I don't go to circuses or fairs, but like even like the ones that do come around, like I've never seen a Punch and Judy show. You might see them at a Wren fair maybe. Probably where you would find them. I grew up in the interior, so I went to a lot of like the the little like fairs and expositions. so It was a temporary structure, as I mentioned, but a permanent installation opened by him, opened in 1902, and it was named the Electric Theater.
00:18:37
Speaker
located what is now 38 East Cordova Street, which was eventually raised and became Lofts in 1997. Oh, that is, that is like right in my neighborhood. Yeah. So if you're looking for it downtown, you can find it. You can see actually know you can easily locate it because it's the parking garage in that tower. Yes. So having now explained movie theaters, having now doxxed myself.
00:19:09
Speaker
leave that please Leave that in. Please do not try and find Tamarack's home. Do not attempt to locate my house. Get lost looking at the steam clock. It's what it's for. Fuck the steam clock. The steam's so pretty. You want to look at the steam. Be mesmerized like all the other tourists.
00:19:28
Speaker
I'm going to go, so now that we have it, now that we've talked about a little brief history of movie theater, so I don't have to talk about movie theaters and their origins, I'm going to play the clip. So I moved witness into Little Elton and cry into the bay, and I filled both. So then I tried a five plex in Toronto. So I said if I was the first to split an old movie house into two small ones or five, then what about, what about 15 houses in one? 15? Not 15.
00:19:58
Speaker
And what about? but one I was going to say that this is, this is by far the dumbest of all the heritage minutes because I have been trying to figure out why they chose to, I'm just going to use it this turn, die on this hill. On what hill specifically? Well, I'm going to get to that because I'm going to talk about the why this is kind of incorrect because what I'm trying to claim here is that Nat Taylor is the inventor of the multiplex. And I'm going to talk about why I disagree with this.
00:20:29
Speaker
I think what that is conveying is that he's a bit of a showman and also a bit of a used car salesman, ah is what I got out of that particular exchange. but Well, unfortunately, he never sold cars, but I will talk about what his history is. You don't need to sell cars to be a used car salesman. It's ah it's a vibe.
00:20:48
Speaker
That's fair. But for for the listener's context, the Rio theater is like an old style of theater. it's not a moment I'm going to talk about this. hello to Fine. um's fine i I guess I don't get any contribution in this episode. You do, but you have to wait because I'm going to talk about these theaters. No, patient.
00:21:11
Speaker
So let's talk about Nat Taylor. Nat Taylor was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1906 and was one of five kids born to Jewish parents. Not much is said about his early life, but by age 12, he started his first business in the film scene by selling ads on the back of Hollywood postcards for all of the movie theaters on Queen Street. I'm assuming his he changed his last name because of where he grew up in the year he was born. Or was he actually born Nat Taylor? To the best of my knowledge, he has that name. Oh, interesting. interesting Yeah. We're going to have some fun with names. There's a reason why I'd actually keep being the script away from you for a moment and then you can pull it up. Yeah. There's a drop that you're going to be like, what the fuck? Normally I pre-read these and I've been told no.
00:21:54
Speaker
For $3, 1,000 postcards could be littered with an ad for whatever local business in Toronto wanted. And that would be about $55 today. So for 12 years old, you're making $55 just selling postcards? Like that's pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad. Five years later, he'd be operating his father's movie theater called the Monarch on College Street near Ossington Avenue. This would be done alongside him studying at Osgood Hall, which was at the time a law school independent from York University. It's now part of York University.
00:22:22
Speaker
As for the theater itself, because I can never get an answer straight on where it sits exactly, or where rather where it's sat, it might now be the Access Club Theater, which is home to a Portuguese community center as well. Or it's merely a sleep country. Sleep country, Canada. No. just say God damn it. That's going to be stuck in your head for like i ever now. No, trust me. Every time I read the name Sleep Country, that's what happens.
00:22:52
Speaker
You're welcome, listeners. By 1934, Nat went into business in four 20th century theaters, and within seven years, he amassed 17 theaters operating under the company banner. This success did not go unrecognized. And Tamarack, I need you to prepare you for this name to end all names. I am ready. Nathan Nathanson.
00:23:16
Speaker
Now you can read the script. Now you can read the script because I didn't want you to see this name. and Well, I can't read and listen at the same time because it's the same thing for me, because I can't visualize. that's Nathan Nathanson, God, what a name, founder of famous players, asked Nat to operate 25 additional theaters in order to keep Odeon, of which Cineplex Odeon has its origins in, from gaining ground. God damn it, stop editing the script.
00:23:46
Speaker
Okay. Famous Players was one of the biggest movie theater businesses in Canada at the time. Some of their theaters include Toronto's Ed Mervis Theatre, which was then called the Imperial, and Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre, which is amazing. So I'm going to get you the scroll because now I need you to see the script. Here's a picture of the Ed Mervis Theatre. It is fucking gorgeous inside. That's also really pretty. I like the I like the little embellishments on the side of the chairs.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, this is this is really lovely. um I would say that it's slightly prettier than the Orpheum. Orpheum is a gorgeous theater as well. um You and I went there, what, back in February for a show? Yeah, for the New York Tomita show. That was a really good show. You know, like they this is really interesting because I'm going to tell you about crimes. Yes, crimes. This would be of the being gay and doing kind.
00:24:37
Speaker
No, unfortunately not. This would lead to 20th century theaters becoming part of famous players, like at some sort of agreement, I don't know how to describe the relationship per se, and subsequently putting that in charge of the Elgin Theater in Ottawa. In December 1957, which is what this Heritage Minute claims to be taking place in, on an adjacent property, the second Elgin Theater was opened next door. But it largely played the same shows or, you know, there wasn't really too much to be said about like,
00:25:03
Speaker
like it's a little unclear actually I should say about like what they were doing but I'm sorry ultimately speaking they might have been playing the same shows it was like a way to run two screenings in parallel where like you didn't really have a whole lot to do for like this kind of entertainment ah There wasn't Netflix obviously, but there also like wasn't a plethora of shows and all shows to run and places to see them. So these theaters would get quite busy. So I think the the original idea might have been just to have two next to each other, so if you had to overflow the seats in one, you could have a second in screening over in the other.
00:25:45
Speaker
Well, one of the things about the 1950s, 1960s, and to a certain extent, in the 1970s was that the idea of playing movies at home was a very foreign concept. Like we were talking about this on our bonus episode, but if you want to play movies at home, there was an option to do so, but it wasn't mainstream. It was extremely expensive. Like you'd have to have some sort of player that would cost 10 grand.
00:26:10
Speaker
Generally, you would just be buying what, 35 or eight millimeter film. I think that's what you'd be looking at. There like there just wasn't a really practical way to play movies at home. Yeah. The equipment was large and expensive as well. So you needed a large home and a large screening room within that large home in order to actually do this. <unk> I've seen like mentions that it would be around 10 grand to have like a reasonable setup in your home just to watch a movie. Like it wasn't cheap.
00:26:38
Speaker
So 10 grand 1930s money or 10 grand? Today's money. Okay, that's not that bad. Nat had an idea. Why not show multiple movies out of the same box office? And thus the first dualplex, I'm gonna put an asterisk on this or multiplex, I'm gonna put an asterisk on this, cinema was born. This idea caught on and soon he was turning all sorts of single screen theaters into multiplexes.
00:27:02
Speaker
Now I'm going to talk about why I'm saying asterisk and why I don't like this heritage myth and why I'm saying, uh, historical Canada, or I think it was actually had a different name for the organization at the time. Cause this was 90, 1997 when this thing came out, there is a bit of a dispute.
00:27:19
Speaker
And I have read records that the first dualplex was in Manchester in the UK. It was called the Regal Twins. It is now known as the Dance House if you live in Manchester. And that was one of the 1930. But and then the first one in the United States was the Alhambra Twin, which featured an annex in my like, there's just a lot of weird things about this.
00:27:38
Speaker
and yeah And to make it worse, is that the first multiplex, so we're not talking dual, we're talking like triplex, quadplex and so forth. It's disputed that it might be one of four men, including the founder of Viacom, Sumner Redstone, and the founder of AMC Theatres, Stanley Durwood. ah Stanley died what in the 19, like somewhere in the late 90s, early 2000s, and Redstone died in 2020. So yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, but it's difficult to say because like it's not that there was a lot of media around like international media around like the opening of multiplexes. This wouldn't be a thing that would make international news.
00:28:22
Speaker
So whether or not they were aware of each other's creation of these multiplexes is debatable. Well, there's so there's some inconsistencies as well in some of the records I'm looking at. Like this was one of the harder episodes to get correct. I don't think any of what I'm about to read off here is correct. But and you'll understand why in a moment here is that the first triplex theater, so we're talking three theaters.
00:28:47
Speaker
Mm hmm. It opened on December 5th, 1969, and it was known as the Burnaby Theater, but ah apparently not. And I'll explain why in a moment in this locate open at Logie Town Center. Now, in the article that I have clipped here, it says that it was opened in 1965, which was four years earlier. The reason why I find this one troubling is like if you scroll down a little bit here,
00:29:13
Speaker
You'll see in this clipping from the Vancouver Sun dated December 5th, 1969, but it was not called the Burnaby Theatre. It was called the Loquide Mall Cinemas. Where's the first clip from, though? That is from the Guinness Book of Records ah for movies, I believe. Yeah, OK, that's that's fair. I fully believe that they fucked up. It's also possible that the low heat mall cinemas might have actually opened up in 1965, but might not have been a triplex at that time.
00:29:44
Speaker
It's possible. i Especially looking at the layout, it looks like it was a dual plex, and then they cut the second mo the second screen room in half.
00:29:55
Speaker
I could believe that and that could be definitely the case. And that would be reason why it would open as the Burnaby theater and then they rename it like it's possible. That's why they say it. But ah let me explain a little bit about this place, because you'll understand its size real quickly here. So it opened with the movies explosion and cinema one, which had 736 seats.
00:30:15
Speaker
Don't Look Now in Cinema 2, which had 294 seats, and The Lion in Winter, starring Katherine Hepburn in Room 3, which had 496 seats. The theater- That's a pretty good lineup. I'm not gonna lie. I've seen The Lion in Winter before, but have you seen the other two movies? I believe I've seen Don't Look Now.
00:30:35
Speaker
Okay. The theater is now a London drugs and a Walmart. To be fair, a London drugs and a Walmart is what low heat mall is. Low heat is not the same. Like I've been to low key. Actually, I think the last time I went to low key, now that I think about it was probably pre pandemic. Low heat is the place that you look at while you're on your way to get beer from, uh, from Dakarod.
00:30:57
Speaker
Or are you going out to Port Moody to go drink on like the, rather go Port Moody to visit like the three breweries that are in your Moody Center? oh yeah I'd argue that the whole idea of Nat being the first probably comes from since it was his company that opened it. However, dual screen cinemas as evident in the clipping, like the earlier clipping are not new. And that would go back well before this heritage minute says like 1957 or something. There's evidence to say that was 1930.
00:31:23
Speaker
One small tidbit. I wrote this script largely while riding a train from Edinburgh to London and I found out because of that clipping that um but was taken from the Guinness Book of Cinema Records or whatever that was the first one I was in Britain was just 400 meters from the hotel I was staying when I was in Edinburgh for fringe. I did consider going in there to watch was it Wolverine and Deadpool or whatever the hell it's called? Yeah. I had some time but I chose to go hiking instead.
00:31:53
Speaker
Solid choice. This is where we talk about the crimes, because there are some crimes here. There are crimes. Yeah. Nat's mark was also left on the Imperial, aka the Ed Mervis Theater, the one that I showed Dean the interior of. He turned that into a multiplex.
00:32:08
Speaker
All right, so Nat Taylor slash the fucking Mona Lisa with a box cutter. Go on. Yeah. Okay. So you open dual screen cinemas at Place V Marie in Montreal, which is like an office shopping complex, which that was once formerly the headquarters of Royal Bank of Canada. I think it's still a major corporate office.
00:32:26
Speaker
and Yorkdale Plaza in Toronto, a shopping center that straddles on Highway 401. So this is where the crimes get worse, and this is where you and I might might, well, you might get upset about this. Fortunately, despite his best efforts, he did not manage to do the same that he did to the Imperial Tour beloved Orpheum. As in 1973, famous players tried to gut the theatre and turn it into a multiplex.
00:32:50
Speaker
crimes after a public outcry support from all over the place came in including from Jack Benny who flew from l LA to lend support and because of this the city of Vancouver with help from the provincial and federal government bought the theater for 7.1 million dollars or almost $50 million dollars today, or apparently a tenth of kilometer of bicycle lane infrastructure costs on Beach Avenue, according to our dear mayor Ken Sim. For anyone trying
Cineplex's Expansion in Canada
00:33:15
Speaker
to understand the context, his council said that keeping the bike lanes that were already constructed in place would cost $500 million dollars per kilometer. That is the equivalent of two kilometers of SkyTrain.
00:33:28
Speaker
and doing some incredibly like black book of communism ah ass logic of like ah factoring in the economic loss of like jabronis not being able to like run their like emotional support vehicles down down beach avenue and like the cost to businesses of not being able to have those people who take up four parking spots be able to park Like, that that's the kind of dumb bullshit that they're doing. Realistically, the the beach the Beach Avenue bike lane is like like six kilometers of curbs, which I know curbs are a lost technology. They are precious because we don't know how to make them anymore. But yeah, it's- I don't want to keep us- I don't want to have a long thing about the bike lane in here. Fuck Ken Sim though. Yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
1974, the Orpheum goes into public hands. It's now part of the Vancouver City Theater Row. ah There's a lot of movie theaters that were gutted on that the on that street, but fortunately, the Orpheum has survived, the Vogue has survived. um Jack Manning himself, he would die a year later, but his final film was an appearance in the man a movie about a black man becoming president after some unforeseen circumstances. Seems like a good movie, I should check it out sometime.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah. So Tamarick. Yes. Name some movie theater chains in this country. There's Cineplex and Landmark and that's it. Yeah. As it stands today, we have Cineplex and Landmark cinemas as the two dominant movie theater chains in this country.
00:35:02
Speaker
We don't have AMCF here. We used to. Sorry, meme stock people. No, we used to. I'm going to talk about how that happened. We used to, but we don't. We don't. Yeah, they were all in Ontario and Quebec. Yeah. There's only six. That's how it usually goes. So Landryte Cinemas has 36 theaters and 299 screens. It's headquartered in Calgary, and most of its theaters are in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. It's also foreign-owned. It's owned by Belgian company Kinopolis. Kinopolis? Kinopolis? I have no idea.
00:35:31
Speaker
Much like the rest of the country. Who themselves lay claim to having the world's largest multiplex theater in Madrid called Ciudad de Imagen, boasting 25 screens with 9,200 seats, it's over 9,000, spread across them all ranging from 211 to 996. That's a big-ass movie theater. That's fairly large.
00:35:56
Speaker
And then we have the behemoth, Cineplex Entertainment, boy do i am i'm go to hate this which occupies% of all Canadian box office ticket sales. Let me read off how fucking massive Cineplex is.
00:36:11
Speaker
They have 102 theaters which are under the banner Cineplex Cinemas or Galaxy Cinemas. 24 theaters are Cineplex VIP Cinemas. 10 are co-branded with Scotiabank to have Scotiabank Theater. Four are still- If you bank at Scotiabank, they shove it down your throat constantly. And also if you bank at Scotiabank, switch to a credit union. Jesus Christ.
00:36:33
Speaker
Four are under the brand name's famous players. Twelve are under Silver City and two star Cite. Four Coliseum Theaters. And there are a bunch of smaller theater chains they've gobbled up, which I'm not going to rattle off. They also have including the park because it is a Cineplex. I believe it was a famous players before that also included in their offerings are arcade chains like escape, which often is just tied to the theater. But there's also the rec room chain, which is not bundle of the theater. And then Palladium, which was killed off in the mid 2000s is apparently making a comeback. The Cineplex is kind of like, like landmark will plaster their name on other stuff. Cineplex likes to puppet around the corpses of all its acquisitions. Oh, it gets worse. And rebrand itself in many, many different ways.
00:37:21
Speaker
So it also has Cineplex Media. If you ever go to a shopping center, you'll see these stupid signs that have ads on them that sometimes are often run by Cineplex Media. And they have cameras on them. And finally, you have the goddamn scene plus card, which sobies and Safeway all like to shove down your throat.
00:37:39
Speaker
And I refuse to use my scene card at ah Safeway when I go get groceries. so Yeah, they like scene plus is the thing that like, if you have any kind of card, like I swear to God, even they're like fucking business cards at Scotiabank have like a scene plus account attached to them. And they just shove this down your throat. Oh, it's going to get worse because I am going to talk about scene.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, Scene and like Virgin Mobile are basically the same thing in Canada in that they have these dumbass reward programs and they use it as an excuse to constantly advertise to you. Cineplex itself has its origins in a few places. If if you're British, the Odeon Cinema Chain has historic ties to this company.
00:38:25
Speaker
If you're American, both AMC theaters and Lowe's have historic ties too to the company. Half of the theaters AMC used to operate in Canada until the early 2010s were sold to Cineplex and due to bankruptcy Lowe's lost at Cineplex tie as well.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, I believe there actually are a couple Cineplex Odeon branded ah theaters here. It would be extremely old signage, um because the Cineplex Odeon chain itself died. um But we'll talk about how that actually died. Okay, it might it might just be that they perished.
00:39:00
Speaker
That's fair. I've seen that branding somewhere. I forget where though. To be fair, when I explained the story here, I did not know about this sort of stuff going down because when a lot of this stuff was happening, I was still in grade school. In fact, around the time I graduated from high school is when the peak stuff actually happened because it's, Cineplex was massive. And I'm going to talk about this.
00:39:19
Speaker
So in 1979, Garff Drapinski, and I want you to remember this name, and Nat Taylor created the Cineplex Corporation and opened its first multiplex theater in Toronto Eaton Center with 18 screens becoming the world's largest cinema at the time. Three years later, they'd open a 14-screen multiplex in Los Angeles, California at the Beverly Center.
00:39:41
Speaker
which was a brand new shopping center at the time, and that theater itself was the largest in the United States. By 1982, Cineplex controlled most of the film distribution rights in Canada, which gave it a monopoly over what movie theaters could access in the country, but also gave it rights to home video distribution. What are you sending me? Where I've seen it.
00:40:01
Speaker
It's the International Village. That's the one that's Cineplex Odeon branded. That's weird. Again, Cineplex is the company that pilots around the corpses of its acquisitions, like like little skeleton skeleton marionettes. In June 1984, Cineplex bought Odeon, increasing the theaters at own 243 theaters, 383 screens, and 29 drive-through theaters, and became known as Cineplex Odeon Cinemas. A little bit weirdly worded, I realize now, but you know, whatever.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little awkward. It is. I realized that when I write these notes, sometimes I just kind of, uh, this was written on a train. I have an excuse in 1986 and a place buys Lowe's and that gave it 222 screens. RKO 97 screens were added. That's RKO would be, uh, Howard Hughes's old, uh, company, I believe SNS 41 screens. And then a year later, Walter Reed's 143 in that same Lowe's acquisition that you might know the answer for.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yes. How many lumber departments did that add as well? Different company. What is not in Canada anymore? ah They exited. They went, they, they're all, they're either been shut down or they're being converted to Rona's again. Oh, they're back. They're going back to Rona's. Yeah. In that same year. Yeah, that's true. That is true. I have, I have been to the, the, the Rona that became a Lowe's that is now a Rona again. Which one is that? The one that's out in Queensborough is no more.
00:41:28
Speaker
That's the one that's, um, it's not a Rona Queensborough. No, it's empty. I drove, I was actually in Queensborough last week. Oh, interesting. No, this is the one that's, uh, at Renfrew. Oh, okay. Well, I never go out that way. They have a really big paint section if you if you need paint. That's fair enough. So in that same year in 1986, CentiPlex Odeon Films was established to handle film distribution in North America and CentiPlex Odeon Home Video to handle home video distribution. And to give you an idea, if you watched E.T. in Canada, we're talking about E.T. the movie and not the stupid TV show.
00:42:03
Speaker
If you bought it on VHS, you can thank Cineplex because it had a special deal with MCA, which is now a Universal Studios. But also don't thank Cineplex. By 1993, Cineplex Odeon had 1,630 screens across North America with 365 locations.
00:42:21
Speaker
Cineplex accounted for 8% of all box office revenue just in North America, and its only competition in Canada at the time was from landmark and famous players, with the latter being in the crosshairs in the future. Nobody liked Cineplex Odeon. Ed Koch, mayor of New York in 1988, was pissed off at them for raising ticket prices from $5 to $7 before the holiday season. Oh, sweet summer child, he had no idea how bad it was gonna get.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, right now, I think a movie costs like 14 Canadian dollars at minimum. If you go like on a Tuesday, there were 20 opening these premium theaters. we Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that. There were 28 theaters owned by Cineplex in the city. And his quote quote, I believe the movie operators, we boycott the seven dollar movies, we'll get down on their knees and ask us to come back. That was 1988.
00:43:14
Speaker
Yeah. Mind you like $5 in the 80s to go see a movie like that's gonna be like about the same price you'd pay today. Yeah. I think I haven't gone to a movie theater. I shouldn't say that I have gone to a movie theater in the States. I went to um one in Dallas, was one of those Alamo theaters, I believe it's called. It was actually a nice nice experience. It was very small. One of my favorite theaters in the States is actually in Seattle. It's um in Columbia City and I got to see the favorite there and that was actually a really good experience. They had couches. It was really nice.
00:43:45
Speaker
ah nice yeah In September of 1997, Cineplex Odeon merged with Lowe's Theaters of the United States. So this is a slightly different Lowe's. I think these are the Lowe's of Canada they merged with earlier and then they bought up the American ones to the tune of one monopoly. Yeah, exactly. You get that lumber monopoly.
00:44:04
Speaker
to the tune of 1 billion US dollars or 2 billion dollars today, which by 1998 formed low Cineplex entertainment with theaters not only being in North America but also in Mexico, South Korea, and Spain. I mean it helps because you can like vertically integrate if you get all your drywall from the company you own.
00:44:22
Speaker
Well, it's that load-bearing drywall you need, right? so yeah So I want to come back to one of the two founders, not Nat, but Garth Drabinski, because he was up to some stuff in 1998. So one of the spin-offs of some Lexodium, I don't really know if it's spin-off or just another venture that Garth went in on, was Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, also known as Live End, and that was formed in 1989. Wait, like the tech company? I thought it was like Live Nation 2 initially.
00:44:49
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. That's what I was asking. Yeah, a completely different company. Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and they both suck. So Dravinsky had acquired the Pantashas Theatre, which was previously known as the Imperial, and today is known as the Ed Mervis Theatre. This company, he founded, had a lot of success through its production of Phantom of the Opera.
00:45:09
Speaker
It also brought a revival of Showboat, and the company itself made it big in 1988 with its own production of Ragtime, which made it and into Broadway and won two Tony Awards. I should note that Ragtime did not appear at the Mervis Theatre, but was instead at the Meridian Arts Centre, which is, I believe, in York, but don't quote me on that, because I can't remember where this theatre is in Toronto. Wait, so so are these guys responsible for fucking Andrew Lloyd Webber?
00:45:37
Speaker
No, Andrew Lloyd Webber was like, this was a production that was separate from like Family of the Opera made it big on Broadway. This is like one of those where you buy the rights to doing the um the production. okay Yeah. the the The many lines of coke had already been done.
00:45:54
Speaker
Yes, well, the thing is, I'm not somebody who can speak authoritatively on theater, but you you have two ways of doing theater. you Either you buy the rights to do in the production locally or you have a traveling production. And like, I'm going to go see the Book of Mormon in November with my mother. That is actually a traveling performance because it's only running for like a week in a bit or something like that at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, which itself was never a movie theater at any point, although I imagine you can project stuff there. During the time of right time success, Live It ran into troubles around accounting irregularities and had to put itself in bankruptcy production. Quickly, Garth stepped down and was replaced by former Disney CEO, Michael Orvitz.
00:46:35
Speaker
All accounting records going back to at least 1996 had to be revised and it was showing losses and that sort of thing. They weren't making as much money as they wanted to say they were. In 1999, its assets were all sold off to SFX Entertainment, which itself would be absorbed into Clear Channel a decade and a half later. To be fair, this was also the late 90s in Canada. So like cooking the books was sort of a thing that everybody was doing.
00:46:59
Speaker
Well, we didn't have an Enron and Nortel is a complicated story because Nortel did do some stupid shit. We did have an Enron, but we did have a Nortel. Nortel is a weird example to talk about with accounting practices, but just again, there's a Bobby Broccoli video about this. Just watch that. I think I've mentioned the Nortel thing before. Scarf alongside Myron Gottlieb, so someone else who was involved in the local theater scene, were indicted for misappropriating 4.6 million US dollars and arrest warrants were issued in the United States.
00:47:29
Speaker
In 2009, both Drubinski and Gottlieb were found guilty of fraud and forgery of company statements from 1993 to 1998. So it was more than 96 that they had to revise. Oh, but look how long it took to do Nortel. Yeah, but Nortel was a complicated mess. This was just two crooks in Beslan.
00:47:51
Speaker
Well, I don't know. i don't I wasn't going to read into the whole story of this here. There's probably reasons for this. And they were sentenced to prison for seven for seven and six years, respectively. This was appealed in 2011, and Drabinski's sentence was reduced to five years. Full parole was granted in 2014 and is since concluded in 2016.
00:48:09
Speaker
The thing that is interesting here is that Dravinsky and Gottlieb never faced a U.S. court hearing as extradition treaties applied here, and so double jeopardy would come into play, meaning that they were already convicted of the crime in Canada, so they couldn't be convicted again in the United States.
00:48:24
Speaker
The two of them were ordered to pay $23.3 million dollars and in a New York state court. And this was upheld by an Ontario court in 2008, but it remains unclear if it was ever paid. When I was last reading it, like in 2008, they never repaid anything as of 2013 or something like that.
00:48:40
Speaker
However, in 2002, Onyx Corporation, alongside Oaktree Capital Management, bought the behemoth that it was Cineplex Odeon and sold off the Lowe's assets to private investors, leaving the Canadian assets to become Cineplex Entertainment. And two years later, in 2004, Nat Taylor died of natural causes in Toronto. By the time of his death, this Heritage Minute had been on the air at random points for almost seven years.
00:49:05
Speaker
Five years later, his wife, Claire Taylor, who was an actor in radio and television for the CDC from the 30s into the 60s, and then later a writer died of natural causes as well. And this leaves us with what it the hell is Cineplex. Cineplex, officially known as Cineplex Entertainment, had done a lot of acquisitions and piloted around the corpses of the things that it required.
00:49:28
Speaker
it In 2005, it acquired Famous Players. And in 2011, it was no longer under the control of Onyx. I don't believe it's currently in its ah profile. The town that I grew up in had just one Cineplex and one Famous Players. 2005 was a dark year because like there was now only Cineplex films that were being screened in in in town.
00:49:53
Speaker
The santa plex is actually traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, I think it's like a CGX or something like that. But it became a public company at some point, I want to say, maybe not even that long after I think it was like 2003 was it started being public to trade it. But then by 2011 onyx was like no longer controlling it. Like don't ask me about this. I don't do finances very well. but Stocks are fake anyway.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah, but they they they do contribute to my retirement plan. My retirement plan is dying in the climate war, same as everybody else's. Hey, that's your retirement plan, too. It's just whether or not you're in denial. In 2012, it acquired four Canadian AMC cinemas, including the theater that is in the goddamn Montreal form. Have you even been to Montreal? Have you? I have not.
00:50:41
Speaker
There used to be the Montreal Forum, just like how there's Maple Leaf Gardens. If you really like hockey, these two places are considered like... you know, Holy lo Lands, right? Like they're very, very much revered places. I don't know what's happened to Maple Leaf Gardens because um I never really bothered to find out because it's the Maple Leafs, but they kind of dance, you know, they're a team to like, right? And I was staying in a hotel in Montreal and I realized that I was next to their newly refurbished Montreal Forum because
00:51:11
Speaker
The Canadians moved to the Bell Center, I think. And so I went inside of it and it had a movie theater and a shopping center. And like, you could like go to the middle of where center ice was and you can go like to the rest of the mall. Like you could stand to where a center ice was inside the old form. It was just really weird. Cause like there was nothing wrong with it being an ice arena, but they went and repurposed the building to be a movie theater, a bunch of other things. Then again, like whatever, I guess, but.
00:51:37
Speaker
Just a strange thing about being in a Montreal Forum and realizing that they just gutted it to be a cinema. Rather than leaving it as a skating rink. Yeah, I can understand like how large it was, but still. So in 2013, alongside Landmark, several empire theaters were folded into it. So like Landmark got a couple of empire theaters and Sineplex got a bunch of empire theaters. Now, empire is an important thing to remember for later, because we're going to talk about the scene card and it's important for making a connection here.
00:52:06
Speaker
In 2019, though, Cine World Group, world's second largest cinema chain, operating in Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, attempted to purchase Cineplex. However, in 2020, a little virus made its way onto the scene and that put a huge wrench in how movie theaters could operate. as it We made it on its way to the scene plus. And then some.
00:52:35
Speaker
On March 16, 2020, all simplex locations ceased operating as due to the COVID-19 pandemic, health restrictions could not permit theaters to operate, and this applied also to CineWorld. The only C++ rewards you could get in 2020 was dying of COVID.
00:52:51
Speaker
Well, I think that's the reason why they didn't open because they don't think the benefits would have been really all that great. No. So because all the cinemas were closing across all these jurisdictions, this put a huge dent in the profit margins of Cineplex and Cineworld and like two organizing campaigns that I knew of at the time.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah, it did a lot of things that just ruined a lot of people's lives, right? Like it it this this virus was not only a health hazard, it was a huge inconvenience to a lot of good things, and I probably killed a few bad things at the same time. This um led to CineWorld not completing the deal in June 2020, citing that Cineplex had engaged in a breach of conduct but gave no specifics.
00:53:34
Speaker
This led to a court battle between the two lawsuits were thrown or all around, and the Ontario Superior Court ruled in favor of Cineplex and ordered Cineworld to pay US$1 billion u s dollars to Cineplex. And this was also upheld by a text in federal court who denied any appeals. Probably promissory estoppel, like just because you backed out doesn't mean that you don't owe them for the value of the contract that you might have signed.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I also briefly mentioned the company Empire Theatres. As I mentioned, they were a theater chain that was owned by Empire Company, which itself owns a large number of grocery store chains such as Safeway, IGA, Freshco, and Sobey's. There's a bunch of other ones like Thrifty's and all them as well, too. As mentioned earlier, Empire sold all of its movie theaters to Cineplex and in the same year bought all of Safeway's Canadian stores.
00:54:24
Speaker
Oh, just in time to start start the bread cartel. yeah In 2007, Cineplex launched the Scene Card as a partnership between Scotiabank and Cineplex. You could earn points in watching movies and you would get discounts on concession stand items. And that's how we also ended up with Scotiabank Theaters. I think they were called Paramount or something like that prior to. Yeah, there there are Paramount's because We had a Paramount in City where I grew up in, which then became a Cineplex. In 2014, it decided to go beyond theaters and partnered with Sport Check, although it lasted for a limited time because I think Sport Check was bought by Canadian Tire and then now they have Triangle Awards and all that sort of thing. And restaurant chains such as Swiss Chalet, Harvey's, and Eastside Mario's.
00:55:09
Speaker
East Side Mario's just the dumbest fucking thing in Canada. Like, I thought that Boston Pizza was stupid, but East Side Mario's, which is not even owned by the same company as Boston Pizza, is a dumb name too. It's like you get this authentic New York experience, but like it's a Canadian restaurant chain.
00:55:25
Speaker
And they're always like in fucking massive like lifestyle centers far outside of town. like oh They are the authentic urban experience like as far from your rotting downtown as possible. They used to be one in Langley next to the, I think it's a Colossus Theater. like it is The Colossus Theater is fucking massive.
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah, there was one that backed onto a, oh no, it was near a Montana's, which is another monstrosity in a Walmart parking lot in, uh, in Kelowna, BC.
00:56:03
Speaker
However, in 2022, Scene Plus, as it is now called, was made available to earn points at empires, grocery, pharmacy, and convenience store chains. yes And a year later, home hardware became part of the service. And now Expedia and Rakuten are in on the deal. And I'll just close it off with this one. Finally, Cineplex got access to a lumber department.
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you're right. This is the bit I've been building to the entire time. God damn it. But you know what? i thought but Most home hardwares aren't home building centers, so they don't have a library department or drywall. Did you know there is one home hardware in France? Really?
00:56:46
Speaker
Yes. Do you want to take a wild guess on where the hell it is? God, I don't know enough about French geography, but I'm assuming in the rough, like French equivalent of like fucking Scotch Creek or something. Yeah, that's not a bad guess, but it's actually in St. Pierre and Miquelon. What sort of place is that? It's off the coast of Newfoundland. Oh, yeah. OK, that makes sense.
00:57:09
Speaker
This one aspect of New France that like still exists today. Home hardware, the where where you go for like weird fittings that shouldn't exist. The only place where I've seen a mail-to-mail power cord in the wild. If it wasn't for the fact that I've actually been to some weird home hardware, I would start to refute that, but I've been inside some weird home hardwares and I can almost believe that one location sells that.
00:57:35
Speaker
um It is also that's the only place ah that you can drive to in Canada. You can take your car to like you can that isn't the United States, but you still only go through one border crossing. Oh, there's a bridge. There's a car ferry.
00:57:50
Speaker
Okay, fair. it's so It's like only like like maybe 60, 70 kilometers off the coast of Newfoundland. I have the most cursed idea. We're not going there. Do you want to move to Europe? I bet i have to wonder if like people in like St. John end up with Euro notes every once in a while because they have like the French tourists that come over from from St. Pierre. So like it would be really funny. Let me close off this episode and then we can ramble a little bit about the movie theaters.
00:58:19
Speaker
All I can say is I hate Cineplex because they just, I wish there was more competition in the movie theaters, like the movie theater market in this country. But like, you know, like everything else, everything's a goddamn monopoly or at best a duopoly. Like there's only two like cable companies in Canada, Sean Rogers, who used to be multiple. And then the two of them just started gobbling everything up. And then now they're just one.
00:58:46
Speaker
Yeah, the Shaw and Rogers. shaw should Wait, Rogers and Shaw merge. That's right. Excuse me. i I miss what said what I said, but Rogers and Shaw merge and now it's just Rogers. ah There's still Telus does provide cable. Well, no, they provide um service over telephone wire and then they have like all these met things that allow you to do over coax. it's Yeah, but OK, but somebody who's ordering a television package doesn't give a shit.
00:59:10
Speaker
No, no, no. Like there's only a table provider unless you're in the East and you have Bell. But like, that's the thing. Like there's, like there's a huge lack of competition. Like the grocery store chains are another example. Like the best example because fucking hate the grocery store chains.
00:59:25
Speaker
Like the best example is like if you go to Maine and Kingsway in Vancouver, or Maine and Broadway, excuse me, you will... To the best mall in all of Canada. Yeah, Kingsgate, which actually is host to a Save On Foods. And across the street from it is Nestors. Now, technically Nestors and Save On are not the same company, but because Save On is actually the belongs to Overwady. But then Nestors is actually Bylo. And Bylo and Overwady are subsidiaries of the Jim Pattison group.
00:59:54
Speaker
And then, of course, like two blocks from there is a goddamn save on four blocks away is a goddamn save on. And there's like there's no competition in that neighborhood. You have to go all the way to the other side of Broadway to go into a safe way. And then there's nothing around there. Like after that is like a superstore. That's Loblaws. You go to a block across the street from there. It's a save on. And like a little bit further down, there's a price mark, which is also save on.
01:00:20
Speaker
No, that's actually a Save-On now. It's not a Price Mart anymore. Save-On now? Yeah. But Price Mart is actually another chain that exists now. There's a Price Mart at Kingsway and Willingdon that's like two blocks away from Save-On Foods, same company. And then next door to that, it's a super store. Oh, is that in the... That's Metrotown. That's in the old...
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, which used to be, which, weirdly enough, used to be a, ah the Metrotown Savon. Metrotown Savon is, was torn down and now is a price mark. And so it's like they built like all these towers and everything. But like, there's just no competition in grocery. So like to see Empire, which owns like, you know, four different grocery store chains,
01:01:05
Speaker
offers scene plus from a company that just operates pretty much every single movie theater in Metro Vancouver. Like they're only easy to go to a handful of independence, which is really just the Rio. Yeah.
01:01:18
Speaker
But like outside of that, yeah they they just ah may only do specialty. You only have Cineplex and one landmark cinema in all of Metro Vancouver. you If you go to Abbotsford, there's another one, but that's it. And that's the entire market in Vancouver. If you want to see a movie, it's Cineplex. And Cineplex can just jack up the prices. There's just no love for Cineplex for me.
01:01:41
Speaker
Cineplex's new thing is all these premium us like premium theaters where they have like the reclining pouch seats, which was like standard for a bunch of different theaters is like just their quirk of the theater or like bar, like not table service, but like seat service. The VIP ones. Yes, for food and beverages, which are at movie theater prices for food.
Criticism of Multiplex Experience
01:02:06
Speaker
And also you pay like 40 bucks for a ticket.
01:02:09
Speaker
but What's even worse, though, is I've watched some movies in IMAX. like I saw Furiosa in IMAX you know back in May, and if you want to watch anything in IMAX, the only game in town is Cineplex. I believe Famous Players was doing IMAX as well at one point, but guess what? They all got gobbled up by Cineplex.
01:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's like I know the movie theater industry itself is kind of dying, which is sad, but I don't I wouldn't say that because like profit margins at movie theaters have been rather high for a while like COVID did a dent on them. But the concept like The thing is those like movie theaters have had to change how they approach their business model because home video did to a certain extent, you know, have an impact on on the movie, i' sorry, on the cinema industry. But there's a reason why Cineplex was trying to control distribution because it wanted to at least get the advantage of, you know, seeing these movies early enough. Like one of the other things that's interesting delay time and stuff like that.
01:03:08
Speaker
There was a case, I want to say some time ago, like five years ago, where Cineplex would not permit the screening of a film that I think was on Netflix, or rather was originally intended to be on Netflix and or was going to be on Netflix. I can't remember this anymore. And Cineplex said no, because they weren't going to allow like streaming services to have, you know, ah ability to show their films in the in the movie theaters.
01:03:32
Speaker
and because they see the streaming services as competition. And especially during COVID, a lot of movies just went straight to Disney Plus or Netflix or whatever. And the only movie that was like that was hyped up and shown in movie theaters at the time when like you know COVID restrictions were played was, what, Tenet? And it was only because Christopher Nolan wanted the movie theater experience to be the first place he saw that film.
01:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, actually, a lot of a lot of films just went straight into the bin as tax write offs. Yeah, a lot of production was just really screwed up like Batgirl. The last movie that I saw before COVID lockdowns happened was actually at Landmark Cinemas. And I got to see this. Oh, the Harley Quinn movie. That's the last movie I saw. I think the last one I saw before COVID lockdowns might have actually been weathering with you.
01:04:25
Speaker
Oh, I was like, we didn't know each other before COVID. but Like, okay, though it makes more sense. Nobody knew me before COVID. I was an an amorphous blob. I still am, but I also used to be. I wouldn't call you a blob. I'm i am of unperceivable gender.
01:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's better. So yeah, not Cineplex. That's the that's not Taylor. You can thank him for why movie theaters are awful these days. He was just a businessman like I was reading into him. There wasn't anything other than, you know, he liked creating Monstrosities and also like doing crimes against buildings, but I I don't understand the reason why they decided to make this heritage minute like I tried to find out did he ever exist on the board that ran like so it's like there was a name for this organization prior to the formation of historical Canada.
01:05:16
Speaker
And I didn't see his name attached to it, although I did see the most recent list of people on the board and they haven't really updated their bios in a long time. I won't get into who this person in particular is because this person is actually a topic for a future bonus episode. But but like i was its just i I was like, why would they give him a history moment? My guess, ah the Canadian media media landscape is incredibly incestuous.
01:05:43
Speaker
A lot of people did stints on NFB. NFB obviously would have provided funding at some point or another to ah Heritage Minutes or to historical Canada and its various incarnations over time. So like it's possible that it's some sort of like weird tribute to like that sort of legacy. like Canadian media landscape is very weird. and it And it extends beyond the Canadian media landscape. Look at how many ah like Canadian senators We have a set for US listeners are like former CBC anchors and and journalists. Like it's kind of weird how pervasive our our media industry is within our within our society, because you don't really think of it as being distinct from American media. At some point, we need to talk about Power Corporation.
01:06:32
Speaker
They have their they have their hands in the creation of some of these history moments. Yeah, like there's been some weird people on the board of power. But that was not Taylor. I love to rap more about the how much I hate Cineplex, Odeon or rather Cineplex. The thing is, is like it's still in my brain is Cineplex, Odeon, despite the fact that it hasn't had that name in like two and a half decades. The International Village is still branded. That's how it's in my brain.
01:07:02
Speaker
That's so weird. And like Google still says it's Cineplex Odeon, which is weird because it shouldn't. That's the branding. They probably still own the name. is he go one ah went on so I'm almost confident they don't have the name on the outside because if you go to... um It's what the tickets say. That's so weird. Like it's the name of the theater. Just because it says Cineplex on it doesn't mean that's not the name of the theater. That's just strange. I disagree with you. I just find it so strange. like What? You're right. That is so fucking weird. It still says cineplexodian on there.
01:07:35
Speaker
They, they still own the name and they probably branded it like that just for whatever reason. It used to be just international village or whatever they, or international cinema or whatever they called it. It used to be Tinseltown. Oh, right. And then what did it become? Tinseltown Cinemas. Yeah. Got bought out. I already lived in undisclosed location. Like when it, when it was still Tinseltown, it got bought out after I moved here. So I don't know.
01:08:02
Speaker
That's so weird. The last movie I saw there was Spy Family. Anyway. I think the last movie I saw there was actually Weathering With You. before the Like right before the pandemic. Tamara, what did we learn? Makoto Shinkai does the best backgrounds in all of anime. That's out of left field.
01:08:21
Speaker
Well, the writer and director of Weathering With You, Your Name, and all that, really fucking good background. Oh, you know what? I didn't realize that was the name of the director. I guess Weathering, I have have not seen those two movies, admittedly. I saw Your Name at the the, the other connection is I saw Your Name at the Rio theater when they did a rescreening of it because I missed it during its first run. We learned I'm a fucking weeb, apparently.
01:08:48
Speaker
If we want to talk about anime real quick in theaters, I went to the fifth theater on Richards, I think it's on. I was there of a friend of mine and she wanted me to see The Wind Rises, which is or a Miyazaki film. And, you know, a lot of Miyazaki films are not like they're not exactly meant for children. Like children can watch it. There's nothing inherently wrong with them.
01:09:11
Speaker
But you know like it's not like Totoro, which strangely enough, I just got a tattoo of Totoro, which I might just throw in the um YouTube slides. The movie itself is rather mature about its story, and it is also a rather controversial film because it's about yeah it's it's about the creation of the Mitsubishi Zero, I think it's called. like I can't remember the name of this plane. a fourteen Okay, sure. And I'm going to give everybody a little chance to visit a bit of a spoiler to this. I'm sorry, this film has been up for 10 years. If you want, you can pause at this point here and then go watch the movie and then you'll see what I have to say. Or you can skip ahead 30 seconds and give you
01:09:52
Speaker
You just find, but at the end of the movie, the guy's wife dies in a sanatorium and you're, you only find out because all of a sudden a bunch of wind starts blowing in a certain direction. And that's like a, that's a Japanese kind of like animation trope. I think it yeah it's a metaphor. Yeah. The regular film.
01:10:13
Speaker
And at that point, I burst out crying, because it was a touching story between those two. She had TB. Me and my friend, we're both just crying, because it's a tough scene. The subtext is very clear. And the credits roll. It goes immediately to credits. And this kid in front of us, as we're just trying to get collecting ourselves after crying our eyes out, starts cheering, was so happy to have seen this movie. And I'm just like, oh, sweet summer child, you have no idea what happened there.
01:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, on the flip side, it is kind of distracting the fact that it carries a bit of water for the Imperial Japanese ah Navy and also Jiro. You mean the Air Force, not the Navy? Was it the Navy that ran the planes then? My recollection is they were organized under the IJA a or the IJN. Okay, fair enough. Depending on where they were attached to, they didn't have an independent Air Force.
01:11:06
Speaker
You know, to my recollection, you can correct me in the comments if I am wrong. My reply if I'm wrong is, I don't care. They're fascists. They're not people. But yeah, carrying a lot of water for a guy who invents ah probably one of the most deadly, like, I don't know.
01:11:24
Speaker
i well i think this and moving in This film is controversial and I'm not going to get too much into it, but like I think Miyazaki's point was that the guy was a pacifist, but got forced him into doing this. He just wanted to make planes. I have a lot of thoughts on that there, but you know too much for trying to end the podcast. ah x except Except the jail time don't contribute to it, although technically the Zero was responsible for killing ah enough Japanese pilots that I think it counts as doing an anti-fascism.
01:11:53
Speaker
So ah in a roundabout way he was doing Praxis. ah Kind of. I mean, he maybe did Praxis. Yeah. Well, in any event, um what I learned is that we lost a lot of really pretty theaters because there was this desire to just show more and more films. And while I don't really beleaguered multiplex theaters, I don't really think fondly of them. Like it's like the Rio is a place I like to go to in this place that I've had good memories in, whereas you know, the Cineplex VIP, that's in Coquitlam, or the Landmark Cinema that's in, there's Mall in Edmonton that I've been to, or the Scotiabank Theatre that I've been to in Toronto. These places- They're They're non-spaces, that's exactly it. Like you go there, you pick up your concessions, you go sit in this dark room, and you watch a movie. And don't get me wrong, I've had some good movies. I will remember the movies, but I won't remember the theater. I don't have any loyalty to a multiplex, whereas
01:12:51
Speaker
yeah When I find out there's a cool show at the Rio I want to go to there The the Rio has like you have the lobby and then and then it's just the showroom Like it's that's the theater itself like the Orpheum is kind of a little bit like this But it has like it's transitory area where you kind of file in has a little bit It's a little bit more of a space Whereas like, I think the the one that I gripe about the most is actually the Silver City in Metro Town, where basically, yeah, it's a dungeon, you get in, you get your ticket, you buy your concessions. Well, I don't because there's no vegan offerings, then you basically go and play a back rooms horror game, go into your fucking theater, as you go through these sneaky corridors to go around to where your theater is.
01:13:39
Speaker
And that's like, that's a lot of these. And this is what I think was very revelatory about the last scene that you decried in the in the history moment is like, if you look at the actual like floor plan that he's demonstrating there, it's a sneaky maze from the from the lobby to the various showrooms, particularly his little bonus ones under his load bearing drywall.
01:14:02
Speaker
Do you know what's something I realized as you were talking about this? I was thinking of the shape of movie theaters. The Silver City at Metrotown is pretty benign in terms of its shape. Like you just go upstairs and there's a whole row of cinemas. But like the Silver City or whatever the hell they call it out in Riverport, that's the name of it. The layout is almost prison-like.
01:14:22
Speaker
uh silver so i will correct you silver city is not just an array of cinemas because that's only for the first two or the first four rooms i think it has like a weird l shape doesn't it it's a yeah u shape because it wraps around cinema i think five that's the one that's kind of in the middle yeah because uh i get i have 2d glasses now that flatten 3d films but i guess so glad 3d movies are no longer a big thing Yeah, I get I get motion sick with 3d films. So I was always when we we're going with friends to see films, because one of my friends decided to organize, like, we're gonna go see all the Marvel films. And it was a thing to do. I always tried to get them to go to the 2d screening. So I didn't have to, like, suffer through it. But like, that put us in, like, you go, you go to Silver City, and you're like, in theater 11, you're like, where the hell is theater 11? I You can never find these fucking theaters. It's like, you know, like movie theaters can learn a little bit from like public transportation systems, particularly ours, because, you know, like there's shortcomings in terms of wayfinding on SkyTrain, but at least you can actually usually get around. um Like yeah the only place that like made less sense than a movie theater is the London Underground.
01:15:36
Speaker
ah Yeah and like it's a it's a snakey maze of like it's like playing a back rooms game you're wondering where the asset where the like unity asset store monster is going to come and like eat you.
Preference for Independent Theaters
01:15:49
Speaker
Well, I think what we have learned here is that we don't really give a shit about multiplex theaters for the most part. I imagine it might be a cool one out there, but it certainly isn't anything here. Yeah, go go find an independent theater. You will have a far better time, especially once you like pick up the vibe of what they show is kind of the thing. That's how most of these stay in business. Like the Rio just is a chaos monkey.
01:16:15
Speaker
Oh, hi, Luna. Speaking of chaos monkeys. Yeah, my staff has shown up to tell us we need to finish the episode. So please wrap up. Please wrap up.
Next Episode Preview & Closing
01:16:27
Speaker
Tamara, what's the next episode going to be on? ah The next episode is going to be about freedom and democracy and how freedom and democracy was brought to North America. We are unironically talking about the first and greatest democracy of North America.
01:16:44
Speaker
Oh, cool. We're going to talk about Mexico. yeah ah Funny, but no. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. If you aren't subscribing to our Patreon already, please do. We just dropped her first episode probably two weeks ago. I'm pretty certain that'll be when this episode comes out is two weeks after the bonus episode.
01:17:04
Speaker
And we do have another bonus episode in the works. And if you're all please do follow us on social media. um Links will be in the down below and also tell your friends about our show because we would love to have more listeners we enjoying this project and we want to continue doing it and we plan on continuing doing is regardless of how many of you choose to listen.
01:17:25
Speaker
And if you also want to contact us, you can contact us at mailbag at shawiniganmoments.ca. ah What else do we need to say? I don't think we have much else to say other than, um, yeah, thanks for listening. Yeah. Thanks everybody. All right. Well, that's a podcast. That is a podcast. Goodbye everybody.
01:17:59
Speaker
Schewinnegan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, Stolo, and Tsawatuth First Nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.