{"id":5536,"date":"2012-11-13T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T19:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=5536"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:49:48","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:49:48","slug":"o-wherefore-art-thou-rialto-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=5536","title":{"rendered":"O! Wherefore art thou, Rialto?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday\u2019s post about the fates of several area movie houses, whose owners have taken their financial grievances public in the quest to scrape up serious coin for affording high-quality digital projection systems, might not have left you with the most positive vibes<\/em>. Yet, their resilience points towards agreeable futures in comparison to today\u2019s<\/em> post which talks about places given little or no chance at survival. You\u2019ve probably heard many variations of this never-ending story called \u201cThe Death of the Local Cinema,\u201d based on a popcorn kernel of truth, and here we offer our own retelling.<\/p>\n

Whereas the Avon<\/strong>, Normal<\/strong>, et al<\/em>, still entertain their respective communities, many others continue on only as memories or shells of their former selves. It seems like we\u2019ve already forgotten the loss of the Lorraine Theater<\/strong><\/a> in Hoopeston<\/strong> back in March, while last year\u2019s shuttering of the Gemini Cinemas<\/strong> in Villa Grove<\/strong> barely registered a radar blip in Champaign-Urbana<\/strong>. The long-standing structure which once housed the long-closed Wings Theater<\/strong> in Rantoul<\/strong> was finally reduced to rubble in September<\/a>, while citizens continue to discourage such a fate for the decrepit Fischer Theatre<\/strong><\/a> in Danville<\/strong> by transforming its lobby into a local performing arts museum and conducting tours through its auditorium.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, only the Art<\/strong> and Virginia<\/strong> theaters remain open and used for their original purposes, while the Co-Ed<\/strong> and Lyric<\/strong> theaters and Twin City<\/strong> and Widescreen<\/strong> drive-ins are lost and the Illini, Orpheum, Fox, Princess<\/strong>, and Rialto<\/strong> theaters persist in spirit with their spaces repurposed as a night club, a children\u2019s science museum, a bank, an art gallery, and a photography studio, respectively. The has-beens have been woven into our culture more thoroughly than you might realize, dearest readers, and we must<\/em> believe a next generation of upgraded screening rooms and operating concepts a la<\/em> the Art Theater Co-op<\/strong><\/a> will emerge to carry on the tradition of communal cinema in the C-U, if not also the cities beyond.<\/p>\n

This brings us to a coda illustrated with video nostalgia discovered by your humble editor during the summer. Created by one TXMSquare<\/strong>, the following collage remembers the Rialto which presented first- and second-run Hollywood<\/strong> for decades before closing in the early Eighties. Eagle-eyed architecture buffs might have recognized its gutted interior, located in the building right across Church Street<\/strong> from the Art, as the underground night club setting in the feature LEADING LADIES<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second helping of our brain-food-for-thought regarding the survival of local movie theaters, we conjure the ghosts of brick-and-mortar cinemas past complete with a visual ode to downtown Champaign’s former Rialto Theater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,23,119,31,26,20],"tags":[757,677,985,984,479,986],"class_list":["post-5536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage","category-preservation","category-sad-places","category-the-old-school","category-theatres-venues","category-videos-du-c-u","tag-gemini-cinemas","tag-movie-theaters","tag-the-fischer-theatre","tag-the-lorraine-theatre","tag-the-rialto-theater","tag-theater-preservation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}