I moved back to the Midwest a few years ago after living in Phoenix, AZ, for 21 years. I had held dreams for quite some time of moving to a place that had a sense of respect for buildings and structures that were more than 5 years old. Phoenix is a city where everything is basically brand new and sparkling clean all the time, and if it isn’t like that, even if only after a few years of being around, it seems to promptly be either torn down or remodeled. I was born in the Chicago area and so the Twin Cities area seemed like it would ultimately be a great fit for me.
I really hadn’t bargained for a lot of things that I’ve encountered since moving here, most of which I’ll simply keep to myself (or for another article). Suffice it to say that moving from the West to the Midwest has many more differences than just the age of the buildings. I’ve also found “Minnesota nice” to be a bit of a…well…misnomer. As my sister said to me a few years ago, “I think you’re going to find that you’re a lot more Western than you think.” She was absolutely correct.
One strange example of this is a recent visit that I made to a movie theater in St. Paul called the Grandview Theater. I had driven past it countless times and, although it looked rather simple from the outside, I felt it had the potential to possibly be a real treat. My biggest concern with the theater, though, was that I hardly ever saw anyone actually hanging around the theater let alone going into it. Still, it is located very near a college campus and that could maybe explain it. Perhaps it’s busier during odd hours? Either way, it mildly piqued my interest.
In Phoenix, I was an avid Harkins’ Camelview patron. For anyone that knows the theater, this basically means that I’m a huge fan of independent, foreign, and art films and rarely watch anything mainstream. In the Twin Cities area, I’m a big fan of the Edina Theater. It’s got a cool 60’s kind of feel, sort of like “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and yet is clean, comfortable, and rarely ever completely packed to an uncomfortable standpoint. Their usual customer also seems to be of a more elegant, intelligent crowd, versus having to deal with teenagers wanting to see the latest teeny bopper film. Also, parking is free and the popcorn is top notch, and I think that goes for any Landmark Theatre in general. There are also the Uptown and Lagoon theaters but I’m not a big fan of either simply because of where they’re located and the incredible inconvenience of getting there. For me, the Edina is near perfect, except it’s quite far from where I live.
Anyhow, a couple weeks ago, I wanted to go see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and the scheduled times at the Edina, as is often the case, were completely inconvenient for me. The Grandview, though, fit with my schedule. I’ll admit I was a bit reluctant at first but, hey, I had been meaning to check it out anyway.
The Grandview Theater is listed as a Mann Theater on the web. I’m very familiar with the Mann Theater brand but I do believe this is a different brand altogether since it’s designated by the name of “Mann MN”. There’s also a short “About Us” page that pretty much talks only about local theaters that the Mann family purchased and owned. Hmm. This acted as a minor red flag for me but I chose to ignore it. There’s nothing like owning a theater and calling it the “AMC Theater”…but oh, it’s not that AMC, it’s AMC Minnesota… Yeah, sure.
I got there early since I wasn’t sure what parking would be like, and again, being an Arizonan, parallel parking still makes me rather nervous since we never really had to do that out there (parking is everywhere and abundant and paying to park is almost completely unheard of unless you’re going to a high profile event). I was pleased to see that I could park almost right in front of the theater and I didn’t have to put money in the meter. It certainly didn’t appear to be crowded but that wasn’t really anything new.
Now, before I continue, please understand that I’m rather into visiting old theaters, seeing structures with history, etc. I’ve spent a ton of time in the L.A. area literally going to old theaters just to admire the interior. This is a bit of a hobby for me and I’ve seen some beautiful places. And so, upon entering the Grandview, I was a bit excited to see what it was all about.
I walked through the door into the lobby and was immediately shocked since there was practically no lobby. Older theaters usually put a lot into this area, making it almost over the top extravagant. The Grandview, though, was already different. To my right was a small counter that angled, forming both the ticket area and the concession stand. Both looked incredibly run down and old (dare I say nasty?). The concession area was suspect enough that I wondered if it was even sanitary, and then I quickly started pondering if I should skip the popcorn, even though it’s one of my true passions in life.
There were 3 college students working the combination ticket/concession area. They were deep in conversation when I entered through the doors and basically looked at me with a “what do you want?” sort of look. I truly felt like I was interrupting and nearly apologized.
I purchased a ticket for “Dragon Tattoo” and the girl handed me my ticket stub. Since she didn’t offer any direction as to where I should go, meaning what theater and in what direction, I assumed it must be self explanatory, no? I turned around and there was a large theater right in front of me. I was looking for a sign that read what film would be playing in this particular theater but there wasn’t any. I couldn’t find another theater, though, and so, maybe this was the only movie playing at this time? I wasn’t really sure. In any event, I entered the theater.
I was immediately hit with the scent of urine from the back rows. Wow! It was a true “grand” scent! The first thing you notice about this theater is that it’s completely red, kind of like the scene in the movie “The Shining”…you know, after the elevator doors open up and all the blood runs out into the lobby? Or, maybe a better comparison is the infamous red room in the basement in “The Amityville Horror”? Either way, there’s a heck of a lot of red going on, enough to make me nervous! The theater also doesn’t look like your typical movie theater of the era at all but instead resembles a sort of redone dance hall. The room is really long, whereas most theaters are wide, and I mean really, really long! I sat about midway and then realized just how tiny the screen was for the length of the room; I decided to move up closer. I’ve never seen such a small screen in such a long room. It was like watching my family’s old 25” rabbit eared TV in our basement back from the 70’s.
After sitting down, I started to take in my surroundings. Strangely, I was the only person in the theater and I sat there looking around, laughing to myself internally, a bit dumbfounded. A few moments later, 2 college aged girls came in and sat a few rows in front of me. It was then that I noticed that the screen was showing the usual advertisements. This is pretty normal today except for the fact that the screen was so blurry that you couldn’t read anything on it! It was quite comical, to say the least. I was trying to read the phone numbers for the various businesses and couldn’t even make them out. Stranger yet, some of the advertisements were just downright bizarre and quite laughable, that is, when you could make out a word here or there.
The ceiling was very high and in a strange rounded sort of shape. It should be said that the theater has nothing ornate about it: there are no carvings, nothing really made of wood or anything. It’s about as plain as can be, in my opinion, and quite…well, hideous, really. It was then that I heard the popcorn popping. Ahh! Well, at least the corn will be fresh and not sitting in that nasty looking bin for who knows how long!
I left the theater, glanced around again for any sign of another theater, purchased my popcorn and coke, and then sat back down. Still, no one else had shown up. The movie was now scheduled to start within the next few minutes.
It was then that I kept hearing short bursts of talking coming from the lobby, doors opening and closing, but no one ever entered the theater. Was I in the wrong theater indeed? And, if I was, where the heck was the other theater? Why was there no sign, and more importantly why didn’t they tell me when I got the ticket? I was most definitely confused. I decided to wait until exactly 2 minutes after the scheduled start time. If the movie previews hadn’t begun, I would brave the lobby one more time and seek help.
After the two minutes passed with no film, I went back to the ticket counter. Once again, the college girl looked at me like, “Um, what do you want now??” I asked, pointing in the direction of the only theater in sight, “Is this the theater for ‘Dragon Tattoo’?” She continued to chew her gum, roll her eyes and barely make any eye contact, and said, “No, that’s upstairs.” “Oh,” I said, and then realized I had no idea where upstairs was! Sheepishly, I asked, “So, how do I get up there?” “It’s over there,” she replied, pointing towards the main theater. I still had no idea what she was talking about but clearly I wasn’t getting any help out of this person!
I reluctantly walked back to the main theater and noticed a strange looking open door to the right. It really more or less resembled a service door, or something that a customer shouldn’t be entering. Again, there was no sign anywhere saying “Theater - this way!!!” or anything about a movie playing. I decided to enter it since this had to be it, right?
I walked through the doorway and found it to be very dark inside. I realized that it was actually a small stairway that immediately turned to the left. There were tiny little lights on the wall, about the size of clear white Christmas lights, and that was about it. I could hear voices, though, so I figured I must be heading in the right direction, or else I was about to be the uninvited guest crashing someone’s party or conference!
I continued stepping upwards with absolutely no idea where the heck I was going and found another turn to the left. Two seconds later, I popped my head up above a short wall at the end of the stairs to find that there was small audience looking at me. I was completely disoriented momentarily. What the hell?! I looked behind me and there was the movie screen, already playing the movie. The stairwell popped me out at the front of the theater, not the back!
Seeing that the movie was already playing, meaning there evidently weren’t any previews, I sat in the first and most accessible seat I could find which was on the right side of the theater. After about one moment I realized this wasn’t going to work. You see, this theater is exactly on top of the other one, and whereas the ceiling of the main theater is rounded, well, so is the floor of this theater. The real difference, though, is whereas the other was extremely long, this one was extremely short with only about 10 rows, and yet the same width. The screen in this little theater was huge for the size of the room, so much so that when watching a movie with subtitles, the words are basically on the floor from your eye’s perspective. Sitting in the side sections meant that you could barely read the subtitles. Geesh!
I strategically moved to the center section as soon as I found a seat that I could easily get into without interfering with other movie watchers. It was in the last row, which again, isn’t very far back. The next oddity I noticed was that the ceiling was only a couple feet above my head which felt really odd, especially since the screen was much higher than the ceiling above the audience. What kind person builds this sort of place???
The topper, though, was that there was a very large rectangular vent in the middle of this low ceiling. The air conditioner kicked on from this vent about every 5 minutes and ran for 10 minutes at a time. It was not only extremely noisy but was blowing air at a furious pace, to the point that I had the equivalent of a very cold ocean breeze blowing directly in my face for 2 ½ hours of a movie. I think this might have been the only vent in the room, hence why it seemed to be blowing at max power. Considering where it was positioned and how low the ceiling was, I think it’s impossible to not feel this vent no matter where you sit in the middle section of this theater.
Given all of that, the movie was decent and I survived! It was truly an experience but not the kind I, um, had bargained for. Also, as it turned out, the main theater that I was originally sitting in was playing “Ironman 2” that evening. Eeew! Talk about horror! I felt like I needed a shower after just sitting in the theater let alone potentially watching that movie!
And now, let’s tie this all together… In Phoenix, we had a couple of rather cool theaters from the 50’s and 60’s era, one called Cine Capri and the other the Kachina. Both were sold and torn down, mostly because they were “old”. These were both pretty cool places, though, and rather unique. Cine Capri especially was very well loved and respected by the whole town and it was a real tragedy when Dan Harkins sold out and let it be torn down for some new high rise office buildings.
Out here in Minnesota, though, you’ve got somewhere like the Grandview, which is literally anything but ‘grand’ or a ‘view’ and it’s still standing! So, it just goes to show the opposite extremes from different parts of the country. Even scarier, there are a few user reviews on various websites talking about the Grandview Theater. One person even said that it’s a great “art deco theater”. I can only assume this person has no clue what that term means because there’s nothing art deco about the Grandview in any shape or form! From the reviews, it seems that many locals like the Grandview. Um…I guess it’s a matter of taste and to each his own???
Take my advice: if you want to see some really beautiful old movie theaters, try Los Angeles or Chicago. If you feel like being a part of the Amityville Horror, the Grandview is definitely your place!
I really hadn’t bargained for a lot of things that I’ve encountered since moving here, most of which I’ll simply keep to myself (or for another article). Suffice it to say that moving from the West to the Midwest has many more differences than just the age of the buildings. I’ve also found “Minnesota nice” to be a bit of a…well…misnomer. As my sister said to me a few years ago, “I think you’re going to find that you’re a lot more Western than you think.” She was absolutely correct.
One strange example of this is a recent visit that I made to a movie theater in St. Paul called the Grandview Theater. I had driven past it countless times and, although it looked rather simple from the outside, I felt it had the potential to possibly be a real treat. My biggest concern with the theater, though, was that I hardly ever saw anyone actually hanging around the theater let alone going into it. Still, it is located very near a college campus and that could maybe explain it. Perhaps it’s busier during odd hours? Either way, it mildly piqued my interest.
In Phoenix, I was an avid Harkins’ Camelview patron. For anyone that knows the theater, this basically means that I’m a huge fan of independent, foreign, and art films and rarely watch anything mainstream. In the Twin Cities area, I’m a big fan of the Edina Theater. It’s got a cool 60’s kind of feel, sort of like “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and yet is clean, comfortable, and rarely ever completely packed to an uncomfortable standpoint. Their usual customer also seems to be of a more elegant, intelligent crowd, versus having to deal with teenagers wanting to see the latest teeny bopper film. Also, parking is free and the popcorn is top notch, and I think that goes for any Landmark Theatre in general. There are also the Uptown and Lagoon theaters but I’m not a big fan of either simply because of where they’re located and the incredible inconvenience of getting there. For me, the Edina is near perfect, except it’s quite far from where I live.
Anyhow, a couple weeks ago, I wanted to go see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and the scheduled times at the Edina, as is often the case, were completely inconvenient for me. The Grandview, though, fit with my schedule. I’ll admit I was a bit reluctant at first but, hey, I had been meaning to check it out anyway.
The Grandview Theater is listed as a Mann Theater on the web. I’m very familiar with the Mann Theater brand but I do believe this is a different brand altogether since it’s designated by the name of “Mann MN”. There’s also a short “About Us” page that pretty much talks only about local theaters that the Mann family purchased and owned. Hmm. This acted as a minor red flag for me but I chose to ignore it. There’s nothing like owning a theater and calling it the “AMC Theater”…but oh, it’s not that AMC, it’s AMC Minnesota… Yeah, sure.
I got there early since I wasn’t sure what parking would be like, and again, being an Arizonan, parallel parking still makes me rather nervous since we never really had to do that out there (parking is everywhere and abundant and paying to park is almost completely unheard of unless you’re going to a high profile event). I was pleased to see that I could park almost right in front of the theater and I didn’t have to put money in the meter. It certainly didn’t appear to be crowded but that wasn’t really anything new.Now, before I continue, please understand that I’m rather into visiting old theaters, seeing structures with history, etc. I’ve spent a ton of time in the L.A. area literally going to old theaters just to admire the interior. This is a bit of a hobby for me and I’ve seen some beautiful places. And so, upon entering the Grandview, I was a bit excited to see what it was all about.
I walked through the door into the lobby and was immediately shocked since there was practically no lobby. Older theaters usually put a lot into this area, making it almost over the top extravagant. The Grandview, though, was already different. To my right was a small counter that angled, forming both the ticket area and the concession stand. Both looked incredibly run down and old (dare I say nasty?). The concession area was suspect enough that I wondered if it was even sanitary, and then I quickly started pondering if I should skip the popcorn, even though it’s one of my true passions in life.
There were 3 college students working the combination ticket/concession area. They were deep in conversation when I entered through the doors and basically looked at me with a “what do you want?” sort of look. I truly felt like I was interrupting and nearly apologized.
I purchased a ticket for “Dragon Tattoo” and the girl handed me my ticket stub. Since she didn’t offer any direction as to where I should go, meaning what theater and in what direction, I assumed it must be self explanatory, no? I turned around and there was a large theater right in front of me. I was looking for a sign that read what film would be playing in this particular theater but there wasn’t any. I couldn’t find another theater, though, and so, maybe this was the only movie playing at this time? I wasn’t really sure. In any event, I entered the theater.
I was immediately hit with the scent of urine from the back rows. Wow! It was a true “grand” scent! The first thing you notice about this theater is that it’s completely red, kind of like the scene in the movie “The Shining”…you know, after the elevator doors open up and all the blood runs out into the lobby? Or, maybe a better comparison is the infamous red room in the basement in “The Amityville Horror”? Either way, there’s a heck of a lot of red going on, enough to make me nervous! The theater also doesn’t look like your typical movie theater of the era at all but instead resembles a sort of redone dance hall. The room is really long, whereas most theaters are wide, and I mean really, really long! I sat about midway and then realized just how tiny the screen was for the length of the room; I decided to move up closer. I’ve never seen such a small screen in such a long room. It was like watching my family’s old 25” rabbit eared TV in our basement back from the 70’s.
After sitting down, I started to take in my surroundings. Strangely, I was the only person in the theater and I sat there looking around, laughing to myself internally, a bit dumbfounded. A few moments later, 2 college aged girls came in and sat a few rows in front of me. It was then that I noticed that the screen was showing the usual advertisements. This is pretty normal today except for the fact that the screen was so blurry that you couldn’t read anything on it! It was quite comical, to say the least. I was trying to read the phone numbers for the various businesses and couldn’t even make them out. Stranger yet, some of the advertisements were just downright bizarre and quite laughable, that is, when you could make out a word here or there.
The ceiling was very high and in a strange rounded sort of shape. It should be said that the theater has nothing ornate about it: there are no carvings, nothing really made of wood or anything. It’s about as plain as can be, in my opinion, and quite…well, hideous, really. It was then that I heard the popcorn popping. Ahh! Well, at least the corn will be fresh and not sitting in that nasty looking bin for who knows how long!
I left the theater, glanced around again for any sign of another theater, purchased my popcorn and coke, and then sat back down. Still, no one else had shown up. The movie was now scheduled to start within the next few minutes.
It was then that I kept hearing short bursts of talking coming from the lobby, doors opening and closing, but no one ever entered the theater. Was I in the wrong theater indeed? And, if I was, where the heck was the other theater? Why was there no sign, and more importantly why didn’t they tell me when I got the ticket? I was most definitely confused. I decided to wait until exactly 2 minutes after the scheduled start time. If the movie previews hadn’t begun, I would brave the lobby one more time and seek help.
After the two minutes passed with no film, I went back to the ticket counter. Once again, the college girl looked at me like, “Um, what do you want now??” I asked, pointing in the direction of the only theater in sight, “Is this the theater for ‘Dragon Tattoo’?” She continued to chew her gum, roll her eyes and barely make any eye contact, and said, “No, that’s upstairs.” “Oh,” I said, and then realized I had no idea where upstairs was! Sheepishly, I asked, “So, how do I get up there?” “It’s over there,” she replied, pointing towards the main theater. I still had no idea what she was talking about but clearly I wasn’t getting any help out of this person!
I reluctantly walked back to the main theater and noticed a strange looking open door to the right. It really more or less resembled a service door, or something that a customer shouldn’t be entering. Again, there was no sign anywhere saying “Theater - this way!!!” or anything about a movie playing. I decided to enter it since this had to be it, right?
I walked through the doorway and found it to be very dark inside. I realized that it was actually a small stairway that immediately turned to the left. There were tiny little lights on the wall, about the size of clear white Christmas lights, and that was about it. I could hear voices, though, so I figured I must be heading in the right direction, or else I was about to be the uninvited guest crashing someone’s party or conference!
I continued stepping upwards with absolutely no idea where the heck I was going and found another turn to the left. Two seconds later, I popped my head up above a short wall at the end of the stairs to find that there was small audience looking at me. I was completely disoriented momentarily. What the hell?! I looked behind me and there was the movie screen, already playing the movie. The stairwell popped me out at the front of the theater, not the back!
Seeing that the movie was already playing, meaning there evidently weren’t any previews, I sat in the first and most accessible seat I could find which was on the right side of the theater. After about one moment I realized this wasn’t going to work. You see, this theater is exactly on top of the other one, and whereas the ceiling of the main theater is rounded, well, so is the floor of this theater. The real difference, though, is whereas the other was extremely long, this one was extremely short with only about 10 rows, and yet the same width. The screen in this little theater was huge for the size of the room, so much so that when watching a movie with subtitles, the words are basically on the floor from your eye’s perspective. Sitting in the side sections meant that you could barely read the subtitles. Geesh!
I strategically moved to the center section as soon as I found a seat that I could easily get into without interfering with other movie watchers. It was in the last row, which again, isn’t very far back. The next oddity I noticed was that the ceiling was only a couple feet above my head which felt really odd, especially since the screen was much higher than the ceiling above the audience. What kind person builds this sort of place???
The topper, though, was that there was a very large rectangular vent in the middle of this low ceiling. The air conditioner kicked on from this vent about every 5 minutes and ran for 10 minutes at a time. It was not only extremely noisy but was blowing air at a furious pace, to the point that I had the equivalent of a very cold ocean breeze blowing directly in my face for 2 ½ hours of a movie. I think this might have been the only vent in the room, hence why it seemed to be blowing at max power. Considering where it was positioned and how low the ceiling was, I think it’s impossible to not feel this vent no matter where you sit in the middle section of this theater.
Given all of that, the movie was decent and I survived! It was truly an experience but not the kind I, um, had bargained for. Also, as it turned out, the main theater that I was originally sitting in was playing “Ironman 2” that evening. Eeew! Talk about horror! I felt like I needed a shower after just sitting in the theater let alone potentially watching that movie!
And now, let’s tie this all together… In Phoenix, we had a couple of rather cool theaters from the 50’s and 60’s era, one called Cine Capri and the other the Kachina. Both were sold and torn down, mostly because they were “old”. These were both pretty cool places, though, and rather unique. Cine Capri especially was very well loved and respected by the whole town and it was a real tragedy when Dan Harkins sold out and let it be torn down for some new high rise office buildings.
Out here in Minnesota, though, you’ve got somewhere like the Grandview, which is literally anything but ‘grand’ or a ‘view’ and it’s still standing! So, it just goes to show the opposite extremes from different parts of the country. Even scarier, there are a few user reviews on various websites talking about the Grandview Theater. One person even said that it’s a great “art deco theater”. I can only assume this person has no clue what that term means because there’s nothing art deco about the Grandview in any shape or form! From the reviews, it seems that many locals like the Grandview. Um…I guess it’s a matter of taste and to each his own???
Take my advice: if you want to see some really beautiful old movie theaters, try Los Angeles or Chicago. If you feel like being a part of the Amityville Horror, the Grandview is definitely your place!
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