Parkway and Cerrito RIP - Not So Fast!

Like zombies rising from the dead (which I saw in spades at Hole in the Head), the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article on Friday stating that the Parkway Theater in Oakland and the Cerrito Theater in El Cerrito have found new operators and will re-open shortly.

The new operator of the Cerrito is Rialto Cinemas which is a local theater chain and I use the term loosely since their chain only has two links - the Lakeside in Santa Rosa and the Elmwood in Berkeley. Motion Picture Heritage, which I'm not familiar with, is set to re-open the Parkway.

Given all the theaters in the City and the PFA and the fact that I rarely get a chance to get down to the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto, I'll probably never see a film in the reincarnated Cerrito or Parkway Theaters. I do find it interesting that two separate entities are willing to operate single double screen theaters. I wonder if they will retain the kitschy charm of their Speakeasy predecessors. Of course, I speak on hearsay because I never went to those theaters when they were owned by the Speakeasy group.

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The J Pop Center on Post St in Japantown in San Francisco is set to open on August 15 under the name New People. The basement will hold a movie theater that will specialize in the contemporary Japanese cinema.