Confessions of a Boho Cinemaniac: Nothin’ Beats My Local Art Moviehouse (Take That, Becardiganed Bourgeois Idolaters of Box Office!)

When I’ve had my fill of pixilated airborne snakes and pirate sideburns, I make my way to the humble little picture house in my neighbourhood. I duck in, buy popcorn from the Tammy Faye look-alike who’s always smoking, and sit back to enjoy a good flick. I find I don’t even need to bring a date to enjoy myself.

With only one screen, the Cinéma de L’Amour will never have the greenbacks to serve up Box Office dynamite. Instead, their programmers scour the independent and foreign circuits (especially, it would seem, France and the Czech Republic) to bring me reels you’ll never see at your suburban, quiet-desperation, Starbucks-sipping Cineplex.

As a regular, I’m welcomed by name. The other kinoscenti are local eminentoes: landlords, professional chess kibitzers, and Portuguese men in their fifties who tend to keep their bulky coats and dark sunglasses on until the film starts. These guys are so into it that they won’t even sit next to you while watching. You can see them nodding furiously in recognition of the director’s auteurial savvy. And they’re not about to be distracted by their bladders—hence the frequent bathroom breaks. Afterwards, I’ve tried to get the odd filmlovers’ discussion going in the lobby, but I guess they feel I’m a little wet behind the ears yet to have anything worthwhile to add. Nevertheless! Amid the intense, anticipatory silence, it’s clear what the “L’Amour” is all about: the love of good cinéma.

I’m aware that independent film is more “hard-hitting” than the usual Hollywood fare. In fact, if you watch attentively, you’ll start to notice that through subtle editing and lighting effects, the love scenes tend to be more liberal. Hey, I’m sorry, but the beamer-driving, median-income-earning stout burghers are just going to have to deal with it. There will always be snivelling Babbitts to take offense at this kind of direct, no-nonsense art. These guys just don’t get irony. Take last week’s third of a quadruple-bill: Sgt. Pecker’s Lonely Hearts Club Gangbang, an uncompromising, scathing, satirical, hyphenated-adjective look back at 1960’s popular culture. But for the prude-shtapo, it was just a clichéd love story of the old boy-meets-girl-and-girl-and-girl variety. Well, all I can do is quote promoter Bobby the Brain Heenan, when he said of the sport of professional wrestling (no link to L’Amour should be inferred), “For those who get it, no explanation necessary; for those who don’t, no explanation will do.”

But I’m troubled by all the empty seats I always see around me at the Cinéma de L’Amour. I’d like them to be filled with local families instead of butter stains. Sad to say, a time may come when the playbill reads “Fermé” instead of “I Can’t Believe I Did the Whole Team.” I don’t want to see the theatre go out of business or be prostituted into an acting school or frenchie community centre. Come on so-called Canada Council for the Arts, we need these outposts of independent culture. I’m calling on my readers to make a difference here. Hey, it’s only $4 to get in, and they have a new feature every week. So grab a ticket and I’ll see you there. Just don’t sit next to me.