Sad, but inevitable I’m afraid, news out of Toronto today, as one of the last few fully independent Repertory Cinemas, The Toronto Underground Cinema, announced that it was shuttering its doors permanently come September. Issues with the building owners (involving a liquor license) as well as the ongoing slow death of 35mm print distribution have pushed the financials of operating a 700 seat repertory house beyond any fiscal sense for the three owners: Nigel Agnew, Charlie Lawton, and Alex Woodside.
More than a few patrons were often confused by the well spaced scheduling of regular programming at The Underground since it quite successfully hosted Toronto After Dark’s sixth year (The Bloor Cinema, TADFFs usual haunt, was under massive renovations before gathering Patronage from HotDocs as a supported repertory venue. TADFF announced a few weeks ago that it was however returning to the Bloor come October.) With the Lightbox just around the corner, and even the corporate Cineplex up the street getting into the Rep Cinema game (showing Roman Holiday, Blazing Saddles, Robocop and such on occasional Sunday afternoons), not to mention Cinecycle, The Bloor, Projection Booth, and several other operational Rep cinemas all vying for the same eyeballs, it was only a matter of time before the shoe dropped on someone. That someone is Toronto Underground.
Personally, I’ve seen such diverse films as Hard Core Logo, The Innkeepers, A Lonely Place to Die, Speed Racer, Ghostbusters II, Fright Night, Manborg, Pontypool, and Mad Monkey Kung Fu. The venues specialty was always 1980s trash cinema, something that has a close place in my heart. TUC opened its doors in 2010 with a double bill of Clue: The Movie and Big Trouble in Little China and will close September with screenings of apocalyptic horror film Night of the Comet and concert Doc, The Last Waltz.
In the immortal words of Jack Burton, Toronto rep cinema-goers should heed the following advice: “You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president. “
I always find it sand when the local landscape loses an indie theatre. RIP Toronto Underground.
Good Riddance to the worst run and worst staffed theatre in Toronto. These guys beat themselves with arrogance, laziness and sheer incompetence. Capitalism works after all.
Dare I ask what makes you say this? Most people I know have quite the positive view of the Toronto Underground Cinema.
No AC. Totally understocked snack bar. A staff that was slouching around looking like they hadn’t bathed in a while. A propensity to show things on DVD because they often couldn’t get prints. If I wanted to watch videos with a bunch of potheads I’d visit my high school buddies, not pay $10 for the privilege.
Price is not wrong on many of these points. The chief thing that actually cooked the Underground was such poor communication (website/media/etc.) of what they were actually playing, and their street visibility wasn’t great either. AC was far less an issue, as they were, actually physically underground, and unless they had a full house, it never got really hot in there.
the bulk of the films that I saw at Underground were on 35mm and that was pretty great. Their sound system was never great (but superior to the old Bloor Cinema by a long shot!) and the prints were always projected well, so I’m not sure where Price’s DVD comment comes from…
Their main issue was inconsistence in the monthly schedule…That was a huge part of what did them in…
I saw four things there. 2 were DVD’s when the prints didn’t show. Even if I allow for the fact that I was unlucky, these guys were flat out terrible businessmen who completely deserved to fail. They did not create a professional atmosphere on any level. They did not merchandise their snack bar, the main way a theatre is supposed to generate revenue (and I don’t mean that they needed to gouge us; every time I was there the candy shelves were basically empty and the popcorn was stale). They did not try to connect with patrons they didn’t already know, I always felt like I “wasn’t cool enough to be in the club” when they were around.
The proof is in the pudding here. If they had been able to actually generate good word of mouth, make profit on people who did come in, and create enough of a schedule, they’d still be in business. I reiterate that they fully deserved to fail based on their incompetence.
The vast majority of the 12 films I saw at Toronto Underground were 35mm.
I didn’t know the people who ran the theatre, but my own experiences with them were that they were quite friendly. I talked to them briefly about their AT-AT by the snack bar which I thought was awesome and joked about writer Warren Ellis when they were screening the documentary on him.
That said, I agree that the selection of candy at the snack bar wasn’t the greatest and the popcorn was hit or miss for me depending on when they last made a fresh batch.
As much as I like the shinny nice TIFF Lightbox, I also liked having the opposite extreme of the Toronto Underground Cinema which felt more like a club house. For seeing movies like the director’s cut of Mimic or Pontypool and fan events this felt like the appropriate venue compared to the Lightbox.
That said, they completely admit they were not very business savy. Even if someone liked the place, it didn’t help if you had no idea what they were playing half the time. Also apparently they were hoping to get a liquor license to make money but ran into trouble. They were also apparently not allowed to screen anything showing at the Lightbox, AMC Yonge & Dundas or Scotiabank Theatre.
To me they seem to obviously love movies and wanted to put on good events and unfortunately were missing anyone with that business savy.
“We were never working with a reasonable budget to do what we were trying to do, and we just decided we were going to do it anyway.” – Alex Woodside one of the owners in a quote from the Toronto Star.
I mostly agree with Matthew.
On one hand, I loved going to the Underground for the slightly ‘punk’ feeling, it felt like this place shouldn’t exist, no matter what they were showing it felt like a dive bar where you knew everybody, even if you didn’t. So the video game tournaments, burlesque shows, comedy shows, Rue Morgue screenings, it felt perfect for these things. it felt like a home away from home for me. Seeing the Directors Cut of Mimic there for some reason was better for me than seeing it at the Lightbox would have been.
The staff and snack bar? No issue for me there, whatsoever. For me, there’s a place in Toronto for a rag tag misfit rep cinema, even if they’re showing DVDs.
The problem for me was they couldn’t do the very basics. Like keep the schedule on their website updated. Leave Facebook posts about what was coming. Or answer tweets.
Example: Paul F Tompkins tweeted at the Underground that he very much wanted to do a show at their theater. In comedy this is a pretty huge get right now. And they loosely set something up, and then… nothing, for a while, with no answers about what was happening when I or many many others would inquire.
I’m sad to see the Toronto Underground go, but I’m also not surprised. It was very uneven with its programming and it got to the point when there were more burlesque shows and wrestling events (albeit geek-themed) than movies.
I’ve only seen 12 films at the theatre, most of which were special screening nights, such as Toronto After Dark, Rue Morgue Cinemacabre, or the Kevin Smith Red Province Tour.
I’ll be sad to see it go. It was a cool little theatre that had some great movies and events. I also saw Pontypool there for the first time, which despite a small crowd, they had the actors involved with the movie for a Q&A and I bought the novel it was based off from the author.
It was also a cool venue for Gamercamp conference and I made it a point to start and end my Nuit Blanche night / morning there where they had bands play Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit 144 times in a row. Being there at almost 4 am in the morning while a blue grass band played Smells Like Teen Spirit with banjos was quite a surreal experience to end off the night.
The last movie I saw there a few months ago was the documentary on comic book writer Warren Ellis called “Captured Ghosts”. Unfortunately, there were perhaps 10 other people in the theatre beyond my group of friends. Last time Warren Ellis came to Toronto, he packed a bar (I think it sold out early) of people just to hear him talk for 45 minutes or so. I think the movie could have done a lot better, especially for it’s only showing in Toronto, but unfortunately few fans of Warren Ellis in Toronto knew about the screening. Perhaps some sort of cross promotion with the local comic book stores would have helped. Unfortunately, mistakes like this is why I think the Toronto Underground is closing.
Sounds like an awesome theater. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Price, I prefer theaters that are sort of indie, laid back and NON-corporate (or at least give off the vibe of being non-corporate). I like the movie dudes just hanging out and chatting with customers and generally being laid back.
This place sounds like the Toronto version of what we have here called The Trylon micro-cinema. It seats about 50 people and they show everything from DVD to Blu to prints. I saw the White Stripes doc, Black Rainbow, some Hitchcock stuff and local film maker screenings there and I’ve never had a bad experience.
A popcorn and soda at The Trylon is like three bucks or something and as far as I know they’re doing fine. So I doubt not having the type of candy someone wants is probably not what did them in. Sounds like a lack of awareness and promotion.
It’s sad when someone is happy that a business fails. Especially a movie theater these days.
Andrew, you are correct. I am happy when incompetents fail. Not as happy as I am when the truly deserving succeed, but it’s a close second. I like to see people get what’s coming to them, in both the positive and negative sense of that expression. It restores my faith in humanity.
Maybe they should’ve used http://youtu.be/m0trj1_AbJA
They hosted May the 4 Be With You, Star Wars day showing various fan edited videos through out the day. It’s quite possible that they might have showed that video.
I hosted the last One Minute Film Festival at the Underground in March 2011, and participated in Andrew Parker’s Defending the Indefensible series there as well. Good memories. I’ll never forget the surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland-ish thrill of descending into the Underground for the first time, and finding an enormous movie theatre I’d never heard about, buried under Chinatown!
I think most of us in the community were aware of the challenges the venue faced getting up and running, so I can’t say this news came as any kind of a surprise, but it’s sad nonetheless. A difficult industry to compete in at the best of times.
This theatre sounds a lot like LA’s Cinefamily, which I’m pretty closely involved with (I’ve volunteered there every week for about two and a half years; just cut back to once a month a few weeks ago). They show a lot of cult films, fan events, random weird stuff. They used to do a lot more what I’d call “arthouse classic” type stuff – series on classic Hollywood directors, or movements like the Czech New Wave – but they don’t do as much of that anymore. I guess competing on that kind of thing with the American Cinematheque is too difficult, especially with it being harder to get 35mm prints these days.
But Cinefamily does have marketing savvy – a very active email list and Facebook account, consistently updated calendar and a number of events you can count on (like the first Wednesday of the month is always Silent Treatment with rare silent films) and recurring annual festivals. And they make popcorn fresh about a half hour before every show, bring in cupcakes from Crumbs, and have various other gourmet-type snacks as well. Sounds like that little bit of extra business sense and service goes a long way. Sorry to hear that the Toronto Underground couldn’t pull it together, but I am at least glad that Toronto has so many other rep cinema options.
Place sounds a lot like The Rio in Vancouver. My main complaint there is that they mostly show DVDs but the folks that run it are ridiculously good at drumming up business. All sorts of special screenings, concerts, burlesque shows, comedy acts… you name it they do it. Probably why they’ve managed to stay open. Certainly helps that they have a very avtive facebook page and a well maintained website.
Oh yes, and they just won a long running fight for an alcohol license.
Shame that the final screening for the Toronto Underground conflicts with TIFF. Of course, that’s assuming that I will be seeing a TIFF film at the time of the screening.
Perhaps another gaffe of business savvy (even if it going out of business) would be having their final screening during TIFF.
I would have totally been down for a double bill of Night of The Comet (a guilty pleasure) and The Last Waltz and say goodbye to a cinema I quite enjoyed attending, but during TIFF, my time is 100% committed, as are many toronto cinemaphiles. Would going out of business 2 weeks earlier or 2 weeks later made any difference??
I really liked this place but the sound was awful. It seemed whenever I checked the website to see what was playing it was 95% empty. The place was grimey, but I liked that. Could have been so much more. Outside of Toronto After Dark, I only saw 1 other film there “Dream Warriors” with a Q&A with Robert England. I wanted to go many times but the schedule was almost always blank for days/eves I was available. Some folks with some serious $ should get the space and do it right.
Someone else has already gotten the space, that’s why this has already become final and the Toronto Underground Cinema went public that they are closing down. From the sounds of it, the place will unfortunately no longer be a theater and will be completely gutted and renovated to make way for whatever goes in there next.
ALAS.
At the last few screenings I attended at Toronto Underground, the sound has become laughably bad. Different reels would have different sound levels and the sound even went off a couple times during THE FIFTH ELEMENT (though it did make for some fun heckle-dubbing).
Final sign-off letter:
Hello friends and fans of the Underground.
Many of you are aware that the theatre has been shuttered sine July for renovations. Unfortunately those renovations never began, as we have encountered problems of a legal and bureaucratic nature that we, management of the Toronto Underground Cinema, could not foresee. The mounting costs of these problems have ultimately led us into a situation where we have to say goodbye. The Toronto Underground Cinema will be closing its doors on Sunday Sept 16th.
We will be closing out our run with the very first film festival who ever partnered with us, the T.O. Indie Film Fest, which will run from Sept 6th – Sept 15th. More information about films and showtimes can be found at http://www.film-fest.ca .
For our final night we have planned a very special 35mm appreciation screening. We will be showing Night of the Comet (1984) and the purposefully appropriate The Last Waltz (1978). Both films will be projected in the superior 35mm format. No blu-rays here, just pure cinema. And yes, we will be playing The Last Waltz loud!
We’ve always tried to be as honest and open with everyone as possible right from the start, so we’ll try to explain our situation as best we can.
The Toronto Underground Cinema was founded on a hope and a prayer. We approached the owner of the property with an audacious plan to turn his unused space into a vibrant venue for cinema and events in the downtown core. We envisioned an affordable establishment where the city would be able to hold events and the community would be able to come together to see some of the best cinema from the past and the present.
With very little funding in place we, and the owner, came to an agreement to work hard to get the cinema off the ground. We overcame countless obstacles and have been able to deal with looming threats, keeping the doors open and the projectors running.
These current matters are out of our (the management team’s) hands, and as of right now we have been unable to secure a solution. The owner has been working tirelessly to resolve these issues, however the costs associated with these problems and necessary upgrades to the space and technical facilities have left us in a position where we can no longer afford to be in business.
We would like to send out our undying gratitude to our fans, patrons and friends and to everyone who helped us on this journey that has changed our lives and hopefully touched yours. This theatre would not have lasted a day if it wasn’t for the involvement of so many people that we are lucky to call our friends and family.
Although this is goodbye for now, we will not stop working on a way to bring the Underground back. Whether that is a year or two down the road when all issues have been solved, or in a different incarnation in a different space, we are dedicated to the love of cinematic exhibition, and the fans who support it. Until then,
See you above ground,
The Management of the Toronto Underground Cinema
Nigel Agnew, Charlie Lawton and Alex Woodside”