EVENTS & WRITING | 2018: A new Paramount movie theatre? This is news?

Apparently.

Jesus actual Christ, life at Dose was boring.

Looking back through my old clippings and files as I go on with the rebuilding of this digital archive brought me to this short “news” story that was set to run nationally in Dose in the spring of 2005.

Remember how I said I’d been bamboozled into taking the job, thinking I’d be writing arts, entertainment, and culture pieces? And how it turned out I’d actually be required to write news? I wasn’t kidding. According to my files, this was my 57th news piece for Dose, submitted April 29, 2005.

Dose had only just launched on April 4th, and I’d already written 57 fucking news stories? Sure, not all of them published, but I was doing the work, in addition to writing daily stories for every other section of the paper as well.

57 fucking “news” stories. I hated it.

For this piece about the opening of a new Paramount movie theatre in Vancouver, I had to attend a horrible press event, try to get original quotes, take photographs by myself with a shitty little digital camera (some of which are shown here), get home in time to write it up for the next day’s paper, AND complete all my other pitches and pieces for the day as well.

And what would actually run was 200 or so words on inane trash, helpfully “edited” by over-zealous and angry copy editors who seemed deeply resentful that their names weren’t appearing in the paper. (Or, to be fair, I don’t know what their damage was about, but it was a real problem.)

Just for fun, here is a selection of headlines from my first 50-or-so news pieces for Dose:

• B.C. researchers develop new cancer-fighting tool
• Guilty verdict in Virk slaying
• Man-icure* gets new meaning
• HIV-positive man wins lawsuit
• Boy submerged in water dies
• Not so hot for teacher

I mean, fucking really. *See what I mean about the copy editing? Idiotic.

Less than a month from launch and I already hated what I was doing so much, it was giving me hives.

Anyway, enjoy this scintillating local news article about the opening of a fucking new Paramount movie theatre.

New theatre first in three decades.

New Famous Players Paramount Theatre, 2005.

An edited version of this piece published in Dose in 2005 and is shown below.

“The last time a theatre was built in Vancouver, Elvis was still alive.” That’s the word from Nuria Bronfman, VP of Corporate Affairs for Famous Players. She’s emphasizing that her new Vancouver movie theatre,  opening today at the corner of Burrard and Smithe,  is something special.

And she’s right.

The Paramount is the city’s first downtown movie location to open since 1977.

Not surprisingly, the facility is “state-of-the-art” and features all the modern movie amenities one might expect, including stadium seating, wall-to-wall-floor-to-ceiling curved screens, and eight automatic ticketing machines. There are nine auditoriums in total, with the smallest seating 147 people, and the largest seating 461.

Bronfman described the décor as “techno zen”, an aesthetic obviously chosen to appeal to a West Coast urban demographic.

She referred to an area on the second floor as the “urban forest” pointing out a 20 ft. tall water feature, “tree trunk” concession stands and seating (think polished logs), and an area of tiled flooring that’s meant to look like beach pebbles.

Even so, the place is still a Paramount.

It’s big, it’s slick, and it’s all about getting people to go to movies.

What’s different about the new location is that it’s a fully accessible and a sort of bizarre, massive café. You don’t need a ticket to get in. If you’re just craving the popcorn, you can walk in and buy it.

It’s a big change from the Capitol 6, Famous Players’ former downtown location, which closed it’s doors yesterday after 28 years of operation.

Published in Dose, May 2005.