Historic Houston theater victim of pandemic
HOUSTON — A historic Houston theater that director Richard Linklater called his “film school” and that for decades was the place to catch hard-to-find independent and foreign films has closed for good — like many theaters and other businesses, a victim of the coronavirus pandemic.
After nearly 82 years in business, the River Oaks Theatre turned off its projectors last month, depriving the nation’s fourth-largest city of an institution where everyone from rappers to suburban kids and cinephiles formed friendships, fell in love and found community. Its loss has left more than just an empty building behind.
“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve experienced so much loss and so much grief and loss of life. It is also a profound grief to lose the places of community and the places that you would come together and feel that love ... that safety,” Leen Dweik, 24, told dozens of other River Oaks fans during a vigil after the theater’s final showings.
Dependent on large crowds to survive, U.S. movie theaters have been hammered by the pandemic, as they were shut down for months and saw their revenues plunge by 80% in 2020.
Although some have managed to survive with the help of aid and through workarounds, Landmark Theatres, which ran the River Oaks, wasn’t able to reach an agreement with its landlord, Weingarten Realty, over rent it couldn’t pay during the pandemic. Weingarten Realty didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Designer Mossimo Giannulli released from prison
LOS ANGELES — Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli has been released from a California prison and is under home confinement following his imprisonment for his role in a college admissions bribery scheme, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Giannulli, 57, is married to former “Full House” star Lori Loughlin. They pleaded guilty last year to paying half a million dollars to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California.
Loughlin was released from a prison in Dublin in December after spending two months behind bars.
The two were among the most high-profile parents charged in the scheme, which authorities say involved hefty bribes to get undeserving teens into schools with rigged test scores or bogus athletic credentials.
Arthur Kopit, Tony-nominated playwright, dies
NEW YORK — Arthur Kopit, a three time Tony Award-nominated playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist known for fusing disparate genres, absurdism and a darkly comic world view, has died. He was 83.
Kopit died Friday, said Rick Miramontez, a senior publicist at DKC/O&M PR. No other details were available.
Kopit earned a Tony nod in 1970 for “Indians,” a critique of the Vietnam War and America’s treatment of Native Americans that starred Stacy Keach as Buffalo Bill. Nine years later, he received another nomination for “Wings,” the story of a stroke victim’s recovery starring Constance Cummings.