Non-malco movie theaters reopen Friday
The two multiplex movie theaters in Shelby County that are not owned by Malco Theatres Inc. plan to reopen Friday.
The Hollywood 20 Cinema near the corner of Kirby-whitten and Stage Road in Bartlett and the Palace Cinema at 5117 Old Summer Road will be back in business this weekend, after some five months of shutdown, in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
This means that most Memphis-area movie theaters will be back in operation Friday, when Malco reopens the doors of the Paradiso, the Powerhouse, the Studio on the Square, the Ridgeway and the Desoto, which will join the Collierville and Stage cinemas that opened last week.
Most of the theaters will reopen only about half or fewer of their available screens, and most of those screens will be devoted to the latest Marvel Comicsinspired movie, "The New Mutants."
Other new films arriving Friday at various locations include "Bill and Ted Face the Music," a 30years-later revival of the goofy-teen franchise, with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter returning as adult versions of their metalhead slacker selves; "The Personal History of David Copperfield," a satirical take on Dickens from acerbic writer-director Armando Iannucci (creator of HBO'S "Veep"); and "Tulsa," a "faith" film that stars Scott Pryor (who also wrote and directed) as a "Marine biker" whose "life is turned upside-down when he is united with the sassy 9-yearold daughter he never knew existed," to quote the Internet Movie Database synopsis.
In addition, "Tenet," the much-anticipated new movie from director Christopher Nolan, begins Monday night at some locations in what are billed as "early access" screenings, prior to the movie's official release date of Sept. 3.
Although all theaters have implemented mandatory socially distanced seating and have taken other precautions in response to the COVID-19 threat, health experts have had a mixed reaction, at best, to the idea of reopening movie theaters. (In fact, cinemas remain closed in the nation's two most significant movie states, New York and California.)
If a moviegoer wears a mask and the theater follows its health protocols, "Unless you're being coughed or sneezed on by the person behind you... I don't see any major risk," Dr. Robert Lahita, chairman of medicine at St. Joseph's Health in New Jersey, told the website Vulture. But Dr. Anne W. Rimoin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center For Global And Immigrant Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, disagrees. "There is no scenario in which going to a movie theater is a good idea," she told The A.V. Club, an entertainment website.