Camera 3 goes dark, but brighter days are ahead
Bad news, movie fans: The Camera 3 theaters in downtown San Jose closed after Sunday’s last screenings. Fortunately, this isn’t a permanent condition, and the movie house is expected to bounce back in January after a major renovation.
Scott and Shannon Guggenheim — the people who were behind the RetroDome at Century 25 and later Century 21 — shared with me their plans as they take over as operators of the three-auditorium complex on South Second Street. First, there’ll be a new name: 3 Below (as in three theaters below a parking garage), and a new look that plays off the name’s cooler temperature-related meaning.
The auditoriums, lobby area and — thankfully — the restrooms are all getting a makeover. Psycho Donuts, which had its San Jose location at Camera 3 for seven years, is out and will be replaced with a more mainstream cafe, including beer and wine, that will be open to the non ticket-buying public, too. (Fans of the outrageous doughnut shop can still visit its Campbell and Santa Clara locations, and a search is on for another downtown San Jose spot.)
The largest of the three auditoriums will primarily be used for live theater productions along the lines of what the Guggenheims produced at the RetroDome with “Shout! The Mod Musical” and “Sisters of Swing,” and concerts featuring performers from the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. The rest of the programming includes singalong and quotealong movies, retro movie series and the independent cinema events that the Camera Cinemas were known for.
The Guggenheims have partnered with Cinequest on this venture, which will take over the complex during the annual film festival, which next year runs Feb. 27 through March 11. The improv antics of ComedySportz won’t be going anywhere, and the troupe’s weekly shows will continue through the renovation period, too. Barely Legal’s monthly showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” are expected to live on, too. There are other fun plans, too, like showing classic Saturday morning cartoons and slapstick comedies on weekends.
“It’s been a long time coming, so we’re thrilled to be creating something new with a slight retro feel. But it’s not RetroDome 2.0,” Shannon Guggenheim said. “Having a true community gathering space with so many audience experiences was very important to us.”
WONDER WOMEN >> Lisa Sobrato Sonsini and Kelly Bruno were honored last week at Notre Dame High School’s Women of Impact luncheon. The event’s grown so large in its 10th year that it was moved to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center to accommodate the sold-out crowd of more than 850 people, including past honorees, elected officials and business leaders.
Bruno, who graduated from Notre Dame in 1988, is president and CEO of the Los Angeles-based National Health Foundation and has more than 20 years experience in the nonprofit sector. Sonsini is the president of the board of the Sobrato Family Foundation, and she spoke about a woman of impact in her life, her grandmother, Ann Sobrato — a successful real estate developer who earned the nickname, “the Mother of Silicon Valley.”
Before the luncheon, both women spoke to students at an assembly held at the all-girls Catholic school in downtown San Jose. “It was breathtaking to see the power of the possible in that room,” Sonsini said of the morning assembly.
STATION BREAK >> Monday mornings are hard enough, but it was even harder for fans of Mix 106.5-FM’s morning show. The show’s hosts, Marla Davies and Jeff Pope, were let go from the station by owner Alpha Media on Friday. Davies had just celebrated 19 years with the San Jose station and Pope, a Southern California transplant, had been waking up Silicon Valley listeners for more than three years.
Morning radio in South Bay seems to be getting a little less comfortable — and less fun — as this comes less than a year after sister station KBAY shook up its longtime morning show crew, dropping veteran Lissa Kreisler when co-host Sam Van Zant stepped away from daily on-air duty.