New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
How Madison Art Cinemas was reinvented post-pandemic
Connecticut almost lost the Madison Arts Cinemas for a minute there. A year ago this past June, the theater’s owner, Arnold Gorlick, was ready to call it quits, after shuttering the historical, beloved two-screen theater immediately upon the pandemic lockdown. It had been a while. Too long. Gorlick had been going in to run the water and things of that nature all along, but the clock was surely ticking.
Then he got word about a federal grant from the Small Business Administration that his labor of love could possibly benefit from. He was in. But Gorlick, remembered fondly by Connecticut film lovers for his many years helming New Haven’s now-defunct York Square Cinemas, wasn’t necessarily optimistic at the time, citing some 13,000 other applicants having already beaten him to the punch applicationwise. “The premises hadn’t been in use since March 15,” he said, “and it was an arduous process.”
But the grant was received, and the theater spiffed up accordingly. There was still the matter of reopening and, beyond that, of people actually donning their masks to go into theaters (and now doffing them). Enter: Harold Blank. He’d already stepped in like this once before, in Mystic, where a small theater has been sitting in Olde Mistick Village for ages. Now known as the Mystic Luxury Cinema, it is indeed exactly that — brand new seats, surround sound, and many other amenities took the arthouse theater to the next level. And that was pre-pandemic.
He did the same with a theater in Rhode Island too, Blank said via telephone. “The existing owner vacated it during the pandemic. We jumped on that one. It was in our wheelhouse like Mystic, except that it’s an eight-plex,” he said. “I’ve always liked the Madison theater. I grew up in Waterbury. My parents moved to Madison in 1980 and spent the last 25 years of their life in that area. I was quite familiar with the town. I had worked for Hoyt’s Cinemas and Hoyt’s owned that theater before Arnold taking it over in the late 1990s. I had my eye on it even before the pandemic. But once that happened I called Arnold and we started talking.”
Meantime, Gorlick was still moving forward with simply getting the theater that sits directly across the street from R.J. Julia Booksellers functional again. Tasks included refurbishing the heating and air conditioning, and restocking the inventory, which included purchasing a new espresso machine and upgrading the booth to the Motion Picture Association of America code, “because my servers are now obsolete,” Gorlick explained. As for all of the Craigslist or Facebook Market-ready accoutrements inside the old theater? “We donated the old seats to a not-forprofit venue soon to open in Oregon,” Gorlick relayed.
The buzz on the Shoreline was all over the place. The theater was closing, it was reopening, it was closing, it had been sold, and on and on. But Blank did in fact buy it, along with a partner, retaining Gorlick as a consultant, at least to start. After all, Gorlick had earned a reputation in the industry for knowing a good picture when he saw one, and taking risks on arthouse fare distributors were not often readily sure would appeal to suburban moviegoers.
“I knew of Arnold’s reputation. It preceded him. I admired it. We played ‘Casablanca’ for one show in Mystic during the period when he and I were talking. One show, at 3p.m., and we had 70 people there,” Blank inserted, acknowledging that there are all sorts of ways to drum up attendance, in addition to rolling the dice on an independent film.
“I learned that people were hungry to see movies that they couldn’t see,” Gorlick added, noting a Marx Brothers festival he once hosted.
Madison Cinemas 2.0 opened in late January. (Since Madison Art Cinemas rose from the ashes, another landmark theater in the area has closed for good: The Cine 4, or as the locals called, The Mini Cine on Middletown Avenue). Madison Art Cinemas premiered Kenneth Branaugh’s “Death on the Nile.” Since then it has screened Robert Pattinson’s debut as the Caped Crusader in “The Batman” and Sandra Bullock’s surprise hit “The Lost Island” to name a few. Decidedly non-indie fare. “Where The Crawdads Sing” and “Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris” also saw large crowds.
“It’s an entirely new theater aesthetically, but what they want is the same,” said Gorlick.