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Great Year at Oakland’s Grand Lake by Doniphan Blair
'Fruitvale Station', by Oaklander Ryan Coogler, sold out Oakland's prestigious Grand Lake Theater opening day, July 12, 2013. photo: D. Blair
BIG EVENTS IN OAKLAND FILM OFTEN
happen at the Grand Lake Theatre, the city's grand dame of cinema showcases. Almost a century old, it features a marquee visible for miles and was recently purchased by impresario, activist and antiquer Allen Michaan, who has been its tenant for the last 38 years.
An art deco masterpiece built in 1926, the Grand Lake is the jewel in Michaan’s theater empire, which he started in 1972, when only 19. Shortly after arriving from Connecticut to attend UC Berkeley, Michaan dropped out and began building The Rialto Theater in a warehouse on Berkeley's Gilman Street from parts scavenged from condemned film palaces. Within two decades, he had 24 theaters.
Alas chain consolidation, corporate greed and megaplexes made it difficult for a theater mogul as independent as Michaan. Hence, he switched to assembling one of the largest antique collections in California, on display at Michaan's Auctions, two massive warehouses on the old Navy base, in Alameda. But he retains the Grand Lake, which he adores as a living antique, with its neoclassical columns, crystal chandeliers and faux frescos, as well as Mighty Wurlitzer organ on the weekends.
"Buildings like that are money pits; they are so expensive to run. That is why every year we seem to have less and less of them," the boyish-looking Michaan told me during our recent interview in an office crammed with artifacts. "The Grand Lake survives because it is a very successful operation. People love it, they go to it, they buy tickets."
Indeed, with 2018 the biggest year in Oakland film history, the Grand Lake cracked its total take for 2017 in August. Along the way, it world premiered Oakland's two biggest homegrown films ever: “Sorry to Bother You”, by Boots Riley, and “Blindspotting”, by Carlos López Estrada. It also rented out to homeboy Ryan Coogler, when he wanted to invite all of his family, friends and neighbors to a private screening of his international blockbuster, “Black Panther”.
The Rialto, the humble beginnings of Michaan's theater empire, in a warehouse in Berkeley, was one of America's first independent cinemas. photo:courtesy A. Michaan
"’Black Panther’ smashed all of our house records, except maybe going back to ‘E.T.’ [1982]," Michaan told me. "It was huge. [But] when you add up the revenue from ‘Blindspotting’ and ‘Sorry to Bother You’, it exceeds ’Black Panther’! That’s how popular those films were at the Grand Lake. That's really saying a lot."
"People in Oakland are proud of their city and are coming to see these films," he continued. "The Grand Lake attracts a very ethnically diverse audience. Everyone seems to come and have a good time and get along with each other. We have never had any problems."
The Grand Lake is also well known for its community involvement and special events, often with rental fees partially donated.
Although Michaan's classical cinema interests compel him not to run pre-film commercials or sell anything but fifties-style snacks, he has become famous for his aggressive activism, which includes editorial comments right on the Grand Lake's marquee and hosting controversial shows, like a recent day of "9/11 Truther" films. Especially interested in election integrity, Michaan helped produce Greg Palast’s film "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (2016).
Over the years, Michaan has spent almost $4 million on renovating and repainting the building and expansion. He split the balcony into a second theater and transformed neighboring storefronts into screens three and four. Each new room is decorated like the rest of the theater, using the "Egyptian Revival" or "Moor" look favored by theater designers since they started building cinema palaces in the 1910s. At that time, Islam was a place of dream and romance. He also installed two high tech 3-D projectors.
With its cutting edge films, classical looks and progressive politics, the Grand Lake is a true Oakland treasure. And after the city's stellar cinema year, I thought it only wise to stop by and see what the view looked like from there.
I met with Michaan in his painting and antique-filled office, one floor up from an acre of antiques, with a beautiful view of San Francisco across the bay.
Michaan in front of his Grand Lake Theater, 2011. photo: M. Short
cineSOURCE: As you well know, this is the greatest year in Oakland film.
Allen Michaan: By far. It’s off the charts.
The idea that Oakland is the future and should be a film center, since it has the stories to tell, all came true this year to an unbelievable degree.
Amazing. The exciting thing about it is, all of a sudden, Ryan Coogler is an A-List director. And these other films were so successful this summer, we will be seeing more output from those filmmakers.
Technically speaking Ryan is an LA director.
He is now!
But he has included Oakland in four of his six films [including shorts]. Of course, he started ‘Black Panther’ and closed it Oakland.
His first film was ‘Fruitvale Station’; we played it at the Grand Lake; it was enormously popular.
I covered it. I used a shot of the long line.
It was a break through for him and a great film for us, too.
He was there opening night. He talked to the crowd, I think, on two occasions. He bought out the whole theater, gave away the tickets to young people and came and spoke with them. He has been very supportive of the theater.
One thing I find amazing about Ryan is he maintains his street diction, his street culture.
Yeah. He’s good guy.
I was at the Grand Lake for the world premiere for ‘Sorry to Bother’.
Actually, it was for ‘Blindspotting’. We did a ‘Sorry to Bother You’ thing for the San Francisco Film Festival but it wasn’t like what they did for ‘Blindspotting‘. That was a Hollywood red carpet event. It was incredible. The studio rented [the theater] and all the stars were there.
Sorry I missed it. ‘Blindspotting’ was shot all around my building—I didn’t hear a word. I read somewhere you invested in these films.
A Die-In protesting the Iraq War in 2003 in front of the Grand Lake was not bad for business—in fact it emphasized Michaan activists politics, which he often posts right on his marquee. photo: Dave Id
No. I invested in and helped produce Greg Palast’s film ‘The Best Democracy Money Can Buy’ {2016, see full movie here] because I am very interested in election integrity, which is something we don’t have in this country.
No one ever approached me to have any involvement in these films, so far as investing.
About your movie houses: you had twenty, then four—
Now one, just the Grand Lake. The Grand Lake is special .
Everything else in Oakland is corporate theater: AMC in Emeryville and Jack London Regal. It is a very competitive business; you have big megaplexes with parking structures.
It is always a struggle to get people into the theater. And we’ve always done lots of specials at the Grand Lake—we like to do unusual things there.
When I was getting out of the movie business—basically being pushed out by the circuits—it was always my intent to keep the Grand Lake Theater, which is what I did.
I noticed you don’t do screen advertising.
We don’t do screen advertising. I run it in a very traditional way, the way theaters would be run 50 years ago. You go in—the food choices are pop corn, soft drinks and candy—and you watch a couple of previews of coming attractions and then the movie.
We also have the Wurlitzer pipe organ, which gets played on the weekend.
No thoughts of putting in a foody thing?
No.
I seen many events there, like Oakland International Film Festival. You probably give them some sort of discount.
The Oakland International usually does their opening night there. Then they do the rest of their programming elsewhere.
If Oakland were to have a little film movement, the Grand Lake would be the jewel in the center.
Allen Michaan, in his antique crammed office, looking east on an acre of antiques and west on San Francisco. photo: D. Blair
We hope to continue to be that, sure. The Grand Lake is an extraordinary building it is a wonderful survivor of an era of architecture that by and large to a huge degree has disappeared. It’s my mission to preserve the theater and keep it going.
Mine, too. Is there any chance there will be a revival, that places similar to the Grand Lake will be restored?
Doesn’t look good for old theaters. Every year we lose more of them. The Grand Lake survives because it is a very successful operation. People love it, they go to it, they buy tickets. And because of that we can afford to maintain the building.
Buildings like that are money pits; they are so expensive to run. That is why every year we seem to have less and less of them.
Even with four screens, we are a low screen-count theater. It is a difficult thing to program because of all the demands that are placed on you by the various film distributors: ‘We need you to play this and this and this and this.’
They do these weird film package deals?
‘You are our customer and we expect you play all of our pictures.’ But you can’t always do that because you don’t have the screens. For that reason you will never see a Sony picture at the Grand Lake.
They are so aggressive in their demands of what they want you to play that, years ago, I had to say, ‘I can’t do this. I am just going to have to forgo doing business with Sony. I can’t satisfy them. It’s always a fight.’ There is a lot of politics involved.
The last time I went by [September 15th], the Grand Lake was playing ‘Sorry to Bother You’ and ‘Blindspotting’ AND ‘BlacKkKlansman’. I am guessing that you are still running them even though the theaters are not super full.
Actually, I have to say that ‘Sorry to Bother You’ and ‘Blindspotting’ are both incredibly popular films. They both played nine or ten weeks, I have done very well, and they are still drawing people in.
As we are getting into the fall and Thanksgiving season, I am having to cycle them out. I have to take care of my other suppliers. Of course, they have dropped off. But, when I look at the total the number of people who came to both those films, they are among the top in years.
’Black Panther’ smashed all of our house records, except maybe going back to ‘E.T.’ [1982]. It was huge. [But] when you add up the revenue from ‘Blindspotting’ and ‘Sorry to Bother You’, it exceeds ’Black Panther’. That’s how popular those films were at the Grand Lake. That's really saying a lot.
What do you see for the Oakland film movement, from your perspective?
To me, it is great we have had these wonderful films this year. You earlier called Ryan an LA director. I think that as the young filmmakers we saw this summer—‘Blindspotting’ and ‘Sorry to Bother You’—become successful, they, too, will end up becoming LA filmmakers. LA is the film capital of the world. That is a natural evolution.
A recect Michaan marquee announcing that he will disregard the r-rating to show Michael Moore's latest film, 'Fahrenheit 11/9'. photo: D. Blair
It is great. We are spawning young people in Oakland that are going on to become Hollywood players. They will continue to have fond memories of Oakland and will probably look to have their creations showcased in Oakland. We hope to see more of them coming up here and seeing these people coming back, doing events at the theater, putting their new projects out in front the community.
I don’t know if we will ever see a year like this again. If we did it would be extraordinary. This was a record year for the Grand Lake.
How much did it go up?
Last year, 2017, was the best year we ever had! [But] we beat it the second week in August, which is phenomenal, since we have a third of the year left to go. So it looks like this year will be up 35% over last year, which is huge.
In the old days, film noir days, San Francisco was the city LA used to symbolize a city—
Oh yeah, Sam Spade days.
—so it could be possible that Oakland is the multicultural city that LA uses instead of the sprawling megalopolis of LA.
Could be. I can’t predict what these filmmakers will want to do with their projects. But happy to have them around and happy to have the year that we did.
Out of curiosity, do you have any take on ‘Sorry to Bother You’ and ‘Blindspotting’: a comparison of the crowds they drew?
A lot of Oakland people. People in Oakland are proud of their city and are coming to see these films. A very ethnically diverse audience for all these films. The Grand Lake attracts a very ethnically diverse audience. Everyone seems to come and have a good time and get along with each other. We have never had any problems.
You have never had any violence?
No, never.
They feel they are getting good a deal because prices are low; our snack bar prices are low; we have Five-dollar Tuesdays, Free Popcorn Mondays. We try to cater to the audience and deliver the best movie going experience, at far and away the lowest price in the area.
I think people respect us for that. They also respect us for the amount of community and special events that we do. The Grand Lake has earned a niche as an important part of the local community and it is treated thusly.
And, of course, you often have politics right on your marquee.
We have a lot of politics. I don’t think Republicans like the theater too much but that is OK. Who needs them [laughs].
I think our country is going down the drain and we have to save it. What can I say? [laughs]
You started worrying about it before the five-alarm fire when off.
Oh my god. Trump had a one-and-half-hour press conference today. I watched a little, I could not believe: How did we get here!?!
Is Popcorn Tuesdays your innovation or do you have a manager?
I direct what goes on in the theater. Whatever happens there are my policies.
There is a theater manager and assistant manager and they are the ones that are there every day. I only go there to watch movies.
Michaan in front of a massive floor full of antiques. photo: D. Blair
I read you got your first theater at 19?
I built my first theater at 19 from salvage of theaters that were being torn down. It was a completely recycled theater. It was in a warehouse in West Berkeley on Gilman Street.
It was a Rialto Theater and probably this country’s first real counterculture cinema. I opened the Rialto 1972. Old time East Bay people remember it well.
I don’t recall it. Now there is a Rialto in San Leandro.
They tried to hijack my company name to confuse people into thinking they had something to do with the Grand Lake.
When I had a chain of theaters, it was Renaissance Rialto Theaters; that has been my corporate identity since 1972. The corporate entity now is only the Grand Lake.
I closed [Gilman] in ‘89 after I build the Shattuck Cinemas. At that point, it just became too hard to get films. There were too many theaters in Berkeley.
Also, at the time, Gilman Street was going through a rough period. My customers started to get held up outside the theater. Their cars were getting broken into. People were coming in and holding us up at gunpoint.
That was a bad vibe?
That was a very bad vibe. And that was the end of the Rialto, it closed in ’89.
So you are down to one, but a great one.
I intend to keep the Grand Lake going as long as I can keep going.
It is a phenomenal architectural gem that has survived largely intact. It is so well constructed that, absent a major earthquake on the Hayward fault [laughs], it will survive for a long time.
Don’t we have to knock on wood? This is brass.
Here’s wood.
[they knock]
We got through the last earthquake, Loma Prieta, pretty good. We had damage but we fixed it all up.
Are you in contact at all with the city and film office?
Not really. I’ve never looked to the City of Oakland for any assistance or support whatsoever. They have not been supportive of the theater. Over the years, I have had a lot of run-ins with city officials over parking.
I was very angry when they put in meters in the parking lot under the freeway. I was able to get that parking lot build in 1985 with the cooperation of our then-council member Mary Moore. Prior to that it was a dirt lot; people were dumping stuff. We were able to get that paved over, working with the city and Cal Trans.
At the time, in 1985, I built Theaters Three and Four and the community needed more parking and we got it done.
A few years back, if you recall, Oakland did a very shady rejiggering of their parking
regulations. They extended the parking hours to 8 pm one night; they didn’t tell anyone; they didn’t change any signage.
The next day they blanketed city with tickets at 6 pm—very, very dishonest—and they killed my business. When they pushed those parking meters to 8pm, my business took a nosedive; people stopped coming to the Grand Lake; it was terrible.
Oakland's grand Grand Lake Theatre will presumably keep classical cinema viewing going strong for another century. photo: unknown
I started a whole revolution against this. I put out petitions all over town, ‘Rescind or Recall;’ I really mobilized a lot of people. I gathered ten thousand signatures and, within two or three months, I rolled back the hours to 6pm. I think the film we were playing was ‘Up’, so it must have been whatever that year was [2009].
It created for me an awful lot of enemies downtown because I humiliated them. To me, Oakland city leadership has not been great over the years. They’ve used parking as a revenue source, rather then as an amenity.
I think they missed the boat by taking such a closed approach. Instead of welcoming people to our city, they punish them for coming. It is not as bad as it used to be. They backed off a bit and San Francisco is way worse.
The city of Oakland has never done a thing or me except harass me for this or that or my customers over parking.
They didn’t do much for the film movement.
They didn’t, no. Sadly the City of Oakland is not a progressive government.
They signed a thing, about 2005, supporting it but it dribbled off. The same thing with the Film Commission: they had a very talented woman—
Ami Zins , I remember. We worked with her on a few things. Anytime she came to us and said, ‘I want to do an event, a screening,’ we got it done.
She actually made a profit. They had to pay two commissioners, which added up to 150 thousand a year, plus the rent, and they had to give a little incentive to the films. But if you do the math, they got quite a bit in return.
Yeah.
I have some sympathy when you have poor people and you say you are going to be giving these Hollywood filmmakers a 40% tax break.
But if you don’t give them a tax break, you are taking in nothing instead of 60%.
Everyone is giving tax breaks, Vancouver, Michigan.
You have to have incentives for people to come into your community and spend that kind of money. It is good business.
Look at the ‘Blindspotting’ credits. A friend who works in the business said about a third of the people were local, so many came up from LA.
If the Film Center was still here, there would been a convergence with these three incredible films. It would been a great boon for the city. But they phased it out—they got rid of Ami Zins, the Film Center, dropped the film commissioners to one. It was an opportunity lost.
That’s Oakland.
If you have some sort of visionary politician like Rebecca Kaplan. She could have explained it to people but evidently she did not. That was too bad. Maybe this year will inspire them, light a fire under their ass.
And your plans?
Basically, I will continue running the Grand Lake as I have been. Now that I own the property, I don’t have to worry about the lease running out.
You got a pretty good deal on that? 3.7 million sounds pretty cheap.
Considering what apartments sell for these days, I guess it is [laughs]. But our overhead goes up because paying the mortgage is more expensive than paying the rent.
The flip side is, it insures long term survival and incentivizes me to do other restoration projects that we have held off on doing because of the uncertainty of the lease running out in 2023.
The lease was written in 1929, when the original developers of the building, Krosky and Kaluski [who build it in 1926] got intimidated. That was when the Fox Theater was built downtown, in 1928.
They decided it would be better for them to offload the theater and make a deal with West Coast Theaters Inc. Then it went through very various corporate entities as one company got sold to another. [First] Fox West Coast, then it became National General Theaters in the ‘50s, and, in the ‘60s, it became Mann Theaters.
I bought the lease from Mann Theaters in ’80. At that time, I had six or seven theaters.
Are you a local boy?
I have been here since ’70. I grew up in Connecticut. I came out here, went to U.C. for a short period, dropped out and built the Rialto.
When did you get bitten by the film bug?
Always loved movies, always loved movie theaters. You know, in many ways I love the theaters more than movies. I love looking at old theaters, books of old theaters—love preservation. But I watch movies constantly; I love movies.
Is there are trick to your integration of your wealth and opulence to your politics? The combination of dealing in wealthy items and being on the left?
It’s a paradox [laughs].
I always loved art and architecture my whole life. I think what drew me into movie theaters and restoring movie theaters was my love of architecture.
I grew up in Stanford Connecticut and there were some great old theaters there. I used to love going to them. I didn’t like the new ones. Going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art [in New York City], I used to love looking at the architecture.
When I had to downsize my company and get rid of all my theaters—due to the major circuits—there was an opportunity, with the closing of the military base, to create an outdoor antique yard. I used to go to the Marin City Flea Market; that is what got me into doing what I do.
The antique business is a continuation of that philosophy of art and architecture.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .