death and life of Japanese films in LA

[Jonathan M. Hall]

Dear KineJapanners/ Asia Film & Media Studies Workshop,

I'm a little slow in reporting, but I wanted to pass on some local  
(Los Angeles) news that will be of interest to the two lists.  The  
Los Angeles Times reports (Sat 3 March 2007, Section B, p 1)  that  
the long-defunct Linda Lea Theatre has been demolished to make way  
for a new downtown Los Angeles theatre dedicated to Asian cinema.   
The Linda Lea, known for the kimono-figure on its marquis and  
billboard and a moderne Japanese aesthetic,  was in its heyday the  
place to see Japanese film in the Los Angeles area. It opened in the  
late 1940s--soon after the return of many Japanese-Americans from the  
internment camps of the WWII era--and was the best place to see Toei  
yakuza films and melodramas.  Toei posters were discovered as  
demolition took place, along with signs in Japanese, fliers in  
Tagalog, and what was presumably a Toei crest above the hall.

The site will become home to a new cinema dedicated to first-run East  
Asian and South Asian film.  New York-based ImaginAsian (owners of a  
24 hr cable network and cinema in NYC) will operate the cinema under  
the name ImaginAsian Center.  It will open in September in a modern  
structure. The new theatre is part of the unrelenting gentrification  
of LA's downtown. On South Main Street, it's very close to Little  
Tokyo and not far from Chinatown.

Yours,
Jonathan

-----
Jonathan M. Hall
Japanese Film, Media, and Modern Literature
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature / Film & Media Studies

320 Humanities Instructional Building
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-2651 USA
office: 1-949-824-9778
fax: 1-949-824-1992

Co-Chair, Queer Caucus, Society for Cinema and Media Studies



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