Clearview Cinemas, a New Jersey-based chain of movie theaters with outposts in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, is owned by Cablevision, a giant corporation with plenty of enemies– which makes it hard to argue that it is an “authentically local.” Still, when we at Baristanet started our Favorite Places feature, we led off with the Clairidge, a Clearview theater based in Montclair, because it is one of my favorite places on earth. Clearview categorizes nine of its theaters as art houses, and the Clairidge is one. It’s where I saw Like Water for Chocolate, Remains of the Day, Eat Drink Man Woman, Life is Beautiful, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind– to name just a few.
Montclair used to have three art house theaters. We’re down to just one, and if the Clairidge ever shuttered, it would be a huge loss.
This past weekend, I went to another Clearview movie theater, Clearview’s Caldwell Cinema 4, to see a mainstream movie, “Bridesmaids,” which happens to be a hoot. Right after the trailers, before the movie started, an employee of the theater stood up in front of the audience, introduced himself and welcomed everyone to the show. I’d seen this once before too at the Clairidge. I think it’s both simple and classy.
Both the Clairidge and the Caldwell theater sit on Bloomfield Ave., their old-fashioned marquees facing the street. You either park on the street or in municipal parking lots that you reach via alley. I know people who prefer to go to AMC’s because the screens are bigger and the sound is better. But to me, going to a storefront movie theater is the quintessential small-town experience. There aren’t that many left, and like the Clearview ones, they’re probably all owned by corporations now. I’ll say this for Cablevision: they paid money to a local entrepreneur and kept the experience pretty much the same for the customer.
So are the Clairidge and the Caldwell Cinema 4 authentically local? I’d like the term to be completely unambiguous, to refer only to locally-owned establishments. But in this case, I think the big corporation maintained an authentically-local experience and saved the local landscape. Reasonable people may disagree. But certainly it’s a better result than what befell the Franklin Theater in Nutley.
– Debbie Galant, Baristanet