Landmark Theatres
— the nation’s largest theater chain devoted exclusively to art and
independent film, with 57 theaters in 23 markets — are collaborating to
create the largest independent film center in the country, aiming to
boost the Westside’s fading trendiness factor and help reestablish it
on the map as a destination for the film industry.

Ted Mundorff, Landmark Theatres senior vice president of film and
advertising, is touting the atmosphere and convenience of the
admittedly impressive sounding, renovated three-story venue, which will
be accessible both from the street and via a bridge that connects it to
Nordstrom and the Westside Pavilion shopping mall when it reopens with
the center in early summer 2007. The first floor will include several
new high-quality restaurants, while second and third floors of the
facility will feature 12 screens projecting independent films using the
latest in film and digital technology, as well as a lounge and wine
bar.

Mundorff also says that the new Landmark Film Center at Westside
Pavilion will partner with the Los Angeles film industry and area film
schools to “promote the education and training of those pursuing
careers in the film industry, and to provide a venue for screening the
works of up-and-coming filmmakers.” I seem to remember a lot of similar
noise being made about a planned national chain of Sundance-minted
theaters, so let’s hope the Landmark Film Center keeps their end of
that bargain, and experiences enough success that other companies start
taking a look at their business model. If interesting stories and
independent film are going to continue to be theatrically viable deep
into the 21st century, their funders and financiers need better
alliances with exhibitors and theater owners. Not to go soapbox on all
of you, but there’s absolutely no reason in the Internet age that true
film fans should have to drive two hours or more across the state — to,
say, Austin, Chapel Hill or Chicago — to see the best of independent
film.