John Wilson Has High Hopes for Low Cinema

The trio behind Low Cinema insist that it's just a movie theater. Granted, it's a micromovie theater specializing in repertory screenings that's gotten more attention than usual thanks to the involvement of John Wilson, of "How to With John Wilson" acclaim. But seriously, it's just a repertory movie theater in Ridgewood—something that, in the ideal world of co-directors Wilson, Cosmo Bjorkenheim, and Davis Fowlkes, would be way more normal in the neighborhood they've all called home for the last several years. "Hopefully someday there's as many movie theaters as there are bars in Ridgewood," Fowlkes said, as Bjorkenheim and Wilson laughed. "Yeah, as many as there are, like, Italian restaurants…" Wilson added. "Right, fancy Italian sandwich places," Fowlkes concluded. "It's what we can hope for."

But really, even in a city with the best repertory cinema scene in the world, the opening of a new movie theater isn't exactly a daily occurrence—Low Cinema will be the only operational movie theater in Ridgewood, a neighborhood that the trio said was once populated by a variety of picture shows, from what Bjorkenheim called "movie palaces" with thousands of seats, to a number of discount theaters. Those showed film prints after the bigger, more expensive theaters had the first go at them. "Those theaters could take more risks and not be so precious about what they were showing," he said. "That's part of the legacy that we want to revive."

Low Cinema began sporadic screenings at its renovated space at the beginning of May, with no regular schedule set in stone yet—but they're open, they're operational, and they're excited to be making concrete their longstanding love of going to the movies. "John had been sort of haunting the neighborhood and calling brokers for tiny commercial spaces," Bjorkenheim said, until they found the perfect one. "This particular one seemed fitting in many respects, because it was such a weird space—just a kind of blank box." Wilson agreed: "It really jumped out because it didn't have any windows, which would be kind of tough for any other kind of business," he said.

The theater also leans away from some of the artier fare you'd find at, say, Film Forum, or Metrograph. So far, they've screened a double feature consisting of "Two Weeks Notice," a 2002 rom-com starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant and a 1903 short film called "Rube and Mandy at Coney Island," "The Great Muppet Caper," and 1999's "Mickey Blue Eyes," another Hugh Grant vehicle. As for what the future holds, the theater's website promises more screenings of "Romantic comedies, sports movies, legal thrillers, Technicolor musicals, action, observational documentaries, and more" to come. 

Hell Gate spoke with the trio about building a space piece by piece—including using a legendary director's least favorite linoleum pattern—the death of the movie theater in New York City, and pulling inspiration from NYC's other microcinemas, like Spectacle.