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Inside The New Film Forum, Reopening Today After Growing A New Theater
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Aug 1, 2018
Modified Aug 2, 2018
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Jake Dobkin / Gothamist
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Aug 1, 2018
Modified Aug 2, 2018
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For three months, Film Forum members have had to pop their own olive oil and salt popcorn, fire up their Kanopy accounts (free with a NYPL or BPL membership!), and pretend to hiss at the NYU students texting in front of them during Cousin Jules. No longer! A bigger, better, renovated Film Forum returns today.
The biggest addition is a new, 99-seat theater in what was once a loading dock, bringing the total number of screens to four. Film Forum also replaced roughly 500 of their seats for the first time since 2007 (they are quite firm—plusher than Metrograph but harder than their old seats—and will require some breaking in), and all the fun commemorative plaques on the backs of the seats that were donated between 1980 to 2009 have been replaced with newer ones (goodbye Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and John Belushi). The carpets are fresh too.
In the lobby, a ten-foot-wide video screen will show specially commissioned "lobby movies" by noted filmmakers. That clunky machine you had to visit after purchasing tickets online is gone, and has been replaced with a streamlined web ticketing apparatus.
Because this is Film Forum, some Compact Discs are still sold at the concession stand (!), and the popcorn is the exact same. All the renovations cost just under $5 million, according to a press release.
This week you can see Nico 1988, No Date, No Signature, and a whole lot of Jacques Becker movies.
Film Forum is located at 209 West Houston Street. Memberships start at $75, or $50 if you're a student, a senior, or a person with a disability.
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film forum
movies
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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