On Monday, I settled into one of the comfy leather recliners at the Century 16 Mountain View to see “Coyote vs. Acme,” which I expected would be the last movie I’d see at the cineplex on Shoreline Boulevard.
Employees at the theater are officially staying mum, but a Cinemark customer service rep I spoke to by phone confirmed the theater’s last day in operation is Sept. 24. I thought seeing a movie that was almost never released at a theater on the verge of closing had the right amount of symbolism. A remake may have been a better idea.
Cinemark’s lease on the theater expires at the end of September. There are plans filed with the city of Mountain View by the property owner, Syufy Enterprises, to replace the theater with a project called Shoreline Gateway, which would include a 10,000 square foot fitness center and 20,000 square feet of residential with ground-floor retail.
But that scenario may not happen. Syufy may have something else in mind.
Details haven’t been released yet, but it sounds like the company could be planning to remodel the multiplex, upgrading the facility and including the potential for premium large format screens. It may be done as soon as December.
Syufy Enterprises is a remnant of the company started by Ray and Joe Syufy that became Century Theaters. The theater chain was sold to Texas-based Cinemark in 2006, but Syufy held onto some of its property in the Bay Area. Its company, West Wind Drive-Ins and Public Markets, Syufy still owns and operates drive-in movie theaters in California, Arizona and Nevada, including the Solano Drive-In in Concord and the Capitol Drive-In in San Jose.
It starting to seem like 20 years after getting out of the movie theater business, Syufy may be getting back in.
It’s heartening to know the site’s long association with movies will continue. That history goes back to 1962 when the Moffett Drive-In opened there with the Elvis Presley movie, “Blue Hawaii” at the top of the bill. That was at the height of popularity for drive-in theaters, and the Moffett was just one of many from the Peninsula to San Jose. It even expanded to three screens a decade later.
But things change, and the drive-in was torn down in the summer of 1985 and replaced that fall with a 10-screen Century Theatres multiplex, the biggest of its kind in the Bay Area for a while. The grand opening ads billed it as a “space age entertainment center” with “computerized climate control” and “precise electronic projection.” Outside, it had — and still has — the glitz of a Vegas casino, with a grand entrance and a fountain surrounded by benches. Naturally, the auditoriums were domes, architect Vincent Raney’s signature style that he introduced with the Century 21, 22 and 23 in San Jose.
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The opening slate included “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “Death Wish 3” and “Cocoon,” but there was also arthouse fare — “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” — for the presumably more sophisticated Mountain View crowd. According to the Cinema Treasures website, the theater expanded to 16 screens in 1994.
Who knows what will happen in the future. But, either way, if you want to experience the “space age entertainment center” one more time, head over to Century 16 Mountain View before it closes next week. And then we’ll see what happens when the space is reinvented once again.
RAISING THE WOOF: Being in the dog house is generally bad, but that won’t be the case at San Jose’s long-running Bark in the Park festival this Saturday. This year, the pooch fest is introducing The Clubhouse at Bark in the Park, an “exclusive, reservation-only experience” that’ll include a photo, a paw-print keepsake, gourmet treats for pups and people and lounge and play yard. If you want to grab a spot, you can purchase your ticket at barksanjose.org.
William Street Park, at the corner of East William and South 16th streets, is again host to the event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is expected to draw more than 2,500 dogs and more than double that number of people. There’ll be agility courses, free vaccines, an Animal Rescue Row and contests for tail-wagging and dog costumes (including an award to the best 1990s costume in honor of Bark in the Park’s 30th anniversary). A $10 donation per adult is requested, but kids and animals get in free, with proceeds benefitting the Humane Society Silicon Valley, San Jose Animal Care Center and other nonprofits.
MILESTONE FESTIVAL: The Palo Alto Friends Meeting is hosting the 60th annual Quaker Harvest Festival on Saturday, but you don’t have to worry about bringing in the crops. The free festivities will include live music, a teen poetry slam, homemade baked goods and jams and other family-friendly activities.
It all takes place from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Palo Alto Friends Meeting House, 957 Colorado Ave. Proceeds from the festival will benefit the Friends Committee on Legislation of California, a nonpartisan, statewide advocacy organization founded by Quakers in 1952 that advocates for just and compassionate laws. Get more information at pafm.org.
“Community has always been at the heart of the Harvest Festival,” said Rita Comes Whitney, a member of the Palo Alto Friends Meeting and past trustee at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, where the the first 27 Quaker Harvest Festivals were held from 1966 through 1933.
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