Oxford's independent cinema Phoenix Picturehouse bought out by Cineworld (From Oxford Mail)

sad times.

I hope they keep their word and keep it as it is. I must admit that, as with alot of things, i enjoy having them available but seldom go and see a film there, or anywhere for that matter.

It's important to keep places going that show the more abstract or independent films. Hollywoods latest offereings are just vacuous product-placement advertising campaigns.

Sadly, it's usually when statements are made on buy-outs or take-overs that 'nothing will change' ...... that things do! The Cinema will have been purchased as part of the new owner's property portfolio, so either it's 'potential will be maximised' or, at worst-scenario, it will become re-developed - and in Oxford, that has usually come to mean conversion into student or other types of accommodation - which in turn means the local 'education factories' plonking yet more students into central Oxford, and more problems with cars parked 'somewhere' - especially by the medium-long term students. City Council cannot be allowed to keep turning a blind-eye, though it probably doesn't help that the Leader of Labour-Group just happens to also be employed by Brookes University - he must have to 'declare an interest' every time the Council meets!

Sadly Myron is probably right.

Cineworld haven't got the faintest idea how to run an independent cinema, and there isn't a cat in hell's chance they'll take the risk of showing some of the foreign and/or noir stuff I've seen there over the years. I can see the bar going as well, to be replaced with a dispensary for 1.5l buckets of ice topped with fizzy drinks supplied by whichever global drinks brand Cineworld have got into bed with.

Thank Christ for the UPP.

Point is its not a social service.

How many times a week do you go to an art cinema?

A city of Oxford's reputation should be able to support an independent cinema. One of the reasons I pay through the nose to live here and not Swindon, Coventry, Harlow, etc is that we can support that kind of culture and not just a mass-market, chainy, Americanised version of everything.

We're lucky to have the kind of facilities normally only found in larger cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester etc, and we should do what we can to keep them.

Hopefully a reminder to everyone to support places like the UPP. Use them or lose them.

iklhik wrote:
Hopefully a reminder to everyone to support places like the UPP. Use them or lose them.

Hear hear.

Well the important thing is, the owners made a lot of money. That's what its all about, eh?

In any case, I always preferred the UPP which is REALLY 'independent' being owned by a local person and kept going by volunteers. (It also has excellent home made cakes and in winter, mulled wine.)

The Phoenix, disgracefully, programmed against the UPP quite needlessly (or maybe to drive their sale price up?)

Please go to the UPP (excellent pubs, Italians and Indians a few paces away), even better, volunteer to run it!

The Phoenix changed into a money making project the day it was sold back in the late eighties. They have indeed bought many Hollywood Blockbusters that the main chains did no want ( I saw Silence of the Lambs, and Blair witch there before the chains took them on) , and was run as commercially as any Odeon or Vue. But not to worry about it being closed down for student flats, as Grantham House next door has laid empty for years, and will satisfy the demand for any housing student or otherwise in the area.

Aha! Grantham House - sold at a loss on previously valued estimate by City Council, and now its new owners apparently unwilling to meet the social housing ratio which City Council expects? As for the fate of the cinema, it's really good to see so many people who are also concerned about its future - and not afraid to say so! It's important we have somewhere like this cinema, to offset the 'circus' and clowns at City Council meetings in the Town Hall.