Fine Arts Cinema To Reopen This Summer

"The Secret in Their Eyes"

A  top draw at Fine Arts Cinema in 2010

A Biutiful Revamp

Expect to pay higher ticket prices when Fine Arts Cinema in Miramar reopens sometime this summer after a multi-million dollar revamp. But in return, you will get to see choice movies in high style.

In fact, the aim of its operator, Caribbean Cinemas, is to convert the Miramar venue into a near replica of its sister theater in Hato Rey, the Fine Arts Café. "The new Fine Arts Miramar will have the same look and feel as Fine Arts in Hato Rey, both in terms of the decoration and the environment," said Caribbean Cinemas President Robert Carady.

As anyone familiar with Hato Rey's Fine Arts Café will confirm, watching movies has never been so enjoyable than in that comfortable venue located on the top floor of a boldly modernistic, glass tower in the heart of San Juan's Golden Mile business district. This stylish movie theater boasts black marble floors, super comfortable de luxe seating, and an inviting deli that offers wine, beer, coffee and goodies like cakes and other refreshments, plus an item that no movie theater would be caught dead without: popcorn.  

If you drive past Fine Arts Cinema in Miramar these days you won't see much except a building totally in shambles. It was closed down in October and between now and then the structure has been all but demolished. By this summer, if all goes according to the script, it will have been rebuilt from the ground up into an 18,000-square-foot, two-story structure featuring six screens "totally equipped with the most advanced projection technology and digital sound," according to Carady. Film goers will sit in large reclinable seats made of fine leather (also convertible into love seats) and rest their drinks on small side tables. The six screen rooms, double the number the theater had before, will also be available for private corporate activities such as trainings and meetings.

The Miramar movie theater, which introduced independent movies to film buffs in Puerto Rico, served as inspiration for Fine Arts in Hato Rey, Carady said. Now that the concept has proved such a success, it is time to come full circle and replicate it in Miramar.

Committed to offering exceptional service and unique programming in both theaters, Caribbean Cinemas launched Fine Arts Cinema in Miramar in 1985, adding two more screen rooms in 1993. In 2006, Caribbean Cinemas inaugurated the Fine Arts Cinema Café at the Popular Center. Total investment: $5 million.  

Carady is keeping the price tag for the Miramar venue revamp close to the vest but it is sure to reach several millions and, he acknowledged, will result in higher ticket prices. Once the movie theater reopens, it will continue to focus on art and international films. The top draw movies in 2010 at both art houses were: The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, Fuera de Carta, Precious, The Secret in Their Eyes, The Kids Are All Right, Black Swan, and Biutiful.

A SIMPLE TIP: 

Holiday cards usually end up either in the attic or the waste paper basket. Instead, recycle the prettiest ones by turning the illustrated side into postcards, assuming there is no writing on the opposide side. Or you can cut out the image and use it to decorate gift packages, as suggested by my friend Maritza Stanchich.

Photograph by Tony Baragona

When I walk/I part the air/and always/the air moves in/

to fill the spaces where my body's been./We all have reasons/

for moving./I moved/to keep things whole.

Mark Strand, from his poem "Keeping Things Whole."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Tito Stevens, a veteran of the long gone San Juan Star newspaper, for noticing that I left out a number of people from a recently published list of books by former San Juan Star reporters. Harry Turner, at different times a Star City Editor, Managing Editor and Washington Correspondent, is the author of " Dear Frank," a biography that chronicles his life in journalism, struggle with alcoholism, and joys of fatherhood. Jerry Mahoney, a business editor at the Star in the 1960s, wrote a novel titled "Jake's Run." And Star sport writer David Perez authored both a biography of Tito Puente and a novel intriguingly titled "Five Detectives Too Many." Stevens says he hopes one day to complete a memoir with his reminiscences of covering sports and other events for the Star, including the Munich Olympics massacre and the death of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

Copyright © 2011 Lorraine Blasor All Rights Reserved