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I Wake Up Screening

Photo by Christopher Gardner

Lights, Carpenters, Action: Workers put the finishing touches on new UA Pavilion Theatres.

The UA Pavilion races to open

By Richard von Busack

While visiting the UA Pavilion Theatres in downtown San Jose some 72 hours before they open for Cinequest, we can hear the security system being tested--an electronic buzzer advising us and the workmen to evacuate the premises. We ignore it, dodging ladders and construction workers and painters. The UA Pavilion, which opens officially on Feb. 16, is getting its dry run with the week-long film festival. With all of the usual technical troubles and unscheduled glitches--sometimes in full view of the temperamental film directors--it should make for an interesting week.

The interiors and the marquee--the phrase "a marquee for the 21st century" is used by all connected with the complex--make up for the underwhelming impression the Ken Rodrigues and Partners Inc. building gives from South Second Street. The bland glass-box and glass-brick exterior, reminiscent of the Galaxy Theater in San Francisco (and even more reminiscent of Herb Caen's description of it: "a stack of telephone booths") is a more inspiring sight from both the Paseo de San Antonio side and the interior.

From the inside, a six-story atrium frames the clock tower of the Pavilion; inset from it is a pair of diagonal unsupported escalators leading to the third-floor theaters, and a towering exit staircase with carpeting that follows the color spectrum from orange to indigo. From the third-floor perch, the clock tower and the escalators give a sense of airiness capable of concealing the more than 3,000 seats on three floors in eight auditoriums.

The large United Artist chain is setting up shop (with help from some City of San Jose subsidies) just yards from the Camera Cinemas, a small chain of independent, locally owned theaters that's been in San Jose for 20 years. One of the opening films at the UA Pavilion is Sense and Sensibility, which is the kind of feature that used to be Camera Cinemas' mortgage-lifter for years. While the UA Pavilion promises to concentrate on the kind of mainstream Hollywood fare the Camera Cinemas wouldn't have booked, it (along with the other megaplexes scheduled to open in the valley) will also have room for the smaller independent and foreign films that might have once gone to the Cameras.

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