While we're on the topic of things that should be saved, it's been announced recently that Melbourne's Astor Theatre is going to close next year when their lease expires, after negotiations with their landlord broke down.
There's a good discussion of the various issues on this week's Rancho Notorious podcast - but apart from it being a classic cinema, it's also the place I first saw Phantom Of The Opera on the big screen, only three years ago!
I happened to see an ad in the paper for Australia's Silent Film Festival while I was in town, but I only discovered it fifteen minutes before the screening was due to start - luckily for me, I was in Brighton, and my hosts were happy to drive me to St Kilda where I burst in the doors, grabbed a ticket and ran upstairs with moments to spare.
I also remember visiting the cinema years ago when I lived in Melbourne, and seeing the full 4h version of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet when it first came out - not many cinemas were showing the extended cut of that, I'm sure! (And amazingly enough, they still had that poster in the lobby, 14 years later...)
As the Astor folks explain on their blog, there's no obvious solution - as the landlord wouldn't sell, even if enough funds were raised to buy the building - but here's hoping some kind of resolution can be found, one way or another...
[And just as I posted this, I found another article about it - and a petition, if anyone would like to join in!]
