The Wake

In the same spirit as the Oak Street cinema on campus, Parkway Theatre in South Minneapolis seeks to preserve the independent atmosphere and culture of the one screen cinema. In fact many of the patrons and employees from the Oak St. cinema have moved to the Parkway across town.

Barry Kryshka, a former Oak Street employee, commented on the Oak’s financial plunge as he ripped up my ticket stub behind a card table box-office saying, “We’re just trying to bring some of that spirit back.” Kryshka is the coordinator of the Monday Night Movie Series at the Parkway, a celebration of old movies and the old traditions that are particular to “one screen movie houses.” Stephanie Molstad, another former Oak employee, believes in the one screen film house and its ability to bring together strangers in the dark.

“In one-screen houses you just pay more attention. We played silent films at the Oak, when all you could hear was other people’s reactions, and a lot of times those films would get standing ovations,” she said. The Parkway Theatre has the same atmosphere. The filmgoers are regulars who want to see their favorite films on the big screen and in the midst of fellow film lovers.

Currently the Parkway is offering a series of “screwball comedies” from the 1930s and 1940s. This is the third of the Parkway’s genre-based film series. Barry Kryshka has been coordinating these events since last November, which began with a set of film noir pictures. Kryshka handpicks each of the films for the Monday night shows.

“We’re going to get more creative with the themes,” Kryshka said, “I won’t do a series unless there are at least one or two films that I need to see.”

For my visit to the Parkway, the theater was offering a one-time viewing of Twentieth Century, the 1934 comedy directed by Howard Hawks (director of the 1932 version of Scarface, which only lacks in the absence of a particular “little friend” that stars in the 1982 version). Twentieth Century is a sardonic comedy about the drama behind the curtain of the theater. Ironically, the offstage personas of the two main characters attempt to out-ham each other at every opportunity in a struggle to prove who the genius is: the actor or the director.

For an old film like Twentieth Century, the crowd was mostly nostalgic film lovers who remember the glory days of Hollywood, when making a “B” movie was perfectly acceptable as both entertainment and art. Kryshka is one of these members of the audience, “I’m more interested in popular films,” he said when I asked about the direction that he is taking the Monday night movie series. But the Parkway has much more to offer. Currently, the Parkway is offering screenings of the Oscar nominated Paul Thomas Anderson feature, There Will Be Blood as well as a series of Saturday matinees geared towards children including E.T. and Back to the Future.

Joe Senkyr Minjares is the current owner of the cinema as well as the Pepito’s Mexican restaurant that it is conjoined to. Minjares seems dedicated in reviving both the Parkway Theatre and the surrounding neighborhood, but much of this renovation is still a work in progress.

Restoring the Parkway has been a cooperative effort between the theater’s employees and the surrounding community. Inside, the theater’s walls are covered in bare insulation. Twelve by twelve foot canvases lean off of the side isles - unfinished murals that students from Minneapolis College of Art and Design are in the process of recreating. The front three rows of the theater are La-Z-Boys. When Minjares became the owner of the Parkway, the 1950s metal façade was stripped away, restoring the original deco exterior from the theater’s first opening in the 1930s. During the 1950s, the Parkway reportedly became an exclusively adult film venue and since then the theater has repeatedly changed hands. The original 1930s projector stands in the lobby, an emblem of history and a sign to the patrons of what is most important to the Parkway.