The best room to see a movie in New York City has got to be the Jaffe Theatre at the Village East (181-189 2nd Ave, East Village). The elaborate, century old Neo-Moorish design, strewn with ancient religious touches, provides just the right exotic, out of time vibe in which to catch a Dune or a Tarantino in 70 MM. I’ve seen Shin Godzilla in there among a packed house of Japanese expats and shivered on the balcony through a solo midnight showing of Alien: Revenant, or whatever the last one of those was called (It stinks!).

Not that there’s anything wrong with catching something at the apparently unkillable Regal Union Square, either—even taking in a corporate franchise picture in an environment that resembles the Black Mirror episode where the guy has to ride a bike all the time has its stoned, liminal charms. 

But finally visiting the much hyped Metrograph this year left me with a sensation of creeping unease. Sure, the films they show are as good as they come, and the space is as impressively designed and Manhattan-y as you could want. But I couldn’t shake the crucial, underlying fact: the popcorn. At the end of the day, a rich guy from Manhattan who designs neckties had invited us all to the movies and deigned to sell us cold popcorn in a bag. I felt mocked. 

Let’s face it, the monoculture is cooked: we’re going to need to go off the grid altogether. Our late-capitalist, second-rate cyberpunk future is clearly going to be a speedrun of rabbit holes and niche interests, and real estate is going to be tight. The wise man smiled and said: the ingredient you seek, my friend, is Microcinema.

Low Cinema (Ridgewood)

Opened last year by HBO documentarian and beloved local oddball John Wilson, presumably flush with HBO cash, Low is threatening to bring microcinema culture into the mainstream with profiles in the New York Times and Filmmaker magazine. It’s a good ambassador for the format: the programming is a mixture of the cream of the indie crop like the recent Exit 8 or the classic Killer of Sheep, and seemingly-random but irresistible second run blockbuster fare. (They recently showed Edge of Tomorrow for a week because, hell, why not show Edge of Tomorrow?) 

The Low experience feels like the result of a bunch of stoners getting together with the funds to realize the fun project they always talked about doing (complimentary). Before the movie starts to play, there are custom ads for local businesses and a parody of the 90s-era Regal Cinemas ad. More importantly, unlike certain necktie designing dilettantes, Low respects popcorn: they use Flavacol on their freshly popped product (real cornheads know), per Madison, a Low employee who also enthused about a recent screening of the locally shot medieval film Revelations of Divine Love, which featured live medieval music, and the 90s Robin Williams classic The Birdcage. 

Low feels like a general ground zero for any kind of grassroots cinema culture that might be happening anywhere in the city: it was the ideal place to catch Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie, the recent comedy by Wilson’s guerilla contemporary Matt Johnson. But even the more obscure selections seem to generate hype: ‘80s Times Square documentary Gods of Times Square was sold out multiple times during its week-long run. Buy tickets in advance.

Spectacle Theater  (Williamsburg) 

In a perfect world every city would have its own Spectacle: a place constantly screening, in their words “overlooked works, offbeat gems, contemporary art, radical polemics, live performances and more.”

The Spectacle is run by an all volunteer staff and has been around since 2010, long enough to have cultivated a formidable “Best Of” series. Reoccurring Spectacle favorites include: Shin Sang-ok’s Pulgasari, a monster movie the South Korean director made kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s, the Hong Kong-Evil Dead inspired B-movie Devil Fetus, and Cathedral of New Emotions, a proto Adult Swim, R-rated German surrealist outer space cartoon. More recently, I caught Bean McKee’s recent movie Fanboy, a kind of Taxi Driver from the point of view of someone who murders an OSU football fan. (Understandable.)

Spectacle selections are niche by definition, but there’s an appeal in being able to duck into a former bodega in Williamsburg any day of the week and find yourself in an avant garde library free of space and time. Sure, you can watch movies like Steven de Castro’s Filipino Commie struggle doc Revolution Selfie or Lutz Dammbeck’s paranoid Unabomber doc Das Netz on YouTube— if you want. But these are the kinds of things best appreciated in a darkened public space accompanied by a Voodoo Ranger.

The Spectacle’s programming can be daunting for the uninitiated, but once you find the perfect selection it’s addictive. Recurring series include “Blood Brunch” (Sunday afternoon Horror), “Anime No Go Go” (Vintage Anime Saturday afternoons) and “Fist Church” (Kung Fu Sundays). Tickets are five bucks and there are plenty of bodegas nearby.

Film Noir Cinema (Greenpoint) 

Rounding out the list is a space run by the somewhat mysterious and Udo Kier-esque Eastern European personality Will Malitek. 

His small video store is still the first place to visit if you are in need of, say, a copy of ‘70s Italian sci-fi oddity The Visitor, as a friend of mine was not too long ago. But behind the cryptic Gdanks-ter’s small DVD storefront are a set of curtains, beyond which lies a cozy, tin ceilinged 54 seat room with easily the most comfy seats in the micro cinema scene.

When it comes to programming, Malitek plays it close to the chest. He isn’t into pandering, or even popularity, as documented in his NYT profile. (“The cinema’s programming seems designed to bewilder the public.”) Film Noir’s showings can be relatively sporadic and occasionally consist of grindhouse schlock, but like the Spectacle, the theater takes its curation seriously.

Mystery showings are common, such as its annual Halloween party, also accompanied by a showing of the original Nosferatu with live music. “Film Noir Mondays,” “Cult Cinema” and “Film Club” (where members of the club choose the entries) series continue to screen on a regular basis. Another series is “Terror Terroir,” run by Caroline Teagle Johnson, which consists of wine tastings paired with cult horror selections. (Caroline is an SSA certified sommelier.)

Of the space’s curator, Johnson says, “Will is a lifer and a dedicated cinephile. Try to stump him with a deep cut and you simply can’t, he has seen more weird movies than all of us combined.”

Johnson also isn’t shy about exploring the outer limits of curation; let’s just say things got a little too French last year with a screening of 70s flick Don’t Deliver Us From Evil, which features violence, blasphemy and vintage unsimulated bird death. Despite the nasty DMs this earned her, she defends the artistic merits of the film, and sums up the importance of having a place to show it: “Microcinemas are crucial not only for keeping the moviegoing experience alive, but also for the sake of film preservation, or at least for preserving films in people’s minds. Every time there is a shift in media a large swatch of movies are erased from the landscape, from super obscure to shockingly not that obscure. (We) have the flexibility to program rare or underseen movies that are trapped on some outmoded format.”

& More

After 20 years in Williamsburg, Union Docs recently moved to Ridgewood to continue their mission of chronicling the latest in the documentary film field; they keep a busy calendar full of screenings, symposiums and other events and even have their own streaming service. The often academic-leaning Light Industry in Bushwick has been around since 2008, and continues weekly screenings of “cinema in all its forms,” which recently meant pairing a documentary about anonymous French anti-tech saboteurs, Machines in Flames, with Carter Amelia Davis’ recent bizarro short Homemade Gatorade in its minimalist blue curtained screening space.

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