‘You call this a theatre?’ was my reaction the first time I went to The Plaza Theatre to watch The Mummy Returns. I walked up the wooden stairs, covered with old carpet and reached the balcony, which was on the second floor.
The screen looked far away and when I sat down, I had the feeling that I would plummet downward any second, like being on a downward cycle of a roller coaster ride. The seats were old, the place looked older, and worse still, the movie wasn’t as good as the original.
I went back though, mainly because it was the one theatre in Bangalore that played a lot of English movies. It was part of the English theatre triangle–Rex (Brigade road), Symphony (MG road), and Plaza (MG road).
And, you couldn’t beat the ticket prices. Sixty bucks for a balcony seat, forty for regular, and even less for the front stalls. One of the ticketing counters, was manned by a guy who looked like he’d seen about fifty thousand movies. The ticket guys were always courteous, not something that you find at all theatres.
There was no air conditioning and if there was, I couldn’t tell. You had ceiling fans and that made it bearable, except if the theatre was crowded. I remember sweating while watching A Beautiful Mind and it wasn’t because of Jennifer Connelly.
The best part was that you could walk out of the theatre during the break and be on MG road in seconds. Now, the theatre’s shut down (this happened almost a year ago) and is being torn down for more shops or whatever. I did catch the last movie that played there (Meet The Fokkers), so that was nice.
This is Bangalore’s loss, because single theatres have a character of their own. At least Plaza did. They don’t make theatres like they used to anymore.
Amorphous 
Never saw any moooovies in the theater, but a friend of mine, who’s a resident of Bangalore, was pretty upset about this too. I remember when he and I were walking down MG Road, he went upto the theater, saw that it was closed down, asked the person, uttered some expletives, and said “There goes one of the best places on MG Road”…
As they say about old places, the Plaza had character. Multiplexes are awesome but there’s this sameness about most of them–it’s different with single theatres.
I am one of those who felt bad for Plaza’s death; though I watched only one movie there, “The passion of the Christ”. The person who went with me for the movie kept on grumbling how bad the place was, but I enjoyed the movie.