Remembering the Princess

Last week, the Princess Cinema in my hometown of Waterloo, Ontario announced that after 34 years of continuous operations their landlord, The Huether Hotel, was evicting them – giving them until the beginning of June to vacate the premises – presumably so that a VR company could move into the space. I’m not going to go into the reasons behind that - it’s not what I want to write about. There is word that perhaps there could be negotiations, so hope that the Princess could survive is not completely lost – and I do hope that something gets worked out. Because losing the Princess would be losing a part of Waterloo history – a cultural landmark for the community and a place I love dearly. But this post is about my memories of the Princess - and why I love it so.

 

The first movie I saw at the Princess was American History X – that Edward Norton starring, Tony Kaye directed movie about a skinhead who gets released from jail, and wants to leave his racist past behind, but finds it harder than he thought. This must have been either late 1998 or early 1999 – as the film was released late 1998, although it often took a little time before those films got to the Princess. I had heard about the Princess before then – I had been a burgeoning cinephile living in Waterloo since I saw Pulp Fiction in 1995 (when it came to VHS – another movie lovers icon lost to history) – when I was just 15. I didn’t start going to the movies regularly until the fall of 1997 however – in other long lost K-W theaters like King’s College, the Capitol and Fairview. For reasons lost to history however, it took me a year to go to the Princess to see a movie. But once I did, I never stopped.

 

Between 1999 – my last year at WCI, and 2004 – when I graduated from Conestoga College, I would bet that barely a week went by without me visiting the Princess. There were times when I would have no idea what the movie playing even was, but if the Princess thought it was good enough to play, I trusted them enough to go see it. I saw some of the best movies I have ever seen at the Princess, and was introduced to many of what would become my favorite filmmakers there. It’s where I first watched a Pedro Almodovar movie (All About My Mother) or a Dardennes brothers movie (Rosetta). My first experience with Canadian icon Atom Egoyan on the big screen was there (Felicia’s Journey). It’s where I had my mind blown by Being John Malkovich. It’s where as a cynical 18-year-old who thought he didn’t like musicals, I fell in love with Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy, or related to an old man driving a lawnmower across several states in David Lynch’s The Straight Story. It is where I was energized by Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, disturbed greatly by Tim Roth’s The War Zone, charmed by Patricia Rozema’s Mansfield Park, confused by Alan Rudolph’s Breakfast of Champions, mesmerized by Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey, laughed alongside the dreamers of Chris Smith’s American Movie and saw that Shakespeare could be done in a completely new way in Julie Taymor’s Titus. And those are just the films from 1999 who experience I had at the Princess have seared themselves into my brain. I also saw some of my favorite classics projected there on the big screen for the first time – Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Hitchcock’s Rear Window and the re-release of my all-time favorite film – Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (this was the Redux version).

 

I could continue to go on (Requiem for a Dream, Dancer in the Dark, The Virgin Suicides, Mulholland Drive, Bowling for Columbine, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Ghost World, Far From Heaven, Talk to Her, Y Tu Mama Tambien, etc, etc, etc)– but you get the point. I was there a lot – and continued to be there a lot until I moved away from Waterloo in 2005. I spent a year in Toronto, and another three in Burlington while I continued to work in Toronto. I didn’t go to the Princess much in that time. I tried to go a few times a year when I went home to visit my mother. When I moved to Brantford in 2009, the Princess became a bigger part of my life again. Sadly, it was the closest art house cinema to me, even if it was nearly an hour each way. Again, I began seeing some of the best films of any given year at the Princess – including my favorite film of last year – Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. The last film I attended at the original was the charming Stan & Ollie. I hope it’s not the last time I get to go – I am anxiously awaiting a calendar for what could be their last weeks in May.

The Princess will go on of course – they have the Twin, which is a charming theater in its own right, and which I have experienced many fine memories – and the recently opened Playhouse in Hamilton is a slightly closer drive for me – so I am grateful for that. But the Original Princess will always remain my favorite place to see a movie. No, it doesn’t have the seating of the multiplexes – and I do remember during my screening of Novitiate during a rain storm that the roof was leaking. And you could sometimes hear music through the walls as you watched a movie. But it has charm – and character. Ascending those stairs to see a movie always fills me with excitement and anticipation.

 

So, if this is the end of the Original Princess, I guess all I want to say is thank you. I don’t know the owners of the Princess personally – I am a quiet, introverted movie lover who more often than not attended screenings by myself. I kept to myself when I went there. But that place means a lot to me – and my journey to becoming the cinephile I am today. It’s the best place I know to watch a movie – and if this is the end, I will miss it more than I can put into words. So thank you Princess Cinema for all you have done for Waterloo movie fans - and for me personally. I wouldn’t be the same without you.