15 Questions With Christina Newland, Film Programmer
"Thinking back to the movie theaters throughout my life feels like thinking about houses I’ve lived in."
Name:
Location: A displaced New Yorker in London, England
Occupation: Film critic, author and programmer
Links: Christina’s website, Twitter, Letterboxd
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
A crowded, buzzy evening screening in central London with film colleagues is always fun - plenty of people to chat to and have a laugh with before & after the movie. But in honesty, it’s always a weekday matinee I love the most. Anonymous, enveloping, quiet, smelling faintly of popcorn even if the concession is closed: the dream. You can just disappear there.
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
Thinking back to the movie theaters throughout my life feels like thinking about houses I’ve lived in! There’s the Red Hook Lyceum, a very old one in upstate New York. It was my adolescent cinema that I went to as a kid and a teen, which I have a lot of fond memories of.
There’s the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, England - a regional arthouse cinema where I first did film introductions and courses and spent countless hours drinking coffee and talking films.
There’s Prince Charles Cinema in London, run by the best cinephiles and where I’ve seen some of the most memorable things on 35mm - The Long Goodbye, The Apartment, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
I’ve lived in the UK for 15+ years now but I still miss American movie snacks. In England, it’s probably Haribo or peanut M&Ms and a giant Coke Zero, or chocolate-covered raisins from the Marks & Spencer that I’ve smuggled in!
In the USA, it’s Twizzlers, or if I’m really going full-tilt: it’s Whoppers thrown into a bag of butter popcorn.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
IF it were somehow possible to do this in a cinema: six Rockefeller Oysters and miniature martini.
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
I think it was Aladdin with my parents, a film I still love! But I also have a memory of seeing Titanic as a kid with my grandparents, much too young, and can’t quite figure out if it happened or not...
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
An impromptu Sunday matinee of Back to the Future for the 40th anniversary re-release. It flew by so beautifully it felt like we’d been sitting there for about 15 minutes. Still, for the record, a perfect film.
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
I always want to see my favourite films on the big screen - I’ll never say no to that. But I’d love to have been in Cannes to have seen the initial reactions to movies like The Third Man or Brief Encounter and so forth - just to be on the ground and hearing the film industry make up their minds and argue about a film is so interesting.
8. Please describe your ideal movie theater seat.
Right in the middle. Close to the front but not too close - so the screen fills up your entire line of vision comfortably. And no one tall in front of me!
9. One thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
Looney Tunes shorts at the beginning, like QT does at the New Beverly.
10. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
I programmed a season dedicated to the great Italian auteur Luchino Visconti at the British Film Institute in London this year. Seeing The Leopard on the big screen in all its splendor was an absolute highlight.
Also: watching the restoration of Stop Making Sense on BFI IMAX with my boyfriend, and having a moment of silently/mutually acknowledging we were both in our feelings when This Must Be the Place came on.
Revisiting The Graduate at Il Cinema Ritrovato - the repertory film festival in Italy, outdoors on the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, sitting in a cafe with a bottle of Italian wine and aperitivo.
And finally: Seeing Boogie Nights on 70mm at the re-opening of Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (on my first trip to LA, to boot) - maybe my favorite ever.
11. Is there a trailer you’ve seen before a movie recently that stuck with you?
I like watching trailers but I wouldn’t say anything has ‘stuck with me’ as such -- I try not to judge too harshly in advance based on them. But as a millennial woman who loves clothes... Devil Wears Prada 2 is unbelievably high on my radar, obviously.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
I haven’t seen Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee yet and I hear great things - very excited for that.
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
Well if it’s a dream: I want to see a movie directed by Martin Scorsese starring Montgomery Clift and Ingrid Bergman! I’ve got my Ouija board out.
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
Umbrellas of Cherbourg or Demoiselles de Rochefort. Or maybe the chic, dreamy Los Angeles of Model Shop. Definitely a Jacques Demy film though: imagine the wardrobe.
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
Because it’s exhilarating, it’s how they were meant to be seen, and because movies are a shared/communal experience. You laugh, cry, and react harder with a group of people around you doing the same.
Aladdin and Titanic are both early in theater memories for me too and I think one of the reasons I still think of them so fondly today. Watching them takes you right back to that feeling 🥰