Visiting L.A. Landmarks

This past weekend, my wife and I had dinner at the popular El Coyote Cafe, located partly on the other side of town from me here in L.A. Already an L.A. landmark, it’s also the restaurant where Sharon Tate and her companions ate their last meal the night they were murdered at home. As you’ll see in one of the photos below, in remembrance, a portrait of Tate is stenciled on the restaurant's exterior wall in front as you enter the restaurant.

Down the street from the restaurant is the New Beverly Cinema, one of the last repertory revival houses in L.A. It’s now owned by Quentin Tarantino, who purchased it in 2008 and, since 2014, has served as the programmer, still running double features as it has throughout much of its history and, of course, almost always 35mm prints (not digital).

The El Coyote is featured in Tarantino’s film, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, and the New Beverly is given an indirect shout out—during the time of the film, 1969, the venue was called the Eros, and in the film, Tate and her friends notice a red carpet event going on at the “dirty movie” house down the street.

So after dinner, we walked the couple blocks to the New Beverly. Seeing the schedule taped to the front window brought back memories of collecting the schedules for the various revival houses around town when I was in college to plan what flicks to see. The night we visited, Valley Girl had begun about 30 minutes earlier (marking its 40th anniversary), followed by Modern Girls. (As you can see from the marquee at left, there was a midnight showing of Inglorious Basterds as well—Tarantino shows his films there as well.)

In fact, it reminded me that in 2009, thanks to a press pass provided by a friend, I attended a “red carpet” showing of the film that Tarantino and some of the stars—including Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak and Eli Roth—attended, which was a great way to see the film. This was December of that year, and I had already seen the film at its release earlier, but of course I couldn’t resist seeing the opportunity to see the film with its director in the house (he said a few words before the screening). I’ve included photos from that night as well (and here is the original post about that evening).

I've actually seen Tarantino before. Shortly after Reservoir Dogs was released, he had a signing at the Manhattan Beach video store where he once worked. My wife loved the film and wanted to attend. We have a poster of the film signed by Tarantino, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi and others in the movie.