The Hollywood Theatre is on a mission to bring the people of Stumptown together around movies, and as the theater’s grown into a collection of movie-related businesses in recent years, it’s proven that it’s not afraid to step out from behind its historic marquee to do so.
Since 2017, the organization has run a microcinema playing locally made documentaries and shorts at Portland International Airport. In 2018, it took over Movie Madness, the long-standing video rental spot that’s soon to move across the street from the theater itself. This fall, the theater launched a new kind of roadshow spreading the gospel of movies: taking them inside retirement communities.
The Hollywood Theatre Classic Film Club brings Ted Hurliman, the theater’s director of education and special projects, to retirement communities to screen movies and facilitate in-depth discussions among residents.
“Sometimes a person who lives in a place like this won’t have a place to come together with other people and have discussions,” Hurliman explained at an October meeting at The Watermark at the Pearl, a luxury senior living community.
Like much of the Hollywood’s programming, the ambition behind the Classic Film C...