Several dozen of us had filled the banquet room of a Bixby Knolls restaurant—quite appropriately, Nino’s Italian restaurant—to hear a fascinating talk on the history of the Roman Republic Thursday night. (Fascinating fact: it’s the only republic to endure longer than the one we’re currently enduring in the United States). Suddenly, a Long Beach ballot-measure campaign [...]

Reviews were unanimously ecstatic among the large crowd that lingered beneath the gleaming-again marquee of the Art theater Thursday night after attending a dress rehearsal for this evening’s grand re-opening of Long Beach’s last remaining single-screen movie house.
But the most-poignant reaction came from 80-year-old Howard Linn, the man who devoted 35 years—almost half his life—to keeping the Art’s ailing [...]

One final, private screening with Art Theater owner Howard Linn

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
For a man whose life has been spent showing some of our most intelligent films—The Conversation, Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Little Thief, Less Than Zero—the Art Theater’s owner Howard Linn doesn’t talk much about the movies he’s seen. But then Linn, who [...]