Riviera Theatre

Grand opening!

2008-08-12T18:25:34Z

We're starting out our schedule of events with a packed weekend of live entertainment! First, on Friday, August 22, we'll be hosting The Verve Pipe. Then, on Saturday, the Three Rivers "Songs from the Stage" Benefit Voice Recital will perform in the afternoon, followed by a performance by Dueling Piano International in the evening. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, we'll feature comedian and magician Chris Linn.

And, of course, the Riviera Theatre Bar will be open its usual hours, 4 to 10pm, and during each of these events--giving you a chance to hang out with friends over a cold drink.

Hope to see you there!

Historic articles added to site

2008-09-12T19:55:00Z

We've just added a press section to our web site, which, at the moment, highlights a number of articles written in the Three Rivers Commercial News when the Riviera was opening in 1925.

We'll also add current news stories to this section when they're available. We hope you enjoy reading a bit of the theatre's history!

New projector

2008-10-18T08:25:34Z

Great news! Our new projector has arrived, and should be up and running by the end of the month. This is a new digital DLP projector, and the picture quality is amazing! With the addition of some future equipment, it even has the capability to show 3D films. We are very excited to bring movies back to the Riviera, and look forward to seeing you all at a show very soon!

Movie: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

2009-01-07T20:09:29Z

Director Series - Stanley Kubrick

"2001: A Space Odyssey"
1968. Rated G. 148 minutes.
Jan. 7: 7:30pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

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The Riviera Director Series will be featuring films by Stanley Kubrick every Wednesday evening during the month of January.

A mind-bending sci-fi symphony, Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1968 epic pushed the limits of narrative and special effects toward a meditation on technology and humanity. Based on Arthur C. Clarke's story The Sentinel, Kubrick and Clarke's screenplay is structured in four movements. At the "Dawn of Man," a group of hominids encounters a mysterious black monolith alien to their surroundings. To the strains of Strauss's 1896 Also sprach Zarathustra, a hominid invents the first weapon, using a bone to kill prey. As the hominid tosses the bone in the air, Kubrick cuts to a 21st century spacecraft hovering over the Earth, skipping ahead millions of years in technological development. U.S. scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) travels to the moon to check out the discovery of a strange object on the moon's surface: a black monolith. Cutting ahead 18 months, impassive astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) head toward Jupiter on the spaceship Discovery, their only company three hibernating astronauts and the vocal, man-made HAL 9000 computer running the entire ship. When the all-too-human HAL malfunctions, however, he tries to murder the astronauts to cover his error, forcing Bowman to defend himself the only way he can. Free of HAL, and finally informed of the voyage's purpose by a recording from Floyd, Bowman journeys to "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," through the psychedelic slit-scan star-gate to an 18th century room, and the completion of the monolith's evolutionary mission. With assistance from special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull, Kubrick spent over two years meticulously creating the most "realistic" depictions of outer space ever seen, greatly advancing cinematic technology for a story expressing grave doubts about technology itself. Provocatively billed as "the ultimate trip," 2001 quickly caught on with a counterculture youth audience open to a contemplative (i.e. chemically enhanced) viewing experience of a film suggesting that the way to enlightenment was to free one's mind of the U.S. military-industrial-technological complex. - Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Lake Effect in concert

2009-01-09T07:01:29Z

Lake Effect
Jan. 9: 9pm
$5

]]> Lake Effect returns to rock the Riviera! These guys always put on a great show, so come out and support live music. Drink specials will be available all night long, including $1 Bud Light & $1.50 Leinenkugel Red drafts!

Movie: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

2009-01-11T19:56:14Z

Riviera Classics - Westerns

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"
1969. Rated PG. 110 minutes.
Jan. 11: 3pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> The Riviera Classic Movie Series will be featuring some of our favorite Westerns every Sunday this month.

Released the same year as "The Wild Bunch", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" covered similar territory about the end of Western myths, but it expressed its revisionism with tongue firmly in cheek rather than with the brutal violence of Sam Peckinpah's offering. Butch and Sundance never lose their gift for one-liners, even when they have to jump off that gorge; George Roy Hill and screenwriter William Goldman send up the image of outlaws heading south of the border with bank robberies conducted in broken Spanish from crib notes. Still, violence impinges on Butch's and Sundance's world, intimating the fate that modernity held for charming bandits who cannot master a horse-replacing bicycle. The jocularly clear-eyed approach to the pair's exploits, combined with the chemistry between Paul Newman and relative newcomer Robert Redford, vastly appealed to audiences; "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" became the most popular film of 1969 and won several Oscars, including one for Goldman's script. Like "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967, glamorous outlaws Butch and Sundance were in tune with the late-'60s counterculture, but the movie's humor -- and its Oscar-winning Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" -- softened the revisionist blows amid impending tragedy.

Opening with a silent "movie" of Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang, George Roy Hill's comically elegiac Western chronicles the mostly true tale of the outlaws' last months. Witty pals Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) join the Gang in successfully robbing yet another train with their trademark non-lethal style. After the pair rests at the home of Sundance's schoolmarm girlfriend, Etta (Katharine Ross), the Gang robs the same train, but this time, the railroad boss has hired the best trackers in the business to foil the crime. After being tailed over rocks and a river gorge by guys that they can barely identify save for a white hat, Butch and Sundance decide that maybe it's time to try their luck in Bolivia. Taking Etta with them, they live high on ill-gotten Bolivian gains, but Etta leaves after their white-hatted nemesis portentously arrives. Their luck running out, Butch and Sundance are soon holed up in a barn surrounded by scores of Bolivian soldiers who are waiting for the pair to make one last run for it. - Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Movie: "A Clockwork Orange"

2009-01-14T19:57:40Z

Director Series - Stanley Kubrick

"A Clockwork Orange"
1971. Rated R. 137 minutes.
Jan. 14: 7:30pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

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The Riviera Director Series will be featuring films by Stanley Kubrick every Wednesday evening during the month of January.

Stanley Kubrick dissects the nature of violence in this darkly ironic, near-future satire, adapted from Anthony Burgess' novel, complete with "Nadsat" slang. Classical music-loving proto-punk Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his "Droogs" spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on "a little of the old ultraviolence," such as terrorizing a writer, Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), and raping his wife while jauntily warbling "Singin' in the Rain." After Alex is jailed for bludgeoning the Cat Lady (Miriam Karlin) to death with one of her phallic sculptures, Alex submits to the Ludovico behavior modification technique to earn his freedom; he's conditioned to abhor violence through watching gory movies, and even his adored Beethoven is turned against him. Returned to the world defenseless, Alex becomes the victim of his prior victims, with Mr. Alexander using Beethoven's Ninth to inflict the greatest pain of all. When society sees what the state has done to Alex, however, the politically expedient move is made. Casting a coldly pessimistic view on the then-future of the late '70s-early '80s, Kubrick and production designer John Barry created a world of high-tech cultural decay, mixing old details like bowler hats with bizarrely alienating "new" environments like the Milkbar. Alex's violence is horrific, yet it is an aesthetically calculated fact of his existence; his charisma makes the icily clinical Ludovico treatment seem more negatively abusive than positively therapeutic. Alex may be a sadist, but the state's autocratic control is another violent act, rather than a solution. Released in late 1971 (within weeks of Sam Peckinpah's brutally violent "Straw Dogs"), the film sparked considerable controversy in the U.S. with its violence; after copycat crimes in England, Kubrick withdrew the film from British distribution until after his death. Opinion was divided on the meaning of Kubrick's detached view of this shocking future, but, whether the discord drew the curious or Kubrick's scathing diagnosis spoke to the chaotic cultural moment, "A Clockwork Orange" became a hit. On the heels of New York Film Critics Circle awards as Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, Kubrick received Oscar nominations in all three categories. - Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Seminar: "Bringing Soil Back to Health"

2009-01-14T21:41:57Z

"Bringing Soil Back to Health"
One-Day Seminar with Dr. Elaine Ingham
Jan. 14: 9am-5pm
Cost (includes lunch): Single attendee - $50, Pair - $90, Student - $45

]]> Flowerfield Enterprises presents "Bringing Soil Back to Health", a one-day seminar featuring Dr. Elaine Ingham of the Sustainable Studies Institute in Corvallis, Oregon.

Join us for a fascinating and highly entertaining look at the world below the surface of the soil through the eyes of renowned soil-scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham. Dr. Ingham will explain in lay terms how to bring your soil back to health by developing a diverse, healthy foodweb in your soil in order to optimize your targeted plant growth. Dr. Ingham's methods can reduce water usage, as well as reduce or eliminate the use of inorganic chemical inputs in your soil.

Registration for this event is available at the Flowerfield Enterprises website here, by e-mail to nancy@wormwoman.com, or by calling (800) 587-1478 or (269) 327-0108. View a brochure of the event here.

Movie: "The Searchers"

2009-01-18T20:02:07Z

Riviera Classics - Westerns

"The Searchers"
1956. Not Rated. 119 minutes.
Jan. 18: 3pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> The Riviera Classic Movie Series will be featuring some of our favorite Westerns every Sunday this month.

If John Ford is the greatest Western director, "The Searchers" is arguably his greatest film, at once a grand outdoor spectacle like such Ford classics as "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949) and "Rio Grande" (1950) and a film about one man's troubling moral codes, a big-screen adventure of the 1950s that anticipated the complex themes and characters that would dominate the 1970s. John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who returns to his brother Aaron's frontier cabin three years after the end of the Civil War. Ethan still has his rebel uniform and weapons, a large stash of Yankee gold, and no explanations as to where he's been since Lee's surrender. A loner not comfortable in the bosom of his family, Ethan also harbors a bitter hatred of Indians (though he knows their lore and language well) and trusts no one but himself. Ethan and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), Aaron's adopted son, join a makeshift band of Texas Rangers fending off an assault by renegade Comanches. Before they can run off the Indians, several homes are attacked, and Ethan returns to discover his brother and sister-in-law dead and their two daughters kidnapped. While they soon learn that one of the girls is dead, the other, Debbie, is still alive, and with obsessive determination, Ethan and Martin spend the next five years in a relentless search for Debbie -- and for Scar (Henry Brandon), the fearsome Comanche chief who abducted her. But while Martin wants to save his sister and bring her home, Ethan seems primarily motivated by his hatred of the Comanches; it's hard to say if he wants to rescue Debbie or murder the girl who has lived with Indians too long to be considered "white." John Wayne gives perhaps his finest performance in a role that predated screen antiheroes of the 1970s; by the film's conclusion, his single-minded obsession seems less like heroism and more like madness. Wayne bravely refuses to soft-pedal Ethan's ugly side, and the result is a remarkable portrait of a man incapable of answering to anyone but himself, who ultimately has more in common with his despised Indians than with his more "civilized" brethren. Natalie Wood is striking in her brief role as the 16-year-old Debbie, lost between two worlds, and Winton C. Hoch's Technicolor photography captures Monument Valley's savage beauty with subtle grace. - Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Movie: "The Shining"

2009-01-21T20:03:45Z

Director Series - Stanley Kubrick

"The Shining"
1980. Rated R. 144 minutes.
Jan. 21: 7:30pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

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The Riviera Director Series will be featuring films by Stanley Kubrick every Wednesday evening during the month of January.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" -- or, rather, a homicidal boy in Stanley Kubrick's eerie 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel. With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in tow, frustrated writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker at the opulently ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in peace. Before the Overlook is vacated for the Torrances, the manager (Barry Nelson) informs Jack that a previous caretaker went crazy and slaughtered his family; Jack thinks it's no problem, but Danny's "shining" hints otherwise. Settling into their routine, Danny cruises through the empty corridors on his Big Wheel and plays in the topiary maze with Wendy, while Jack sets up shop in a cavernous lounge with strict orders not to be disturbed. Danny's alter ego, "Tony," however, starts warning of "redrum" as Danny is plagued by more blood-soaked visions of the past, and a blocked Jack starts visiting the hotel bar for a few visions of his own. Frightened by her husband's behavior and Danny's visit to the forbidding Room 237, Wendy soon discovers what Jack has really been doing in his study all day, and what the hotel has done to Jack. - Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Movie: "Man On Wire"

2009-01-23T20:05:00Z

"Man On Wire"
2008. Rated PG-13. 94 minutes.
Jan. 23: 7:30pm
$6 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> On August 7th, 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's Twin Towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challenges: he had to find a way to bypass the WTC's security; smuggle the heavy steel cable and rigging equipment into the towers; pass the wire between the two rooftops; anchor the wire and tension it to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings. The rigging was done by night in complete secrecy. At 7:15am, Philippe took his first step on the high wire 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan...

James Marsh's documentary brings Petit's extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as "the artistic crime of the century." Winner of the Jury Prize and Audience Award in the World Cinema: Documentary competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. - Magnolia Pictures

The film itself is perfectly poised between artistry and audacity. It's beautiful. - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

James Marsh's documentary raises the bar for the genre to skyscraper height. - Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

One of the most wildly entertaining docs of recent years. - Robert Koehler, Variety

Movie: "Unforgiven"

2009-01-25T20:06:34Z

Riviera Classics - Westerns

"Unforgiven"
1992. Rated R. 131 minutes.
Jan. 25: 3pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> The Riviera Classic Movie Series will be featuring some of our favorite Westerns every Sunday this month.

Dedicated to his mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood's 1992 Oscar-winner examines the mythic violence of the Western, taking on the ghosts of his own star past. Disgusted by Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett's decree that several ponies make up for a cowhand's slashing a whore's face, Big Whiskey prostitutes, led by fierce Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), take justice into their own hands and put a $1000 bounty on the lives of the perpetrators. Notorious outlaw-turned-hog farmer William Munny (Eastwood) is sought out by neophyte gunslinger the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) to go with him to Big Whiskey and collect the bounty. While Munny insists, "I ain't like that no more," he needs the bounty money for his children, and the two men convince Munny's clean-living comrade Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to join them in righting a wrong done to a woman. Little Bill (Oscar-winner Gene Hackman), however, has no intention of letting any bounty hunters impinge on his iron-clad authority. When pompous gunman English Bob (Richard Harris) arrives in Big Whiskey with pulp biographer W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) in tow, Little Bill beats Bob senseless and promises to tell Beauchamp the real story about violent frontier life and justice. But when Munny, the true unwritten legend, comes to town, everyone soon learns a harsh lesson about the price of vindictive bloodshed and the malleability of ideas like "justice." - Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Movie: "Full Metal Jacket"

2009-01-28T20:10:47Z

Director Series - Stanley Kubrick

"Full Metal Jacket"
1987. Rated R. 116 minutes.
Jan. 28: 7:30pm
$5 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> The Riviera Director Series will be featuring films by Stanley Kubrick every Wednesday evening during the month of January.

Stanley Kubrick's return to filmmaking after a seven-year hiatus, this film crystallizes the experience of the Vietnam War by concentrating on a group of raw Marine volunteers. Based on Gustav Hasford's novel "The Short Timers", the film's first half details the volunteers' harrowing boot-camp training under the profane, power-saw guidance of drill instructor Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey, a real-life drill instructor whose performance is one of the most terrifyingly realistic on record). Part two takes place in Nam, as seen through the eyes of the now thoroughly indoctrinated marines. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Movie: "A Girl Cut In Two"

2009-01-30T20:07:51Z

"A Girl Cut In Two"
2008. Not Rated. 115 minutes. French with English subtitles.
Jan. 30: 7:30pm
$6 Adult, $4.50 Child/Student/Senior

]]> The French master of suspense Claude Chabrol returns with the razor-sharp, darkly seductive, "A Girl Cut In Two." Gabrielle Deneige (Ludivine Sagnier of "Swimming Pool") is an independent, ambitious TV weather girl torn between her love of a distinguished author several decades her senior (Francois Berleand), and the attentions of a headstrong, potentially unstable young suitor (Benoit Magimel). An unspoken past between the two men heightens tensions, and though she's initially certain of her love for one them, the see-saw demands and whims of both men keep confusing - and darkening - matters. Before long she's encountering emotional and societal forces well beyond her control, inexorably leading to a shocking clash of violence and passion. Inspired by the sensational Gilded Age murder of Madison Square Garden architect Stanford White, "A Girl Cut In Two" is trademark Chabrol: fiendishly entertaining and impossible to shake. - Synopsis courtesy of IFC Films.

Impeccably made and uncompromisingly adult, Claude Chabrol's "A Girl Cut in Two" is unquestionably the work of a master. - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Keeps you off-balance as it establishes a world where every conversation is a flirtation, and trouble and heartbreak sneak in on little cat feet when no one's looking. - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

An erotically charged, beautifully directed story of a woman preyed upon by different men and her own warring desires. - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Dead Man w/ Radio Moscow

2009-02-14T19:59:07Z

Dead Man w/ Radio Moscow
Feb. 14:

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Fast-rising Swedish rock band Dead Man will be coming to the Riviera Theatre in support of its critically acclaimed new album, Euphoria! The quartet, quickly becoming known for its colorful songwriting and dynamic live performances, will be stopping through on its debut U.S. tour.

Dead Man, whose members possess a wealth of musical experience derived from time spent in various Swedish acts (including the hard rock band Norrsken, which also featured in its ranks current Witchcraft front man Magnus Pelander and Graveyard members Joakim Nilsson and Rikard Edlund), play magnetic, spirited rock with melancholic undertones and "a slight touch of darkness" - calling for comparisons to Jefferson Airplane, Blue Cheer, Dungen and Dead Meadow. Each member of the quartet is a multi-instrumentalist, which allows the band to build unique, lush atmospheres replete with both acoustic tinge and electric crunch.

Dead Man features Kristoffer Sjödahl (electric, acoustic & slide guitar, mandolin, percussion & vocals), Marcus Allard (drums, percussion and vocals), Joakim Dimberg (bass, synthesizer, organ, guitar & vocals) and Johan Rydholm (acoustic guitar, percussion & vocals).

Recorded at the famous Svenska Grammofon Studion (The Hives) and released via Sweden's Crusher Records, Euphoria is an album that bridges both the soulful and the psychedelic as dynamic yet incisive songwriting effortlessly fuses with shivering vocals and an expansive, emotive tenor. The record is thick with analog warmth and a laid back, confident overall feel, connecting the dots where the adventurous folk-rock of the late 60's overlapped with metal's prehistoric commingling with blues-rock and prog in the early 70's.

"The second album by Swedish quartet DEAD MAN, "Euphoria," is an unapologetic throwback to the turn of the 1970s - specifically, the transition from '60s folk- and psyche-rock to the more sinister hard-rock and proto-metal sounds that would follow. Most of the album is poised right on that brink, and its 11 songs bring to mind everything from early Pink Floyd and Donovan (in his more tolerable moments) to Peter Frampton-era Humble Pie to the softer side of Led Zep or Black Sabbath (think "Planet Caravan"). Impressively, they do so without making me feel like I need to check myself into rehab." - SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

"This isn't a metal album but it does have its heavy moments. Instead of metal you get an enrapturing vintage sound populated with instrumentation and singing you'll be absorbing for months to come. Anyone even casually interested in the classic sound of the days of yore would be wise to get savvy to DEAD MAN. Stunning...simply stunning." - HELLRIDE MUSIC