A growing number of local patrons of the intimate Brooklyn Heights Cinema are more aware and appreciative of the efforts of manager AMY MASCENA. The 175-seat film house is located at 70 Henry Street, just around the corner from the historic Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, where HENRY WARD BEECHER preached and President ABRAHAM LINCOLN visited. While its history is not as famous or lengthy as that of Plymouth, just half a block away on Orange Street, the cinema has been a Heights haven for movie mavens since the late sixties. For a small business in New York City, that’s a significant historical record. In recent years following renovation that ran into six figures , the new owners of the cinema have depended on AMY MASCENA to chose films that keep loyal patrons coming back. Currently, for example, the highly-acclaimed documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN plays there for a two week run. For the uninitiated, WAITING FOR SUPERMAN addresses the monumental crisis in public education that might be putting this country into more future peril than any of the other issues –financial, environmental, political—that grab headlines. The Academy Award-winning director DAVIS GUGGENHEIM (AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) wrote and directed this “stirring clarion-call of our times” because he was “ fueled by his conscience and electrified by the possibilities of change…”
Normally a place where high-quality indies find a home, Brooklyn Heights Cinema often competes with huge multi-screen theatres by securing first run hits as well. The main difference, say local fans and patrons of BHC, is “here we get a more sane and civilized atmosphere to appreciate a movie, and the refreshments are a custom treat…” With multi-plex theatres feeling more like daytime discos that hawk only Big Brother brands of supersize soda and candy, it IS a refreshing treat to visit that small film palace at 70 Henry Street, where you can actually buy a cappuccino made by AMY MASCENA.
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