Toronto Star

Witness the power of pictures. Take the one directly right. Are happy memories triggering? Are you yearning to swing over there this afternoon in a wire-wheeled sedan with sidemounts, to take in a movie? "Nothing lights up a street . . . like a movie marquee," theatre historian David Naylor has written, in praise of the movie business's long-running, on-the-spot architectural advertising. So evocative is this particular view that it is fueling a debate about the theatre itself, which is the much-loved Revue cinema on Roncesvalles Ave. The Revue is very much in business (four shows today, including The Golden Compass at 2 and La Vie En Rose at 4.15), after the community rallied to its support when the Festival chain of repertories moved out a few years ago. But there was a limbo period – perhaps the building felt abandoned – and late one winter night last year the great marquee, Hollywood's glitzy 1935 metal stamp on the genteel 1911 theatre, came crashing down onto the sidewalk.