Cinedome Is Left Holding The Bat-Bag

As predicted last month, "Batman Returns" is opening today at the chain-operated Egyptian - while the independent Cinedome, which offered 100 per cent of its box-office receipts to secure the downtown run of the Warner Bros. blockbuster, will have to make do with a second-run double bill of "The Mambo Kings" and "White Sands."

The Cinedome (formerly the King) has a bigger screen and more usable seats than the Egyptian, and it might seem like the logical place to show a big movie that's going to have customers lined up around the block for some time. When the King was operated by a major theater chain, General Cinema Corp., it had no problems getting the original "Batman" three years ago.

But when General Cinema pulled out of the King in January and two local, independent exhibitors, Richard Von Riesen and Art Bernstein, took over operations, the theater lost its booking clout. Von Riesen maintains that the place needs first-run movies to survive. The mayor's office, which is concerned about reviving the Denny Regrade and South Lake Union communities, would prefer not to see the Cinedome close its doors.

But General Cinema pulled out for a reason: Downtown theaters simply don't draw moviegoers the way they once did. Seven Gables/Landmark/Goldwyn, the chain that runs the Egyptian, maintains that the Egyptian has a more impressive track record at this point. Warner Bros. appears to agree, although some first-run stuff may turn up at the Cinedome before summer's over.

"Batman Returns" is also opening today at the Guild 45th and several suburban theaters. Warner Bros. is providing no 70mm prints for the Northwest, although the film is showing in 70mm in Los Angeles and New York.

The first film to be released in a new digital sound system called Dolby Stereo SR-- D, "Batman Returns" will be presented here in that format only at Bellevue's Crossroads Cinema, which is one of 11 theaters in North America to be equipped with it. Dolby Laboratories claims the 35mm six-track stereo system produces "sound quality as good as that of compact discs, professional digital recording formats, and the very best Dolby Stereo 70mm release prints." The Crossroads auditorium is already equipped with the Lucasfilm THX Sound System.

THE CINEDOME may have lost its bid for "Batman Returns," but this is still turning out to be a busy summer for independent exhibitors in Seattle.

Paul Doyle's Grand Illusion theater has lately become a haven for fans of Hong Kong martial-arts epics, and tonight he's opening another one: Tsui Hark's "Zu, Warriors of the Magic Mountain." This action-stuffed genre piece played as a last-minute midnight-movie replacement at the Seattle International Film Festival last month.

Mike Phelps' Shining Moment Productions, which waited out the festival, returns tonight to the Jewel Box Theater in the Rendezvous Restaurant, where Phelps is planning a summer full of comedies, oddities, horror films and archival stuff.

First up is a salute to zany British comedy that includes an interview with Spike Milligan (directed by Ken Russell); the innovative and hilarious 1959 Goon Show short, "The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film" (directed by Richard Lester); and Monty Python's second and possibly funniest film, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (directed by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam - who went on last year to direct his own contemporary version of the Grail story, "The Fisher King").

The program plays at 7 and 9 p.m. tonight and tomorrow. A double bill of Harry Houdini's 1922 silent film, "The Man From Beyond," and a 1970 British documentary about the escape artist and magician, "The Truth About Houdini," will be shown at 7 and 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Still to come are "Nitrate Visions: Silent Shorts From 1900-1930," tributes to directors Terence Fisher and Roger Corman, and a "Paris Is Burning" screening that will benefit the Northwest AIDS Foundation.

Tickets are $4 for weekday shows, $5 for weekends. Because the Rendezvous has a bar and drinks may be served to the Jewel Box audience, no one under 21 is admitted. The Rendezvous is at 2320 Second Ave. in Belltown.

Dennis Nyback's Queen City Film Festival is also back this weekend at the Pike St. Cinema, 1108 Pike St. (Pike at Boren), where he will repeat one of his most popular recent programs: "The Effect of Dada and Surrealism on Hollywood Movies of the 1930s." Marcel Duchamp's "Anemic Cinema" kicks off the show, which includes clips from W.C. Fields' comedies and "Lady in the Dark," "Tin Pan Alley Cats" and Murray Roth's 1930 jazz short, "Yamekraw."

Next weekend, Nyback will focus on educational shorts from the 1950s and 1960s that used film-noir techniques, including "Doomsday For Pests," "Ulcer at Work," "Hall of Fame" and "Assembly Line." Show times are 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $4 at the door.

The nonprofit 911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave. N., continues its "Documentaries Northwest" series at 8 tonight. Kirk Tougas will screen his film, "Return to Departure: the Biography of a Painting, or Watching Pigment Dry and Other Realisms," and discuss his personal approach to the documentary form. Tickets are $3 for 911 members, $5 for others.

At 8 p.m. Monday, 911 will hold an open screening for local video and film artists (tickets are $1). Next Friday's documentary guest will be Colin Browne, who will screen his Canadian film, "White Lake." Information: 682-6552.

911 recently received a $10,000 grant from the Seattle Arts Commission that will enable it to produce Bobby Birleffi's "Coming 2," an hour-long documentary about five Seattle teenagers who turn their experiences into theater. 911's director, Robin Reidy, hopes the documentary will "raise Seattle's profile as a city that supports media artists who are changing people's lives through the artmaking process."

FUTURE FILE: The restored version of Walt Disney's 1940 animation classic, "Pinocchio," will open next Friday at several theaters . . . Nicolas Roeg's long-delayed "Cold Heaven," starring Mark Harmon and Theresa Russell as a couple seemingly separated by death, will arrive here July 3 . . . A two-week workshop, "Cinema-Tek 92 Institute," will be held July 24-Aug. 8 at Seattle Central Community College. Lecturers include Mitchel Klebanoff, Adam Gold, Ellen Cockrill and Joel Millner. Registration is $395. For information, call 587-5448 . . . Three more workshops will start next month: Joan Peter's "How to Shoot Great Video" (for information, call 633-2420) and Martin Stevens' "Motion Picture Production Workshop" and "Home Video Workshop" (for information, call 771-1313) . . ."Reels - You Can't Live With 'Em; You Can't Live Without Them" is the title of the Washington Film and Video Association's next general meeting, to be held from 6 to 8:30 p.m. July 16 at 308 Occidental S. Sam Walsh, Jim Gulian and Jean Walkinshaw will be the guest speakers. The public is invited. For information, call 447-9595.