The Grand Lake Theater's 3:45pm 70mm showing of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey drew a packed house on July 19 — a $7.50 Sunday matinee in Auditorium No. 1, while Boots Riley's own film played two screens away.

The 3:45pm showing of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey at the Grand Lake Theater on Sunday, July 19 was, by one account posted that afternoon to r/oakland, packed. Mid-afternoon, 172 minutes, the full main auditorium in 70mm celluloid. Boots Riley's own film, I Love Boosters, was playing two screens over in Auditorium No. 2. The crowd went for The Odyssey.

That's the understory in the post user bweber filed from 3200 Grand Avenue: the Grand Lake didn't need a local-celebrity draw to fill seats on a Sunday matinee. The matinee price holds at $7.50 — any showtime before 5:45pm — making a nearly three-hour 70mm presentation the best-value large-format screening in the East Bay.

The Grand Lake Theater opened March 6, 1926, designed by the Reid Brothers for West Coast Theaters, Inc. as a Vaudeville house and silent movie palace. Allen Michaan, owner of Renaissance Rialto, Inc., bought the ground lease in 1980 and has been restoring and expanding it since: in 1981, the main balcony became Auditorium No. 2, a 450-seat stadium-configuration house; in 1985, storefronts along Grand Avenue were converted into Auditoriums No. 3 and No. 4 — Egyptian atmospheric and Moorish palace, respectively, connected to the main lobby through an enclosed alley. The Mighty Wurlitzer organ is still played before Friday and Saturday evening shows in Auditorium No. 1.

The theater's regular programming runs all-digital, but its own website states it "retains the capability of exhibiting 35mm and 70mm films when needed." The Odyssey has been running in 70mm in Auditorium No. 1 from at least July 14, with daily showtimes at noon, 3:45, and 7:30 through July 23. The Drew Bennett desk noted last week that IMAX 70mm seats for the same film at the Metreon sold out — the Grand Lake, at $7.50 a ticket, offered a different kind of answer to the same demand.

What drew the crowd on Sunday wasn't a special event or a programmed series. It was a wide-release film in a format only a handful of Bay Area theaters can run. Riley's I Love Boosters had its own showtimes — 11:45am and 9:10pm in Auditorium No. 2, which the theater notes is not wheelchair accessible. The Redditor observed the packed afternoon house and the distinction mildly: the community showed up either way.

By Tuesday, any seat in the house is $6.