Another "Last" for Vancouver!

You probably heard about "the last porn theatre", meaning The Fox Cinema in Vancouver, BC (Canada), which was the last running full-time 35mm porn theatre in North America -- quite possibly the world -- until the Fox finally switched to a DVD/Video projection system in 2004.

Vancouver is also the locale where the infamous Ed Wood Jr.'s lost, last feature movie was (recently) discovered, piled in with the cache of old 16mm films from the Venus Adult Theatre.

Now read about another Vancouver sex theatre "last" -- the last film peep show arcade still operating! If you know of another, we'd love to hear about it. The Movieland Arcade runs mostly 16mm loops (with some 8mm), though my cover story (in The Vancouver Courier) linked below only mentions 8mm for simplicity. So if you have the chance -- go drop a few quarters before the Movieland closes down its booths (we can't guarantee it will hold out until the 2010 Winter Olympics, if you were going to wait to visit Vancouver until then).

By the way, of particular curiosity is the fact that these 10 booths showing hardcore sex loops are mere feet away from regular modern video games. Vancouver by-laws state that you must be 18 to enter gaming arcades -- I'm not sure, but maybe that is because of a peculiar old Vancouver arrangement whereby risque film booths were set up in the same venues as pinball games (and maybe because at that time pinball games were considered adult activity?). In any event, Vancouver video arcades don't strongly enforce (or enforce at all) the age limit, with the Movieland Arcade being no exception. The unique exception is that the Movieland Arcade still has antequated film booths and still play sexy, adult movies in them. Thus, non-adults are playing video games while less than 10 feet away there may be adults (predominantly men) in wooden booths watching lurid old film of sloppy, hairy genitals pounding together. But I have been there many times and I can report the video culture and the peep show culture co-exist perfectly fine. The place is more quaint than seedy. And these kids have no interest in old-fashioned film booths, which is kind of a shame. They will flock to the latest techno gizmo -- while the magic of celluloid withers away. I can't imagine the old film loops would corrrupt any teen who had enough curiosity and/or daring to go check it out. As you know, there's much 'worse' on the internet.