Celebrating three of the grand cinema palaces of the downtown Los Angeles Theatre District, the 23rd (!) annual “Last Remaining Seats” series rescues your summer nights from the boring torpor of heat prostration, returning you to a simpler time, when movies were an escape from war and the Depression — not like now, what with our fancy flying cars, world peace and biomechanical stilt implants. It's a little odd to consider that, when the series began in 1986, some of the theatres — including the Cameo, the United Artists and the Orpheum — were still in operation, showing everything from Disney pabulum to grindhouse triple-bills. Then again, those last remaining seats were sticky and occupied by winos and other wandering shreds of human debris, so it's not as if there was anything to celebrate there. On July 1, Hugh Hefner closes out the whole he/shebang at the Orpheum with a screening of the ironically preachy silent film Pandora's Box (1929), prescribing you 10cc of cinematic Mycoxadryl (that's Viagra to you and me, son) for your viewing pleasures.

Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Starts: May 27. Continues through July 1, 2009

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