Curbed L.A. flags down a tempest in a pornshop by pointing to one West Hollywood resident's idea of transforming the Studs Theater (the self-advertised “one-of-a-kind porn multiplex”) into an art house cinema. (Hey, wasn't “art film” once shorthand for “porn”?) Writer Werner Haas' recent op-ed piece in the WeHo News reminisced about the Upper West Side movie theaters he knew in his youth, then decried the receding frontier of L.A. revival houses — and today's film fare, which Haas claims is “simply RTV shows with bigger budgets and more dirty words and nudity.”

His fix is to have West Hollywood buy the Studs out from “under the perverts and creeps who patronize it, fumigate the place, put in some decent equipment and reopen it in [its] original 1940's-era movie house splendor to show Indy, foreign and classic films.”

Curbed L.A.'s post links to reader responses to Haas' idea — let's

just say the reviews are mixed. Miraculously though, a territorial blog

war hasn't broken out so far over Haas' odd sense of geography when

locating the Studs, nee the Monica.

“In the Eastside's midsection,” he wrote, “stands a 69-year old theater

– the Monica Theater – built in 1940 at 7734 Santa Monica Boulevard

between Genesee and Spaulding Avenues.”

The Eastside? Them's fightin' words for some in this town, Mr. Haas!

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