This beautiful friendship began in 1984. Boise still loves The Flicks 40 years later
There are movie theaters in the Boise area with luxury reclining loungers, motion-experience seating, couches built for two and giant screens.
But none of them have Carole Skinner.
The owner of The Flicks in downtown Boise celebrated the venue’s 40th anniversary Saturday night with a special showing of “Casablanca” in front of a sold-out crowd.
It was one of the movies Skinner hand-picked for the theater’s grand opening in 1984. (Talk about the beginning of a beautiful friendship.) And in some ways, you can walk into this old-school venue just off Myrtle Street and feel as if not much has changed since Ronald Reagan was president.
In other ways, The Flicks was a modern forerunner.
“When we opened, the population of Boise was so much less, and I think in some ways we were a little ahead of our time to have a movie theater where you could have beer and wine and you could have real food, and not just a hot dog going around on a heater for hours on end,” Skinner said.
“I like the fact that our staff all are friends. I think you can feel it when you come in the door, too. No one’s like, ‘uh,’ rolling their eyes at each other. I feel like our customers are so dedicated. They feel like this is their home away from home, and we love it that they feel that way.”
There is a reason The Flicks feels like home to so many, and it starts with Skinner.
She and husband Rick met on a blind date in August 1983 and quickly discovered their mutual love of film. Out of that love, The Flicks came to be. Rick still works full time as an attorney, but Carole has dedicated her life to the independent theater next to Julia Davis Park.
The Flicks has four screens, seating alignment that’s right out of 1984, 22 employees and 36 volunteers who take tickets one night a week in exchange for a free movie.
“They’re mostly smarter and better educated than I am,” Carole joked.
Hannah Williams, who also works as a lawyer, pours drinks, prepares food and makes popcorn two days a week at The Flicks.
“There are a lot of people who find a lot of comfort in The Flicks,” Williams said. “Whether it’s movies late at night, or we have people who come in and just sit and drink a glass of wine after their work day because they know it’s quiet.”
On a Wednesday afternoon in mid-September, Carole bumped into longtime customer Randy Schubert, who said he was thinking about seeing “Tokyo Cowboy.” She said it was a good choice, but also pointed out that it was the final day to see “My Penguin Friend.” That left Schubert with a conundrum, which he said he’d settle with his wife once she arrived.
“When I moved here, I lived right over by the original Albertsons,” said Schubert, who has been coming to The Flicks for 27 years. “I walked downtown a lot, found this place and realized that they had four screens with independent movies that you just couldn’t see at … any of the other places.
“It’s the love of the movies they show here, but it’s also the atmosphere. I don’t know how to explain it correctly, but the culture is accepting of everybody here.”
Before she moved to Boise, Skinner lived on a houseboat in Seattle. There are touches of her former life at The Flicks, like the port-hole window near the entrance and the lush outdoor patio with hanging baskets filled with red geraniums and leafy hostas surrounding every table.
The food at The Flicks can be enjoyed before, during or after a movie, depending on your mood. Customers come back again and again for the homemade chicken and spinach lasagna, chocolate chip cookies and popcorn lathered in real butter. There’s also an espresso machine and a large selection of beer and wine, plus salads, burgers, snacks and soups.
The indoor dining area features intimate seating, flanked by a large fireplace with rocks that Rick collected near McCall. The day Rick went out to source the rocks, Carole said he was gone so long, she thought he’d surely died. But he had just made a pit stop to go fishing.
It’s those kind of personal touches — and the stories behind them — that have endeared The Flicks to so many.
The loft overlooking the dining room serves as a meeting place for book clubs on Sunday afternoons, and The Flicks might be the only place in the Treasure Valley where you can still rent both DVDs and VHS tapes to watch movies at home. (Yes, really.)
Carole made the forest green curtains lining the back wall when The Flicks debuted a second screen in 1989. The curtains are still there, but the espresso machine bought the same year has been replaced two times over.
The Inn at 500 Capitol, completed in 2017, now towers over The Flicks. But behind the luxury hotel, very little has changed about the independent film haven.
And that’s just the way customers like it.
“It’s become a great, abiding Boise institution,” longtime customer Mary Seiter said. “It represents a lot about Boise.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2024 at 4:00 AM.
