As President Donald Trump continues to remake the White House in his own pyrite image, one of the casualties of his East Wing demolition is the 83-year-old Family Theater, the small cinema for the commander-in-chief and his family, friends, and colleagues. Before the streaming age, presidents had the closest thing to an on-demand theater as one could find in the world — they could request a showing of any movie, including ones that hadn’t been released yet, if they wanted to unwind with their wife, a mistress, Cabinet members, and visiting heads of state.

“It’s the president inviting guests into his family room, where people could lay back,” says Burt Kearns, co-director of the documentary All the Presidents’ Movies . “Through the study of the screening room, you get a sense not only

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