Next Week's Films

Again I'm behind as these films start later today. I have to admit I was a little dismayed by next week. It can be one of the busiest weeks of the year with good movies. The students don't have too much work to do yet and haven't spent all their money yet.

However the only new film available was College which sucked and bombed so I never considered playing it. It was kind of odd nothing else came off because there are three new movies opening. None of them is exactly a blockbuster so they didn't push anything off. The first run theatres just start splitting films rather than dropping them at this time of year. If you look at the listings you'll see some playing only one show a night hence sharing the screen. The Silver City is currently playing 14 films on only 12 screens.

I tried to get creative and bring in some films we wouldn't normally play because of low awareness or other reasons. You never know, I might have been surprised. Weeks like this are at least good for experimenting. So I asked about the following.

Mongol - a somewhat high profile well-reviewed film, but no prints available

Gonzo: Hunter S Thompson- a documentary about the writer, a couple people had asked about it. I figured with the students back maybe enough would be interested but again no prints available.

Brideshead Revisited. - no prints available.

I couldn't think of anything else that had any chance of pulling people.

I ended up playing these two films:

You Don't Mess With The Zohan: I could have played this film about 2 months ago but didn't think it would do well. I choose to play it next week because we hadn't played it yet and I figured it had a better chance of doing well with the students here.

Hancock: We already played it and did okay with it, however it played the week before school started which is generally a quiet week. The whole city kinda seems to be holding it's breath waiting for the students to come back. I think everyone is out of town. Also, again, I think Hancock has a chance of doing better with the students back.

The prospects for the following week aren't much better so I asked the booker to check on prints for the non-Hollywood films listed above. I may also bring Wall.E back.