Friday, March 27, 2009

Next Week's Film Mar 27 - Apr 2



Next week is one of those weeks I'm not sure if I booked correctly. The original plan was The Reader, left over from last week, and Yes Man unless Slumdog Millionaire was available.




Slumdog wasn't available, the only new movie available was Paul Blart. I'm not sure if I'll play that, it was a big hit but plays a little immature for our audience. If I do play it I should probably wait and play it during exams, it'll make a good study break film.




However Gran Torino was doing fairly well as the late show and I was getting a very strong indicator that my original thought that it needed to be a 7pm show was correct. I was getting a lot of people asking about it. The newspaper made a typo that implied there was a 7pm show this past Monday and I got several phone calls about it and a few people showed up. I decided to bring it back next week as the 7pm show. Hopefully I haven't just split the difference between the two weeks.


Yes Man feels old and I'm not sure how well it will do but I've been saying I would play it so I figure I should so it's the late show.

Slumdog is down to one theatre at the Silver City so hopefully they drop it the following week. I'm nervous they'll hold onto it longer than that. If it gets too far past the DVD date and the start of exams I might have to make a nasty choice. Knowing Fox they might still insist on full shows even though it's out on video. Fox has pissed off a lot of theatres. Slumdog is still in the top 10 and they are releasing it on DVD on Tuesday.

If Slumdog isn't available the following week it will be The Reader followed by something, probably Paul Blart. Shopaholic and He's Just not That Into You should both come off soon. Disney will make me wait a week for Shopaholic as they usually do.

Credits Cardio


Forget jogging or Pilates, the only thing you need around here to get people up and moving is to show them the credits at the end of a film.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Upcoming Special Presentations.

We have a couple special things happening at Western Film I don't think I have mentioned on here.

Monday Mar 23rd at 7:00. We are having the London Premiere of a Canadian Film Pontypool, directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo). Maple Pictures asked me to do the screening. Bruce was originally supposed to be here but had to cancel. It looks like a film that's a little hard to describe. The basic descrip would be several people trapped in a radio station by zombies but I doubt Bruce McDonald would make anything that simple.
Admission is free at the door.




Monday Mar 30th at 7pm. An advance screening of Seth Rogen's film Observe and Report courtesy of Warner Bros. This is being done as a charity screening through a sorority, I can't remember the name right now.
Tickets will be $5.00 at the door. Show up early for good seats! There is a possibility this one could sell out.
The original plan was for Seth Rogen to be here for the screening but that didn't happen. I'm almost happy the crowd control and security issues would have been a real pain.



It won't let me embed it but if you can watch the age restricted red-band trailer, it gives a much better idea of the film than the toned down one above.

Response to some recent comments.


Here are some comments made on recent posts and my responses. I figured it was easier for everyone to see them if I did it this way.




I would rather see Slumdog Millionaire on the big screen. Hope you decide to play it.



Western Film will be playing Slumdog Millionaire, even if it's a week or so after it comes out on DVD. I think there will still be enough interest.


Will you let us know how the movies did? Did your plan work?


This comment is in reference to my plan to play Revolutionary Road and Milk during Slack Week then switch the order the following week when the students were back. That way both films played for the early show at some point. Basically I would say it worked. Overall Milk did better but the total for each film each week was consistent with normal patterns. I'll have to remember this trick for future use if I have two suitable films at slack week.




thanx for answering bak bout this !--personally- wenever they've shown a bollywood film its been on a single day and invariably i've already got sumthin happenin-- also wen its hosted by a club then sumtimes u dont wanna go coz it feels kinda odd that ur not part of the club--newez-- hopefully we'll get to see sum indian films in the near future ! =)


I'm don't think I ever mentioned it on here but we did do another Bollywood film a couple weeks ago. The guys that had been putting them on contacted me again. I hadn't heard from them for a while so I figured they didn't want to do any more. Turns out they were visiting India?!
The show of Billu Barber did fairly well. Enough for me to keep doing them as long as the guys want to do them. They'll contact me next time there's a film they want to play.


The talking at WesternFilm seems to be a bigger issue than anywhere else, and this is true especially during the previews. Sure, the actual movie isn't playing yet, but there are people who want to watch the previews without the VERY loud chatter going on around them. I noticed that WesternFilm doesn't turn down all the lights until the feature film starts and I feel that is contributing to the problem.


There's not much we can do about talking during the previews. To me they are part of the film but a lot of people consider them nothing more than commercials. Part of the problem is I have to play them at a lower volume than the films. Trailers have different volume levels between them so often I'll get a loud one that necessitates turning them all down so as not to deafen everyone during the loud trailer. We readjust the volume for the movie. As for the lights, most theatres don't turn them all the way down for the same reason we don't. There's often still a lot of people coming and going during the trailers. I think we may keep ours little brighter but there's several reasons for this.
- For some reason we get a lot of people right when the trailers start or after they have started. We can have 10 people in the theatre at 6:50 and 80 at 7:10.
-We don't have any lights on the stairs beside the seats. The edging on the stairs actually glows in the dark if you look very carefully but it never worked very well or has worn out.
-We get a lot of older people and seniors.
-The damn tablets (little tables) on the chairs, most of them don't stick back out of the way even if pushed into position. If the lights are down a lot of people hit them with their legs. When the room isn't being used for classes any more come about January I may ask if I can take them all off. They do make good cup holders in some cases though.



Any questions I didn't answer feel free to post in the comments below.













Thursday, March 19, 2009

Next Week's Film Mar 20 -26



Next Week was one of those weeks that hard to program because I had some choices that were hard to make. There were three films available, The Reader, The Wrestler and Gran Torino. All three I plan to play so the first choice I had to make was which two to show. One problem was all of these shows should have played the 7:00 show. However I'm running out of school year so I need to play these films soon.




I decided since Gran Torino is a bit more of an action film it would fit best as a late show. I ended up choosing Wrestler for the early simply because it's the shortest so the late show of Gran Torino can be as early as possible. I'm probably gonna get flack from people who wanted to see Gran Torino but won't go to the late show. Maybe I'll bring it back during exams.




So the tentative plan would have The Reader playing at 7:00 the following week however I didn't go ahead and book it in. Slumdog Millionaire comes out on DVD the Tuesday of that week so the first run theatres may all drop it. I do plan to play it even if it has come out on video. That week is the last one before exams start and attendance drops no matter what I play.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My current favorite songs.

This isn't strictly movie related, yet. I just discovered one of these songs today and one a couple weeks ago. A musician friend of mine once said I had very commercial taste in music. Most of the music I like seems to end up being used in various movies so I would imagine these songs will end up in one sooner or later. I noticed on youtube people are posting the Matt Alber one and suggesting it be used in New Moon, the sequel to Twilight.
The last album I really liked was Mika's Life In Cartoon Motion, those songs turned up in multiple movies and trailers.

Enjoy..



Next Week's Film Mar 13 - 19


Next week was really easy to book. Benjamin Button was already booked in from last week. It was available for the current week but I had already booked in Marley and Me and Bride Wars. The only question was whether or not to have a late show next week. Because of the running time of Button a late show would have been at 10:15, really late for us. I would only play something really youth oriented that wasn't too long in this case. If it had been available I might have played Taken but it's not available yet.


Turned out there were no new movies available. Yes Man is still hanging around but I didn't want to play it that late. It ended up with just one show of Button at 7pm. One of my projectionists was afraid I was going to play two shows of Button. The late show wouldn't have been over until 1:30 AM. I don't think that would have worked too well.


I discovered today I screwed up some, I waited forever for The Hyland to play Rachel Getting Married and haven't had a chance to play it since they finished with it. It came out on video today so it looks like I won't be playing it. I usually keep a better eye on video dates to avoid this kind of situation.


On a similar note, I don't think we will be playing Slumdog until after it comes out on video. Fox annoyed me and most of the exhibitors by setting the DVD release date as Mar 31 even though it's still doing well in theatres. This has happened before and we still do well with a big title like this even if it has just come out on video. I would imagine all the first run theatres will drop it the week it comes out on DVD so I can pick it up then.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Yes, I paid to watch a movie that was all commercials.


I was in Toronto a couple weekends ago for some training. I had the evenings free so I figured I would see a movie or two. I decided to check the listings for the Bloor Cinema. The Bloor is an old style repertory theatre that plays second run, old stuff and an eclectic mix of new stuff. I'd pretty much go every night if I lived in Toronto. They run Rocky Horror once a month and do things like they recently played a bunch of old James Bond movies.

The theatre is cool. It's an old theatre that's still fairly intact and has that run down feeling that's cool. About the only complaint I would have is the fairly small, almost square screen, it wouldn't look too good for widescreen films.

However for what I was there for it worked fine. I went to see the World's Best Commercials Festival, so it literally was about a movie length of commercials, most were TV commercials but some were Internet and almost short films.

Now you may think it strange that I would pay for such an experience but when I noticed it on their schedule I was quite excited. The New Yorker theatre here in London used to bring this in every year. It was always fun and really popular.

Some of the commercials were public service type but most were for products and most were funny. I laughed more during that festival than I have for any comedy recently.


Some may ask why I don't bring this festival to Western Film? I'd love to do so but I don't think I can for several reasons.

It's only available on video and I don't feel our video system is worth charging money for.

There wouldn't be enough demand to play it all week.

I've pretty much given up on single showings except for things like advance screenings. It's too expensive and too hard to promote and get any kind of crowd out.


For some weird reason I feel this may change in a few years, as cinemas switch to digital projection they will start to show things other than movies, ballet, opera, football games in 3-D etc. Cinemas will become more like entertainment centers and people will get used to the idea of going to the cinema for than just movies again.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Cool new trailer for Terminator Salvation


I haven't been too excited for the new Terminator film. The last one was good but nothing special. In many ways the new one looked like a transformers rip-off. About it's only saving grace was Christian Bale starring.

However the second full length trailer is out and I'm much more pumped now. This trailer gives a better idea what the story is than just a bunch of admittedly cool looking action sequences.


Hopefully the movie is as good as it looks.


Next Week's Films Mar 6 - 12



A happy coincidence occurred for next week that I was able to use to Western Film's advantage. Marley and Me has been available for a couple weeks but I was playing other films. Because it was from Fox I wasn't going to be able to split it so I was waiting for a week where nothing else good was available. I was told last week that Bride Wars would be available for next week but is also from Fox so it couldn't be split. Fox doesn't allow splits more because they don't want to share the screen than anything else. Sometimes I will take their movies but only play one show a night if the movie doesn't warrant a late show.


So it occurred to me to ask if they would let me split Marley and Me and Bride Wars since they are both Fox films. Someone must have been in a good mood since they said yes, to my mild surprise.


This works out great. Marley and Me probably was worth 2 shows a night but I really didn't want to do that. Bride Wars I doubt I would have been able to play at all.


I made Marley and Me the early show since it has more broad appeal. I think some people thought it was a kid's film so some of them will likely show up. Bride Wars appeals mostly to younger females so they will come out for the late show.




Benjamin Button was also available so I booked it in for the playweek starting March 13th.