I hope they make another Simpson's Movie.

I find the Simpson's generally brilliant and usually funny. The movie was great.

Next Week's Movies Aug 31 - Sep 6.

Next week is Frosh Week here at Western so I try to pick popular movies the students want to see, even if we have already played them. If the weather is bad or they don't want to do whatever O-Week event is happening the Frosh often come to the movies.

I try hard to make sure the Frosh know Western Film is here. Every so often I'll hear a 2nd or third year student say they didn't know we were here?! I can understand never having come to see a movie but I don't understand how anyone on campus can not know we exist. We have big signs outside, display cases with movie posters and other posters throughout campus.

I kept Ted for a second week as it is a great Frosh Week movie, popular, funny, and a good break from the chaos of frosh week. I try to have a guy movie and a girl movie for frosh week. Ted is basically a guy movie although most girls like it as well. I was hoping to play Brave for the other movie but it's not available yet so I brought Magic Mike back.

There wasn't anything new to pick from anyway.


The following week will probably be Total Recall and something else. I think my choices may be limited as I don't see a lot of movies that might come available so it might be another week of Ted.

Why Western Film isn't playing Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

We've had a fair number of requests for the movie but it looks like we won't be playing it. There's a few reasons for this, some of which intertwine.

#1 The distributor is Fox Searchlight. Fox puts restrictions on bookings which prevent me from playing a lot of their films. They won't allow the screen to be 'split' with another movie that week so Marigold would have to be given it's own week. I maybe could have done that if we had gotten it during the summer.

#2 The students are back and we need to play as many popular films as possible in September. Generally Sept is our busiest month and offsets losses from the quieter months. If I could play something like Ted after a 7pm screening of Marigold that might work but Fox won't let me.

#3 The movie has been playing at various theatres in the city for the entire summer. The Hyland has had it for many weeks. I figure the odds are good a lot of the people who want to see it have already seen it.

#4 We weren't able to get it during the summer because The Hyland kept playing it and we have to wait for them to finish.  Even if they dropped it the 35mm film print probably would have left to go to another city.

#5 To be blunt, we would sell hardly any snacks to the crowd that would come to Marigold. I could live with that if we could have played it during the summer when there wasn't a lot of other options.

#6 Some of the adult crowd seems to avoid the campus during the school year.

#7 The crowd that would have come to Marigold won't go to late shows so I couldn't play Marigold twice a night yet couldn't play something more appropriate for late shows due to Fox's rules.


That's an unusually detailed explanation but it was a really tough call on this film.