Movie Review - Eastern Promises

This is the new film from director David Cronenberg starring Viggo Mortensen who was was also in Cronenberg's last film A History of Violence. The film is a bit slow but has really well developed characters. Viggo does great job of making his character truly scary. There was one plot twist that I saw coming. It's also extremely violent in a very realistic way that some people won't like. One of it's best known parts is a several minute fight seen in a sauna with Viggo totally naked. It was an interesting choice. They avoided the movie cliche of him wearing a towel which miraculously never falls off. There's also an extra dimension showing the vulnerability of the naked body. It was edited in such a way that Viggo's 'bits' as the British call them were not shown much. I booked it for next week so it's going to play at Western Film.

Next Week's Movies

Next week wasn't too hard to book. There were 4 new movies available.

-Resident Evil 3- a fun movie but not the kind of film that does well at Western Film.

Sydney White - aimed at young girls, too young to be students.

Superbad - finally, I booked it in, if it doesn't do really well I'll be truly shocked. The only thing that may reduce the numbers is how busy the students are with mid-terms etc.

Eastern Promises - I booked this in as the late show. It sorta should have been an early show because of it's serious nature and cinephile appeal because it's directed by David Cronenberg. However it's really violent so the art crowd may not come anyway. Violent movies usually make for good late shows.

The next movie I expect to do well is Across the Universe. Not sure what else will be played soon, most of the films coming out recently, especially serious ones, haven't been doing too well.

Movie Review - Elizabeth The Golden Age.

I'm way behind on my movie reviews so I'm going to do a bunch of short ones to catch up.

Elizabeth I was really looking forward to, I remember the first one being really good, I'm pretty sure it was the first time most people had heard of Cate Blanchett. The new one was not as good as I expected but was still good. Cate was really good, I see possible Oscar nomination. The sets and wardrobes were the most spectacular part of the film. I found it similar to the first film in having a hard time following the story. I also got the impression I was supposed to know things and recognize people I didn't, possibly from the first movie. Still worth watching. it will be playing at Western Film.

Next Week's Movies

I'm a little behind on this post since these movies started earlier today. On Monday there were some new movies available.


3:10 To Yuma,- good film, not a lot of press but good word of mouth. Surprisingly has the highest gross of any movie released in the fall. (after Labour Day)





Good Luck Chuck- Wasn't a bad movie but people heard it was bad so it wouldn't have done well. In general these 'stupid' comedies don't do well at Western Film any more.

Mr Bean. - Not enough interest.

I decided to play Yuma for the 7:00 show but was a bit unsure about the late show. I checked on a couple films that I thought would make good late shows. Eastern Promises was holding at the Silver City. The Hyland was keeping Shake Hands with the Devil.





I ended up booking one of my reserve films, The Nanny Diaries. I figured it could do well since it didn't do too bad first run and while it didn't get a lot of good buzz it didn't get a lot of bad buzz either. Plus as I've said before, films aimed at women are very popular at Western Film. It could be a bomb though. Probably has a better chance of doing well than Good Luck Chuck which actually grossed more first run.

Superbad may be coming sooner than I expected. Sony usually put 2 weeks between first and second run but our Booker said they have been moving it straight over in many markets. So there is a possibility it might come next week.

PS. I'm writing this post Late Friday night after the first showings of these films and I'm glad to report that it looks like Nanny was a good gamble, it did quite well. Yuma did better than I expected which was nice. We'll see how the week plays out.

Next Week's Movies

There were a couple good choices this week. The Bourne Ultimatum and The Brave One. Mr. Woodcock was also available but we aren't going to play that one. I think there was something else but it was so off the radar I can't even remember. The only minor decision was which one to play first. Being a more serious movie I would normally have put The Brave One at 7pm. Also Jodie Foster is popular among older women who tend not to go to the late show. Bourne really needed to be the early show because it was so much more popular though. I'm hoping enough people will want to see The Brave One to go to the late show.

About the only big movie I'm waiting on is Superbad. There's better movies opening in the next little while so things should start to come off. This weekend alone has Michael Clayton, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and We Own the Night.

Poster of the Week - There will Be Blood.

This poster is for an upcoming movie that looks really good and has already got a lot of press. It's called There Will be Blood and it stars Daniel Day-Lewis and was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. I've never understood the appeal of Day-Lewis, everyone seems to think he's this great actor, on the other hand I've never been much impressed by Marlon Brando who is supposed to the greatest actor ever.

I do like Paul Thomas Anderson though. He did Boogie Nights and the magnificently twisted Magnolia.

The story is about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business. It sounds fascinating. It's scheduled for release Dec 26th.

My Poster Collection - Condorman

Yet another poster for a silly movie no one has ever heard of. I think I got this poster out of a selection of 500 random posters Western Film bought from a dealer back when we bought posters to sell. The only significant thing about the poster/movie is that Michael Crawford starred in it. About the time I got the poster he was pretty big because he was playing The Phantom of The Opera in either Toronto or London England.

Movie Review - Across the Universe

When I first saw the the trailer for Across the Universe I had two thoughts. I want to see this movie and it's going to be one of those movies where some people will really like it and others won't 'get' it. I was right on the second point and I pretty much didn't get it. However other people have really liked it so this is one movie where a person really has to make up their own mind. I heard some of the other people in the audience as we left saying how much they liked it.

If I had to sum up the film in one sentence it would be Rent with Beatles songs.

I liked the movie but not as much as I thought I would, the story was interesting and I thought it was creative the way they intertwined the names, characters and story lines of various Beatles's songs. Part of the reason I didn't like it as much is my personal preferences as far as music goes. I tend to like faster music with a beat and music that reaches a crescendo or some sort of energy level. The songs in the film seemed to be slowed down and never got above a certain energy level that I wanted. Honestly it could just have been the volume was too low though. The visual sequences were quite wild and personally, I think the movie may have been designed to be watched while stoned.

As an example of the music issue I have embedded the trailer below. I like the part where it reaches a crescendo just after Hey Jude starts. The original song does something similar. However the movie doesn't.

This film will most likely be playing at Western Film. I think there will be enough people who want to see it and it's the kind of movie some people will want to see more than once.

Next Week's Movies

The decision for next week was pretty easy. There wasn't anything new available. I still had Stardust waiting and Fox finally let me split Die Hard so I booked those two in. However I don't expect either to be really busy with Thanksgiving weekend.

Bourne Ultimatum should come off soon. Then there's the more iffy ones like Mr. Bean and Nanny Diaries.

A really interesting movie poster discovery.

We have been selling off old movie posters from a huge stock we have. As posters have sold out of our displays I have been refilling the displays with posters rolled up in a cabinet. We had over 650 titles with multiple copies of most so that's a lot of posters.

I was looking through the posters to fill a display and noticed a smaller than usual rolled poster that I had always thought was Escape from LA. It turned out to be an original advance for Escape from New York! It's in really good shape with only a couple pinholes. I checked on ebay and there was one on there for $455?! It was in better shape than mine but not a lot better. I was surprised at the price because ebay has generally lowered prices for most collectibles. That poster must be truly rare. I figure I'll throw mine on ebay later and see what happens.

My Poster Collection - The Last of Sheila

Another mystery poster, I think I got this poster when I collected on Raquel Welch for a while. She's the bottom one of the little heads in the question mark. I doubt this poster is worth more than few dollars.

Things don't always work out / Weirdsville

I was contacted by a distributor named Equinoxe about playing a Canadian film called Weirdsville. Apparently it is aimed at the student type market. It stars a couple somewhat well-known guys, Wes Bentley who was in American Beauty and Scott Speedman who was in the Underworld movies and Felicity. The trailer made it look like a quirky black comedy, I was looking forward to seeing it. It's about a couple of stoners who try to hide the body of a woman who overdosed, involves Satan worshippers as well.

I was going to play it as it looked interesting and I try to support Canadian films when I can.

However playing it would have been a bit of a risk. The release date is Oct 5th so I would have had to commit to the movie for that week without knowing what else might have been available. There hasn't been a lot of promotion and when they contacted me there wasn't a lot of time left before it was supposed to come out. Playing a movie that hasn't been promoted enough is a guarantee of an empty theatre. They did send me a trailer which a few of you may have seen, it played in front of a couple shows of Hairspray. They also sent me some posters. The posters were a clue I might not want to play the film. They were smaller than the standard movie poster size. It may not seem like a big deal but it signals a low promotion budget to me.

The sticking point was the admission price. This would have been a first run showing which normally carries a higher admission price. However I tried charging $7.50 for a first run movie called Paper Clips once and it didn't work very well. Even through I tried to make it clear as possible the price was different for Paper Clips only. I still had people thinking we had raised our prices for all movies. I also had people showing up expecting to pay $4.25. As a result I don't want to try that again so I told Equinoxe I would only charge our usual $4.24.

Equinoxe decided they couldn't open the film at $4.24 so we won't be playing it. I pulled the trailer and posters.

I think they probably shot themselves in the foot. Unless the film does well in the larger cities or the Hyland picks it up it probably won't play in theaters anywhere in London now.

Who knows maybe we'll end up playing it later if it does get some press, but I doubt it.

Special Presentations Hatchet / Thing-Fest.

There's a couple special films coming to Western Film in October.

On Oct 19 and 20th at midnight we are playing a horror movie called Hatchet. Apparently it's a homage to the slasher flicks of the 80's and is funny as well as gory. Some of the actors who played various movie bad guys in the 80's make appearances. Robert Englund who played Freddy Kruger, Kane Hodder who played Jason in the Friday the 13th films and Tony Todd who played The Candyman.
It's a first run exclusive showing. The distributor contacted me about doing the showing a couple weeks ago. It's basically a promo for the DVD release of the film which I'm not really keen on but that's the way things are going. The distributor sent me a whole bunch of posters so I'm going to go around to the various comic book store and see if they will help promote the show.




The following weekend there will be a showing at Midnight on Saturday Oct 27th of John Carpenter's classic The Thing as part of Thing-Fest . This is the 7th year of the fest. These guys are serious fans. They went out to B.C. and found the original shooting locations where there were still some remnants of the sets. I've been surprised at the lengths people have gone to to see the movie, literally. There was a guy from Ireland one year, a few who had come from the US and I got an e-mail a few days ago from a guy who's coming from New York this year. He was worried we would sell out on him. The theatre seats 375 so I don't think it will be an issue.

Next Week's Movies

I actually knew in the middle of last week what would be playing starting Friday. I was told The Simpsons Movie would be available but Fox wouldn't let me split it, not even with another Fox title, Die Hard.

I figured Simpsons was one of the few Fox movies I could play both shows each night so I was willing to play it and not wait for Fox to let me split it as I'm doing with Die Hard.

However there were two movies I would have bumped Simpsons for, Bourne Ultimatum and Superbad. I checked and both were still doing really well and the odds of them coming available were low, really low.

So I booked in The Simpson's Movie for 7:00 and 9:00 shows. I'm looking forward to seeing it again myself.

It turned out there were a bunch of films available but nothing I would rather play than the Simpsons.

Death Sentence - Fox so no splits plus bombed.

Halloween- we don't play horror, no one comes.

Balls of Fury - small, only somewhat funny, movies don't do well here.

Brothers Solomon - apparently one of the worst movies ever made so not likely.

Sunshine - anyone who reads this blog knows my opinion on this film and I would have loved to play it but it's from Fox and unfortunately it just doesn't have enough awareness for enough people to show up even though it's a great movie.

The Nanny Diaries- This is what is commonly known as a 'chick flick' and not a bad one I hear. Western Film does really well with movies aimed at women so I do plan to play it.

For the following week unless Bourne is available I might play Nanny Diaries and either Stardust or Die Hard if Fox will let me split it. Nanny Diaries and Stardust in the same week might overload the chick flick market though.

Sony has this really annoying policy of putting two weeks between when a film comes off first run and is available to second run so Superbad will be at least two weeks away, probably more like four.

A Brief History of Western Film.

For those of you joining the program already in progress I thought I'd give a bit of a back story to Western Film.



Western Film stated as student club called the Western Film Society sometime in the early 80's. I have some paperwork and schedules from 1982.



At some point the name was changed to Western Film Community. At this point WFC was still a student club. Members worked 'shifts' in the theatre.



WFC ran 16 mm films on the weekend in Middlesex College rm 110. Usually 3 or 4 different movies a weekend, a mix of new stuff and old stuff. This was before home video was as popular as it is now. We brought back things like Bill and Ted's Excellent Journey, Scarface, Die Hard. Heavy Metal was really popular because at the time it wasn't available on video at all, just film.



I joined around 88/89. I became a VP and then President.

Around 1993 it was getting harder and harder to operate as a 16 mm theatre. The distributor we had to use was ordering fewer 16 mm prints. So we faced a choice between going to video or going to 35mm film which is what most theatres used. With video projection at that time even an expensive projector looked like crap. So we decided to go 35mm.

At the time a license was needed to run 35mm equipment in Ontario. Luckily I was working in a magazine/variety store downtown at the time and knew a projectionist who agreed to train me and fib a bit on how many hours I had apprenticed. It was supposed to be 800 hrs. I did about 50 but that was enough. The licence was largely a holdover from when the film was flammable. However one was still supposed to do the apprenticeship and do a written and practical exam to get the licence.

The USC bought 35 mm film equipment and installed it in Middlesex 110. We had to get the University to expand the existing projection booth. Even still it was pretty tight. I had to crawl under each projector to get to the other. We were running 20 minute reels with switchovers so I often had to do it in the dark and in a hurry.

About a year later the UCC was renovated and we moved into the McKellar room. Before the renovation it was just a big square one story room. During the renovations they added the second story and the balcony.

There were a few things that sucked. Because the room is oriented on the diagonal we had to settle for a fairly small motorized screen in the back corner of the stage. I think it was 20 feet wide. The floor was flat with these silly little chairs that hooked together. The only door into the booth was on the far side away from the entrance.

Basically it was the old multipurpose room that ends up good for nothing, the acoustics were good for live stuff but bad for movies.

I trained and we licensed a couple of other members to do the projection.

It was about this time I left to work full time as a projectionist at Famous and Cineplex which at the time paid really well (mostly because the union controlled all the licences). I was also running my home business selling collectible magazines.

Right around 1999 the projectionist thing was coming to an end. The government had, to many
people's surprise, eliminated the apprenticeship part of the licence. Cineplex and Famous immediately began 'training' their managers and getting them licensed by writing the test.

In the time I was gone WFC had become Western Film, had gotten actual theatre seats put in, put a door on the other end of the booth, started running 7 days a week with paid staff and a full time manager. This was mostly done by my friend Mark Maclellan who was president of WFC after me for a couple years then ended up working there full time. He was promoted to the manager of Entertainment Productions of which Western Film was a part. Someone else ran Western Film for about a year then quit.

At this point I saw the end coming with projection at Cineplex, I figured it was only a matter of time before they eliminated the licences entirely. The wages had already started to come down since the union had lost a lot of it's bargaining power. Luckily the job at Western Film opened up and I applied for and got it. I had a 35mm licence which was still needed at the time, was familiar with the organization and loved movie theatres.

This was in November 2000. The next summer we put in the current, larger, screen and a better theatre sound system. That was the last really big project we had until this summer when we finally got our permanent concession stand instead of pushing it all out on carts every night.

So we come to the current Western Film. At some point we are going to put in a Dolby Digital sound system. We have DTS digital sound but it has a big weakness in that the CD-Roms have to come with the print which doesn't always happen. With Dolby the digital sound is on the film.

The next big thing will be the replacement of the 35mm equipment with a Digital Projector. I figure about 2010 it's going to start getting hard to get 35 mm prints in a similar fashion as happened before with 16mm.

These is one other possibility: the USC is taking over the gyms when Campus Rec moves out. I've always thought they would make a nice little three or four plex. Not likely to happen but I can dream can't I?

This looks like my kinda film.

This is the new trailer for a film called Southland Tales which looks pretty cool. It's look weird, violent and over the top, just my kinda film. It's from the director who did Donnie Darko so that says a lot. It seems to have a ton of actors in it. I think I even saw Christoper Lambert in it at the very end. It apparently comes out on November 9th. Something tells me it probably won't open in London. Maybe it will do well enough as a cult film for Western Film to play.

My Poster Collection - Space Hunter in 3-D!

This is the advance poster for a very bad sci-fi film from 1983. The standard post-apocalyptic sci-fi of the time complete with bad special effects and bad acting. It was Molly Ringwald's second movie, somehow she managed to survive the stigma and ended up in the John Hughes movies that made her an icon.

The regular poster showed the actors so it's more popular. On ebay this poster seems to go for about $15.00.

The movie was in 3-D but I don't think I saw it in 3-D. It had all the usual bad 3-D moves, people throwing things at the camera, pointing, ships flying over etc.

It's on DVD if you want to catch a laugh.

Movie Review - Mr. Woodcock

This was one of those films that it was hard to tell from the trailers whether it was good or crap. There was some good stuff in the trailer that suggested it could be good but maybe all the good stuff was in the trailer? I like Seann William Scott as a comedic actor and Billy Bob Thornton plays a good slimeball. The final product was somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it but it wasn't the funniest movie I'd seen recently. The ending was kind of week. Still worth watching. I don't think it will be playing at Western Film. Comedies that don't get good buzz generally don't do well. The closest comparison is the similar School For Scoundrels from last year. I played that at Western Film and it didn't do very well.

The poster sucks. Not interesting and very obvious photoshopping.

Movie Review - Shoot 'em Up.

I've been looking forward to this film since I saw the trailer. It looked like a lot of fun. It's basically a live action Bugs Bunny cartoon including carrots and 'What's Up Doc?'. It's sheer over the top, campy fun. The level of suspension of disbelief required has rarely been higher than in this film. I've talked to a few people who've seen it and some loved it, others thought it was too over the top. It shares many of the aspects of cartoons, logic problems such as how the bad guys keep knowing where Mr. Smith is and a certain amount of bending the laws of physics and time/space.

I quite enjoyed the film. It did lack something that I can't quite define, something that would have made it even better. I think it may have had something to do with the direction.

Western Film may play it. We don't normally play smaller action films but I think this one is sufficiently different that it would do well here. It'll depend on what else is available.

Next Week's Movies

There were 2 films available for next week.

Harry Potter- Naturally I booked this one in. It's good that we got it before the students get too far into mid-terms etc.

Stardust- I do plan to play this but it wouldn't work well as a late show after Potter because it's not a late show kind of film and Potter is long so the late show next week starts quite late.

Hairspray has been doing really well, by Sunday it had already done more than some movies do all week. I decided it would make a good late show after Potter so it's playing at 9:45.

Fox still won't let me split Die Hard, too bad, it would have made a good late show after Potter.

My Poster Collection - Risky Business

This is an original one sheet for Risky Business in mint shape. This would have been worth a lot of money a while ago. Still, one place is Toronto wants $138 for one with tape marks. There's an ebay store that wants about $250 for one.

I'd love to get this poster framed. It's one of my farvorite movies and posters. However framing a poster this big costs about $150.00

Hollywood has been cured of it sequalitis temporarily.

The past summer broke records as the highest grossing summer ever. It was largely due to the preponderance of sequels. it was called the summer of threequels.

Pirates 3
Rush Hour 3
Spider-Man Three
Shrek Three
Bourne 3.
Ocean's Thirteen


there were sequels- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Die Hard 4, Harry Potter,
There were also semi-sequels, Mr. Bean's Vacation, Daddy Daycare, Evan Almighty.

The interesting thing is the relative lack of sequels coming up, this Christmas there are practically none. In fact a staff member and I were discussing the other day how neither of us could think of more than couple movies coming out at Christmas. I am Legend and Bee movie were most prominent.

There are a couple sequels coming up. Elizabeth: the Golden Age I would call a semi-sequel. Saw 4 is coming at Halloween. Alien Vs Predator 2. National Treasure 2. That's it for Christmas. There are remakes, I am Legend is a not obvious remake of The Omega Man.

Looking at next summer it's almost all original titles with only a few sequels. The big one being Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The only other ones listed are The Dark Night (Batman), Hellboy 2, Chronicles of Narnia 2. The Mummy 3, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 whatever that is.
.There's also James Bond 22 next Christmas. One site says the next Harry Potter film is next Christmas, not sure if that's right.

It will be interesting to see if the 'original' stuff can do as well as the massively hyped sequels with built in fan bases and awareness.

Harry Potter now top grossing series.

Warner Bros has announced the Harry Potter movies are now the highest grossing series of movies beating out James Bond and Star Wars. These numbers are somewhat subject to interpretation. If you include inflation the Bond movies are higher, and probably Star Wars as well. However in straight dollars Potter will be champ for a while. There's still 2 Potter movies to come out and unless someone screws up pretty bad that should add about another billion in worldwide gross. There (supposedly) won't be any more Star Wars movies. The James Bond series will keep going but they don't make anywhere near what one Harry Potter movie does.

More info here.

Simpons meet Star Wars

Another example of the creativity unleashed by the internet and youtube. There's a whole series of these.

Jim Emerson's advice to Hollywood.

Jim Emerson is a film critic who I find most interesting after Roger Ebert. He filed a lot of reviews for Roger Ebert while Ebert was off sick. He recently posted this article which I found quite interesting. It's his advice to Hollywood including such items as:

Quit relying on sequels.
Allow talent to develop. One film should not make or break a career.
Don't sully a good film or series of films by making bad sequels.
More nudity, less violence: this would be fine in most of the world but the prudes in the US would freak.
Embrace new technology instead of fighting it.

If you are interested in a more serious discussion about films then I would recommend you check out his blog Scanners.

Movie Review - Balls Of Fury

This will be a short one. The trailers made this film look like a stupid film with some funny bits. That's pretty much what it delivered. I'm willing to bet the script was bet for Jack Black. The lead actor was basically doing a Jack Black impersonation. Christoper Walken was funny. He was in it more than I expected.

Personally I think the only reason this film didn't go straight to video is Christoper Walken. This won't be playing at Western Film.

My Poster Collection - Tequila Sunrise

This is a kinda cool poster starring Mel Gibson, Michelle Pffeifer and Kurt Russell back when they were bigger stars and Mel wasn't crazy. I was a big fan of Mel for a while. I don't remember much about the movie itself. The poster is a little faded. You can tell the movie was from a while ago since the poster has been folded. It has been a while since posters were sent folded.

Next Week's Movies

Next week was easy to book. There were only two movies available, both of which I had planned to play.

Hairspray- I expect this to do well, some people seemed to love it, other didn't, one of those weird films.

Rush Hour 3- I'm curious about this one as it was highly anticipated but didn't do as well as hoped.

Stardust wasn't available yet which I find surprising, especially since it opened before Rush Hour. I wasn't sure whether to play it but I think I probably will. It's got legs as they say in the biz.

My booker was also checking on Harry Potter so it should come soon.

I'm also waiting for Fox to let me split Die Hard 4.

Next Week's Movies

There were initially no new movies available. I decided to bring in Chuck and Larry which I could have had this week but didn't want yet. I also decided to bring in No Reservations which had come available sometime in the last couple weeks. We usually do well with films aimed at women.

After I had booked and done some advertising I was told Rush Hour 3 was available after all. It'll probably play the week after.

I'm waiting for Fox to let me split Die Hard 4 before I play it.

Hairspray should come off soon. I was kinda surprised it wasn't available for next week.

Sorry for not posting - Frosh Week.

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days. This week is Frosh/ Orientation week at UWO so I've been working about 12 hours a day. My staff and I have been handing out popcorn samples and running a draw where the students pick up their bus passes as well as running the theatre at night. This is typically one of the busiest weeks of the year.
Next week I'll be back to posting pretty much every day.

Unrelated post but so cute and funny.

I found this video on Youtube. It's so cute and funny at the same time. I love the way it's edited to the music. Youtube has unleashed such a torrent of creativity. Hollywood would be wise to learn from it.

Movie Review - War

This is a smaller action movie a lot of people probably haven't heard of, it didn't get a lot of press. I didn't see much on it until about a week before it came out. I was really looking forward to it as it stars Jason Statham, one of my favorite actors. Jet Li is the villain and he's usually good too.
It was a serviceable movie, not horrible but not really good either. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Some good action and things blow up real good.
It was one of those movies with hyper kinetic editing that makes it hard to see what's going on.

The thing that pissed me off was how they used the two stars. Jet Li is a star because of his martial arts skills not his acting skills. Jason is a better actor but also has a martial arts background. He did all his own stunts in the Transporter films. There's only short scene with the two of the fighting.

For most of the film, and especially that scene, the film is edited the same way a film would be edited to make a non-skilled fighter look like a master. Short shots of body parts hitting things, shots that could be stuntmen etc. Both these guys are skilled fighters so why not let them show it off?!
Plus Jason never takes his shirt off.
Even if it was good this film wouldn't play at Western Film. These small action films never do well at Western Film.

I'm so embarassed.

There's this song I've heard quite a few times on the radio etc that I really liked but didn't know who sang it. It's quite poppy and sung by a young sounding woman so I figured it was Lindsay Lohan or Kelly Clarkson or someone like that.

On the advice of one of my staff I typed a few of the lyrics into google and found out who the singer is: Paris Hilton.

I'm so embarrassed, but I still like the song.

I want my long shot and steadicam back!

There's been some talk about a couple trends showing up in films-

A long shot is basically a shot taken from a distance where the whole scene can be seen. Movies like Transformers have more or less eliminated them. The action seems to be quick shots of only parts of the action. I know I found it hard to watch, even the second time I had trouble figuring out what was happening half the time. I can only remember one shot of the final battle where the characters are seen from a distance.

The Bourne Ultimatum has sparked quite a controversy over it's almost constantly moving and shaking image. It's so bad it has made some people nauseous. I found it annoying but tolerable. There's quite a post on it on one of my favorite movie blogs Scanners. Some people say it's a way of increasing excitement, others say it's a way of disguising bad acting or direction. A steadicam is a mechanism that ... steadies a camera, and I wish they had used one for more of this film.

Next Week's Movie(s)

Next week is an important week since a lot of the new students go to Western Film during that week. I pick movies for that week carefully.

There were quite a few new movies available.

Die Hard 4- Fox so couldn't split, will wait until I can.

Chuck and Larry- normally would have played it but decided to wait a week. Wanted a better movie for Frosh Week, something a bit more adult than the low-brow and somewhat homophobic humour in Chuck and Larry.

The Invasion - huge bomb, not going to play here.

Daddy Day Camp - don't get me started on this one.

Underdog - big bomb and too kiddy for Western Film.

I decided to keep Transformers another week since it has been doing well and is a good Frosh Week entertaining film. Frosh week is not a week one wants to play a serious film. I decided to bring back Knocked Up for the early show as it is funny, popular and appeals to pretty much everyone.

Hairspray should be coming off soon so the week after might be Chuck and Larry and Hairspray.

Hi-Def DVD wars.

There's a war going on between two formats of High Definition DVD's. One is called Blu-ray and is backed by Sony, the other is HD-DVD and is backed by Toshiba and others.

The big story this week was Paramount/Dreamworks decision to release films only in HD-DVD after releasing films in both formats before. It was suspected and quickly confirmed that Paramount had basically been bribed into doing so for $150 million over the next 18 months.

HD-DVD took this step because it's losing the war, Blu-Ray is outselling it by 3 to 1 and many stores have started to carry only Blu-Ray.

The problem is this is just going to prolong the war because sooner or later the marketplace will decide which one will stay. With two competing and incompatible systems most consumers are confused and don't want to commit to one system. If you buy a bunch of HD-DVDs and it loses you have the equivalent of a laserdisc, cool at the time but pretty much useless now.

There's a lot of comparisons between Hi-Def and the VHS/BETA wars of the ealy 80's. The general consensus is that Beta was better technically but VHS was better marketed. Beta also suffered from a shorter recording time. I read somewhere the other day that war lasted 10 years. If that is true the hi-def war will last even longer.

There's one big difference between the two wars.

With the VHS/Beta war there was no other way to watch or record tv or films. Consumers were more or less forced to make a decision. Now there are still DVDs and PVR and Video on Demand so hi-def is not an necessity, just an improvement.

I know I'm going to be one of those who wait until the war is over before I buy a hi-def player, plus I can't afford one.

My Poster Collection - Back to the Beach.

This one of my guilty pleasures from 1987. For some reason I really liked this film even though I wasn't familiar with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The movie is fun and has some good musical numbers. I went to see it twice at the theatre but I don't think I've seen it since.

Movie Review- Superbad

I did an earlier post about this film. The subject was how different the regular and R-rated trailers made the movie look. When I first saw the regular trailer I though the movie looked bad. Then I saw the R rated version on the Internet and the movie looked a lot funnier. Now I know why, because 95% of the funniness in the movie couldn't be shown in a regular trailer.

Superbad was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long while. If you thought Knocked Up was raunchy then you ain't seen nothing yet. Superbad was really raunchy, it probably wins or comes close to #1 in a contest to fit the most swear words in a movie.

It was similar to Knocked Up but a more juvenile sense of humour. It took me a while to get interested but the high school types around me seemed to love it. There were a few segments that were really, really funny. It was also one of those movies where you miss parts because people are still laughing at the previous stuff.

I will say I though some of the jokes went a little too far. I would imagine some of the women in the audience were uncomfortable with some of the jokes and I wasn't crazy about the gay jokes either.

This will be playing at Western Film in a month or so.

Is it illegal to advertise birth control pills?

I'm asking this question because of some of the commercials I saw before Superbad tonight. A while ago there was Alesse which did a lot of advertising but never said what the product was. A shot of a package of pills was the only reference.

One of the commercials came on and it showed some women/girls frolicking and having fun with their friends. At the end a similar looking product was referenced. The audience thought it was funny even though I don't think it was supposed to be.
The next commercial was very similar and also showed a similar product. The products had names but not explicitly labelled as birth control.

I thought the tone of the ads was interesting. Girls having fun with each other, being free, dancing but not a man in sight. Presumably a man is needed to prevent what birth control pills are supposed to prevent.

I guess they are trying to create an association between being free and in control and the product without stating what they would be free of.

I wonder if these ads are a sneaky way of getting around some law that says you can't advertise these pills or are they trying to avoid getting accused of 'corrupting' young folk by encouraging them to have sex without having to worry about an unwanted pregnancy.

One other thing, I wonder if the two advertisers know their ads are played one after the other. The audience got quite a kick out of the fact there were 2 birth control ads in a row. Sort of undermines the effectiveness of both ad campaigns.

My Poster Collection - A Wedding.

I have no idea why I have this poster. It's a 1973 movie called A Wedding. I liked Lauren Hutton for a while so I may have bought it then. I may also have got it in a mass buy of posters I did for Western Film many moons ago and kept it since it did have a couple collectible names on it.

Next Week's Movies

Booking for next week was pretty easy. The only major movie available was Transformers. Since it was one of the biggest hits of the summer I figured I should probably play it. I debated doing a late show. Earlier in the summer I probably would have only run one show at 7pm, especially since it's so long. However I decided to run a late show for a few reasons.

-I've noticed students seem to be coming back already.

-It's the kind of movie pretty much everyone sees and some people watch more than once so I figure we'll be busy enough to warrant a late show.

-It's a late show kind of movie.

-My staff and I have a lot of stuff to do to get ready for Frosh Week so we'd be there anyway.

The next playweek after this goes into Labour Day and Frosh week so it's a very important week. We want to have good choices for the new students to see so they visit Western Film and know it's there. At this point I would play Knocked Up and Transformers but I'll see what comes off.

Fox probably won't let me split Die Hard 4 so it will be a couple weeks for that one.

One of my staff and I have a 25 cent bet. He thinks The Simpsons Movie will be available for Frosh Week. I'll be very very surprised if he wins. He wins if it's available even if I don't play it. Even if it was off the other theatres Fox would want per caps or wouldn't let me split it. I'm not playing only one movie during Frosh Week.

I'm giving away the Transformers stuff I received at ShowCanada next week. Each person can fill out a ballot when they buy their tickets. The prize pack is a Transformers gym bag and a Bee-otch car freshener as seen in the film.

Western Film's very own Diet Coke fountain of delight

We had a bit of a mess a couple days ago. Western Film uses canisters of pop under the counter. We can't use the syrup most restaurants use since we don't have a water supply. The canisters are full of pop and there is a bottle of CO2 hooked into the system. CO2 is what gives pop it's fizz. In this case the CO2 not only makes sure the pop is carbonated but is under pressure and pushes the pop out the tap.

Each canister has two nozzles on it, one for CO2 in and the other for pop out. Occasionally the canisters get over pressurized and come out really foamy. It's a weird kind of foam that doesn't settle fast so it really slows us down. Diet Coke is especially bad for this, especially when it's warm.

To solve the foam issue we depressurize the canister by letting some of the CO2 out. We push down on a little valve in the center of the nozzle that lets in the CO2 and let some out.

One of my staff went to do this and a quite spectacular event occurred. I'm sorta sad I wasn't around to witness it.

Diet Coke started spraying everywhere, it was all over the carts, the floor, our juice fridge and the ceiling! One of my staff who was trying to stop it got soaked in pop.

It took about an hour to clean it all up. I ended up on a ladder wiping off the ceiling. Luckily it didn't stain. There was one section that was a little higher than the rest and was right beside the atrium. I couldn't reach it without getting higher on the ladder than I wanted to. Me and heights don't get along. I ended up getting a paint roller and covering it with paper towels.

My initial assumption was the staff member had pushed on the pop out nozzle instead of CO2 in but it turned out it was the CO2 nozzle. Every so often a canister gets what I call 'super pressurized' and pop comes out the CO2 nozzle.

Normally if pop started coming out we would stop pushing on the valve obviously. I figure the nozzle must has stuck open as it does from time to time and hence created Western Film's very own fountain for a few seconds.

This movie looks cool.- Shoot 'Em Up

I'm a sucker for action films, especially over the top ones if done right. I first heard about Shoot 'em Up a few months ago and want to see it as soon as it comes out. The director readily admits his inspiration was Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes. You can see it in the trailer, even down to Clive Owen eating carrots.

The official site has a restricted trailer but the age verification part won't allow Canadian postal codes just US zip codes. Luckily someone posted it on youtube. Hopefully it stays there.

The reason this is called a red- band trailer is because it's more violent than most and contains some cuss words, probably NSFW.

No more matinees

The matinees of Pirates this week did okay but not as good as had hoped. Part of the problem may have been the length of the film resulted in only being able to run one show each afternoon. The matinees paid for themselves but just barely.
The only movie left I had been planning to play matinees for was Rattatoile. Since I won't get it until after school has started if I play it at all I won't do matinees.

So for the summer, Shrek 3 did well, Evan Almighty lost money and Pirates 3 made a small profit.

At this point there likely won't be any matinees next summer either. Depends on what films are out.

New Seasoning by popular demand.

I got in a new seasoning today. Many people have asked about Ketchup flavour so I ordered some. Kinda works out for another reason. I currently have plain salt in one of the plastic shakers but the holes in the lid are so big it just pours out. The previous set of containers were metal and the holes were smaller. I replaced them because the seasonings were hard to sprinkle when it was humid, the stuff would stick together. The plastic shakers have bigger holes and even then still have problems.

Anyway, I'm going to pull out one of the metal shakers with small holes for the salt and fill the plastic container with large holes with the Ketchup seasoning.

Hopefully people like Ketchup flavoured popcorn.

Next Week's Movies

There weren't any new movies available this week. All of the big movies have opened so movies won't be pushed out of the other theatres as quick. Thankfully Fox finally said we could split Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer so I'm bringing in Waitress as the early show and Fan 4 at 9:05

No Reservations and Die Hard 4 should come off soon. Transformers as well.

It looks like we won't be playing Rattatoile. Because Disney puts 2 weeks between first and second run the earliest I could get it is Orientation week. I'm definitely not playing it that week. We want to have something more student oriented for the new students. It's mostly seen as a kid's movie though I would disagree with that. Unless I have a dead week I don't think it will work to play after the students have returned. The family crowd that comes during the summer tends not to come during the school year and Rataloile doesn't strike me as something the students want to see. If anyone disagrees with me let me know.

Movie Review - Stardust

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie. The trailers were iffy, it looked like it could be bad. The special effects looked iffy etc. However I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw it today. It was a lot of fun and quite funny which hadn't really come across in the trailers. Pretty straight forward action/fantasy with a story that was fairly easy to figure out. Michelle Pfeiffer did a great job as the wicked witch and Robert DeNiro was priceless in his performance. The effects were for the most part well done and there was a certain amount of spectacle. Overall I recommend seeing it. I'm pretty sure Western Film will play it. It'll depend on how it does first run and what other movies are available when it comes available.

Movie Review - Hot Rod

This review will be short. Hot Rod was over-the-top and ridiculous but really funny at times. I wasn't expecting much because I thought the trailers were a little weak and might contain all the funny stuff. However the film was quite funny in places. Some of the bits went on a little too long and some just plain didn't make sense. The filmmakers had their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks.

I don't think the film will play at Western Film. It's a 'small' film and isn't really aimed at the crowd we get.

Trivia Contest: I have a Hot Rod tank top I received at ShowCanada to give away. The first person who leaves a comment saying what movie gets an extended parody scene in Hot Rod wins it. I'll update the post in a few days with the answer if no one posts it.

Cineplex's new seasonings.

I noted in an earlier post that I had noticed the popcorn seasonings shakers seemed to be disappearing from Cineplex and Famous Players. Both theatre chains are owned by the same company. The replacement is the small packet you see in the pic. The CD is there for scale purposes. The packet is only about half full so it's not a huge amount of seasoning. You get one packet for free but they charge 50 cents for any extra packets.

I'm curious why they did this. The seasonings are expensive but not that bad. I think many people would use less to compensate for the ones who use a lot. I suppose they'll make more money if a lot of people buy the extra packet.

2 other things come to mind.

To me this would make for a dirtier theatre. With shakers in the lobby most of the seasoning mess is on the counter or the floor. With these packets people will be shaking the seasonings on in their seats, unavoidably leading to more getting spilled on the seats.

The packets have the standard nutrition info on them. I assume they had to put it on there since the product was now packaged. I had never seen nutritional info on seasoning, pretty freaky, that little package contains 61% of the sodium (salt) that a person is supposed to have in one day. By the time you add the salt on the popcorn I bet you are over 100%.

Next Week's Movies

There was basically only one new movie available for next week, Pirates 3, so I booked it in. It's too long (3 hrs) to do a late show so there's only a 7pm show. I decided to do matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. I considered doing 2 matinees each day but I figured the times would be too awkward. They would have to be at about noon and about 3. Both would go into a time generally reserved for a meal. It'll be interesting having all the matinee business going into one show a day. Could be really busy.

Fox still won't let me split Fantastic 4 2 so there's a chance we won't be playing it. They'll let me split Waitress but as long as there are bigger movies like Pirates coming off I won't be able to play it.

Both Die Hard 4 and Ratatouille look like they may come off soon so one of them might be the week after Pirates. Die Hard is also from Fox so I won't be able to split it but I think it will do well enough to play it by itself.

My poster collection #1 Rocky Horror B' Style

Generic part of post, will repeat with later posts- I thought I'd pull out some of my poster collection and post about them. These are from my collection of folded posters. I have way more rolled posters. All posters were folded until about the late 80's. They were easier and cheaper to ship. As a collectibles market developed and theatres started putting the posters in nicer back lit display cases the posters started coming rolled.

This is a uncommon B' Style poster for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Before ebay killed the collectibles market this poster was worth quite a bit of money. I paid $25 US for it about 1992 which was a good price at the time. It's in very good shape. There's one on ebay right now for $15.00 minimum bid.

New Policy on movie reviews.

I've decided I need to approach movie reviews differently if I'm going to do them. I'm in a bit of a conflict of interest since I run a movie theatre I don't want to write reviews that keep people from seeing the film.
This was brought to the fore with the review I wrote for Evan Almighty. It was pretty negative.

One thing about films is they are so subjective, a movie one person loves another hates. There is usually a general consensus though. There are exceptions though. I can think of a couple examples.

Waitress- I've heard people say this was their favorite movie and I think I've decided I hated it. As an example read the user reviews at tribute.ca for Waitress. Talk about differing opinions. I think the gap is along gender lines.

Little Miss Sunshine- I heard this was one of the best movies ever etc and I went to see it and thought it was alright but didn't understand the hoopla.

Grease 2- considered one of the worst movies ever made but one of my favorites. Please don't tell anyone.

So this is my new policy on movie reviews. Let me know if you disagree.

I'm only going to do reviews for movies I liked or at least didn't hate or films I know won't be coming to Western Film. If I don't review a movie I either didn't like it or didn't see it. There's few movies I don't see and few movies I don't like in at least some way so I'll probably still review most films.

They're remaking my youth?!

I've noticed a disturbing trend of announcements or rumours about remaking films that came out when I was a kid or teenager. I guess I've been around longer than it feels since they don't usually remake films until quite a bit after they first came out.

Here's some I've heard about.

Halloween - comes out in August-why not at Halloween?-probably to avoid going up against Saw 4.

Revenge of the Nerds- I heard this one got cancelled.

Footloose- supposed to be starring Zac Efron from Hairspray.

Witch Mountain movies. 2 movies from the 70's about kids who had special powers. I wanted to be one of those kids so bad so I could throw around the kids who picked on me. Never be a smart kid in a country school full of bumpkins.

Escape From New York - remake is supposed to star Gerard Butler from 300. This one could be cool.

The Thing- 1982 version by John Carpenter, sequel and remake are both rumoured. The Thing is itself a remake of a 1951 film called The Thing from Another World.

Terror Train - the original is a little known horror movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis and hunky Canadian Hart Bochner. This may get cancelled since the recent horror movie wave seems to have run it's course.

Logan's Run - supposed to be directed by Bryan Singer who did X-Men and Superman Returns. This one could be cool as well.


If anyone tries to remake these they are only asking for trouble. They could never be as good as the originals. I will also hunt them down personally.

Heathers - I've heard rumours of a sequel though.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Goonies
Grease

Final Swag #14 Rush Hour 3 baseball hat.

This is the last item of swag from ShowCanada I have to list. It's a good quality baseball hat with Rush Hour 3 on it. Can't get much simpler than that. We'll give it away as a prize when we play the film.

No more horror movies.

In the past Western Film hasn't played many horror movies and the ones we did have been some of the lowest grossers ever at Western Film. The last one I tried was Ring 2 which didn't do well for us even though it was a hit overall.
I decided to play 1408 based on the fact that it wasn't really a horror movie, more of a thriller with horror elements. Even if considered a horror movie it was a old-fashioned one with suspense and genuine scares, no 'torture porn' , flash editing or creepy Japanese kids walking jerkily. It got good reviews and good word of mouth.
However it still bombed at Western Film. I guess that's it for horror.

Next Week's Movies

There were 2 new movies available.

Licence to Wed- I found this movie better than I'd heard but from previous experience if a movie gets the bad movie reputation and wasn't a big hit it doesn't do well at Western Film.

Knocked Up- I booked this one in. I expect it to do quite well as it's one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. It strikes me as a late night kind of movie so I decided to run a late show at 9:40. I'm actually surprised we got this one already. I figured it would keep playing right through most of the summer. It was one of those smaller movies that is a bit of a surprise hit based on the word of mouth. Movies like that tend to last longer than the blockbusters in theatres. Wedding Crashers was like that, we didn't get to play it until the end of August.

Fantastic Four 2 and Waitress are still in a bit of a Fox limbo.

Pirates 3 seems to be gone from all the first run theatres so unless one of them brings it back we should have it in 2 weeks. Disney usually puts 2 weeks between first and second run for some reason.

Swag #13 Surf's Up stuff.

Sony/ Columbia was really pushing the heck out of this film. The reception they set up at ShowCanada for this film was very elaborate. The room was fitted out to look like a jungle. They had monitors (from Sony of course) showing scenes from the film. It was also one of the nicest Swag items consisting of a kind of duffel bag, a sort of hat, I can't remember what they are called and a t-shirt. The lei was given to us as we came into the party.

I don't think the film did quite as well as they hoped. It was pretty entertaining though. Western Film won't be playing the film so I'm not sure what to do with the stuff. Maybe I'll give it to my nephew.

Next Week's Movies

Initally I was told the following were available.

Captivity- not bloody likely.

Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer. -but Fox said it couldn't be split.

Waitress - Fox said this one couldn't be split either.

Fox's reasoning for not splitting is that they don't want to share the screen with another studio's product. I asked if we could play Waitress as an early show and Fantastic 4 as a late show. Since they are both Fox they'd be splitting with their own product which in a logical world wouldn't be a problem. I told the booker they would only get one show a night of either movie any way. neither is worth running two shows a night. The booker and I both agreed they will probably say no. At this point I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be able to play Waitress.

Fox has this annoying habit of going into meetings right at the time all the theatres are trying to book for next week. I was told they wouldn't be able to give me an answer until Tuesday. Since we do all our advertising changes Monday night that wouldn't be much help.

Luckily in the meantime I was told Ocean's 13 was available so I booked it in for one show at 7pm. I'll see what happens with Fox next week.

The matinees for Evan Almighty were a complete disaster so I'm planning to try matinees once more with Pirates 3 and that will be it if it tanks.

It's still be a couple weeks before we get Pirates, the first run theatres are holding onto it forever.

I'm not expecting to get Knocked up until late August or maybe even early September. It would make a great Orientation week movie.