Next Week Movies Aug 26 - Sep 1

This is a bit of an experimental week. The Tree Of Life was already booked in which I'm nervous about. It doesn't have the highest profile and the Hyland played it for weeks which will have cut down on the number of people who can come see it here. At least if it bombs I'll have something to point to next time someone says we should play more art product. It's a long movie as well so the late show would have had to be at 9:45. There wasn't anything available I thought would work that late at night.

I'm trying something I haven't done in years, bringing in a movie for matinees only. Cars 2 will play Sat and Sun afternoon only.

The new movies available were Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens. I'm not sure about playing Cowboys. Captain may play the following week depending on what is available. That week is Frosh Week which is one of our busiest weeks of the year. I try to have suitable movies available. I'm hoping Horrible Bosses comes available.

Midnight in Paris is tentatively scheduled for Sept 16th. The two weeks before that cover Frosh Week which would be a bad time to play it. The students who are here won't be interested in seeing it and off-campus people avoid the campus because of the chaos that week.

Next couple weeks films. Sep 3- 16

Since we were closed for three weeks we built up a backlog of available movies. This resulted in us not playing a couple films we would have otherwise, but also allowed me to book the Frosh Week movies early. We try to get the new students into the theatre during Frosh Week so I booked the films ahead so the orientation staff and sophs can tell them what we are playing.

Here's some of the films that came available.



A-Team- from Fox so couldn't split, this movie wasn't worth playing by itself.

Knight and Day- also Fox and even less worth playing by itself.



If we had been open the three weeks I would have asked Fox if we could play both movies the same week, they will usually split with their own movies. Now better movies are available so I won't be playing either one.



Predators- Fox, no splits but probably wouldn't have played it anyway.



The Last Airbender - no words are needed.



Sorcerer's Apprentice. If we had been open I might have played it just to fill space but now I don't need to. It was a fun movie, I don't think it deserved the horrible death it got.

For re-opening I ended up booking The Girl Who Played With Fire. I'd rather have reopened with a big movie like Inception but it wasn't available. Also I wanted to play Girl before school started as a lot of the non-students stop coming during the first couple weeks of school. The other movie I reopened with was Grown Ups.

For Frosh Week I booked Twilight Eclipse and Dinner For Schmucks. Twilight isn't the best Frosh Week movie as mostly only the girls will go. Dinner For Schmucks is good for anyone.

For the last part of Frosh Week I booked Toy Story 3 and Salt, both good films. I wanted to play matinees of Toy Story but the theatre was already booked by someone else. Not an issue I would have had to worry about if we had got it before school started.

The kind of Circus that isn't fun.

This is my latest excuse for not posting. Last week was Orientation / Frosh week here. The busiest week of the year for many of the full timers around here. Downstairs in a place called Centerspot the students pick up their bus passes. Some of the full time staff call it the 'circus' because of the general chaos involved. It gets really hot and the line gets really long.
As a promotional effort we set up a table and give away free popcorn. It's mostly aimed at the first years so they realize Western Film is on campus.
We also do a draw for free movies for a year. The students enter with their e-mail address and can check off a box for us to add them to our mass-e-mail list. So the draw serves two functions as a way to get more addresses for the list and promotion.

This may not sound like much but it adds up to a lot of work and hours. For the four days we did it I had to be here at 9am and since it's usually busy at night I was here until about 11pm each night.

I had a staff member stay at the booth and bag the popcorn. We have a small older machine that we use as a warmer but we have to pop the popcorn upstairs at the theatre to be even close to keeping up with the number of people taking popcorn. We would pre-pop a lot the night before and then I would start making some as soon as that was gone. On the busiest afternoon I was literally making a batch, taking it downstairs, going up and getting another one and the first one would be almost gone by the time I got back. I was popping popcorn for 4 hours one afternoon. I may never eat popcorn again.

Everything seemed to work out, we gave out over 3000 little bags of popcorn and got several hundred e-mail addresses. So hopefully lots of students come to the movies.

Next Week's Films

Next week is an important week for Western Film as it comprises most of Orientation (Frosh) week. We try to get the new students to check out the theatre and let them know we are here. We give away popcorn where all the students pick up their bus passes as a promotion.

Therefore it good to have good movies that week. I was hoping for Mamma Mia and Dark Knight but that wasn't likely to happen, especially Knight. I thought Step Brothers would come off but it didn't.

There were three movies available.

Journey to the Center of The Earth: too child oriented and really meant to be shown in 3D only.

Swing State: this film might do okay but not during Frosh Week, too serious and not well known enough. I might play it later.

Wall:E : I plan to play this but not next week. It's not a good fit for Frosh Week and this is a bad weekend to run matinees. Anyone who doesn't have to go near the campus generally doesn't due to the semi-controlled chaos up here.

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: I booked this in as the 7:00 show. It got some bad buzz but was a fun movie, it's a good fun diversion for the new students. The only problem is losing some customers that would have come to see it but will avoid the campus. Other weekends I probably would have played matinees for it.

The question was what to play with it since there were no other new films I wanted to play. I considered keeping Hancock, bringing back Wanted or Indy 4 and even, briefly, bringing back Sex and The City. I decided to bring back Get Smart. It did surprisingly well the first time we played it. It's also a fun movie that appeals to both guys and girls for Frosh Week. Also, since it wasn't a monster hit I figure the odds are better more students won't have seen it already than something like Hancock.

Frosh week is generally really busy so I added extra time between shows.

So Wall:E will be playing the week after for the early show and matinees. What will play with it I won't know until Next Tuesday since Monday is a holiday.

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.