I don't think Western Film is going to play Grindhouse.

As anyone who reads this blog (assuming there is anyone) knows I was really into Grindhouse but I don't think I'm going to bring it to Western Film for several reasons.

1. For whatever reason it bombed which tends to make people think a movie is bad even if it isn't.

2. Most of the students have left for the summer.

3. I figure it's one of those movies where most of the people who wanted to see it saw it already.

Sorry if anyone was waiting for us to play it.

Finally saw Grindhouse.

I finally got to see Grindhouse on Sunday night. It was pretty cool. The first movie, Planet Terror, directed by Robert Rodriguez, was a fun, gory, way over the top B-movie. It was pretty much non-stop action. The fake trailers between the two movies were really funny and one was scarier than the movies. The directors had fun 'damaging' the film as described in an earlier post. I'm glad I've seen it so I'll know what to expect when it plays here.
The second film, Death Proof, directed by Quentin Tarantino, was quite different. It was more dialogue driven which some people didn't like since it came across as slow to them. The dialogue was very Tarantino with swear words and lots of the word Michael Richards regrets saying. The action sequences were amazing. I don't know how they did them, there must have been a lot of CGI erasing of safety harnesses or something.

There was some press because the movie didn't do as well as expected on it's opening weekend. There were several potential reasons given,
-people didn't 'get' the movie, especially in 'middle America'.
-it was too long for people to sit through.
-people didn't understand the concept- apparently some people left after the first movie not knowing there was a second.
-the running time reduced the number of shows a theatre could show per day. You could do 2 shows of many movies in the time it took to do one of Grindhouse.

I think it was a combination with emphasis on the last one, the show I saw was almost full.

So, if you want over 3 hours of fun I highly recommend Grindhouse, just make sure you don't have to go to the bathroom.

I'm not looking forward to projecting Grindhouse.

The title of the movie Grindhouse refers to old theatres that used to run exploitation movies all day long (grinding). The prints of these films tended to be really damaged due to being played on poor equipment by bad projectionists. The end result was badly scratched prints with a lot of splices and missing frames. The bad projectionists resulted in things like missing switch overs, playing the reels out of order or film jams. A film jam is visible to the audience by the film burning through. As soon as the film stops moving the light burns right through it. (See Image)

Have you ever noticed new films represent old films by simulated scratches?

As is apparent from the trailer and what I've read in various articles the directors of Grindhouse have had a field day making Grindhouse representative of what the audience would see in one of these theatres by artificially adding damage. I even read it's going to be missing reels.

The first time Western Film plays a film, usually Friday night the projectionist either watches it or keeps an eye on it while doing other things. He/She is watching for any mistakes we may have made in putting the film together or problems with the film as it came in.

So the first time through whomever is watching it will have to figure out whether any of the 'damage' is real. For example if the film goes out of frame we'll have to figure out whether we put it together wrong or they did it intentionally and will fix itself.

I can't decide if I should watch it or get one of my projectionists to do it. I would be better at deciding what is real and what is faked but after years or working as a projectionist I tend to almost instinctively react to problems. I think I'd be completely stressed out the entire film.

If you haven't seen it yet watch the trailer below and you'll see some of the 'damage' just in the first few seconds.

BTW There's also some simulated damage in Fight Club.

An answer to one of my questions about GRINDHOUSE

Grindhouse is a movie coming out in April that is a homage to the drive-in and cheap 'grindhouses' of the 70's that played schlocky B movies. It's composed of two movies and some fake trailers. One of the movies is directed by Quentin Tarantino and the other by Robert Rodriguez. It promises to be one rocking time. I laughed harder at the sheer outrageousness of the trailer than I have at many complete movies.

The trailer says it has 2 full length movies but some of the industry stuff I saw said it was two 60 minute movies so I wasn't sure. However I got an e-mail from the studio that the film's running time is 191 minutes, over three hours. So I guess it has two full length films plus the fake trailers.

I'm so looking forward to this movie.