SWAG #9 Transformers / Bee Movie Thing.

This appears to be a car air freshener one would hang on the rear-view mirror. It's got Transformers on one side and Bee Movie which is coming out in the fall on the other. I noticed when I saw Transformers there's something very similar or the same to the Bee side hanging in the car named BumbleBee. Talk about product placement.

Next Week's Movies

Next week was a pretty simple choice. There were 2 new movies available.

Evan Almighty- I had always planned to play this, even if it didn't do as well as expected. I decided to run matinees since it's basically a kid's movie.

1408- I wouldn't normally play this film because it's basically thought of as a horror movie. However it's a different kind of horror movie that did quite well and got good reviews. I've noticed people who don't normally watch horror asking about this one. I'm bringing it in as a late show.

Pirates 3 actually came back to a couple theatres so it'll be a little longer than I thought. I would imagine they brought it back to catch the people who run into sold out shows of Harry Potter.

Fantastic 4 isn't playing any more but it's Fox so they'll want per caps. Per caps basically means we pay a percentage of a price they set not the actual price we charge. We end up paying a lot more for the film. If I wait a couple weeks they usually take them off.

Not related but an amazing video.

I saw this on another blog and couldn't resist putting it on. The title on the other blog was The Greatest Entrance in Drag Ever. I couldn't agree more. There's no way what happens about 30 seconds in couldn't hurt. Some people look down on Drag Queens but I think they are some of the most courageos people I've met. It takes a lot to go out in a wig and heels especially in a place like London. Plus I doubt you'll ever meet anyone wittier or funnier than a good drag queen.
A tip: A drag queen prefers to be called she when dressed up.

It's the little things that count.

I try to make a visit to Western Film as enjoyable as possible, partially to differentiate us from other theatres and encourage repeat visits. I've noticed that even small things seem to grab people's attention, whether or not it encourages repeat visits I'll probably never know.

We recently started setting wetnaps out with the straws and napkins. I'm not sure how it started, I think one of my staff put some out and they went were popular so we started doing it for all shows. I've actually heard people says it's a cool idea.

Often one experience is enough to give me ideas. We have little kiddie bags that we give out when people ask. They usually ask for them so they can take some extra seasonings (dill pickle etc.) in or split some of the popcorn up for a child who wants different seasonings than the others. One night I saw a kid pouring seasoning into a napkin and I gave him a kiddie bag. He was very happy. I decided it was a good idea to put a tray of them out so people didn't have to ask. They've been very popular. Almost too popular, those seasonings are expensive.

Even the existence of the seasonings. I've noticed they've disappeared at many other theatres. I figure it's either because of the mess or the cost. At at least one theatre they'll give you a small packet of seasoning with popcorn purchase but if you want extra it's 50 cents. I'm not sure how big the packets are, I should ask for one next time. The seasoning's aren't going anywhere at Western Film. They are really popular, especially with kids. I even have a shaker of salt for those that really like salty popcorn.

We also put a tray of sugar packets out. Some parts of the world put sugar on their popcorn instead of salt. I figure most of it goes for people to put in their coffee but I have seen some putting it on the popcorn so I leave it there.

Anyone got any other little things to suggest?

Why I would go crazy if I owned my own movie theatre.

One good thing about being a one screen theatre is attention I can put to the little things. I can be very picky that everything is done just right, just ask my staff. I had a thought the other day that I would probably go crazy if I ever owned my own theatre. Right now if there's anything I can't do it's usually because someone else won't let me spend the money etc. If I had my own theatre I'd have to tell myself I couldn't do things. Every time I go to the Hyland I think of what I would do to the place but I tend to think big. When a friend and I were thinking of buying it many moons ago we noticed the really cool original ceiling was still there above the dropped ceiling. The dropped ceiling was probably put there to save on heating costs. If it was taken out the screen could be made bigger and the original ceiling would be visible but it would cost a lot to do all that. I tried to find a picture of the kind of old ceiling it has but couldn't. I'm mildly surprised since at least two of the old theatres in London had the same ceiling. The Mall theatre on Clarence St which was recently torn down had one. It had been a video arcade for a long time but the ceiling was still visible.

Matinee question for parents or anyone who like matinees

I have a question about what time it would be best to run matinees at? The times for Shrek 3 were 2:00 and 4:15 which seemed to work well. However since I have no kids and know no one who has kids old enough to go to the movies I'd thought I'd ask if anyone think there is a better time.
Part of the reason I'm asking is for long movies. For Pirates 3 for example, it is almost 3 hours long with trailers. So I could run one matinee at 2 pm which seems about right but then I only get one matinee in. I could run 2 matinees but they would have to be at 12:15 and 3:30. Both seem non optimal since one runs through lunch and the other dinner.
Anyone have any suggestions?

Matinees

I tried playing matinees this weekend for Shrek 3. We haven't played matinees in several years. When Rainbow opened they took enough of the kid's market to make it uneconomical for us to play them any more.
During the summer I play more kid's films than during the school year. Partially just because there are more and partially because during the school year there are often more student oriented movies available (and more students). During the school year the theatre is heavily used on the weekends so I often can't play matinees even if I wanted to.
I know when I play a kid's movie I often get asked if I plan to play matinees so I figured there might be enough demand to try it again. I decided to experiment with Shrek 3. I figure if anything will bring people out for matinees it will be Shrek.
The experiment worked. I can't be too specific but I needed a certain amount of business to pay for the staff costs, we did a little over double that amount so I'm happy.
I plan to play matinees for other kid's movies such as Harry Potter and Evan Almighty. We'll see if it continues to work.
I considered bring in movies for just matinees like we used to but after some calculations decided it wouldn't work. For a movie like Shrek there isn't a lot of extra cost if the film bombs except staff since we were already playing the film. If I was to bring in a movie like Surf's Up for just matinees it would have to cover the entire minimum rental by itself. That plus the extra staff costs means we would have to have a heck of a lot of people show up just to pay for it.
The interesting thing is what to do about the long movies as far as matinees go? (see next post)

Next Week's Movies

Away From Her was available so I booked it. The only other new movie available was Nancy Drew which I had 0% intention of playing. Waitress and A Mighty Heart are still in reserve if there isn't any big movies available next week. I thought Pirates 3 might come off since it's down to one screen but I guess the Silver City held it. Also, according to the booker Disney usually puts two weeks between a film coming off first run and being available to second run i.e. Western Film.

I expect Evan Almighty to come off soon as well as Licence to Wed. We'll play Evan, probably won't play Licence.

Ocean's Thirteen is down to one screen so it may come off soon. We'll definitely play it.

Western Film mini movie review - Transformers

I have been wanting to see this movie for a while even though I had never watched the TV series. I'm a sucker for spectacle and sci-fi films and despite what some people think of him Director Michael Bay makes spectacle movies. Note I said spectacle, not spectacular. If I had to sum up this movie in one line:

The epitome of (possibly perfect) summer popcorn movie.

It was big, loud, funny, tons of action and as Roger Ebert said ' stuff that blows up real good'. The special effects were incredible, the machines look totally real. There was a strong female lead. There's only a few things I didn't like. There's some logic flaws I would have liked answered like why some of the machines can take more than one form and other can't. The action was edited at such a frantic pace I had trouble following what was going on at times. Related to the prior point was that the robots looked fairly similar and I sometimes wasn't sure who was fighting who. I'll watch it again when it comes to Western Film, I'll catch more detail.

A very cool Teaser trailer.

There's a trailer on in front of Transformers that has got to be one of the coolest teasers ever. It's especially appropriate for the demographics that will see Transformers. It's very low on information. There's a couple production company logos but no stars, director or even the name of the movie listed! Apparently one of the people in the trailer is from a TV show but I didn't recognize him. I won't give it away so you'll have to see it yourself. Paramount is being really secretive. Even copies of the trailer that have shown up on youtube have been pulled.
I found out through other sources the supposed name of the movie is Cloverfield, if you look it up on imdb.com there's tons of speculation as to what the movie is about. For maximum effect don't look it up until after you have seen the trailer.

Here's a link to a copy of the trailer on youtube. It may be gone by the time you read this.

Swag #8 Technicolor stuff

Technicolor is the company that actually makes the 35mm film movies. They also store the prints. I think they invented the first way of adding color to film. You may have seen their logo at the end of the credits for movies. They are also getting into the digital distribution of films. I think they are really pushing it judging by the nice non-movie swag they gave out at ShowCanada. One is a set of drink coasters. The other is a corkscrew in a nice case. Too bad I don't drink wine.

Next Week's Movies

I had to book on Tuesday this week since Monday was a holiday.

The only new movie available was A Mighty Heart, it got good reviews and everything but didn't make much of a splash. I'll keep it in reserve if we have a opening.

Away from Her wasn't available, the Hyland is keeping it for another week.

I was going to check on Waitress but got word that Shrek The Third was available. I decided to play Shrek. I'm going to do late shows since it's fairly short and I figure there's other people like me who'll go to the late show to avoid the children.

I'm trying an experiment as well, weekend matinees. We haven't run them for years but since Rainbow went to first run there may be a market for kid's matinees at Western Film again. If it works I'll play matinees of other kid friendly movies later in the summer.

Western Film mini movie review - Evan Almighty

When I first heard about this movie I thought it sounded cool. It's a semi sequel to Bruce Almighty in which God as played by Morgan Freeman gives his powers to Bruce as played by Jim Carrey. Steve Carell played a small part of Evan in that movie and plays the lead in this one. Morgan Freeman plays God again and commands Evan to build an Ark.

Originally I had expected something adult oriented like the first one, as time went by it turned out Universal had dumbed it down to get to the family market and played up the religious aspects. It was a stupid thing to do.

I enjoyed it well enough but it was mostly just there. It had fun moments and by the end made sense. It's the most expensive comedy ever made ($175 million) and I can see where the money went. There's a lot of effects involving animals, surprisingly, for that amount of money the effects are often fairly obvious.

I can't help but wonder where this could have gone if they had maintained an adult mentality similar to Bruce. Steve Carell is mostly known for The 40 year Old Virgin. His fans won't find the same kind of humour here and the family audiences won't know who he is. I thought making bland family comedies is what old comedians do when they aren't funny any more. I'm looking at you Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams.

The other actors were funny, especially Wanda Sykes. The other characters in the film were also really frustrating, straining suspension of disbelief to the limit. This guy is being followed around by two each of hundreds of kinds of animals including lions and elephants and they think he is just going crazy or having a mid-life crisis?!

This review probably sounds more negative than I mean it to. The movie was fun and fairly funny. Still worth $4.24 if you get my drift.

Western Film mini movie review - Paprika

Paprika is the latest Anime film to get a theatrical release. I saw it at The Hyland tonight. For those who don't know, Anime is Japanese animation made for adults not kids. Much of the Pokemon style kid's animation is very edited down Anime. I've always been a big Anime fan but had kinda given up on the DVD ones lately. Too often it just plain doesn't make sense. I often wonder if it's a translation issue or if the Japanese just have a different way of telling a story.

Anime is always spectacular to look at however. No one destroys a city in quite the same way as Japanese animators. I do like the movies that come out to theatres since they are more self contained and usually make more sense.

Considering it's themes of dreams and reality Paprika made fairly good sense. It did do the old ' is this real or am I still dreaming/in The Matrix/being mentally controlled by aliens?' bit a lot. Overall I really liked the film, spectacular visuals and lots of destruction. Cool music too, I usually hate the music in Anime, often sounds like bad 80's pop music. I'm considering playing it at Western Film but will have to see what comes available. Without the students around it really shrinks the Anime fandom on campus.

Hiring Staff

I had to hire a new staff member this week. One of my current staff had to quit on short notice.



Until I got this job I'd never hired people before. When I was a student and I didn't get jobs I applied for I always wondered what I did wrong. Now that I'm hiring people I know just how random it can end up being. On-campus jobs are very popular because it's so convenient for students. Also some International students are only allowed to work on campus. So any time I post a job I get a least 50 resumes.
I usually do about 8 interviews so I have to narrow it down. As I go through the resumes I label them Yes No and Maybe.
Resumes with spelling mistakes are usually automatic Nos, with allowances made when English is obviously not the person's first language. One of the resumes I got this week was addressed to Mrs Johnston.

Maybes are usually ones with no retail experience.
Yes's are usually ones with some retail experience and at going to be here at least one more year.

There are some variables if something catches my attention, one of my current staff had never had any kind of job. I figured he would do a good job and decided to give him a chance. Plus I remember when I was his age and caught in the 'every job wants experience so can't get a job to get experience' cycle.

Once I narrow it down to just the Yes's I start making phone calls and whether a person gets an interview can be as random as not being home. Once I have booked about 8 interviews I stop calling.

Choosing staff can be a difficult decision. Often I get more than one interviewee that I think would do a good job so it can be hard to choose. Sometimes I decide based on what the person is studying. Western Film experience would be much more useful to a Film or Media student than a biology major.

Some trends I've noticed.
A lot of people have worked at Tim Horton's. A lot of people have worked at Call Centers, almost always for a short time. I'm getting more resumes from people who are way overqualified to work in a movie theatre.

Some things that bug me.
During the interview when I ask why the person wants to work at Western Film I usually hear something like 'I want to work with people'. Just be honest people, you want a job to make money.
People who apply for every job without really caring what the job is.
-To work in a movie theatre a person needs to have at least some interest in and knowledge of movies.

I have a pretty good track record with hiring choices. Most of the staff I've hired have worked out. There's been a few I've had to let go. Usually for not doing their share of the work with the other employees having to pull up the slack. Also for just plain not paying attention, if someone consistently does things like putting up display case signs upside down or putting a Starts Friday tag on the wrong poster they won't be around long.

Piracy / Copyright infringment discussion.

Just to let readers know the person I have been having the discussion with about piracy and copyright infringement in the Transformers post below posted a response to my last comment. It took me a couple days to approve it because I was waiting until I had time to write a response (damm my lack of typing skills!)
So feel free to check out the comments and weigh in with your own opinions.

Western Film mini movie review - Live Free or Die Hard

Another movie I've been really looking forward to. The first Die Hard is one of my favorite movies. The new one was a heck of a lot of fun even if it was somewhat watered down. To get a PG rating in the US there weren't any swear words etc.

What there was was a lot of good old-fashioned action/adventure with a good dose of humour. Bruce Willis was great again as John McClane and so was Justin Long as the sidekick. There were a few logic holes and no human could take as much physical damage as John McClane but, hey, it's a movie. The effects were mostly pretty good but some were obvious effects. The stuff that was physical stuntmen was pretty cool.

In short if you want 2 hours and 10 minutes of good old fashioned fun see this movie when it comes to Western Film.

Due to the PG rating I was forced to miss Bruce Willis's signature phrase- yippee-ki-yay-mother-f**cker. That would have been good for a cheer.

Swag #7 StarDust sweater

This is one of the nicer items I got at ShowCanada. It's a sweater with the Stardust logo on it. StarDust is coming out later in the summer. It's a fantasy with Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro having fun chewing up the scenery. From the trailers I've seen it could be good or bad.

Next Week's Movies

The first show next week was fairly easy. There was nothing new available so I picked up Mr. Brooks that was available last week. The harder choice was whether to keep Spider-Man 3 as a late show. It did extremely well on the weekend but tonight (Monday) we had a no-show (0 customers) for the late show. That hasn't happened in months. Next week it's at 9:25 instead of 9:45, that should help. Also the only other second-run theatre in town isn't playing it for some incomprehensible reason.

Booking was checking on Nancy Drew and to my surprise Ocean's 13 as possibly coming off. I don't plan to play Nancy Drew and would be surprised if Ocean's came off this quick. There are some big movies opening in the next few weeks so it may get pushed out.

Unless Ocean's comes off the next couple weeks should be Away From Her and Waitress.

Swag #6 Ratatouille oven mitt?

I'm not completely sure what this is. It looks similar to an oven mitt but is more of a pouch. If anyone knows what it is please tell. I'm not much of a cook. This will be given away when we play the film.

What a difference the trailer can make -Superbad.

Superbad is a teen comedy coming out in August. I've seen the first PG trailer in theatres and thought it looked bad and had absolutely no interest in it. Today I watched the restricted trailer which does a much better job of promoting the film. One gets a much better idea what the film is actually about. One unusual thing, most times the trailer for adults is cleaned up by editing out the naughty bits. For the PG trailer they must have shot the same scenes with cleaner dialogue.

You may notice the beginning of the trailer has a MPAA rating notice in red, noting it's a restricted trailer. Most trailers have it in green marking a PG or G version. These are called Red Band and Green Band trailers. In the states they have to show the band in front of each trailer. Since we have a different ratings system we usually cut them off here.

Here's the PG trailer which sucks.




Here's the R trailer (coarse language) - this one is way funnier and I may actually go see the movie.



Another place in case youtube pulls it.

http://www.tribute.ca/features/superbad/

Paramount trying really hard to keep Transformers from Pirates.

We received a notice from Paramount today. It's not really relevant to Western Film since we are a second run theatre but I found it interesting nonetheless.

This is the most elaborate method of trying to keep a film from pirates yet.

Transformers opens at most theatres on Tuesday July 3. The prints will arrive on Friday the 29th. A film print generally comes in two metal cans, each one holding some of the smaller reels that put together constitute the film. The second can is going to have a combination lock on it?! Not until Monday the 2nd will the theatres will be able to get their combination by phone or over the Internet from Technicolor.

The desired result is the full film won't be made up until as close as possible to the opening to keep employees from pirating it.

I wish people would realize piracy is theft and the movie industry didn't have to take all these expensive precautions.

If I was running a first run theatre I'd be a little nervous. If something goes wrong and you can't get that second can open there isn't much time to get another print. All it would take is for the depot to mix up two of the locks or write a number wrong.

I'd have a set of bolt cutters handy.

Next Week's Movies

Spider-Man 3 was finally available. Now watch it not do well. I decided to run a late show even though it's pretty long. It's kind of an experiment to see how movies aimed at people who will watch a late show do during the summer. My staff hope it goes over well so I'll be able to run more late shows. With the single shows they only get a couple hours a night.

Away from Her wasn't available.

A few others were.

Mr Brooks- This will be the movie the week after Spidey unless Away from Her is available.

Hostel Part 2 - No freakin' way.

28 Weeks Later - I would consider playing this one as a late show. We don't normally play horror but it's kinda a horror/sci-fi hybrid. I noticed it played a long time at the Silver City. However it's from Fox who want full shows. I couldn't play it by itself all week. In a couple weeks they may drop the full shows bit. I also thought of playing it with Waitress, both are from Fox so they may let us split them. However at least once in the past they wouldn't split even with their own product.

Western Film mini movie review - Fantastic 4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer.

I have always been a huge fan of comic book/sci-fi movies. A lot of people didn't like it but I thought the first one wasn't great but was a lot of turn-your-brain-off entertainment. I was so looking forward to this movie I did something I almost never do, went on opening night. I did cheat a little and go to Westmount rather than the Silver City. The Silver City would have been packed and has gone downhill lately. The movie never seems to be in focus anymore. Westmount isn't as busy and cheaper and it was in focus. It's also closer to my place.

Silver Surfer was similar to the first one with extra action and a bit more spectacle since they didn't have to spend time building the characters like in the first one. It wasn't a great movie but it didn't suck either. I enjoyed it a lot. Western Film will probably be playing it at some point. I added the probably because it's from Fox and anyone who reads this blog knows how much fun they can be to deal with.

Release Dates, Midnight Shows and Previews.

There's been a few items on these topics I've thought of lately.

Every week I get a list of new and changed release dates for various films. Most are setting definite release dates for movies that so far were just fall 07 etc. Some films get moved around to compete with or avoid other films. Right now there's 2 huge movies slated for Memorial Day 2009 so one of them will have to move.

Sometimes films are pushed back because they aren't finished yet or moved to a dead time of year because they suck.

Some films move around quite a bit, Sunshine was supposed to come out in March, which it did in the rest of the world. It was moved to September, now is opening July 20th.

Then there's the odd little changes, in the next couple months both Harry Potter and Die Hard were moved up a day. This seems odd to do this so close to the release date. Especially with all the attention paid to the grosses in the first few days. I'm not sure about Die Hard but I know Harry Potter has the old release date on its' posters etc. They are probably going to try to make the grosses for the weekend seem higher by opening early. Maybe they want to break one of the arcane records such as highest 5 days gross including midnight shows Tuesday.

Most people don't realize the decision whether to play midnight shows of big movies on Thursday night isn't entirely up to the theatres. Each studio decides if midnight shows can be done.
Sony allowed midnight shows for Spider-Man 3 and pretty much every theatre in London did one. Warner allowed midnight shows for Ocean's Thirteen but Rainbow was the only to do it as far as I know.
Fox said there could be no midnight shows for Fantastic Four 2. That was my first clue it wasn't going to be as good as I hoped. Not allowing midnight shows probably meant they didn't want negative word of mouth spreading too early to affect the first weekend grosses.

One thing happened Saturday I haven't seen for a while. Disney did public previews of Rattatoille in most cities including a couple theatres in London. If you went at 7pm on Saturday you could pay the normal price and see it. This used to be common practice to spread (hopefully) good word of mouth in advance of the official opening weekend. I haven't seen this done in a while. I had assumed because of piracy issues and with so much attention on the opening weekend now it's also risky to take a chance on any bad worth of mouth spreading. Disney must have a lot of faith in this movie to chance doing preview screenings.

Western Film mini movie review - Waitress

I went to see this movie because I had heard it was a nice quirky little comedy and because I like Nathan Fillion who plays the male lead. All I can figure is this is one of those movies where different people react very differently. It was definitely quirky. I liked it at first but I think I hated it at the end, I can't decide. I could tell a few of the other audience members were as frustrated as me. Others seem to have really liked it. My film studies training was pulling out all kinds of messages and meanings that may or may not have been intended.

This is one of those movies I'm going to have to take my own opinion out of the decision whether to play it or not. Unless Fox makes it impossible with their weird rules Western Film will still play it in the next few weeks.

Some of the pies looked really good. I wonder if there's a pie diner like that around here.

Western Film mini movie review - Surf''s Up

I always feel kinda weird going to movies that are basically meant for kids but a lot of them are still fun. Thankfully I wasn't the only person in the theatre. I try to go to a late show the first week a kid's movie is out. After the first week they usually drop the late shows. I don't really want to go when the kiddies are there.

Surf's Up was funny but pretty generic. It reminded me of a lot of the mid-range animated movies like Madagascar. Fun to watch but certainly not a classic. The animation was really good. The idea of doing it as a mock documentary was kinda neat.

I don't think it will play at Western Film. We usually don't play films meant just for kids.

If you go see it there's a short scene after the credits.

Next Week's Movies

Next week was one of those weeks I hate. Both of my first choices were unavailable. Spider-man 3 is down to one screen at the Silver City so I figured it would come off but they held it. I was hoping to play Away From Her if Spidey wasn't available. Away From her isn't available so either the Hyland is keeping it another week or the print is going to another city.

So I had to choose something I wouldn't normally play just to fill the time more or less.

Meet The Robinsons- I had actually booked this in before changing my mind. I was going to try it as an experiment to see if we can do better with film aimed just at kid's now that Rainbow is first run. However I looked at some films we played last summer that appeal to both children and adults like Over The Hedge and Ice Age 2. There weren't a lot of kids to those movies , it was still mostly adults. Meet The Robinsons was aimed at kids only. There were also a couple other factors. The kids are still in school and we don't play matinees which parents usually expect to take kids to.

That left me with two choices.

The Hoax- with Richard Gere. I heard it was a good film and Gere is a movie star but I just didn't think it had enough awareness. On the off chance I have another week with no new movies available I'll play it.

Hot Fuzz- I choose this film because it had higher awareness and buzz and it was pretty funny. I also had some requests for the poster which oddly enough is often a good indicator of how well a movie will do. I'm not sure how it will do with the students mostly gone. Hopefully I'll get surprised.

Comments , Questions, is anyone there?

I thought I'd post a 'blank' post. If anyone has any questions please leave as comments. I would also be interested in suggestions for posts or comments on the blog, either positive or negative. Remember you can always post anonymously if you happen to know me in person. If you leave a negative just make sure I can't tell it's you or I'll hunt you down, just kidding, maybe.

I'm also wondering if anyone is actually reading it. The old hit counter I had going got up to about 5000 hits before I accidentally erased it. The new Google counter I'm using says a lot of the hits are coming in from search engines. Probably what's on this blog isn't of interest ( or comprehensible ) to people outside of London.

I'm also wondering / hoping if people are getting my slightly off kilter sense of humour such as the hunt you down bit above.

Sicko Premiere with Michael Moore here in London!

I'm sorta surprised I didn't hear about it earlier but I found out Tuesday there was going to be a showing of Sicko in London Friday night. That wasn't too big a deal until I found out director Michael Moore was going to be there. There were rumours some stars like Kiefer Sutherland might come as well.

On Wednesday the USC radio station CHRW asked if I could get some passes so they could review the movie. I called the distributor Alliance Atlantis and asked if I could have some passes. They sent enough for the radio station staff and three friends and I to go.

It was a pretty big deal, media from all over were there to cover it. It turned out parts of the film were shot in London which is why Moore chose to show in London for the first time in North America. Also Moore's Grandfather was from this area.

It was a bit annoying at first, we arrived early to get good seats and because they always give away more passes than there are seats on the assumption some won't be used. We were kept waiting outside in the hallway for over an hour even though the theatre was empty. It was almost show time by the time we got in. The hallway got really hot and the older woman in front of us had way too much perfume on, it was literally making our eyes water. If the staff had tried to make us squish together to make the line shorter I would have refused.

Anyway, we finally got in and Moore came out and said a brief intro before the movie. I've never seen him in person before, he's quite funny.

The movie presentation was quite surprising to me, they showed it on video, not film. It wasn't a great video projector either but fine for a movie like this. One of my friends leaned over and asked me if the picture was supposed to be so dark. It started up about 10 seconds into the movie for some reason so they had to restart it.

Sicko itself was good, pretty typical Moore stuff however you could see some differences from previous films.

He wasn't in the film as much. I wonder if some of it was shot by other people.

There was less of the ambush style interview he is famous for, most likely because everyone knows who he is. When they found out his next movie was going to be on health care all the companies in the US told their employees not to talk to him.

The basic premise of the film is comparing the US health care system to other countries, mostly Canada and France. Needless to say the film didn't even pretend to be objective.

It was very compelling in it's arguments. Even reasonably educated me could see he was leaving things out but it didn't detract from the overall argument.

Every Canadian who has ever complained about our health care system should see this film and be thankful they aren't Americans, especially poor Americans.

The film wasn't as entertaining as his earlier efforts but was still pretty darn funny.

Moore did a Q&A after the film which was really interesting. It turned out a lot of the London people who were in the film were there including the guy who got his fingers chopped off and the doctor that reattached them. They gave him a white doctor's coat which was kind of cute.

One point he made that was quite striking for me was how Canada's health care system could go either way, toward the French system that covers things ours currently doesn't or towards an American style private system. I for one am going to try to make sure we don't go the US way.

BTW The only star other than Moore there was actress Shirley Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland's mother.

2 screenings with the Director present in 2 days!

One of those once in a lifetime coincidence things happened. On Friday I saw the North American premiere of Sicko with Director Michael Moore there. Saturday I saw a Canadian film called That Beautiful Somewhere at the Hyland. Director Robert Budreau was there as well. See separate posts on each film.

Swag #5 Simpsons Movie mugs.

These mugs were on the tables at the ShowCanada lunch sponsored by Fox who's releasing the movie. Pretty standard plastic mugs but neat nonetheless. The movie logo is on one side, the Duff logo on the other. I snagged three, I'm going to give two away as prizes and probably keep the other one myself.

Western Film mini movie review - Ocean's Thirteen.

Went to see Ocean's Thirteen tonight. Talk about stars, pretty much everyone was in it, even Super Dave Obsorne. Overall a fun movie. The story was very complicated but not as bad as Ocean's Twelve. It was funny , even some movie star in jokes. I seemed to be the only one in the audience who got the in jokes though. There were some parts that were funny but didn't make much sense like Matt Damon's nose. I'm surprised there hasn't been some complaints about one joke if I heard it right. I think I'd have to see it again to make complete sense of it but fully enjoyed it.

Western Film movie reviews

I saw Mr. Brooks tonight. The trailer made the movie look interesting and I wanted to see it but it wasn't on the top of my list. I was pleasantly surprised. It was a good thriller with some interesting twists. The actors were pretty good, Costner makes a pretty creepy bad guy. Dane Cook who is normally more of a comedic actor did well in a more dramatic role. Demi Moore was Demi Moore. The movie is rated 18A for some fairly explicit violence. Apparently it's supposed to be part of a trilogy so we'll see if the others get made. It's done okay at the Box Office, about 12 million. Western Film may or may not play it. If I get a week where there's nothing like Spider-Man available I'll slot it in. It didn't get a huge amount of press but the older audience that comes to Western Film during the summer will remember the start power Costner and Moore used to have.

Swag #4 Transformers gym bag

Speaking of Transformers in the last post. This neat gym bag was part of the swag at the ShowCanada meal sponsored by Paramount. It's actually quite nice. It'll be given out as a prize the week we play the film.

Stupid and obvious Studio marketing

- A few years ago Sony got caught using quotes from a fake movie critic on it's marketing materials. To make it even stupider they used the name of a real newspaper?!

-The MTV Movie awards this weekend have been getting quite a thrashing in the movie blogs. One of the awards was 'Best Movie You Haven't Seen yet'. Seriously, I'm not joking. So first there's the issue of how one picks the winner for that award? Oh, wait a minute, maybe one doesn't even have to choose a winner since the whole award is an obvious plug. MTV is owned by Viacom which also happens to own Paramount who's big summer movie is Transformers which just happened to win the award.

- There were also three clips from Transformers in the awards show. Obviously the reason for clips is to promote the movie so you want as many people to see them as possible. The clips were uploaded to youtube by someone. I saw them linked to by at least 2 blogs. Paramount pulled the clips!! I'd love to hear their reasoning for that one.

Next Week's Movies

Next week was pretty much a no-brainer. There weren't any new films available so I booked in Georgia Rule which I didn't book last week.

Spider-man 3 might be available the next week. It's the lowest grosser at the multiplexes here so it will likely come off to make room for Fantastic 4.

I noticed Fracture is still playing at the Westmount even though Western Film is playing it. I guess the studio figures we are far enough apart we won't affect each other's business.

Western Film movie reviews

Disclaimer- this is my personal opinion and you may not agree. I admit I'm in a bit of a conflict of interest since I don't want to dissuade people from seeing a film at Western Film.

KNOCKED UP - the advance word on this film was very positive and it didn't disappoint. I think I can safely say it was the most consistently funny movie I have ever seen. There weren't a lot of laugh out loud moments but I had a pretty big smile the whole time. It also somehow managed to make crude humour intelligent. It will definitely play at Western Film but probably not for a while. I think the word of mouth on this film will be good and it will play at the first run theatres for a while. It's the kind of film that plays for a while unlike blockbuster films that open huge but don't play too long.

28 WEEKS LATER- I don't normally watch a lot of horror films but the first one was really good. This one was neat, interesting story, it was very gory but the editing was so fast you could barely see any of it. They also used a shaky camera quite a bit. This won't play at Western Film because it's a horror movie and from Fox.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3- Long spectacular roller coaster ride that didn't make a lot of sense. Fun characters, incredible special effects. Didn't seem as kid friendly as perceived. Not for little kids. Will play at Western Film but not for a while.

Fewer movie ads on Telelvision?

I've read a couple thing recently that indicate the studios will probably do fewer ad buys on TV. Some companies are switching advertising dollars to the Internet, figuring the primary audience for movies, teenagers and young adults, will be more likely to see it.

Technology like Tivo and PVR's are another reason. So many people are recording things to watch later and/or skip the commercials. The usual advertising strategy of blanket ads the last few days before opening weekend goes out the window if people don't want the shows until after the weekend.

I see the latter point. I got a new computer a few months ago with a PVR built in. I record pretty much everything to watch later. However I am watching more TV in total. I basically gave up on watching TV series because they were constantly moving them around and I would miss some. With the PVR there's a guide for up to two weeks ahead so I just select the items I want to record. I started watching 3 series, Bones, Heroes and Ugly Betty. I do fast forward through the commercials but if I see one that looks interesting I'll go back and watch it especially movie commercials. On the other hand I just got around to watching some episodes of South Park I recorded back in March. There were a lot of ads for Fido which is long gone from Theatres.

I can think of one thing that would help. Instead of concentrating the advertising in the last few days before the movie opens start the commercials a couple weeks earlier. Most people who record things probably watch them fairly quickly.

Why did Disney do this?

For reasons unknown Disney recently renamed it's home video division to Disney Home Entertainment. Before that I believe it was Buena Vista, the name Disney uses for most of it's distribution.
The odd thing is that Disney has always tried to keep it's name off movies that didn't fit the wholesome kid friendly image it had. In 1984 they created Touchstone pictures specifically to release movies with more adult content and leave off the Disney name.
The reason this came to my attention was the upcoming release of Badder Santa on HiDef DVD for Christmas. Badder Santa is the even more naughty version of Bad Santa which starred Billy Bob Thornton as a foul mouthed, heavy drinking, department store Santa.
So now a movie called Badder Santa will be released under the Disney banner, how long before some unknowing parent sees Santa and Disney on the package and buys it and scares the crap out of a couple kids.

Swag #3 Dead Silence.

This is a plastic cup and two refrigerator magnets given out by Universal for the horror movie Dead Silence. These were the only items given away at the convention for a movie that had already opened. Normally I'd use them for prizes but Western Film doesn't play horror movies. If anyone is interested in them let me know.

The Importance of Trailers

I was thinking about movie trailers (previews) tonight. A trailer is most people first look at a new movie and the trailer can make or break a movie. One of my pet peeves is misleading trailers. I haven't seen it but my understanding is the trailer for Georgia Rule is a bit misleading. It's more dramatic than the trailer would have you believe. One movie for a movie called Home Fries made it look like a romantic comedy. I went to see it on a night when that was wanted to see and and got a quirky dark humour film. I would normally have liked the film but since it wasn't the type of movie I wanted to see that night I was left with a bad impression.

When I was at ShowCanada there was a seminar on posters and trailers. One of the trailers they showed is below. It's a parody trailer for the Shining, it's an extreme example on misleading trailers.



The one below is a great example of how important music is to a trailer. In case some don't get it the footage is from a old sitcom called Perfect Strangers.

Next Week's Movies

I had basically already decided to play Fracture next week. I could have played it the current week but decided to play Disturbia and I didn't want to play two shows. The only other new movies were The Invisible and possibly Georgia Rule. I think the Hyland is planning to play Georgia Rule next week so normally we would have to wait until they were done. As an aside Westmount is still playing Fracture so I'm not sure what would have happened if we had picked it up. Offering it to us was either a mistake or the studio figured we are so far apart from each other there's no competition

So the current plan is Fracture next week and Georgia Rule the following week. Hopefully Spider-Man will be available the next week or things might get interesting from a booking point of view.

I hope Fracture does well, it deserves to despite the relatively low press it got. Both Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins are great and the story was interesting.

Swag #2 Shrek The Third shirt

This is a fairly bland t-shirt with a nice graphic on it. The odd thing is the image is on the back of the shirt, the front is blank. I kinda wondered if a mistake was made on that. My nephew is a Shrek fan so I'm going to give it to him.

Long Movies Pros and Cons.

I just saw Pirates 3 which was about three hours with trailers. I got to thinking about how long movies affect various aspects of going to the movies.

Movie watchers.
-more bang for their buck (literally in Pirates)
-sometimes have to miss part of movie (or hold it) to go to the washroom.
-some may forgo going to the theatre because the movie is so long. That was one of the problems with Grindhouse.

Movie Theatres
-long movies tend to be blockbusters which are usually good for concessions sales, they don't call 'em popcorn movies for nothing.
-fewer shows per day which means less income.
-late shows that start and run really late increasing staff costs. Pirates 3 ended at 1am.

Western Film.

-We usually only have one show a night with a long film, no late show. We can't push our start time any later than 10pm, it never works. This reduces our staff costs but also reduces any income we might have had from a late show of a different movie.
-If I do run a long movie for a late show it increases costs, occasionally even to the point of paying for a taxi home for staff if the movie ends after the buses stop running.
-long movies are a pain in the .. back. A 3 hour film weighs about 100 pounds.

Interesting video about Copyright Law.

I thought this video was neat. Must have taken ages to put together. I don't completely agree with it's message. I fully believe in 'fair use' of copyright material but I don't agree with it's thesis that copyright should be reduced. If I create a character/book/work of art it should be mine to control and/or make money from. Just because things like films and books are reproducible shouldn't mean they should be subject to different laws. Why should films fall into the public domain when an original painting by Warhol, Rembrandt or DaVinci doesn't? I'm sure the Louvre would be quite happy if I came knocking and said the Mona Lisa is public domain now, can I have it to put over my mantle?

Movie Poster of the Week

I think everyone has seen this movie. If you haven't, go and rent it, now, run. It's one of the funniest movies ever made. We played it as one of the midnight films a couple years ago and it did really well. The print was getting rough so I'm not sure if we'll play it again.

I picked this one because I was looking through the new arrivals at movieposter.com which is in Toronto. They have an excellent condition, folded copy of this for sale. For $460!!

I'm pretty sure I have a mint copy of this poster at home. Anybody want to buy it? Only $400.

Annoying customer #413 / Hot Building.

Theatre is a bit hot today which reminded me of an incident from a couple years ago. It might have been a Tuesday but in any case it was a very busy night around the beginning of summer. This building is heated with radiant heating using liquid not by heating the air like most houses do. So when the outside temperature changes the insides of the buildings take a bit to catch up. The physical structure (concrete) of the building has to either warm up or cool down before the temperature inside stabilizes.

On this particular night the room was about half full and very hot by the end of the movie. As we learned in The Matrix human bodies produce a lot of heat. One older guy comes out after the movie and starts yelling at me about how hot the theatre is and he's had two heart attacks. I tried to be as nice as possible to him and explain the situation and how the temperature of the room is beyond our control.

I couldn't help but think though, why didn't he just leave before the movie was over if it was that big a deal for him?

Next Week's Movies

There were a few movies available today.

The NameSake- I hear it's good but Fox wanted all shows which I couldn't do for this movie even when the students are here.

The Ex- Wasn't promoted at all. Plus it wasn't a good movie.

Fracture- I am planning to play this next week.

Disturbia- I decided to play this one. Only one show at 7pm. I wasn't planning to play this film before it came out as it looked like a standard teen thriller. However when it came out it turned out to be a really good movie and was a surprise hit. It's actually still #4 on the North American top 10. We only got it already because Pirates 3 will be playing on about half the screens on the planet.

Part of the reason I decided to push Fracture off to next week was we have so few movies coming off in the next couple weeks I want to play until Spider-Man is available. Basically there's Fracture and Georgia Rule. Hopefully Spidey is available the week I think it will be or I'll have to get creative. Maybe experiment and play Meet the Robinsons. We may get a better response to kid's movies now that Rainbow has gone first run. We pretty much lost the family market when they opened.

Movie Poster of the Week

The poster for Jaws is one of the most iconic posters ever produced. Anything that has been parodied as much has got to be iconic. It's also one of the best designed in my opinion. In one glance it tells you exactly what the movie is about despite being so simple. It's also one of the best movies ever made.

This just goes to show why movies are important.

There was a story on the news today about a single mother who found $10.00 on the ground and bought a lottery ticket with the money. She won a million dollars! How did she celebrate? She took her family to the movies.

SWAG #1 Transformers gym bag.

This was one of the more interesting swag items we got. It was useful to carry some of the other stuff home too!

The movie looks like it could be good or bad, hard to tell from the trailers. In either case I'm pretty sure Western Film will play it. The gym bag will be given away as a prize that week. Everyone who comes to the film will get a ballot to fill out if interested.

Swag!

Swag is stuff that is given to people at conventions, awards shows etc. The presenters at the Oscars get swag bags worth thousands. I'm not sure what the origin of the term is, someone told me it stands for Stuff We All Get.

I'm going to do postings of the items I got at ShowCanada. Some I'm going to keep, others I'm going to give away with contests when we play the relevant movie.

The pic is a nice bag we were given to tote around our notebooks etc (and our swag!)

The eternal question, what time should we start a single show?

One thing that gets brought up quite a bit is whether we should start the movie at 8pm instead of 7pm during weeks we only have one showing. I've tried a bit of both and I tend to leave it at 7pm.

Pros of an 8 pm movie.
-patrons might come who couldn't make it to a 7pm.
-it's an unusual time so it might make us stand out more and be remembered for future moviegoing.

Cons of an 8pm movie.
-patrons might not notice we changed the time for that week and show up at 7pm or vice-versa and assume all summer or single shows will be at 8pm.

- not all of the single summer shows would be at 8pm, long movies (Spider-Man 3) would still have to start at 7 as well as anything that children might come to (Shrek).

-When I have run 8pm shows in the past I noticed concession sales were lower presumably because people have had more time to go out for dinner beforehand. Since we pay a large portion of our expenses from the food sales this isn't a good thing.

-even short movies starting at 8pm might run too late for some people.

When I have tried it in the past I have found the cons outweighed the pro. Please feel free to leave a comment if you disagree.

Single / early shows only?

During the summer there are a lot of weeks we only have one show at 7pm with no late show. There's a few reasons for this.

-With fewer students around there are fewer movies that are worth playing, for example I might play something like 28 Weeks Later during the school year but probably won't during the summer.

-The crowd is different, we tend to get a lot more faculty, off-campus, and families during the summer. As another example I probably wouldn't have played Wild Hogs during the school year. This crowd tends not to go to the late shows.

- last year it seemed like almost every week there was only one movie I wanted to play anyway. During the summer you tend to get big movies and lots of small movies that don't do well. This summer may be different, it looks like there's going to be lots of good movies.

- long movies- Spiderman, Harry Potter and Pirates 3 are all almost three hours long with trailers. That makes a late show at 10pm which doesn't always work for the reasons listed above. Even during the school year that's getting late for us.
A couple of my staff and I were talking about whether to play a late show of Spiderman when we get it. I honestly couldn't decide whether I should or not. I figure I'll wait and see how long it takes to get it. I may also use it as an experiment. Play a late show and see how it does to gauge whether I should show late shows of the other big movies.

Next Week's Movies

Actually there is only one movie next week. There were three movies available:

Lucky You- big bomb, bad movie.
Next- looks like an okay movie but didn't do very well and not a type of film Western Film does well with.
Blades of Glory- I decided to play this one but with only one show at 7pm. (see next post about singles shows).
Coming the following week should be either Disturbia or Fracture.

Poster of the Week

I don't know what this movie is about, looks like Ping Pong but I think the poster does a good job of telling you it's a comedy and exactly what kind of comedy it is.

ShowCanada preview Screening of Shrek The Third

The first day of ShowCanada (Apr 25th ) we got to see a preview of Shrek the Third. The schedule listed the event as a Paramount movie. Paramount had a movie opening later in the week, Next with Nicolas Cage, so I figured that was what we would be seeing. However I neglected to take into account that Paramount bought Dreamworks which is releasing Shrek. It was a working print. The final color correction wasn't done but it wasn't too noticeable. There were a couple spots where actions were missing.

Overall the movie is really funny and one of those great movies that works both for kids and adults. I predict huge business.

There was only one small disappointment for me, there's a moment in the trailer where a certain piece of music that seems perfect is used. The same song played an important part in Kill Bill. It's called Battle without Honour or Humanity. In the scene in the movie different music is used. Probably no one else would notice, I suppose I noticed because it's one of my favorite songs.

The song is at 1:00 (one minute) in the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aZXVzUQGA4

I tried to embed the trailer but it wasn't working for some reason.

The Coolness that was ShowCanada.

Show Canada is an annual convention of exhibitors, distributors and movie studios. The last few years it's been in places like Halifax or Victoria but this year it was in Niagara Falls so this was the first time I was able to go.
ShowCanada consists of seminars, screenings, lots of meals and some parties.
My main reason for going was to learn more about Digital Cinema, how it works, when it's coming and who's going to pay for it. I learned a lot.
There were also seminars on Internet marketing, movie piracy, posters and trailers and others.
We got to see Shrek 3 which was really cool. It's a lot of fun. We also got to see parts of Hairspray and a couple of the stars were there including Nikki Blonsky who plays the central character. There were a couple screenings I didn't go to , one was Away From Her which is coming out soon.
The meals were each sponsored by a different distributor or Studio. During each meal we got to watch trailers and other footage from upcoming films. Some of the trailers for movies as late as next year were still in rough cut which was cool. There's some really interesting movies coming out in the next while. I think my favorite meal was the lunch sponsored by Fox. The centerpieces on the tables were stacks of donuts similar to the one on the posters. They also had a couple really cool standees, one was a life size couch with the Simpsons on it. There was a spot on the couch where people could sit and have their picture taken.
There were talks by various big wigs in the exhibition industry.
Rick Mercer hosted the final dinner, he was hilarious.
The Swag we were given after each meal was cool. Shrek shirts, Transfomers gym bag, Warner Bros barbecue set etc etc. I'll be posting pics of each item over the next while. Most of the items will be given away as prizes when we play the various movies. I think I'll keep one of the Simpson's mugs though.

Next Week's movies.

There were only 2 new movies available this week.

The Condemmed - so I don't think so.
Wild Hogs - I didn't plan to play this before, I never even ordered any trailers because I thought it looked stupid. However it was a surprise hit so it must be better than it looked. It's also a good movie to play right now since it skews slightly older and until summer school starts the number of students around is about as low as it gets.

I decided to bring back 300 for the late show. There was a lot of demand for it and the week we played it was not the best. It included the tail end of exams and the end of the month when a lot of students have to move. We'll see how it does.

Shrek the Third opens next weekend so I expect Disturbia and or Blades of Glory to come off. I already know Vacancy is available but I don't think we'll play it.

One of my staff mentioned tonight that by the end of the month there will be basically only three movies playing in London, Spidey, Shrek and Pirates 3.

Poster of the Week

For those of you familiar with British comedian Rowan Atkinson and his infamous Mr Bean character you should be looking forward to this film. It's a kind of sequel to his first movie from 1997. Mr. Bean's Holiday is about the infamous Mr.Bean, a lazy buffoon who manages to cause problems in even the simplest of tasks. It's already done huge business overseas and comes out here Aug 31. I'll be there opening weekend.

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.

Someone expects Spider-man 3 to be big!

I looked at the movie listings tonight (Thursday) and noticed something. If you include the midnight shows Thursday night the Silver City at Masonville is playing 18 shows of Spider-man on Friday alone. Considering the movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes plus Famous usually puts 20 minutes of Trailers in front that's almost three hours. I figure they are playing it on 5 of their 12 screens.

BTW Some of my staff and I have a bet as to how much Spidey does opening weekend. The current record is $135 million for Pirates 2. My guess for Spidey is $150 million. We'll see how close I am.

This week's plus last week's movies

This is going to be a combined post for the last couple weeks movie choices. I was away at ShowCanada last week and didn't get a chance to do any posts. For more on the coolness that was ShowCanada see later posts.

For the current week Apr 27 - May 3 there were several films available.

300- I decided to play this one. In a rare move I played the film for both shows when I didn't have to. The demand has been very high for it. As it is we got it the last few days the students were around.

The Hoax- planning to play in the next couple weeks.

The Lookout- good movie but not enough awareness.

The Reaping - an okay movie but not a genre Western Film does well with.

Sharkwater - This needs to be a 7pm show so I pushed it to the next week.

TMNT - too kiddy for Western Film.

Grindhouse. - I had decided to push this to the week after 300, see later post.

For the upcoming week May 4 -10 there were a couple movies available.

In The Land of Women - big bomb, we normally do well with films aimed at women but this one just didn't seem to appeal to anyone.

Perfect Stranger - big stars, bad movie, big bomb.

Shooter - I was iffy on this one as Western Film has a mixed history on basic action movies how I decided to play this one for a couple reasons.
-Mark Wahlberg is popular.
-Mark Wahlberg is shirtless.
-It's a really good, above average, action film with a sensible plot, good acting and special effects meant to support the story not be the main attraction.