Next Week's Film

Finally, Iron Man came off so I booked it in. I was already told What Happens in Vegas was available so I would have booked that in if Iron Man had not come off. Vegas will probably play the week after Iron Man. I was mildly surprised when the booker told me she was checking on Sex and The City. I didn't think it would come off for a couple more weeks. It turned out it wasn't available next week but may be for the following week. That may introduce an interesting choice. I may have to chose between Sex and Vegas?! I'd choose Sex as I think it will do better here.

I decided to do late shows and matinees for Iron Man. Late shows lately have been a bit of a bust but I think Iron Man should pull some people. If it doesn't we may be looking at a summer of single shows much to the chagrin of my staff.

Matinees have been Hit and Miss at Western Film. Iron Man isn't as obvious a matinee film as something like Kung Fu Panda but a lot of kids liked it and I heard many wanted to see it more than once so parents may choose to bring them to a lower priced theatre. If Western Film plays matinees for a film we are playing at night the extra cost is basically just the staff cost so a huge number of attendees isn't required. I stopped bringing in movies for just matinees as the costs go up quite a bit once the minimum rental is added.

Plus matinees tend to have high food sales, kids love popcorn even more than I do.

Funny Hancock Blooper at a theatre I was at in England.

This article was on Cinematical today. Someone shot this not quite completed billboard for Hancock. I happened to realize the theatre was the Vue in Leicester Square in London England. One of the big old theatres that had been multiplexed. I saw a couple films there.

Requiem for Ferris - remake trailer?

Found this brilliant little fake trailer today. Coincidentally it uses the music from the Babylon A.D. trailer. It's a remix of the theme from the film Requiem for a Dream. This particular version was made for a LOTR: Two Towers trailer. It's another of my favorite pieces of music. It's great to play really loud. It was also used in the trailer for Sunshine and at least one other movie.

This shows how editing and music can completely change the meaning of a film trailer. Imagine watching this trailer and then seeing the real Ferris Bueller's Day Off?!

Yet another cool looking action film with Vin Diesel this time!

Another new trailer for a fun looking film. This one adds a sci-fi element which is cool as that's my favorite genre. If there was an Oscar for action film star Vin Diesel would be in the running. he should at least get an honourable mention for coming up with his screen name?!

The second video shows just how far he's come.

Speaking of Jason Statham...

This looks cool too. If they gave out Oscars for action film stars he should win.

David Fincher and Brad Pitt together again!

David Fincher is one of my favorite directors. He directed the classics Se7en, Fight Club and the under appreciated Zodiac. His next movie again stars Brad Pitt. The Curious case of Benjamin Button is about a guy who ages backwards. It's an interesting idea and I'm curious to see what they do with it. From the trailer it looks like a slow paced dialogue heavy film. The kind Fincher likes but probably won't do huge box office. I'll definitely see this one opening weekend.

Tom Cruise in the news again.

An interesting article from Slate about Tom Cruise in a possible Mission Impossible 4 and some controversy about Valkyrie, his next movie. Tom is playing a real life German officer who headed a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. His supposed facial similarity to the officer was one of the studio's defenses when German objected to a Scientoligist playing a German hero. However is seems the studio may have fudged things a bit.

Next Week's Movie.

I was afraid this would happen. Iron Man didn't come off. The only new movie that might have been available was The Strangers. I told the booker we didn't want it anyway (horror film) before she knew whether it was available or not.

I checked into the art/independent stuff. The only one I thought we would do okay with was My Blueberry Nights but no prints were available.

So I had to go back through films we had chosen not to play for various reasons. I narrowed my choice down to 2 films, Speed Racer or Street Kings. I had initially decided to go with Speed Racer because of it's higher profile but the booker convinced me to go with Street Kings. She said Speed Racer had been doing horrible at second run theatres. The negative buzz was just too strong even though the film wasn't that bad.

The main reason I didn't play Street Kings before was because it was from Fox so I couldn't split it. That isn't a problem this week because there's nothing to split it with anyway. I am however only playing one show a night. It wouldn't do enough business to justify two shows a night by itself.

If Iron Man doesn't come off next week I'll have a conniption fit (whatever that is).

I was informed we could have What Happens In Vegas as of Jun 27 but it's Fox so I can't split it. It may wait a week or two until I get a week when there isn't anything else available.

Movies that should be seen on the Big Screen only.

I saw this post on Cinematical today and couldn't resist linking to it. I've done the same thing as the author. There are films I've refused to watch until I could see them on the big screen. I'd never seen Wizard of Oz in it's entirety until they re-released it a few years ago. I had never seen Lawrence of Arabia until the old New Yorker theatre played it. I still haven't seen the Sound of Music to the disbelief of everyone I know.

This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the switch to digital projection. These old films will probably be converted to whatever format the new projectors use and we can finally see them as they should be seen. The few 35mm prints of most of these films left in Canada are pretty much unwatchable. It's too expensive for the studios to make new 35mm prints but digital copies are a lot cheaper.

Some films I've seen but would love to see on the big screen again.

Grease 2

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Star Wars ( Lucas would probably nix this one)

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Moulin Rouge

The Lost Boys

The Goonies

Fifth Element

The Abyss- the original version is the only one available on film here. I'd travel far to see the Directors Cut on the big screen. It's way better than the original version.

Anyone else have movies they want to see on the big screen?

England trip- Cinemas- annoyed at myself a little.

I finally got to downloading the hundreds of photos I took in England and was surprised how few of them were movie related. I guess I was so interested in the movies and cinemas I forgot to take pics. There were things I thought I had done but I guess I didn't. I thought I had taken some pics of the big cinemas in Leicester square at night but don't see any. The cinemas looked nice lit up, especially the Empire.

There's still some teenage boy in me.

Traditionally guys my age are supposed to start liking opera and only serious films. However I still really love to watch films like this one.




I know he's one dimensional but I like Jason Statham. I noticed both Transporter 3 and Crank 2 have shown up on the release schedule. I'm curious how they do Crank 2.

(Update- one of the comments made me realize I may not have made myself clear.
I want to watch this film, just like most teen-age boys, most guys my age would think it's too teen-agery.
-I don't like opera, except when used in films.

Update 2- I read a bit more about the film and now I'm a little disappointed. It's a remake in name only. In the original film the race took place out in the open country and the drivers received points based on things like how many pedestrians they hit, the older the better I think. I only remember one thing from that (Spoiler)- some doctors had put a bunch of old people out on the street to be hit by the drivers. One of the drivers veers off to hit the doctors instead.

Next Week's Movie(s)

I'm a little late on this post (again), sorry. There was only one new film available next week, Made of Honor, which I booked in for the early show. I booked in Baby Mama for the late show. It was 'will be playing' on my status list and we still had people asking about so I thought I'd take a chance. Hopefully I don't regret it.

I asked about My Blueberry Nights but there aren't enough prints for all the first run theatres that want it let alone a second run theatre like Western Film.

The booker said Iron Man will almost definitely come off the following week which would be cool. If it does I'm going to run a 7pm show and maybe a late show, I haven't decided yet. late shows are iffy during the summer, even for Iron Man. I'm also going to try running matinees on Saturday and Sunday. We have had some success in the past playing kid-friendly films for matinees during the summer.

If Iron Man isn't available I'm not sure what I'm going to do. There's almost nothing else I see coming off I want to play. What Happens in Vegas should come off but Fox puts two weeks between when it leaves first run and is available to second run.

Bogus trailer for a movie that may or may be actually made?

This funny little trailer is for a movie called Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse. Some people think it's a spoof trailer, some think it's a short film. Whatever it's origins, according to Cinematical it's being made into a full length movie. It's an interesting concept and if the movie is anywhere near as funny as the trailer it should be great.

Movie Theatre teaser for Pink Panther 2.

I thought the first Steve Martin Pink Panther was okay but obviously nowhere near as good as the Peter Sellers series. A lot of people around here wonder why a sequel is being made when it didn't do great here. The reason is it did big business in the rest of the world. According to boxofficemojo.com it did 82 million in North America, not bad but not great. However it did 76 million overseas. A large amount compared to the domestic gross. Hence we get a sequel.

This is the first teaser for the film. I can't quite tell if it's part of the film or footage shot just for the teaser. I'm inclined to believe the latter. It's self-contained and takes place in a movie theatre. The end part seems a little long to be inside a movie and there's something at the very end that's obviously not in the film.

P.S. I love the Marquee on the theatre. I wish theatres still had those fancy Marquees.

Great Ideas!

I wish I'd thought of these myself.

How to Improve Cinemas in one simple step.

Why the General Public should be banned from Cinemas.

Funny Tropic Thunder ' viral ' video

I guess this was on the MTV awards but it's the first time I've seen. I hope Tropic Thunder is as good as it looks. I thought the reference to Heartbreak Kid was great.

I tried to embed the video but it's not working so I'll just include a link


There's a bit of an interesting article on this video on Cinematical.

Hollywood Reporter Q&A with head of Nato and Regal Cinemas.

This is an interesting article from the Hollywood Reporter. It's a Q&A with John Fithian, the head of NATO, an organization of cinemas and Mike Campbell, head of Regal Cinemas the largest theatre chain in the US.

Both men are talking about trying to spread out movie releases so they aren't concentrated all in a few months, especially all the big ones that open in May and cannibalize each other.

They also talk about ratings of films in the US and 3-D cinema.

Some interesting differences between movie-going in Canada and England.

This was the first trip I had taken outside North America. I've visited the States a few times and overall it's similar to Canada, although I did get some funny looks when I asked for vinegar for my french fries in the US.

There's some interesting differences in England, some good, some bad. I was in enough different cinemas that I think it's safe to say these are probably common to the entire country.

They are called cinemas only, whereas we often use cinema and theatre interchangeably. If I said theatre over there they assumed I was talking a live show. This makes sense to me, I often calls for people looking for the live event theatre on campus.

No cinema I was in had a pre-show, they all had curtains which stayed closed until the film started. I can't decide about that. I kind of like an interesting pre-show and since Western Film has one I'm in a bit of a conflict of interest. On the other hand it was kind of nice being able to relax and just wait for the show to begin.

They play way more commercials and fewer trailers. One show I checked and there was half an hour of commercials and trailers. The proportion was different. Here you usually get about 5 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of trailers. There it was about half and half. It wasn't all bad though, most of the commercials were quite entertaining, even multiple times. I did wish they played more trailers though as I really like trailers.

As an example, around here we get those boring Telus ads with the fish etc. asking us to turn off our mobile phones. In England they have this.

In some cinemas they have assigned seating. Some of the bigger prestige cinemas, most notably the big Odeon in Leicester Square have assigned seating. It also has different levels with different prices. I'll do a post on it later. The cinema closest to my sister's place had an interesting arrangement. Most of the cinema was general seating but there were a few rows in the middle that had assigned seating and were bigger chairs. They cost extra but it was nice to be able to book tickets for Indiana Jones online and know I would get a good seat.

There's a lot more digital presentation in England, I'll be doing a post on this later.

This one was my sore point. Every cinema had stale popcorn!? I never saw an actual popper as we do here. They seemed to get it in from somewhere in big plastic bags. It was dumped into a bin under the counter and served from there. It was interesting they had a choice of salted or sweetened popcorn. They didn't have butter or similar products. They also didn't have the seasonings we have, white cheddar, dill pickle etc. If I wasn't such a popcorn addict I wouldn't have bought it, especially when it was outrageously expensive once the money exchange was factored in.

Next Week's films.

Next week is one of those weeks that sucks because the students who would be most likely to want to see the films are AWOL.

Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay was the only new film available. I booked it for the 7pm show. I'm not sure how it will do, hopefully there's lots of people like me who didn't get around to seeing it first-run.

Be Kind Rewind came available some time while I was gone. I really wanted to get this film before school ended but it just kept playing and playing at the first run theatres. I was tempted not to play it at all but after saying for months I was going to I feel a certain obligation. I booked it in for the late show. I hope it doesn't do as bad as I think it will.

The only other movie the booker was checking on was Made of Honor so that might be available the following week. It looks horrible but apparently is funny plus there's lots of Patrick Dempsey fans around.

To my surprise the booker said Iron Man was close to coming off. I wouldn't have expected it this soon. There's now one or two big releases each weekend so it may get pushed off. Needless to say I will be playing it.

What Happens in Vegas is close to coming off but it's Fox so I'll have to wait two weeks and then not split it.

Programming update.

A bit of an update about the last couple weeks. My staff were booking the films while I was gone. You may have noticed we went down to one show a night for a couple weeks. That's partially a byproduct of not many movies available but mostly because this is the deadest time of year for us.

Some of the movies we didn't play:
Street Knights: from Fox or I would have played it.
Speed Racer: I liked the film but obviously a lot of people didn't since it's now one of the biggest bombs of all time.
Baby Mama: I would have played this film while the students were here but now it would probably bomb. I might play it if we don't get a good movie next week.
Horton Hears a Who: Fox.
Deception: low awareness and bad reviews.
Forbidden Kingdom: basically a kid's film, we don't play them until the summer.

Back from England

I'm back. It took me a couple days to get caught up on the backlog of work but I seem to have caught up so I can start posting again. I took tons of pics of theatres etc in England to post. Don't worry, I won't bother you with all the pics I took of all the cool non-theatre buildings I took.

I saw about 15 movies in England. Some would say it's a little silly to take a vacation from working at a movie theatre and go watch movies but it's what I love to do. I also wanted to check out the theatres the films were playing in. I always find it interesting to check out new theatres. I even got some ideas to implement at Western Film. Some won't be relevant until some renovations vaguely planned for some unknown time frame.

Oops, forgot to say I wasn't going to be here for a while.

I'm on vacation in England and I just realized I forgot to do a post saying I wouldn't be posting for a while. I was really busy writing my final exam in a course and getting ready to leave.
I'll be gone for about three weeks visiting my sister in London UK and going around to see the sites.
I'm planning to look for cool old movie theatres so hopefully I'll have some interesting pics to post when |I get back.

I'll be back about May 27.

Funny line from review of 88 minutes.

Rarely do I laugh out loud at a sentence in a movie review. I did at this line in a Variety review of Al Pacino's 88 minutes. As you can probably tell from the line itself the review was pretty scathing. The movie sounded like an interesting idea but wasn't done properly.

Here's the line:

"To play the babes, the 19 producers have seen fit to hire actresses (including Alicia Witt but especially Leelee Sobieski) with the uniform capacity to tower over the leading man, something for which he was surely grateful. "

Let me know if you agree or if I just have a weird sense of humour.

Poster of the Week - Dark Knight Posters -

Frequent commenter Chris Weber pointed out this new Dark Poster which we both agree really rocks.

I also noticed something interesting at Toronto based movieposter.com. They have between $84 and $183 on some Dark Knight posters. I have two different posters at work. I'll have to check to see if they are any of the expensive ones just out of curiosity. The Advance Why So Serious is the really expensive one.

Next Week's Movies

This was one of those weeks I was faced with a hard to make choice. These films were available.

The Ruins- horror movies don't work at Western Film.

The Other Boleyn Girl.- I have been planning to play this so I booked it in for the early show.

The Bank Job-

Stop-Loss-

I had to choose between these last two for the late show. It was one of those no-way-to-know decisions. Stop-Loss was higher profile with some popular stars but was about Iraq and didn't do great first-run. The Bank Job was low profile but had Jason Statham. I finally decided on Bank Job because it had played for longer than I expected first-run in London so it must have done well. I also checked and Bank Job had grossed $30 million and Stop-Loss had only done $10 million. Grosses aren't always a good guide at Western Film but these movies were similar enough.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is already booked for the following week. It will be the early show. If nothing else is available Stop-Loss will be the late show.

Yet another 3-D post.

Found this lengthy and very detailed article about James Cameron and his views and and use of 3-D. He's very gung-ho on it. A major part of the push toward Digital projection over film is 3-D including his film Avatar due next year. I was quite happy to read there's going to be 2-D prints of Avatar for stone age theatres like Western Film that still play film. As I mentioned in an earlier post I was nervous that film would only be in 3-D. Now I only have to worry about all the other 3-D films coming out?!

On the other hand there's this article about a speech by John Fithian who runs the non-deadly NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners). He's saying if the studios and exhibitors don't get things ironed out soon there won't be enough 3-D screens to play all the 3-D films due next year. The basic divide is over money. The theatres will get a relatively small advantage using Digital over Film. I'd say 90% of the time there wouldn't be any difference and 99% of the public isn't going to notice. The studios will save tens of millions by not having to make film prints and ship them around. So it makes sense the Studios should help the theatres with the enormous cost of conversion from film to digital.

Next Week's Movies.

This week was a little scary to book. There were few films available. I almost had to play 10,000 BC just to fill in a slot. Usually when I have an empty slot I pull something out of reserve but I don't have anything left but films I didn't plan to play. Often I'll replay something we did well with but everything we did well with recently has come out on DVD.

I asked about In Bruges and it was available but just barely. It's finishing at a theatre in Toronto Thursday night then they'll have to put it on the bus Friday morning and I'll have to put it together Friday before the show. Thankfully I shouldn't have to worry about blizzards closing the 401 any more.

I put in Fool's Gold for the late show.

I asked about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly about Wednesday last week. There weren't any prints available until May 2 so I booked it in for that week. I hope it does well, my gut says it won't and I'm usually right. However I have been wrong before.

I'm waiting on The Other Bolyen Girl and Be Kind Rewind, maybe Run FatBoy Run. If those aren't available for the following week I might have to get creative. 10,000 BC might work as a late show exam study break film but again my gut says it won't.

Dubbing vs. Subtitling foreign lagnuage films.

I saw this rather interesting article on one of my favorite websites about the release of the french animated film Persepolis in the US having been dubbed. I especially like the bit about the woman who returned a dubbed film because she considered watching it 'work'. We played Perseoplis a couple months ago at Western Film subtitled and did quite well with it.

I've noticed over the last few years in Canada there's very few theatrical films being dubbed any more, most are subtitled. About the only exception I can think of are some of the Japanese Anime films.

I haven't had a complaint from a customer who didn't know a film was subtitled in a while.

I honestly don't get why people have problems with subtitles. Maybe it's just me but I don't even notice the subtitles any more. About the only time I notice them is when they are badly done such as white titles against a white scene.

I might be stretching here but I wonder if it has anything to do with the American's infamously inferior education system. Maybe many people either can't read or read too slow?

There are limits to both options. Subtitles have to be fairly short, especially in a scene with a lot of dialogue. Dubbing has to try to sync to the mouth actions or you get the unintentional comedy best personified by old martial arts flicks.

Both systems have translation issues as well. I once had a DVD of an Anime film somehow get both the subtitles and dubbing on at the same time. It was amazing how different they were.

I watched a Spanish film called The Orphanage at the Hyland a few days ago, until I thought about it I didn't even remember it was subtitled.

As you can probably tell I'm in the camp that prefers subtitles, I think it's important to be able to hear the original dialogue to understand emotions, inflections etc.

I must be the most depressed person on the planet?

A commenter recently said going to the movies alone was a depressing thing to do. That makes me really depressed then as I almost always go alone. I don't know anyone who goes to as many movies as I do so it would be hard to find people to go with me to every movie.

With my work schedule I work most of the evenings people usually go to movies.

I don't mind going alone, although it is nice to have someone to discuss the film with afterward, especially if it's a interesting film.

A while ago someone gave me a two for one pass for Cineplex that expired about 6 months later. I never got a chance to use it. Although in my defense that was largely because when movies first come out they usually put on the 'no passes' restriction.

I have noticed a lot of people come to Western Film alone, and they don't all look depressed, just some of them.

Harrsion Ford.

As pretty much every person in most of the world knows, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull comes out on May 22. This is the fourth Indiana Jones film, the last one was in 1989!

The film looks fantastic and will be a monster hit unless it really, really, really sucks, which isn't likely considering the talent involved.

What I would do if I was Harrison Ford? Retire after this film, go out on a high note. His last few films haven't been that good and didn't do well. If he stops with this film there won't be a gradual slide into obscurity as happens with so many actors. I wouldn't want a film like Firewall to be the last film I made.

Maybe do a few cameos or something but no more lead roles.

He's been in two of the most famous series in movie history (Indiana Jones and Stars Wars) and starred in one of the most influential films ever. (Blade Runner)

Gross things people leave behind in the theatre.

I think I did a post on this a while ago. The projectionists clean up all the popcorn bags etc. at the end of the night. We find some interesting stuff left behind by people either in the movies or by the classes earlier in the day. Just in the last couple days I've found under the seats.

- a sushi roll
-an apple core
- a used tea bag.
- we find lots of used napkins-some not just used to clean hands.
- lots of leaking coffee, pop and Ice cap containers.


The first four I left for the custodians to clean up. It's their job and they wear gloves, I'm not about to touch old sushi or used napkins.

Some times we find good things, I found a loonie tonight.

One of my favorite pieces of music is in so many trailers!

One thing I like about the internet is how easy it is to find things out as opposed to the stone ages before. Back in the stone age there was this piece of music I kept hearing in trailers and commercials etc that I really liked but never knew what it was called. I finally found out somehow. Nowadays if I want to know what the music in a trailer is I can find out in a few minutes.

The music I like is part of a longer selection by Greig called In the Hall of The Mountain King. I can think of at least two recent trailers that use it and some older ones. The 1993 Needful things trailer was really well done, I remember showing it in front of films and going out to watch it each time just to listen to the music. I think that was before I knew what it was so I couldn't get it on CD.

Below are two recent films that use the piece, if you don't recognize the music you don't watch a lot of trailers or commercials.

Chaos Theory is apparently supposed to come out on Friday, must be a limited release. BTW, don't read the About This Video section if you go back to youtube, it contains a spoiler.

Next Week's Movie(s)

The late show for next week was an easy call. Juno did better on the weekend that most movies do all week so I'm keeping it for the late show next week. The early show was a bit tougher, there wasn't anything new available. I had Definitely, Maybe and Fool's Gold available from previous weeks or I could bring in something more arty.

I decided to play Definitely, Maybe for the early show. At this point with exams just starting I don't think a lot of students will show up for a serious film.

My current plan for the week following would be The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or In Bruges followed by a late show of Fool's Gold.

Almost had a major problem with Juno.

I book films on Monday and they usually come in by courier on either Wednesday or Thursday. Occasionally I pick them up at other theatres in town if there aren't a lot of prints around.

A film comes in metal cans in small reels that are about 20 minutes each, I've included a pic. Most movies are 6 reels. We then splice the movie together and play it as one continuous film.

Juno came in on Thursday as usual. The projectionist took it into the booth and opened it. I was just about to leave for my class (my last.one. ever!) when he said he had bad news. Reel 3 was missing!

Obviously this could have been a major catastrophe as we can't really play a film with 20 minutes missing from the middle.

In previous cases I would call our Booker who would have a print shipped out on the bus on Friday. Juno didn't have a lot of prints so I didn't know if there would be an extra.

Luckily I thought to check with the theatres that had just finished playing it and Rainbow still had their print. I went and picked it up Friday afternoon, took reel 3 out of it and finally had a complete print of Juno.

Fox's asked me if the Fox seals were still on the metal cans, they still were so the missing reel didn't get stolen in transit as one would suspect. Fox isn't too happy with Deluxe in Toronto, the warehouse that ships their prints. The print was supposed to be checked before it left and obviously wasn't.

Damm drunk people

There was a Soph pub at the restaurant beside Western Film tonight which meant a couple hundred drunk students around. I don't mind drunk students but why do they have to be so disrespectful of others property? We have large metal signs outside the UCC to advertise the movies. They use large magnetic letters. I was walking out to the parking lot and happened to notice a couple sophs trying to get open the one nearest Western Road. I was on the other side of the road unfortunately and there was a fence between me and them. I crossed the road and walked up to the fence and yelled "get away from that f&*king sign". Can you tell I was pissed off? They fairly quickly took off. I walked around the fence and checked out the sign. They had bent the doors somewhat trying to get it open which they eventually managed to do just about the time I came along. I had to climb up on the sign, a rather precarious position, to get it to close again. The bent doors made it hard to line everything up.

The thing I can't help but wonder is exactly what they intended to do? Did they want to steal the letters or rearrange them to make something they thought was funny ? All that was on the sign was Juno 700 905, not many anagrams there.

The controversy about the Dutch film

From Imdb.com

"The Indonesian government has blocked access to YouTube after the video-sharing website refused to remove the anti-Koran film Fitna, produced by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders. The film cites passages in the Koran that it says incites violence, anti-Semitism, and hate among followers. However, the British tech site The Inquirer reported today (Friday) that "the Indonesian government [doesn't] seem to have quite mastered the art of censorship just yet, as Indonesians subscribing to the country's largest telecom company ... were still able to access YouTube." Even as the action against YouTube was being announced, protesters gathered outside the Dutch embassy in Jakarta, carrying placards calling for Wilders's death. Meanwhile, the Rotterdam Times reported today that the Dutch government is providing "the highest possible level of protection" for Ehsan Jami, founder of the Committee for Ex-Muslims, who last year made some of the same charges against the Koran that Wilders did in his movie."

Just my two cents, I've been hearing about this for a while and nobody seems to have stated what seems obvious to me. Dutch TV wouldn't show the film due to fears of violence, an American ISP refused to host it because of death threats against their employees. As it says above some want the director killed. Another Dutch filmmaker was already killed by a Muslim extremest.

Don't all these reactions and fear of reactions prove the point of film?

Alcohol in the movies.

The recent talk of raising the drinking age in Ontario to from 19 to 21 made me think of this post. I think the idea has already been kaboshed but it was a stupid idea. Young people can vote, join the military and kill people and make decisions that affect their whole lives before they are 21?! One of my staff would have been at the end of his third year before he could drink if the age had been raised?!

Anyway, in general I don't have any problems with drinking unless it's excessive. I go out once in a while but don't keep any at home. Coming from a family with a history of alcoholism I can't stand people who drink too much. I've been finding the use of alcohol in movies seems to bother me lately.

The next few movies you watch think about how much alcohol is consumed. Most times when someone visits they are offered a drink even if it's just a social call. The characters seem to use drinking both to celebrate and console themselves.

I sometimes wonder if the liqueur companies sponsor some of these films.

Change in attendance patterns over time.

As the title implies there have been some change over the last few years in the attendance pattern at Western Film. This post was prompted by a commenter who mentioned how full the theatre seemed on a recent Tuesday. The theatre was actually only about 1/3 full. (130 patrons). When I first started in 200o Western Film had the same patterns most theatres had. Busy weekends and Tuesday, quiet other nights. We actually used to sell out the theatre on a regular basis for Tuesday. A few times we turned away as many as 150 people.

We used to have no-shows (no customers) on a regular basis on Monday. At certain times of the year on Sunday and Monday we could use only two staff instead of the usual 3.

The patterns gradually changed for the reasons I will postulate below. Note, I'm talking patterns not total attendance.

Most theatres stopped having a discount Tuesday so the concept wasn't as familiar to everyone any more.
The Internet, DVD etc has widened people's entertainment options so they didn't just come on the weekends.

I think this is the big one- additional night classes. The number of night classes has been steadily increasing which moves people around. Someone who has a Tuesday night class has to go another night to see the 7:00 film. Conversely a lot of people are on campus for night classes go to a late show afterward. My staff is kind of a microcosm of this, I have been having steadily more nights being booked off for classes and literally have had to hire because I was short staffed certain nights. This term I can only schedule three people on Thursday instead of the usual four because so many have night classes.

So over time business has spread out. Tuesday is still the busiest night but seldom sells out. Friday and Saturday are still busy. Sunday and Monday are unpredictable but we need three staff and have only had a couple no-shows in the last couple years.

Wednesday and Thursday have become very busy nights, often busier than the weekend. In another example of a pattern changing. Wednesday used to be really busy relative to Thursday. I would usually put 4 staff on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday. A couple years ago the pattern changed and Thursdays became the busy night. Now they have evened out which I'm attributing to an increased number of Thursday night classes.

Overall we are getting about the same number of people but spread out over the whole week. I have to admit I don't miss sell-outs, there were not fun at all.

Next Week's Movie.

As I had hoped Juno was finally available so I booked it in. It's from Fox so they wanted full shows which I expected and was okay with for this film. They did decide to make things a little more interesting and charge a higher percentage than usual. I swear all these studios seem to be trying to drive all the smaller theatres out of business with their wacky business practices that don't bother the big chains but penalize smaller houses.

There were a couple other films available.

Never Back Down- interesting movie but too high school oriented for us.

Fool's Gold - I plan to play this at some point.

Right now the week after Juno would be Definitely maybe and Fool's Gold. It depends on how well Juno does, if it does anywhere near as well as I think it will I'll be holding it over for one of the shows the following week.

An interesting article In Honour of Arthur C. Clarke.

This a neat list of the most prophetic sci-fi films ever made. A couple of these I haven't seen.

2001: a Space Odyssey rates #1 as it should. It's a great film but so slow moving as to be almost boring. It's one of those films I had never seen that I was waiting for a chance to see on the big screen. We tried to show it at Western Film ages ago but the print was one of the worst I have ever seen, most of the first sequence was missing!
Unfortunately we studied it in one of my film courses so I had to watch it, at least it was projected on a screen by a fairly good video projector.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke.

My favorite author died not too long ago. Arthur C. Clarke wrote some of the most famous sci-fi novels of the last century. He also wrote the short story 2001: A Space Odyssey was based on and co-wrote the full novel. I really liked his novels, they were full of interesting ideas, exciting and fun to read. They were also written in a way that was easy to understand. He wasn't one of those writers who writes in an abstract matter just to seem intellectual. Issac Asimov is one of those.
One thing I always was disappointed about was so little of his work was filmed. There was 2001 and it's sequel 2010.

My favorite book of his is Rendezvous with Rama about a huge interstellar spaceship that swings through our solar system and the astronauts that explore it. I must have read the book about 10 times. It's finally being made into a movie that's supposed to come out in 2009. It stars Morgan Freeman and is being directed by one of my favorite directors David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac). I'll be there opening night.

I came across this short film made by a film student in 2001 which is kind of a fake trailer for a film version. I hope the makers of the film hire this guy to work on the real film. He captures the feel of the book amazingly well. Seeing this in a theatre as a trailer would give me goosebumps.

Clark's later work wasn't as good as his early stuff, especially when he started working more with other writers. I think in many cases he just came up with the idea and helped, the other person did most of the writing. The later books lacked the simplicity I loved about his early stuff. He was a unique person who was not only a great writer but a scientist and mathematician as well. He was the first person to come up with the idea of telecommunications satellites in geosynchronous orbit although he envisioned them as manned space stations. He also popularized the concept of the Space Elevator, basically an elevator between the ground and a space station. He built at least one book around it. I tried to read one of non-fiction books about it once, he had the math all worked out. It could be built but not until we have the proper technology and building materials.

Arthur C. Clarke was one of the most important people of the 20th Century and he will be sorely missed.

No Children under 6? I like this theatre.

I was reading the website of an interesting theatre chain in the southern US called the Alamo Roadhouse. It's one of the new theatres that serves food and drink while you are watching the film. That's not practical for Western Film but I did like a couple of their policies.

They strive to create an adult atmosphere. Anyone under 18 has to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

There are no children under 6 allowed except for special shows such as actual kid's films. I love this idea. Sometimes we get families that bring very young children to movies that are way not appropriate, not only should the children not be seeing the film but they wouldn't understand it so get bored and start talking or wandering around. There's also the endless potty breaks.

I realize some people may not be able to afford a babysitter but bringing several small children to a screening of The Kingdom isn't fair to the other patrons. The funny thing is they often expect the really small children to get in for free?!

I'm going to explore the idea of implementing a similar policy at Western Film except for the rare occasions when we play actual kid's films, usually only during the summer.

Cool Slideshow of 30 Most Interesting posters for 2008 movies.

I found this on the CTV website. I haven't heard of a lot of the films so I assume they are coming out later in the year.

http://www.ctv.ca/gallery/html/ENT_coolestposters2008/photo_0.html

I got in a couple of the Indiana Jones posters. I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to put pins in them. I'll probably put them in some large plastic poster bags we have. We can them put the pins in the bag and not affect the poster. This is one poster that will be making it into my personal collection after we play the film.

Question? / Comments? / Complaints?

I put up a 'blank' post every so often so if anyone any of the above they can leave it as a comment without it getting buried in an unrelated posting. I'll answer any comments that are left.

Next Week's Films

Next week had one of the largest numbers of available films but the choice wasn't too hard. I had already booked There Will Be Blood in and I only had to decide if there would be a late show. Because of the running length of Blood the late show would have to be at 10:15, really late for us.

These were available.

Jumper- bad movie I wouldn't have played anyway plus it was from Fox so they wanted all shows.

Doomsday- This was a fun movie that was better than I expected but not a film that would work at Western Film.

Definitely Maybe- I am going to play this film but I didn't want to play it as a late show. I'm planning to play it the following week unless Juno is available.

Semi-Pro- this was the only movie out of this group I thought could work as a late show. However I was iffy on playing it at all. I checked back on how Wil Ferrell's previous films had done at Western Film and it wasn't all that great and those films were hits! I decided not to play it at all.

So in the end I decided to play just one show of There Will Be Blood at 7pm.

The booker said Juno was close to coming off so it may play the following week.

Poster of the week - Quantum of Solace.

The title of the next James Bond movie is interesting if a bit unwieldy. The poster I think is one of the best I've seen. It's very simple with little text. I'm willing to bet most people would know it's a James Bond poster even without seeing the title.

Changing the movie seasons?

From IMDB: "The head of the National Association of Theater Owners charged Tuesday that both the owners and the studios could be earning a lot more money if the studios did not rely on an outmoded release schedule. John Fithian chastised the studios for failing to provide attractive movies throughout the year, noting that April and September are "virtually empty," because studios save their prime product for summer or the winter seasons. "They look at their calendar and wait for May and say, 'OK, now we can open our tent-pole movie.'" He said that if the studios hadn't tried to release the latest Spider-Man, Shrek, and Pirates of the Caribbean sequels all within three weeks of one another, the exhibitors "could have done at least another $50 or $60 million" -- particularly if the studios had decided to open at least some of them in April. "A good movie will be successful no matter when it is released," Fithian said"

I agree with this in most part. It is a bit silly to have three of the biggest movies of the year open within three weeks of each other. Despite what the studios may think most people don't see every movie they want to because of time, money etc. By releasing them so close together many people would have to choose between them.
There are however seasonal considerations. Obviously kid's films will likely do better when the kids aren't in school. The weather affects movie-going a lot, people tend not to go out as much when it's cold.
On the other hand, Cloverfield and 300 last year showed that a good movie played off season can do big business.
I remember when the redone versions of the first 3 Stars Wars movies were released in 1997. Theatres were very happy since George Lucas released them in February I think it was. It brought in a ton of business in what is normally a quiet time.

Some of this is irrelevant to Western Film. Between being 2nd run and subject to the student cycle we often get big movies at slow times for other theatres. However we also run into problems. Certain times of the year attendance drops no matter what's playing because the students are busy with school work. There's also things like Juno, at the rate it's going I might not be able to play it until well into exams. Last year I didn't get 300 until the last few days of exams. Most of the students had already left.

An interesting study that states the obvious about concession prices v.s. ticket prices.

Without the high price of popcorn at the concession counter, the price of tickets would be a lot higher, according to a study by the University of California Santa Cruz and Stanford University. Today's (Wednesday) San Jose Mercury News reported that the researchers studied data from 43 multiplex theaters in 30 cities over a five-year period and determined that the concession stand in effect subsidizes relatively low ticket prices and that without it, the ticket prices would rise 25 percent.

This is especially true in cases of cheaper theatres that have a more price sensitive audience.

It's really important for Western Film. A 10% provincial Entertainment tax would kick in if we raised our ticket price even a penny. We would have to go straight from $4.20 to about $5.00 but only make about 25 cents extra ourselves.

With the minimum wage going up significantly we might have to raise concession prices. I'm hoping not.

Movie Review - Doomsday.

The ads for this made it look like a standard scf-fi apocalypse thriller. The movie seemed to be composed of equal parts Mad Max and Escape From New York with a female lead. The Mad Max influence was so obvious and blatant the director must be a fan of the series. Normally I would assume he was a hack director but also did the movie The Descent, one of the genuinely scary flicks I've seen in a while.

Overall it was a fun action movie with occasional horror thrown in. It was better than I expected. The lead actresses Rhona Mitra probably has quite a future as an action heroine.

Questions about 3-D.

A convention for movie theatres called Showest just ended in the US. There was a lot of talk about 3-D being the saviour of the theatre since it can't be duplicated at home. A few questions occurred to me.

Some of the films are supposed to be coming out exclusively in 3-D. The Hannah Montana film was like that and so is the upcoming Journey to the Center of the Earth. I wonder how long the exclusive part will last? There are still a lot of places that don't have a 3-D theatre. 3-D is expensive both to put in and maintain. For example the small city St. Thomas south of London isn't likely to have a 3-D screen any time soon. Are they willing to forsake all places like it in order to play exclusively in 3-D?

There's also the matter of second run and independent theatres. Western Film won't have 3-D any time soon either so does that mean we won't be able to play James Cameron's Avatar when it comes out next year?

The 3-D thing also messes up the normal pattern in a multiplex. Normally a film opens in one of the larger screens then gradually moves into smaller screens as the run progresses. Unless they all have 3-D this won't be able to happen.

For example,the Silver City at Masonville converted their largest screen (#2) to play digital and 3-D. They are playing the Hannah Montana film but since none of the other screens can play it they will have to drop it right off the big screen.

Hannah is a bit of a special case but imagine this. Let's say Shrek 4 opens in 3-D only on May 1, then Spiderman 4 opens May 7 in 3-D only. The Silver City would have to either drop Shrek completely after one week or not play Spider-man. Not a choice I would want to have to make.

I predict a similar situation to when Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace opened. Initially Lucas insisted it could only open on screens with digital sound. There was a huge uproar since so many places didn't have digital sound and that requirement fell by the wayside. The 3-D movies will all or at least most have 2-D versions available as well.

Next Week's Movies.

The choice this week was pretty easy. These were the choices.

Alvin and The Chipmunks- I wouldn't have played it anyway but even less so since Fox wouldn't have let us split it.

Spyderwick Chronicles- Apparently good but a kid's movie. I might have played it during the summer.

There will be Blood- I guess the Hyland dropped it since it was offered to us.

No Country for Old Men- finally.

The booking office had actually already booked There Will Be Blood in but I said I would rather have No Country since it's out on DVD plus we've been waiting for it for so long. I decided to play it for both shows. There wasn't anything good available for a late show and I expect it to do well.

I went ahead and booked There will be Blood for the following playweek. By booking it now I can start advertising it. I figured I was safe to book it now. The only title I would rather play than Blood would be Juno but I don't see that coming off yet. There may or may not be a late show the week that Blood plays. I'll see what's available on Monday.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together in a cop film?

There's a bit of buzz about this film as it features two heavyweight actors. The new trailer is below. It looks interesting but nothing special. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Righteous Kill.

The Ten Moviegoing Commandments.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've read lately.

The Ten Moviegoing Commandments

I think I'll post these in the slide show that runs before the films. Should be good for a laugh and hopefully some educational value.

Movie Review - 10,000 BC.

The first I heard about this film was when I checked into what films actor Steven Strait had coming up. I liked him in The Covenent. 10,000 BC sounded interesting and Roland Emmerich was directing. Emmerich has had a spotty career with both good and bad films, I think Independence day is one of the best popcorn movies ever made. Popcorn movies tends to mean big budget, special effects driven spectaculars. His movies tend to be big and loud without a lot of substance but usually exciting. I was expecting something similar from 10,000 BC.

It was fairly obvious Warner Bros was hoping for a hit similar to 300 from last year, same release date, same genre, similar marketing.

Unfortunately the movie sucked. It was almost boring, only had a couple big action sequences which were obviously computer generated, didn't make sense and even stole a couple scenes right out of 300!? Steven Strait did a fine job with what he was given to work with, he looked pretty good shirtless for most of the movie.

I'd love to see the outtakes from this, the dialogue was so corny I bet they had a lot of takes where the actors couldn't keep from laughing.

I don't think this will play at Western Film. Not just because I didn't like it but for a couple reasons.

-it's getting negative buzz

-these kind of action films don't tend to do great at Western Film even when they are hits and considered good.

I might play it if I have an opening in the schedule.

Next Week's Movies

I was a little disappointed this week, I really wanted to get No Country For Old Men since it comes out on DVD. However it was still doing well enough that at least one first run theatre held it. We have played films (Walk The Line , Brokeback Mountain) after they were on DVD before and if it's something people want to see they will still come. No Country is a film that should be seen on the big screen. It will still play, hopefully the week after, I don't think I can not play it at this point with who knows how many people have been waiting for us to get it.

I was told on Friday that 27 Dresses would be available. Fox puts time between first and second run so I often know early when their films will be available. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me split it so it has to be both shows.

The current week I choose to play Atonement over There Will Be Blood, planning to play Blood next week if No Country wasn't available. Paramount Vantage decided to give the Hyland There Will Be Blood which I have no problem with. I had decided to play 27 Dresses over Blood for reasons similar to why I choose Atonement this week. Blood will still play but I'm not sure when.

One decision I didn't have to make was what to play for a late show if No Country had been available. I could have played two shows of No Country or kept Atonement for a late show. It would have been a tough call.

Why the Hannah Montana Concert Film won't be playing at Western Film.

I'd never heard of Hannah Montana until a couple months ago when word of this movie came out. She's a bit of a sensation, the weekend the movie opened it was #1 with $20 million on only 683 screens, most wide release movies open on at least 2000 screens.

However the reason it only opened on that many screens is because it's in 3-D and there are a limited number of screens with 3-D capability. It was supposed to be a one week only engagement but naturally was held over with that kind of money involved.

A couple of local theatres are opening it next week which means they must be installing Digital Projectors with 3-D since no theatre in London could show 3-D before.

There is no 2-D 35 mm film version so Western Film can't play it. I'm not sure if we would anyway, she's most popular with pre-teen girls and there ain't a lot of them on campus.

Poster of the Week: Religulous

I think Bill Maher is one of the funniest people around. He uses his humour to get across a political message I usually agree with. I hope this movie plays in Canada, his TV series on HBO doesn't and that pisses me off.

The movie comes out later in the year. I'd say it's fairly easy to tell from the poster and title what the subject matter is.

A movie I want to see: Wanted.

I'm a sucker for action adventure films, especially those based on comic books or graphic novels. The first trailer for Wanted with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy didn't wow me but the new one looks like a movie I really want to see. I guess Angelina has actually been working, it seemed like she spends so much time in the tabloids she wouldn't have time to do anything else.
I've always found her interesting. She has such a extreme look, she's beautiful but in a weird way. I'm curious to see how she ages.

Wanted Exclusive Trailer

Add to My Profile More Videos

Watching movies twice.

As far as I know few people see as many movies as I do, at least one a week, usually two. I bet there are even fewer people who see as many movies twice!
I go see a lot of films in first run release before they come to Western Film for a few reasons. Seeing the films myself gives me a good idea how they will work at Western Film, I get to keep up on what's happening at the other theatres and I can really relax because I'm not in charge.

One of the staff always watches the first showing of any film at Western Film, usually Friday. We do this to watch for technical problems such as splicing errors or sound problems. It's usually the projectionist that watches the film but on nights that person doesn't want to watch the film I often will. It works out that the usual Friday projectionist Chris and I have different taste in films. If he doesn't want to watch the film I usually will and vice-versa. I do occasionally pull managerial prerogative and make him watch a movie I really don't want to watch. Some movies are good once but not a second time or just plain sucked the first time.

Sometimes I watch a film again just because I want to.

So as a result I often end up seeing films twice. It's an interesting experience. I can watch the film more closely and see how shots were set up, notice things I didn't the first time etc. I sat and watched Cloverfield again last night. This is the best kind of film to watch twice. It's full of so many small things that can be missed the first time. The fast action is also more interesting to watch as I can get a better idea what I'm seeing. I can also watch for stuff I read or heard after I saw the film the first time. I read there is a image of something large falling into the ocean in Cloverfield which I missed the first time. The second time I was watching for it.

Next Week's Movies.

When I initially got in to the office I was told There will be Blood was available for sure and a couple others were still being checked on, I decided to wait until I found out about the others. While I was waiting I tried to decide what to do about a late show if I booked in There will Be Blood. It's very long so a late show would have to be at 10pm, pretty late for us. My original plan was to play Cloverfield as a late show after Blood but I ended up playing Cloverfield this week.

I decided to try a little experiment. I noticed we had a lot of students coming to Persepolis so I thought I would try it as a late show and see what happens. Generally the 'Art' shows only do well for the early show but I wondered how one a lot of students wanted to see would do.

It turned out Atonement was available so I booked it in instead of Blood for a couple reasons.

-it'll do better

-next playweek is one of the heaviest in terms of student workload. I figured more would come out for a two hour film than for a 3 hour really heavy film.

-I could play it for both shows, a late show of Atonement would do better than one of Persepolis.

My current plan is to play There Will Be Blood the following week followed by a late show of Atonement if it does as well as I think it will. This kinda depends on if No Country for Old Men is available. I hope I don't have to choose between No Country and Blood, it would be a tough call.

R.I.P. New Line Cinema.

One of the more prominent smaller studios has been erased. New Line Cinema has been owned by Warner Bros for a while. Warner has decided to fold New Line into Warner's film division effectively leaving New Line a shell with a name. New Line is known as the House that Freddy built based on the fact that it's earliest successes were the Nightmare on Elm Street films. It has in recent years produced some classic films including the Lord of the Rings films. New Line had been having some bad times lately, except for Hairspray they hadn't had a hit in a while. They produced The Golden Compass which is getting a rep as one of the biggest bombs ever. I think there's more to it than that, probably a clash of personalities with the studio executives. All studios have bad times, movies are an inherently unpredictable business. New Line took one of the biggest gambles in movie history and won. The three Lord of the Rings films were all shot at the same time at a cost of some $300 million. If the first weekend of the first film has been a bust that would have resulted in a huge loss.

I read they were keeping New Line but it would no longer produce, distribute or market films. My first thought was 'what else does a studio do?'. After a little more thought I think they are keeping the name to attach to certain future films. For example if Warner makes the Hobbit films they will probably release them as New Line for legal or continuity reasons. New Line also has some films that haven't been released yet.

This could get interesting here in Canada. A company named Alliance is the biggest Canadian movie distributor. They tend to release a lot of the high profile award magnets (Atonement) as well as some lower films (Good Luck Chuck). They also release most Canadian films. New Line's films are distributed in Canada by Alliance and constitutes a large portion of Alliance's releases. Alliance will presumably release the New Line films that haven't come out yet but after that who knows?

Alliance was just bought by new owners including the Quebec government. Their investment may have just taken a turn for the worse.

There's an extensive posting on New Line at Cinematical. including a list of all their films. There's some real classics there.

What's with Movie Titles lately?

This isn't a new phenomenon but seems to be getting more common. Movie titles that seem to have no connection to or explanation from the film. Here's a few recent examples.

Cloverfield- There is a mention of the cloverfield in a title card but it's not really explained where it comes from.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead- an apt title for the film but as far as I could tell was never referenced in the film.

Persepolis- A quick Google tells me that Persepolis is the name of a city in the Persian Empire and now in Iran. That's never explained in the movie, it is kinda a cool title though.

I Am Legend- Maybe it's the title of the book the Will Smith movie is based on but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps they are referring to the status of his character after the events of the film.