Bollywood Update and response to comment.

I guess the guys that put on the last couple Bollywood films still want to do more. They called me to ask about a film called Billou Barber. It opens in Toronto Feb 13th. The booker will be able to tell me on Tuesday when we can play it. It depends on how it does, if it does really well we'll have to wait a little longer since they may still need the print in TO. That's good in a way though as it will likely be more popular here as well.

This comment was left on my last Bollywood post.

thanx for answering bak bout this !--personally- wenever they've shown a bollywood film its been on a single day and invariably i've already got sumthin happenin-- also wen its hosted by a club then sumtimes u dont wanna go coz it feels kinda odd that ur not part of the club--newez-- hopefully we'll get to see sum indian films in the near future ! =)

The shows aren't put on by any clubs, its generally done as a profit making enterprise (hopefully) by someone.

To be blunt, if one wants these shows to continue you may have to give up whatever is already happening and go to the Bollywood films if you want them to continue. There isn't enough demand for more than one or two shows. We can't play them in the evenings as that would require playing them all week and there isn't enough demand for that. A couple of the local multiplexes tried playing Bollywood films all week and it didn't work.

How Dance has been edited.

I was watching the movie Step Up the other night and it reminded me of something I noticed earlier.

I went to see White Christmas at the Hyland during the Holidays. It was pretty cool to see it on film on the big screen. One thing that struck me was the musical numbers. They were shot pretty much live in only a few cuts. The actors had to actually be able to dance! Modern films have dance scenes edited out of dozens or more small segments. In general the new dances are more complicated but still, seems a bit of a cheat.

Here's a scene from White Christmas, notice how few cuts there are between camera shots.




Here's a scene from Step Up. Notice how often there are cuts even in the fairly simple moves at the beginning. It's kind of a shame, you can see from earlier parts of the film that Channing Tatum and the others are actually good dancers. I wonder if they could film a dance scene the same way as White Chrtistmas?

Next Week's Films Feb 6 - 12

To my mild surprise Frost/Nixon was available. Considering it's nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Editing and Actor I would have expected it to play first run longer. However it's not exactly the highest profile pic and not a subject matter the 'masses' would be interested in. I was also kinda surprised the Hyland hadn't booked it in, normally we would have had to wait for them as well. I booked it in for the 7pm show.

Valkyrie was also available. I booked it in for the late show. If you had asked me before it came out I would have said we would never play it. Every indication was it was going to bomb. However it turned out to be a really good film either because of, or in spite of, Tom Cruise depending on who you talk to. It's more because it has a great director, Bryan Singer. I'm a little leery about it as a late show since it was marketed largely to adults but I think enough students will want to see it.

I had planned to put Yes Man off until the following week but I realized that is a dead week. It's the first week of slack week. The place will be a ghost town. I'm planning to play Australia to 'kill' the week unless something else adult oriented like Doubt comes available.

We may actually get backlogged, Yes Man is available, we should be able to get Doubt and Rachel Getting Married as soon as the Hyland drops them and Benjamin Button was close to coming off. Twilight is still doing pretty good in it's second week that I might bring it back if I have a good late show spot open.

UPDATE: I found out the Hyland is playing Frost/Nixon the same week we are. I bet they aren't too happy. Universal seems to consider us in different zones as this isn't the first time we've both played the same film at the same time.

Requests about Bollywood films.

A couple of the comments lately have been requests for Bollywood (Indian ) films.

Any time in the last couple years Western Film has played a Bollywood film it's actually been someone renting the theatre to show the film and I've just been helping advertise it. There's been three groups try it in the last couple years.

The last group tried charging lower ticket prices in hopes of getting more people. They were also selling their own advertising on the tickets and their own slide show. The lower price worked and they had good turnout but they made a lot less per person than previous groups. I haven't heard from them for a couple months so I'm assuming they don't want to do it any more, or possibly are going to wait for just big hits. I think it was a lot of work on their part to try to market it.

I tried doing Bollywood films myself once but not being part of the Indian community I found I couldn't advertise them effectively.

Part of the problem is we have to wait for a couple weeks after release to play them. The 35mm film prints have to finish playing in Toronto before we can show them. During that time a lot of people have already watched pirated copies. It might be worth trying again in a few years when the conversion to Digital Cinema has occurred. Presumably we would be able to play a film when it's released everywhere else and not have to wait for an expensive 35mm film copy to be available.

Basically it boils down to rampant piracy of Bollywood films and people willing to watch them rather than support the producers of the film or the theatres that try to show them.

Good and bad viral marketing.

Viral marketing seems to be a loose term for Internet based marketing that depends on people spreading the word amongst themselves as well as things like puzzle websites. There's good and bad.

Bad: Cloverfield: This was extremely effective as it brought a lot of publicity and created a huge opening weekend however it pissed a lot of people off including me. There was fake news footage and websites and various other stuff that raised one's curiosity about the film. What is the origin of the creature? What does the Japanese company have to do with it? etc etc. However the thing that pissed many people off, including me, is that very little of this stuff tied into the actual movie?! Almost none of the questions were answered. If I had been one of the people who spent a lot of time analyzing all this stuff I'd have been really pissed.

Good (so far): Watchmen. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the marketing for Watchmen, partly because of the Cloverfield experience. However there have been some interesting little things. The video below popped up on youtube. To me this is good marketing. It's interesting for people who have read the graphic novel the movie is based on and also gives some info for people who haven't. It doesn't give away anything from the film but not seeing it won't leave questions unanswered. It's also pretty cool how well done it is. I'm curious how many of the comments that act as if it is real footage are planted by the studio and how many are real people playing along. Click through on the image to see the comments and there may be new videos. The page's owner thenewfrontiersman is something from the novel but I don't remember exactly what.

Next Week's Films Jan 30 - Feb 5

There was one new film available, Yes Man which I do plan to play but I thought I should play Seven Pounds as I'd been putting that off for two weeks. I could have played Yes Man as a late show after Seven Pounds but decided it would be better as an early show the following week.

Twilight did more in its' first two days than most films do all week so deciding to keep it for another week as the late show wasn't hard.

I expect something like Valkyrie will be available to play as a late show with Yes Man. Thankfully all the big Oscar films have finally opened in London First Run so they can start bouncing around for a month or so and hopefully we will get at least some before exams start.

Response to comment about Canadian Films

I'm not sure if anyone goes back and reads answers I leave to comments so I thought I would post this separate. This comment was left on the post I did about most of the Canadian Box Office money going to American films.

The only reason I had heard of Passchendaele is due to Paul Gross - he was interviewed everywhere on Canadian media. If marketing is so expensive, can't something be done on a grass roots level? More local film festivals, have articles in the local free newspapers, get the word out on blogs like this? Also, where can I find these movies? I doubt the cinema chains will play Canadian movies, so is the London public on dependent on Hyland to bring in these movies? It is a shame that Canadian films do not get the spotlight as the American films - I guess it all comes down to the money that can generated.

I have a few things to say about this.

Canadian films are in a bit of a vicious circle, they don't make a lot of money so they don't have a lot of money to spend on making or marketing them. There is something a bit pathetic that a horrible movie like Bride Wars makes many many millions more than any Canadian film.

The theatres, including Western Film, are in a similar vicious circle, we would like to play Canadian films but we have bills to pay so we end up playing mostly American stuff because that's what people will pay to see. The Hyland plays more than most as most Canadian films are of the kind of quality film the Hyland specializes in. I play Canadian when I can but few Canadian films get to the level of awareness needed for enough people to show up. I think the last Canadian film I played before Passchendaele was Trailer Park Boys. In its' first night at Western Film Twilight almost grossed as much as Passchendaele did all week.

There is hope, of a sort. I noticed today that a sequel to Trailer Park Boys is slated for the fall. That means a Canadian film did well enough to make a sequel?!

As for the marketing aspect referenced above. Part of the problem there is a perception. If people haven't seen commercials on TV for a film it somehow doesn't register as legit. TV happens to be one of the most expensive forms of advertising...

I think the change to Digital Projectors will help a lot. Prints will be cheaper and easier, making distributing Canadian films easier and cheaper. One of the best advertising things for films are trailers in front of other films. Trailers on film are also relatively expensive, when the trailers are all digital they will be played in front of more films. There's lots of good films I ask for trailers for but never get on film.

This reminds me of a situation that happened at a theatre I worked at that's always stick with me. I was out in the lobby and a woman was looking at a movie poster for some film that was coming soon. She said in a dismissive tone 'never heard of it'. I almost went up to her and said that was what the posters were for, to let people know about upcoming films. There has to be a first time one 'hears' of a film.

Rant of the Day.

I went to see a film at the Silver City yesterday. It has stadium seating. I was sitting about halfway up. Several times near the beginning of the film someone down near the front pulled out some sort of digital device which had a lit up display about 4 inches square. The person was texting or something. It was incredibly distracting.

What is it with people being so inconsiderate as to not clue in that they are bothering the people around them? And why were they doing whatever they were doing at all? They had just paid $11.00 to see a film so one would think that would be their priority. The movie had just started so not enough had played for it to become apparent whether it was a bad movie or not yet.

If had been sitting closer I would have thrown some of my overpriced popcorn at them.

A first and harbringer of things to come.

A couple weeks when I tried to book FLOW, a documentary about water use and privatization, it wasn't available. There was only one 35mm print for the entire country and it was out West. For the first time the studio offered a DVD or Digital print of the movie. A Digital print is one that can be played on the very expensive digital video projector all theatres will be converting to over the next few years. 35mm film is going to get scarcer.
We do have the ability to show DVDs fairly nicely in the theatre but nowhere near as nice as the film presentation and I don't believe in charging for a lesser presentation. For a movie like FLOW it wouldn't have made a big difference since it didn't exactly need a big sound system or have a lot of special effects.
I'll be doing some more posts on digital in the near future.

Hollywood Drives Canadian Box Office (duh!)

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

TORONTO -- Tinseltown continues to dominate the Canadian boxoffice. Total Canadian boxoffice in 2008 rose to CAN$920.4 million ($735.2 million), compared with CAN$904 million in 2007, according to the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, which represents domestic exhibitors. But Canadian films raked in just CAN$26 million ($20.7 million) in ticket receipts, down from CAN$28 million the year prior. About CAN$815 million ($651 million) of the 2008 total came from Hollywood, according to MPTAC, with another CAN$67.4 million ($53.9 million) coming from indie releases and CAN$12.1 million ($9.6 million) from French movies that played theatrically in Quebec. In a country that represents roughly 10% of the North American market, the biggest Canadian boxoffice draw last year was Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight," with CAN$50.7 million ($40.5 million) in receipts, followed by Paramount's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ($22.6 million) and "Iron Man" ($21.2 million). The market share for U.S. films in Canada last year was 89%, up from 87% in 2007. The slice of the pie for English-language Canadian films held steady at 0.9%, while the market share for French-language films from Quebec fell from 3.2% in 2007 to 2% last year. Alliance Films' "Passchendale," a homegrown war epic, at CAN$4.43 million ($3.5 million) in receipts, accounted for roughly half of the $8.88 million ($7.1 million) in boxoffice last year derived from 66 English-language films released domestically. French-language films from Quebec included Alliance Films' "Cruising Bar 2" with CAN$3.46 million ($2.7 million) in boxoffice, followed by Alliance Films' "Babine" with CAN$2.23 million ($1.78 million) in receipts.

I find it very disappointing that Canadian films gross so little. I've seen some great Canadian films so it's not that the movies aren't there. I think it's a combination of a couple things. Mostly it's marketing and awareness, it's hard to compete with Hollywood money for advertising. Marketing a movie is expensive. The marketing budget for an average Hollywood movie is about $50 million, quite a bit more than it cost to make Passchendaele, the most expensive Canadian film ever made. There's been several times Canadian films have shown up at The Hyland and I'd never heard of them. One that really comes to mind was called Three Needles, that was a great film but it completely vanished.
The other reason is Canadians' attitude towards their own films, for some reason the general public tends to view our films as inferior, which is why you often see some Canadian films try to disguise their Canadian origins. In fact I think it's the reverse, Canadian films tend to be better in the same artistic way that leads the horrible Bride Wars to out gross the much better Rachel Getting Married. Basically a good film requires a brain to watch.

It's kinda a shame that the highest grossing Canadian film last year happened to be one that wasn't very good. Passchendaele was an interesting idea but just wasn't executed well.

Director Ron Mann at Western Film this weekend.

The Film Studies Department contacted me a while ago about bringing in director Ron Mann and showing his 1999 film Grass. We agreed to show it, it's always cool to have a director on site. I wasn't sure how many people would come as Grass is about 10 years old and out on DVD. It ended up he has a new film called Know Your Mushrooms he was willing to show as well. That is even cooler, it plays at the Berlin and Victoria Film Festivals not long after it shows at Western Film.

There was a bit of hesitation about the combination of films as Grass is about the history of marijuana and Mushrooms has some content about 'magic' mushrooms. We didn't want it to appear as if we were promoting drug use.

So for any readers who actually live in London, Grass is playing at 2pm Saturday Jan 24th, there will be a Q&A with Ron Mann about 3:30 and Know Your Mushrooms will play at 4pm. Admission is Free.

Hope to see you there.

Next Week's Movie Jan 23 - 29

Twilight was finally available so I booked it in for the 7pm show initially. The only other new film available was Seven Pounds as a holdover from last week. I still don't want to play it as a late show so I put it off another week. The booker was checking on Valkyrie and Yes Man but neither was available. I would have put Valkyrie in as a late show, not sure about Yes Man, it probably needs to be the 7pm show. Quantum of Solace is doing well enough I could probably bring it back for another week but I decided to hold that as a reserve move.

Since I didn't have another new film to put in as a late show I decided to play Twilight for both shows. I think it's a pretty safe bet, the last time we had this many people ask when we were going to get a movie was Borat. It did huge business.

The following week will be Seven Pounds followed probably by either Valkyrie or another week of Quantum or Twilight depending on how it does. The only wrinkle with that plan also has to do with Borat. That was one of the weirdest films attendance wise. The first week it did about double what a 'hit' movie at Western Film does. Most movies do about 50% of their first week gross if I keep them a second week. Borat only did about 15%?! I was truly shocked, there wasn't any obvious reason like a holiday so I still have no explanation. So, the spector of Borat will linger over my head if Twilight does how much I think it will and I have to decide whether to keep it for another week.

You have got to be kidding?! Trailer for Crank 2.

I laughed all the way though this trailer and you know I'm gonna be first in line to see it. The sheer audacity of making a sequel to a film where the hero seem to pretty definitively die is enough, then they go and make the premise even more ridiculous than the first one.

Some people don't like him but one has to hand it to Jason Statham, not many actors could even come close to pulling this off.

Hard to Believe Mark Wahlberg used to be Marky Mark.

Came across this video on youtube, hard to believe the guy in it ended up winning an Oscar!?




It was kinda interesting watching the video when the magazine covers came up, I had copies of most of those mags back when I used to sell magazines by mail. The Interview mag always sold well.

One thing I only found one copy of was his autobiography (pictured) , it was kind of funny. He dedicated it to a certain part of his anatomy. I think I got quite a bit for it when I put it on ebay.

I like the song too.

Next Week's Films Jan 16 - 22

There were two films available for next week.

Quantum of Solace: I've been waiting for this one so I booked it in for the 7pm show.

Seven Pounds: I was actually quite surprised this one was available already. I decided to hold off on it for a week as I think it needs to play as a 7pm show.

Since I was playing Quantum I couldn't play Australia both because of its' length and Fox's no splitting rule.

That left the late show to fill. I tried the following:

FLOW: a documentary about water that a few people had asked about. I saw it at The Hyland and thought it would be a good thing to play here, Unfortunately there is only one print for the entire country and it's out west. It comes out on DVD next week so I probably won't play it at all.

SYNDOCHE N.Y. Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, I've had a few requests for it and I think it could do okay here. It's currently playing at the Hyland and for some reason they wouldn't have known until Tuesday morning whether they were keeping it or not. I know they did well with it Friday night so I figured they would keep it and decided not to wait for an answer. I don't like to wait until Tuesday to make decisions unless I absolutely have to as we don't have a lot of time to get advertising going even when the decision is made on Monday.

I ended up booking in Zack and Miri Make a Porno for another week. The first week we played it was during exams so there are probably (hopefully) a lot of students who didn't have time to see it.

I think Twilight is another two weeks away so I'm not sure what I'll play with Seven Pounds the following week. Valkyrie may come off.

Update: As it turns out The Hyland did drop Syndoche N.Y. I might try again the following week but there may be no prints available. The Hyland also kept Australia which seems odd to me. I hope they aren't keeping it just to keep me from playing it.

Brilliant Idea?

Had a thought while I was cleaning up after the movie tonight. There was a bit of a problem with a talker during the show. You know how TV shows with audiences have the Applause sign that lights up when they want the audience to clap? It occurred it would be nice to have a sign beside the screen that lit up and said 'quiet please'. We could turn it on when someone talks.

We could even have one with graduated levels for various types of talkers. It would go something like this:

Quiet Please

No Talking.

Shut Up.

Shut the F^%k up.

Think it would work?

Annoying Customer.

I had a first time kind of complaint Friday night. There was a guy who came early for The Spirit. He went over and bought a large popcorn. We have these little yellow kiddie popcorn bags we leave at the seasoning cart which are usually used for people to take some extra seasoning in or split up a bag if people want different seasonings. This guy then proceeded to fill up a kiddie bag with popcorn, put seasoning on it, then put it into a plastic bag. He repeated this with the entire large bag then got it refilled. My staff member and I both thought it was kind of funny, if bending the rules some. I certainly hope he's not on a low salt diet, the seasonings are basically flavoured salt.

At the end of the film the projectionist told me people had been changing seats away from the guy because he was eating his popcorn so loudly it was really distracting. Part of it was the crackling of the little bags and I guess the rest was just plain loud chewing? The projectionist was sitting out in the theatre watching the film and moved into the booth for the same reason.

I don't like situations like this, noise and distractions are one of the reasons people cite for not going to theatres to watch films but it does seem a little petty to ask someone to chew softer?

If I had been in the theatre I probably would have said something, I wish my projectionist had.

I know what the guy looks like so I'll know him the next time he comes. I'll probably either say something to him when he buys his ticket or check on him inside and see if he makes as much noise again.

Maybe if I'm lucky he's one of the people that read this blog and he'll let me know he won't do it again.

A night of unusual occurences.

Tonight was one of 'those' nights where things seem to happen weirdly. I was projectionist tonight. I ran the first show (Boy in Striped Pajamas ) with no problems. I threaded up for the late show (The Spirit) and was about to go back out to the lobby when I realized I should check what time the late show hit credits so I'd be back in the booth to turn up the lights. Comparing what times the two movies hit credits I realized Spirit was longer than Boy. I happened to look at the films sitting on the platter on my way back out of the booth and realized something looked odd. As the films are in a circular pattern on the platter the longer films form bigger circles. The smaller film was threaded up. It turned out I had threaded up Boy again rather than threading up Spirit. I haven't done that in years.

And it's almost as if fate was telling me that I didn't need to bother threading up the Spirit, we had no one show up for the late show?! I wasn't completely surprised, we only had 7 people Sunday night and Monday is often, but not always, quieter than Sunday. We haven't had a no show in about two years.

So we waited 10 minutes in case anyone showed up late then packed up. I got to leave a couple hours early which was kinda nice.

Most Anticipated films of 2009 by Gender.

Interesting list courtesy of Fandango.


According to Men:
1. Star Trek 23%
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 17%
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 14%
4. X-Men Origins: Wolverine 9%
5. Terminator Salvation 7%
6. Watchmen 7%
7. Angels & Demons 5%
8. Public Enemies 3%
9. G.I. Joe 3%
10. New Moon 3%


According to Women:
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 25%
2. New Moon 15%
3. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen 11%
4. Angels & Demons 9%
5. X-Men Origins: Wolverine 7%
6. Star Trek 6%
7. Public Enemies 5%
8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 4%
9. The Lovely Bones 3%
10. Where the Wild Things Are 2%

Interesting differences. I'm surprised Star Trek is so high, looks like they may succeed in their goal of reaching out beyond just the established fan base. If this list is any indication Harry Potter will be the biggest film of the year.

I must be losing touch a bit, I had to look up Public Enemies.

More Youtube brilliance- Gremlins mess with your DVR!

I saw Gremlins 2 in a theatre which had a fun little segment where the gremlins appeared to mess with the projector. When the film came out on VHS they changed it to a sequence where they appeared to mess with the tape. Apparently the DVD uses the theatrical version. Some huge Gremlins fan went ahead and made up this sequence that could be used on the DVR or VOD version. I think it's positively brilliant. It's amazing what creative minds are coming up with and putting on youtube.
I just hope no prick at Warner Bros decides this is a copyright issue. If anything this promotes the Gremlins movies and possibly helps with the long rumoured Gremlins 3. Click through on the image to read the creator's comments and there's a making of video also.

Next Week's Films Jan 9 -15

I expected next week to be easy to book but it turned out to be really hard. Usually there would be several films available that had been pushed out of the first run theatres by all the new films that open at Christmas. We have been closed for two weeks so that should have built up a bit of a backlog.

However it turns out that's not the case. The first run theatres seem to be holding onto product longer, usually putting films down to fewer shows per day and splitting screens among more than one film.

I expected either Quantum of Solace or Twilight would be available or alternatively Australia. It turns out Quantum is holding. Rainbow is bringing back Twilight which is an unusual move. The Hyland picked up Australia and is keeping it for a second week so I couldn't have it.

The only two new movies were the following.

Four Christmases: I don't plan to play this, it was a good size hit but apparently wasn't that good and Christmas movies after Christmas don't always work.

The Spirit: see below.

So I had to come up with something to play that I hadn't planned on playing. I decided to try playing The Boy in The Striped Pajamas and see how it does. Hopefully I'll get surprised like I did last year with Kite Runner. If that wasn't available I was going to ask about I've Loved You So Long.

The late show was a tough choice. I initially booked Changeling back in, figuring it did pretty well during the last week before Christmas when there were few students here so they may come to see it now. However later I decided that I might not be right and figured I would be better off with a new movie that we hadn't played yet. It's a bit of a risk/experiment but I decided to play The Spirit instead. The Spirit didn't open well and got bad reviews but was a fun movie from a sheer over-the-top point of view. Also since we got it so fast I figure there are still some people that want to see it but didn't get to it yet.

The projectionist tonight Chris had a good idea to bring back Zack and Miri Make a Porno. The first week we played it was the first week of exams and the students were a tad preoccupied. I decided to go with The Spirit for next week but will keep Zack and Miri in mind for a late show possibility for the next couple weeks.

One thing I'm wrestling a bit with is whether to play Australia. It's long and from Fox so it will have to play by itself. I'm not sure I can justify that unless there's absolutely nothing else. I didn't have a problem with playing it a few weeks but I've started to hear negative buzz about it and thinking it won't do as well as I thought. Part of the problem is I had it on the Will Be Playing section of the Status page on the website and told at least one person on the phone I would be playing it. I hate going back on things I said I would do.

First post of 2009

Western Film reopened tonight after being closed for the holidays. It's been a while since I did a posting, I've been a bad boy again. I plan to start posting daily again and try to stick to it. Feel free to comment or e-mail me if I stop. If I think someone is actually interested in what I'm writing I'm more likely to post.

Great New Trailer - The Proposal

This is an interesting trailer. Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock are two of my favorite actors so I'm looking forward to this. The trailer starts off kinda lame but gets going later. There's a joke involving mornings that made me laugh out loud here at home all by myself. That doesn't happen often. As long as all the best stuff isn't in the trailer this one should do well.

Next Week's Film Dec 12 - 18

There was only one film available for next week, Changling. Well, that's not completely true, Secret Life of Bees was available but it's from Fox so I can't split it so I never even considered playing it.

It worked out fine that there isn't anything available for a late show for next week. I kinda wanted to only run one show anyway. It's the last week of exams and the last week Western Film operates for the year. It's usually one of our deadest weeks even if we have a good movie.

Changling is a good choice as it has adult appeal and the adults are still here.

The booker was checking on Role Models which didn't come off. I don't think I would have played it anyway. With most of the students gone it would have been a waste to play it. I'm currently planning for it to be the movie the first few days we come back.

We should have lots to chose from when we reopen. there's a ton of movies opening over the holidays.

Next Week's Films Dec 5 -11

This post is a few days late. I had already booked Passchedalele in for the early show so I only had to chose the late show. The only new film available was Zack and Miri make a Porno which works out fine. It's a good late show and a good exam break film. If Zack and Miri wasn't available I was going to see if Fox would let me split Max Payne (doubtful) or put in Lakeview Terrace.

Freaky Film / why one used to need a licence to be a projectionist.

I posted about one of these videos way back when I started this blog but I think I can load it up here now. The other one I found on youtube.

Film used to be nitrate based which was highly flammable. It's now basically plastic based so melts but doesn't burn.

The film was so highly flammable it took special training to deal with it. It was a bad combination, highly flammable film and light so bright it would burn right through the film if it stopped moving.

Anyone who's seen Cinema Paradiso will have an idea what I'm talking about.

Nitrate film is also a reason that if you read through the history of movie theatres you'll notice how many of them burned down.

Next Week's Films Nov 28 - Dec 4

Next week wasn't too hard to book. I had already booked in Body of Lies for the early show. It was available the week before but I didn't want to play it as a late show.

The booker was checking on a few films including Zack and Miri and Passchedale. I asked her to book in Zack and Miri for the late show if it was available or Religulous otherwise. Zack and Miri didn't come off so Religulous is getting a second week. Passchendaele wasn't available but that was fine because I wouldn't have booked it anyway. It needs to be the 7pm show. I was told later in the week Passchendaele was available starting Dec 5th so I went ahead and booked it in.

Max Payne was available and I would have played it as a late show but Fox wanted all shows which I can't do. I asked the booker to tell Fox I'll play it as a late show with Passchendaele if I can split it. Occasionally they listen to reason and agree but I'm not holding my breath. I really don't understand Fox, they'd rather me not play the film at all than share the screen with another film?!

Too Cool for Words.

I love things like this. (includes sound)

Last week was a really weird week.

The last playweek (Religulous and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) was one of the weirdest weeks ever in terms of attendance.
There are basic patterns Western Film tends to follow. How well Friday and Saturday do can usually be extrapolated into how well the rest of the week will do. That's partially how I can make a decision on Monday about whether to keep a movie for another week even though I don't know for sure how it's going to finish.
There are of course variables such as weather and holidays.

here's the base assumptions. I knew Religulous would do well but I wasn't sure how well. Nick and Norah I wasn't sure about. I figured it would do okay at least but could bomb. I didn't expect it to do really well.

I don't normally use actual numbers but in this case I will since I don't think the meaning will come across if I don't.

On Friday Religulous did about 90 people and Nick and Norah about 35, respectable numbers for each.
They both did almost exactly the same numbers for Saturday.
Sunday and Monday are the quietest nights so based on the above I would have expected about 30 and 15 on Sunday. My staff got somewhat surprised when we again had 90 and 35 show up?! I've never seen something like that happen without a holiday or some extenuating factor.

Monday night we weren't sure what to expect and much to my surprise once again got 90 and 35.

Based on the weekend numbers I would have expected about 200 and 100 on Tuesday since it's discount night. However I wasn't sure if the pattern would hold since things had been weird so far. About 6:49 Tuesday I was thinking the pattern had broken because we didn't have a lot of people yet and it just didn't seem like it was going to be busy. However at 6:50 people started coming in droves and we ended up with 173 for Religulous. Based on that and the weekend I still expected about 100 for Nick and Norah. Much to our surprise 193 people showed up?!

Wednesday was about the same as the weekend which isn't unusual.

I expected about the same for Thursday. Again we were surprised when 137 people showed up for Religulous, a high number for any non-Tuesday show. Nick and Norah did about the same as it did the other nights.

So Religulous ended up as the third highest grosser of the year, second if you count the 85 high school students who came to a special afternoon showing. Nick and Norah did about twice what I would have guessed it's maximum would be.

So all in all it was a great week. I think it was somewhat fluky, good movies that people hadn't seen yet in a week when there weren't too many midterms?

So this leaves me with the question of whether to bring Religulous back for another week. Normally a film does about half of what it did the first week, but was that week a fluke and artificially high?! I'm also reminded of the situation that happened with Borat. It's first week was huge, one of the highest of the year but it's second week was only about 15% of it's first week, really weird.

I'll probably bring Religulous back if there aren't any new movies I need to play. I'm very curious to see how it does....

Next Week's Films

There were three new films available for next week.

Saw 5 - I never book horror, most of the ones who want to see it will have already done so.

Eagle Eye and Body of Lies.- This presented me with a bit of a dilemma. I want to play both films but didn't really want to play either as a late show. Both strike me as films that will do better as a 7pm show since they have adult appeal as well as student. If I had to choose one as a late show it would have been Eagle Eye. Since there aren't a lot of films out currently that I'm really waiting for I decided to play Eagle Eye next week and book Body of Lies for the following week.

I decided to bring back Pineapple Express for the late show. It did really well the first week and I've had requests. I considered keeping Religulous but haven't yet decided whether to bring it back, see the next post as to why I'm having trouble deciding.

I hate when they don't play the right trailers!

I went to see Quantum of Solace tonight. One thing that was a bit of a story in the movie world was the new trailers that were supposed to show before it. The one I was most interested to see was the first full length trailer for the next Star Trek movie. There was also supposed to be the new Watchmen trailer, and I think the latest trailer for The Day The Earth Stood Still.

I was very disappointed, the Trek trailer wasn't there, there was no Watchmen trailer and the DTESS trailer was an older one.

I finally gave in and watched the Star Trek trailer online, I really wanted to see it on the big screen. I'm looking forward to the film, I've been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid. Got a bit out of it over the last while, never watched the last series but always watched the films.

That's my rant for the day.

James Bond Meets The Incredibles

This is another mash up trailer from the same guy who did the Dark Knight / Toy Story one I posted a couple weeks ago. It's not quite as good but still fascinating how images and audio are so malleable.

100 Spoilers in 4 minutes.

Found this interesting little video. Don't watch it if you haven't seen a lot of films. I figured I would be safe to watch it but there were a couple films mentioned I hadn't seen. Most of them are well known to anyone who pays any attention at all to pop culture or film.



I wonder how many takes it took?

I'll take a compliment where I can get it, sort of.

I overheard a customer say this last night, he was referencing our snack bar prices.

' they're not as big a rip-off as the other places'

Not sure if that's a compliment or an insult?

I hate it when...

Some girl showed up about 20 mins late for a film tonight and called her friends inside to find out where they were sitting. That's a trifle rude to the other customers. The theatre was quite full so she probably had to crawl over a bunch of people to get to her friends.

Cell phones have their place but not in a movie theatre. One of the most common answers given as to why some people prefer to see movies at home is distractions from other patrons in theatres, especially cell phones.

That's my 2 cents for tonight.

Next Weeks Movies.

Next week was a pretty easy week to book. I had been planning to play The Duchess as the 7pm show if nothing came off that I thought should be played instead. It turned out the only new film available was RockNRolla which seems a great fit for a late show.

The booker was checking on Eagle Eye and Body of Lies so they should come off soon. Eagle Eye has been playing a while so must still be doing good business.

We've only got 4 playweeks before we close for Christmas. Time flies.

Question about Slideshow invisibles trivia.

I'm looking for feedback from anyone who reads this who actually goes to Western Film to see movies. Before the movie starts we play a PowerPoint slide show with trivia. Some of the trivia I get from imdb which is usually more in the form of 'did you know...' rather than questions. The visual trivia I get from a site called filmwise.com (with permission) I started using their invisibles trivia as they seemed neat and they make a lot of them so I had lots to choose from. In the invisibles trivia they take a scene from a movie and someone very skillfully erases the humans leaving only their clothing and sets. You then have to guess what the film is.

I like using the invisibles for the slideshow because they are easy to change which takes less time so I can change the slide show more often. However I'm not sure how effective they are. I have to make the images larger for the slide show which reduces resolution and then the image gets even bigger on the big screen.

So I have a few questions.

Do people have trouble making out what the image is because it's too fuzzy sometimes?

Are they too hard?

Is having trivia before a movie tacky?

I make sure the trivia isn't so easy as to be almost insulting as I've seen at other theatres.

I just updated the slide show. This time I tried to pick invisibles that were more clear visually. I also tried to pick ones that were a little easier than some in the past.

If anyone checks it out let me know what you think.

P.S. if you are a movie buff you might want to check out the invisibles at the site. I'm surprised how many people get all 8 each week. I can usually get about half.

Speaking of Presidents...Trivia Question.

An interesting fact was recently unearthed in the USC archives by Andrea at the Front Desk.

Guess what Canadian recently married to a very famous Briton was President of the Western Film Community as it was called in 1982? It was a student club at the time.

I'll post/confirm the answer in a few days.

Hint, there's one twist to the story so think a little outside the box.

P.S. Anyone at the USC who already knows the answer please hold off before commenting. I'm curious to see if anyone gets it.

This is one time I'm glad I was wrong.

When a friend of mine who follows politics closely told me about this guy named Barak Obama who was running for President I was skeptical. I figured a black man with an Arabic sounding name didn't have any chance at all to become President of the US. I'm glad I was wrong.

Now we'll see if he can start to put the US back on track and repair at least some of the damage of the last 8 years.

Personally I think if McCain had won the rest of the world would have basically said 'screw you' to the US and it would have become increasingly irrelevant.

Remake of the Day the Earth Stood Still

This is one of those movies that puts me in a movie lover quandary. The original is a classic that in many ways shouldn't be touched but the new one looks interesting.

I'm getting the impression this is one of the remakes that uses only only the name and some of the basic concepts and characters from the original. The original is way too slow to work these days and somewhat anti-climatic.

SPOILER - From the trailer it's obvious the definition of the word 'still' has been changed. In the original the alien made all the machinery, cars, trains, electricity, etc. stop at the same time hence making the world still. The new one looks like still=dead.

I'm curious to see how they end it. It will have a similar problem as the War of The Worlds remake did, the original ending isn't very exciting.

Keanu Reeves is actually well cast here. He does well with parts where he has to play anything but a regular human.

One thing that is setting off alarm bells for me is the special effects, especially the disintegration scenes, they don't look very well done, hopefully it was just an early version.

Here's the trailer. There was a five minute extended version but it has been removed. It showed a bit more of the action.





I'll be seeing this one opening weekend. It's from Fox so I hope it's either a big hit or a complete dud so I don't have to decide whether to play it for all shows when it should only play one show per night.

Next Week's Films

I had already booked Religulous in for the 7 pm show so I only needed to decide what to play for a late show. Over the weekend I had thought about playing Lakeview Terrace but decided it would be better to bring back Pineapple Express depending on what came available. There were four movies available:

City of Ember: a cute movie but I wouldn't have played it even if I could. As it is it's from Fox who wanted full shows so there's no chance in heck I would ever play it.

W. : I'm not sure about this one, it didn't do great in general release and a lot of our regulars saw it at our advance showing.

Quarantine: We don't do well with horror.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: I wasn't expecting this to come off yet so I hadn't really thought about playing it. It got decent reviews and did good business so I decided to play it. It makes a good late show since the target audience is students.

The following week is getting interesting. I'm still planning to play Duchess as the early show but I'm going to wait and find out what else is available. I'm also accumulating a lot of possibles for the other show.

Trailer for a Freaky Film.

This film has been getting a lot of buzz, I hope it makes it to Canada. The story sounds like something Hollywood couldn't make up but it's true.

I don't understand some theatres.

We played a Bollywood ( Indian ) film called Drona on the weekend. One of the theatres that had previously played the film did something that makes no sense to me. Bollywood films are almost always long, 2 1/2 to 3 hours and have an intermission about half way through. The intermission is built into the film, the word intermission, or sometimes interval, comes up on the screen.
Every Bollywood film I've played has had an intermission, even one that was only about 2 hours long. So Bollywood audiences expect to have an intermission so they can go to the bathroom etc.
From a theatre's point of view an intermission is great for food sales. We made 75% of our food sales this weekend during the intermission.
So if you are still with me, the audiences expect an intermission and the theatre makes money, everybody's happy.
So why did a previous theatre cut off the section of film that says intermission?! From a film standpoint the only practical reason to do this would be to be able to splice the film altogether into one long movie without an intermission. Why would anyone do that? The only thing I can think of is to save the time of the intermission in order to run more showings of the film per day. Personally I would hate to be sitting watching the film waiting for the intermission to go to the bathroom and it never comes.

It made things a little awkward for us this weekend. A Bollywood film I showed a few months ago had a similar situation. I spliced the intermission titling back into the film. This weekend however one of my projectionists made up the film and didn't know to do that. By the time I found out it was too late to fix it. I knew where the intermission was supposed to be but to the audience it was probably somewhat jarring as the film just stopped without any text warning. Luckily they tend to put the intermissions at either cliffhanger moments or just after pivotal events so it's somewhat predictable. For Drona the intermission came right after the transformation of the regular guy into the Super guy.

Next Week's Films Oct 31 - Nov 6

I had already booked Burn After Reading in so I knew what the early show would be. The question was what the late show would be. It ended up being one of those annoying weeks with tough choices to make. There were some good films available but I didn't think they would make good late shows. Movies that appeal to adults as well as students usually need to be the early show. For the most part only students come to the late shows.

Religulous- I decided this should be a early show so I put it off a week and booked it to start Nov 7. I booked it in so I could start advertising it.

The Duchess.- Another film that needs to be an early show. I've tentatively slotted this into the week after Religulous. I didn't book it in in case something more interesting comes available.

I still needed to make a choice for the late show. There were two possibles.

My Best Friend's Girl- I've been changing my mind about whether to play this or not. It's kinda a cross between a romantic and a raunchy comedy. I usually have a reading on how I think any film will do and this one I'm getting nuthin'. I decided to try it and see what happens. It's playing at 9:00. My guess is it will do somewhere between 'okay' and 'bad' but it would be a nice surprise if it does 'good' or better.

Lakeview Terrace - I normally wouldn't play this kind of mid-range thriller but it did okay and stars Samuel L. Jackson. It's tentatively slotted into the late show after Religulous but I won't cry if something better comes available.

Advance Screenings

One thing I really like doing is advance screenings, especially when it's a film I know won't suck. We've done three so far this year. Warner did Fool's Gold in February. That went really well, was very busy, it got a little complicated as they were selling the tickets for charity rather than giving them away. It also had to be on a Tuesday which got interesting since I had to cancel whatever else would have played that night on our discount night.

Maple AKA Lionsgate did The Bank Job in March. It went quite well for a relatively small movie, at a busy time of year for the students, about 100 people.

During the summer I wrote to the woman at Maple and asked her if she wanted to do any more. I was interested in Religulous but it turned out that was being distributed by TVA in Canada.

We did decide to do one for Oliver Stone's W. which was last week. Considering the timing right after Thanksgiving I was expecting about 100 people. We ended up with just over 200 so I was quite happy. They also bought a lot of popcorn.

W. had trailers for The Spirit and Transporter 3 in front of it. Hopefully Maple will want to do advance screenings for those.

Toy Story meets The Dark Knight.

This is a great fan-made mash.

It occurred to me that something like this would make a great study subject for a film class. It shows just how easily the meaning of images or sound can be manipulated for a desired response.

An odd decision I had to make.

I got an odd phone call on Monday. Alliance called at about 4pm and asked if we wanted to do a advance showing of Zack and Miri Make A Porno. Doing so would be really cool except they wanted to do it on Thursday, as in 4 days later, replacing a movie that had been advertised all week and was doing well (Mamma Mia). I had to say no even though I wanted to do it. Mamma Mia is doing quite well and I didn't think cancelling the last 7pm show of it was a good idea. I'd never be able to let everyone know in advance it had been cancelled which would lead to some pissed off customers.



I wonder if a premiere somewhere else got cancelled and they were looking for some place else to play it. The woman seemed almost insulted/surprised when I said no.


Hopefully they call back and want to do some more advance shows with a little more notice.





It's too bad they didn't call last week. I only had the 7pm showing of Dark Knight so I could probably have done the screening afterwards at about 10pm.





It occurred to me later I could have done the Zack and Miri screening as a midnight show but I don't know how well that would have worked or whether Alliance would have gone for that.

Next Week's Films.

I think I may have missed a week with Thanksgiving and all. Mamma Mia is currently playing and doing quite well. I've decided to keep it for a second week as the late show. If there were any stronger titles available I might have dropped it but there weren't.
The only new movies available for next week are:

Appaloosa: This Western is apparently an okay movie but doesn't have enough awareness to play at Western Film.

Nights in Rodanthe: This film didn't make a big splash or do huge business but it's the kind of film I think will do well at Western Film. It's primarily aimed at women which is a genre that always does well at Western Film. It's got a couple fairly big stars (Richard Gere, Diane Lane), based on a popular book and while it didn't make a huge splash it didn't get a lot of negative buzz either. I booked it in for the 7pm show.

Burn After Reading finished its' first run but Alliance wants to put week between it's first and second runs. It will probably play starting Oct 31.

There's a few other films that have come available that I'll stick in where available. There's no films out right now that I think will do huge business. There's a few I think will do well which we should get in the next few weeks, Eagle Eye, Religulous, maybe W.

Next Week's Movie.

I'd basically already decided what to do about next week before I even knew what was available. The playweek includes Thanksgiving weekend, so many students go home this place becomes pretty much a ghost town. I didn't want to play a good movie and 'waste' it. Last year we played Stardust over the holiday and not only did it not do well but I got a lot of e-mails from people asking if it would be playing later because they weren't going to be here.

We also have the preview screening of W. on Wednesday night so the regular movie won't play that night.

I decided to play one show of Dark Knight at 7pm and no late show. Dark Knight is still doing well enough to keep for a third week and it's a good place holder to 'kill' the week. Just doing one show reduces expenses and gives those of us that are still here working something more similar to a holiday.

There were several movies available.

Mamma Mia- finally, this is one I definitely didn't want to play over the holiday. I booked it in for the week following, starting Oct 17.

My Best Friend's Girl- This came off really fast so it must have bombed worse than I thought. It goes into the reserve list but there are other things I'd rather play first.

Ghost Town- kinda funny but bombed, probably won't play it.

The Women- will probably play in a week or two, maybe.

Righteous Kill- another hard call, starred Pacino and De Niro but didn't do all that well. Might play as a late show later.

The end of Ambush Interveiw movies? / Religulous review

I went to see Religulous today. Bill Mahr's film about religion sorta combines Michael Moore's style of what are called ambush interviews with a bit of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat type 'documentary'.



The film was quite funny and had more of a social commentary aspect to it than I expected. I would imagine most of the patrons will be people like me who already agree with his viewpoints on religion. I'd be interested in what a religious person thinks of the film.


I couldn't help but wonder why some of these people agreed to be interviewed by Mahr. Why didn't they realize he was going to make fun of them? A couple make statements that suggest they weren't told the actual idea of the film or possibly didn't even know who he was.





I know Moore has been having trouble making films because no one will talk to him any more. When it first was announced he was making Sicko most of the medical companies in the US ordered their employees not to talk to him.





I think Cohen has been having similar trouble making his latest film, people are recognizing him so it's harder for him to get people to make fools of themselves reacting to the characters he's playing.





I don't think these kind of films can go on much longer. People get wise to them after a while.





I would love to look at the actual footage shot for Religulous vs what was in the final cut. The wonderful thing about editing is you can make the footage say pretty much anything you want. A lot of the funny moments in Religulous may have been created by editing. The ones that stood out the most were the reaction shots of the interviewees right after they said something stupid or Mahr made one of his jokes.


I'm willing to bet at least some of those shots were at different places in the interview. On the other hand some of these people say pretty stupid things. One of the funniest is the reaction shot of the US Senator that says there's no IQ test needed to get into the Senate. The 'oh crap, what did I just say' look on his face is priceless.


Religulous will be playing at Western Film.

Digital Cinema deal done?

Below is a link to an article from the Hollywood Reporter about a major deal between 5 of the Studios and the three biggest cinema chains in the US. This should finally get the ball rolling on a major changeover to digital from 35mm film to digital projectors.

There are many reasons for conversion but the main one is the cost savings of not having to make and ship millions of feet of film. I read the studios may save up to $1 Billion a year, that seems a bit much but it will be significant.

The basic issue has been the fact that the studios would be the ones to save most of the money but the cinemas didn't want to pay for the cost of the equipment which won't really make a difference most of the time. 99% of the time the audience wouldn't know whether it's watching film or digital. Converting a theatre can cost upwards of $100,000, more if 3D is involved.

They have finally agreed on what is called a Virtual Print Fee which is so obvious it should have been agreed upon earlier. Basically each time a digital print is used the studio will pay the theatre the amount it saved by not having to make a film print. Once the equipment is paid for the payments stop. Makes a lot of sense to me.

One issue that's been looming over this whole debate is what to do about smaller chains and independent theatres. The situation could be especially difficult with second run theatres that use the 'leftover' prints from the first run theatres. The studios won't want to pay us a VPF since they didn't save any money by not making a print.

I'm sure something will be worked out. For example I went to see a movie at the Hyland tonight and all the trailers were for movies from a smaller company called Mongrel Media. Mongrel tends to specialize in smaller Art type releases that rarely play in the big multiplexes. They mostly play in places like the Hyland and Western Film.

To me it would be in Mongrel's and other smaller distribs interests to work out some sort of VPF with the theatres that plays their films. Otherwise most of those theatres will close because they can't afford to convert to digital without help.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i891ca34060aefcb3a74bc5b69a35f952

Mini Movie Review - Eagle Eye.

The only movie critic I normally read is Roger Ebert. I almost always agree with him. However this is one of those occasions where I didn't . He gave it two stars and a rather tepid review.

Basically Eagle Eye is a movie, it makes no sense, would never work in the real world, has way too many things happen just right at just the right time. In spite of all of that and maybe because of it's sheer audacity I found it very entertaining. Shia Lebouf and Michelle Monaghan are both good as the lead characters. It's is a bit predictable and movieish, when machinery has moving parts that it doesn't need you know someone is going to break them. There was a little bit of a tacked on ending that didn't quite work. Overall it was a fun little movie, and things get blown up real good.

This film will be playing at Western Film, probably as a late show.

Next Week's Films

Next week wasn't too hard to book. I knew on the first night it played I would be keeping Dark Knight. It did more Friday night than many movies do all week. By the end of the weekend it had done more than almost all movies do all week.

Initially I had planned to play Dark Knight for both shows again unless Mamma Mia was available. Mamma Mia wasn't available but Tropic Thunder was, to my mild surprise. In most cases I would have held off on Tropic for a week but the following week is Thanksgiving and I don't want to play anything good that week.

So I decided to play Tropic Thunder at 7:00. Dark Knight moves to 9:20.

The only other film available was House Bunny. I probably won't get to playing this, at this point I'd rather bring Pineapple Express back another week. Dark Knight might do well enough to play another week as well.

And sooner or later, Mamma Mia will be available...

Mini-Movie Review - My Best Friend's Girl

I did an earlier post on how the marketing for this film couldn't seem to decide if it was a romantic or raunchy comedy. Turns out it tries to be both and doesn't entirely fail. I enjoyed it well enough, it had some funny bits. I would recommend that anyone who doesn't like Dane Cook not see this film. He's playing an even more exaggerated version of the character he always plays. This will probably play at Western Film. It won't be my first choice but I think it will do alright.