Summer starts this Friday

The summer movie season is here!

Yes, we know it's only late April; but May is the unofficial
starting month for the summer season in the show biz.

We're planning to run several films "on the break" (on
the national release date) this summer, including:

- X Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1)

- Up, the newest film from Disney/Pixar (May 29)

- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (July 1)

- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 17)

and many more that we'll play 2 to 4 weeks after
release, such as:

- Star Trek (a re-start of that popular series)

- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Ben Stiller
and all those creatures-come-to-life are back)

- The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (remake of one of the '70s' best films)

...and many more that will fill in the spaces on the calendar as we
go through the season.

We'll also be bringing in "Knowing," the popular Nicolas Cage
thriller, late next month.

As always, if there's a particular movie you want to see, please
let us know. We're always ready to listen to comments from our
audience, so fire away!

A weekend holdover

In my continuing effort to post more frequently,
here's what's happening this weekend.

We're going to hold over that animated fun-fest,
MONSTERS vs. ALIENS. It's one of those movies
that we enjoyed more than we thought we would.
Lots of cool grown-up humor for the grown-ups, and
lots of slapstick action for the kids. So we're going to
keep it for one more weekend, thru Sunday.

We're also playing the long-awaited thriller, TAKEN,
starring Liam Neeson. It's been a long time coming
because it's one of those movies that took the industry
by surprise -- it was expected to be a dead-of-winter
throwaway picture, but instead it caught on and became
a blockbuster hit. When that happens, the movies
take a bit longer to get here.

So enjoy two great shows this week!

Here comes summer! But it's not in 3-D.

Welcome to the beginning of "family movie season," folks!

We're heading into summer, so that means our screen
will be covered with movies the whole family can enjoy. Of
course the occasional adult thriller will figure into the mix --
I'm particularly excited to see John Travolta's new remake
of "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," one of my favorite
"old" movies.

This weekend we're featuring "Monsters vs. Aliens," the latest
film from Dreamworks, who most recently gave us "Kung Fu
Panda" and the Shrek movies.

All of the advertising for this movie has trumpeted the fact
that it's in 3-D. So it would be a fair question to ask, "Is it
going to be in 3-D at the Roxy?" Well, no it isn't. Here's
why:

3-D requires digital projection. We are still using good ol'
film projection. While we plan to convert our projection to
digital at some point, the 3-D option is wildly expensive.
(Digital projection is expensive enough as it is, but 3-D adds
another 20% or so to the price tag.) We would have to sell
tickets at $10 or more to recoup our cost.

The added fact is that, despite what the media might say,
many people simply don't like 3-D, and since we only have
one screen we wouldn't be able to offer a "2-D alternative"
like theatres with more screens can.

Having explained all that, it's worth reminding you that a
good movie is a good movie, and 3-D (in our opinion at least)
is largely a gimmick. We predict that once you are absorbed
in the story, you won't mind the fact that you aren't wearing
uncomfortable cardboard glasses.

Inside the movie business -- what happens at ShoWest

Egads, it's been since last August when I wrote on this thing. When I started it, I figured I'd be adding stuff every day, like so many other bloggers out there. How can I get my blog-o-meter into high gear? I guess it's just a habit I'll need to get into, like removing my contacts at night or showering.

As I type, the big movie industry convention, ShoWest, is raging in Las Vegas. Today is the last day of the event. I've been to ShoWest once, in 1995, and it's a truly amazing thing: Hordes of theatre owners, candy vendors, equipment manufacturers and (the best part) movie stars descend on Vegas to see or promote the latest movies and related stuff, and give awards to deserving stars like Kate Bosworth (shown in the picture to the right). The idea of the whole thing, of course, is to get the theatre owners (who are called 'exhibitors' in industry-speak) excited about this summer's upcoming films (called 'product'), and the studios do that by putting on huge parties ('parties') and giving out large piles of promotional goodies ('swag'), which the exhibitors then sell on eBay.

By the way, you're probably wondering why it's ShoWest. Well, that's ... because it's in the West. There are also other conventions called ShowSouth, ShowEast, and ShowCanada -- but ShoWest is the biggest.

Anyway, back to the action. Once the exhibitors are suitably excited about the upcoming product, the studios then start promoting it to the general public. This hopefully creates that all-important condition known as 'buzz,' which means everyone's talking about your movie. The campaign leads up to the movie's release date (its 'bow') at which point the public has the final vote: Will the movie take off into the stratosphere like "The Dark Knight" or "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," or will it be a colossal dud like "Snakes on a Plane?" In industry talk, will it "gross through the roof," or will it just "tank?"

Nobody ever knows, and this last part of the movie equation is totally impossible to predict, which is what makes this such a fascinating business. One day you're Steven Spielberg on top of the world, and with one colossal dud, such as Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" a few years back, you're on the Hollywood back burner for good.