Next week....?

Next week (Oct. 9) we could be playing any one of five movies.

- Fame (A remake of a musical from the '80s)
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (animated movie adapted from a much-loved kids' book)
- Surrogates (Sci-fi film starring Bruce Willis)
- Love Happens (Romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston)
- Whiteout (Horror movie about events in the Arctic)

I am told Whiteout has the best chance of happening, but we won't find out until Monday morning. Such is show biz.

Fall, already

Yep, fall is here. I keep telling myself I'll be better at updating this blog but then "real life" keeps getting in the way.

Our movie next week (Oct. 2) will be the new Quentin Tarantino film, 'INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.' This film falls into the category of "movies we didn't expect to play." But here it is.

I've heard good and bad about this film - I do know it's a "strong R rating," meaning it's got plenty of violence and stuff. So be forewarned!

Harry Potter #6 has arrived!

Today we're playing the newest Harry Potter film, 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.' So far it's drawing good crowds but not selling out; and with the fair coming this weekend, seats should be easy to come by.

This is probably the last movie of the summer that we'll open on the national break, but there are plenty of great movies lined up for August. The most anticipated ones are "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," and Sandra Bullock's hit comedy "The Proposal." We're also looking forward to playing "The Hangover," "Public Enemies" and Disney's new animated film, "G-Force."

* * * *
A lady last night told me it was cold in the theatre. Modern air conditioning is great, but it's finicky. I have found that changing the temperature just ONE degree on our thermostat can mean the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable in our auditorium. Then, think about the fact that the balcony seats are about 15 feet higher than the downstairs seats -- and we all know that heat rises, correct? And remember that the seats near the screen are about five feet lower than the seats in back....it all adds up to various temperatures in the auditorium.

I think we would all agree that it's better to be too cool than too warm. After all, you can put on a sweater to warm up, but if you're too hot, well, there's not much you can do. However, I do have a couple of pointers on where to sit for the best comfort, depending on your needs:

• The warmest spot in the building is the balcony (top row).
• The coolest would be the front six rows downstairs. There can be as much as six or seven degrees of difference between the balcony and these seats.
• You will feel less "breeze" from the air conditioning if you sit in the center of the building.

We also would like to remind moviegoers that a crowd of humans in a building will warm it up considerably; so our temps might be a little low when you come in to a movie, but by the time the show is underway, all those "heaters" in the seats will bring the air up to a typical normal room temperature.

The dreaded news (well it's not that bad)

OK, you two who read this: You heard it here first. The Roxy
will have new ticket prices come Friday, May 15.

The bottom line is, tickets are going up by 50 cents. So an
adult will now cost $7.25, a child from 6-11 will be $5.25, and a
senior citizen or preschooler will be $4.25.

There's still the usual dollar-off for students carrying discount
cards, and the same goes for the Monday discount night, which
will be a $6.25 ticket.

Believe me, we don't like to raise prices. In fact we hate it so
much that we usually tend to wait longer to do it than we should.
We probably should have gone up a year ago, when gas prices
got out of sight, but we hung tough.

Then we considered going up 25 cents at the beginning of this
year, but decided to wait it out again. That was a bad move --
things are tight enough now that a 50-cent raise is necessary.
Just about every expense on our list has gone up, all the way
from film rent to employees' wages to heating and cooling the
building.

We also remodeled our lobby last spring, and improvements on
the big screen are on the way too -- we're currently in major saving
mode for Digital Cinema, which will revolutionize the types of
entertainment we'll be able to present. It isn't cheap though;
Digital will cost us in the neighborhood of $90,000.00. Being in
the movie business isn't for sissies!

There is some good news though. Our concession prices are
not changing at this time -- you can still get our large popcorn for
about half of what it costs in Billings. And our new ticket prices,
even though they are 50 cents higher, are still $1.25 lower than
the prices in the "big city" to the west.

If you have questions or comments about our prices or anything
else Roxy-related, we're always happy to answer them. See you
at the movies!

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.