Summer's (almost) over

Lynn and I always watch for the one evening, at some point in the summer, when we come out of the theatre after the show and feel "fall" in the air for the first time. That day came this past week -- I think it was Monday night, we walked out and there was this autumn-like "nip" in the air that hadn't been there until then. I'm starting to feel it in the morning now, too. It won't be long till we're all griping about the cold.

Autumn is a slow time for the movie biz. That's the season when the "Oscar hopefuls" come out. Sometimes we play some of these, but often we don't, for one very simple reason: With few exceptions, they're not popular movies. Sometimes an Oscar hopeful catches on with the general public and we wind up playing it -- and some years, we get to play most or all of the Best Picture nominees. But more often, we play just a few of the nominated films -- last year we played two of the Best Pictures.

There are a few other reasons why a nominated film might not play here. Want to read them? (If not, skip the rest of this post.) Okay, if you're still with us, here are the factors we consider:

1. Is it available to us? Quite often, nominated films are made by small companies with low budgets, and there are only a few hundred prints available. (As opposed to a blockbuster, where there might be 5,000 prints or more.) Naturally the big city theatres grab the prints, and hang onto them until they've wrung every last dollar out of the movie, which leads us to #2:

2. Can we get it when people still want to see it? If a movie is more than a couple of months old, people tend to forget about it and/or decide to wait for the video. Assuming the movie is still new enough to draw a crowd, we move to reason #3:

3. Would it work for our audience? There are many people in Rosebud County who like more sophisticated, challenging films; unfortunately, there are not enough of them who will actually go out of the house to attend such a movie when it's in town. (Even though everyone complains about how boring it is to live here, it's amazing how busy everyone seems to be all the time.) Time and time again, we've brought in an edgy, adult-type film only to have it play to audiences of 6 or 8 people every night -- not enough to pay the popcorn kids, let alone the rest of the bills, so it's back to Batman or whatever. But every year, we try a few experiments to see if that vast untapped audience is out there somewhere. Right now, we're playing the new Kevin Costner film, "Swing Vote" -- not exactly a challenging or edgy film, but a good one for the adult crowd. Tonight we had 22 people for it.

As always, we love to get requests for movies that might otherwise slip under our radar. If there's a certain film that you really want to see, feel free to ask us about it. And tell your friends to ask too. If we get enough requests, it may lead to a movie playing here that otherwise might not. Please keep one thing in mind when making requests, though: If you ask us to bring in a movie and we do bring it in, make sure you come and support that film with your ticket money. And ask your friends to do the same. That way, maybe that vast untapped audience that likes the edgy, sophisticated films will grow, and more of those films you want to see will appear on our screen.

What's next?

Whenever we have a great movie, lots of people ask us what's coming up next. This is great for us because it lets us know that people enjoyed their movie experience and look forward to another one.

This time we're not sure exactly what's coming next because we don't know for sure how long Batman will be with us. He's booked through the 31st for sure, but depending on the size of the crowds, we may keep the Bat flying a third week. If we do, it's possible but not definite that we'll play another movie along with The Dark Knight. Watch our website for details.

Here's a short list of guesses as to movies we'll be playing in the month of August. All of it subject to change, of course.

• Hancock
• The Incredible Hulk (maybe)
• Mamma Mia
• Get Smart
• Hellboy II

Again, watch our website (which is updated every Thursday night and sometimes even more often) for our best estimates on when these and other movies will play.

The Dark Knight is filling quite a few seats...

Seems like every cinema in the country is selling out shows for The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. But the Roxy has had seats available for every show. What gives?

Well, we've had just a tad bit of competition, namely the Rosebud-Treasure County Fair, which draws just about everyone in the county and beyond. They ramped up the action this year, with not one but TWO big concerts - Sawyer Brown, and Charley Pride. And of course the demolition derby on Sunday is always good for softening the crowds at the ol' movie palace.

Not to worry though -- actually it makes things a little better for us, because it tends to spread the movie crowds out a bit. We look for our Dark Knight numbers to improve this weekend, which will please the film's distributor. However, it could make things a little busier than is normal for the second week of a major film. To make sure you get the seat you want, we suggest you arrive at least 20 minutes before show time (which, by the way, is 7:00 every night this week).

WALL-E hits the Roxy's screen

It wouldn't be summer without some kind of a Disney movie.
Last year it was "Pirates of the Caribbean 3," and this
year it's the latest Pixar film, "WALL-E."

It's the story of a robot who is left behind to clean up
the earth after it becomes uninhabitable for humans (700
years in the future, that is). But WALL-E is no ordinary
robot -- he's got a personality, and that's where the plot
thickens.

The visuals in this movie are going to be absolutely great,
I think. This is one you really need to see on the big screen.

WALL-E will be playing for 2 weeks, June 27 - July 9.
Our doors will open approximately 40 minutes before the
first showtime. We're also having a matinee on Saturday
the 28th, at 2:00.

We will be open on the 4th of July, but we will only have
one show that night, at 7:00, so you'll still have plenty
of time to get to the fireworks.

We love NEW movies!

It happens anywhere from 6 to 12 times a year: The Roxy presents a brand new film, on its national opening day.

The first movie we had "on the break" was MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, which came out in 2000. Of course we'd been wanting to play brand-new movies for years and were willing to pay the higher prices to play them; but it took a change in movie-company attitudes to make it happen.

By the late '90s, boxoffice results had become a huge Monday-morning water-cooler topic. Every studio was determined to wind up on top of the charts with the latest blockbuster. This led to an ever-increasing desire to break opening weekend records.

After years of requests from small theatres to make movies available faster, the film companies finally decided that if they put their films onto as many screens as possible on the opening weekend (including small ones), they'd increase their boxoffice sales. Seems like elementary math, but it only took them 105 years to come up with it.

So far this year, we've already had three films on the break: Nim's Island, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Horton Hears a Who. Upcoming opening-day titles include Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Madagascar II and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And probably a few surprises we don't know about yet!

By the way, you can tell if we hope to open a movie on the break by looking at its poster in our lobby. If the release date is showing on the poster, the movie will probably be here on that date. If the date is blanked out, it means we'll still probably play the film, but it'll be two or three weeks after the national release.

Indiana Jones is gone! (Almost)

OK, folks, just ONE more day to see Indiana Jones on the Roxy's big screen. After that he will be banished to the awful world of video forever. (Or until they make another one, which we're betting will happen.)

Indiana Jones is here! (Almost)

Well it's not QUITE on opening weekend, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be at the Roxy this Friday. The movie opened nationally on May 22, but the studio didn't make enough film prints to satisfy the demand, so we had to wait a while. But we're sure the wait will be worth it! We thank all our local moviegoers for their patience.