This is the time of year when people start asking "When will you play (fill in an Oscar-nominated film title here)?"

This year is unusual because nearly all of the Oscar-nominated films are either low-budget, indie productions, or boxoffice flops. Sometimes both.

There are some exceptions. One of the Best Picture nominees, "Juno," is very popular and we do plan to play it -- hopefully sometime before the middle of March. Another popular nominee, "Atonement," is penciled in later this month (although it may get knocked off the schedule by "The Bucket List," which is not nominated but is a huge hit).

And we played two of the three Best Animated Feature nominees -- "Ratatouille" and "Surf's Up" -- last summer.

We have already played one of the Best Picture films -- "No Country For Old Men" played here in January of this year.

Beyond that, however, the nominee list is full of movies that the mainstream moviegoer might never have heard of.

So why don't we just bring in these excellent movies and play them? Well, we'd love to, and sometimes we can, but we also have to consider all the variables.

• Is the film available to us at all? Sometimes, big city theatres snap up all the prints and we can't get one in a timely manner. If a film is too old, people stop wanting to see it. (This is a mystery, since the movie is still the same!)
  
• Is it the type of film that would do well for us? In a lot of cases, Oscar-nominated films have such limited appeal that they only do well in large cities. We play most movies for a full week, so every time we book a film, we're staking one fourth of our total business for a whole month on it. We need to play films that bring in enough business to pay the bills.
  
• Is the film coming to video soon? If so, there's no point in us playing it. Most movies are about four to six months old when they hit video. We play many movies on their national release dates, but when we have to wait on a film, we do our best to get it before it's over a month old. (Usually we're successful in that, but occasionally we're not.) Since many Oscar-nominees have been out for two or three months, their video release date can loom large. Generally, if the video release date has been announced for a film, we won't play it unless it's massively popular.

So there you have a list of the questions we have to answer when booking Oscar-nominated films. The booking process is interesting and complicated for all theaters, but especially so for small operations like ours where one screen has to fill all the needs of the local moviegoers. I hope this post has shed some light on the process we go through in deciding what to put on our screen.

Alvin and the remodeling

Well, turns out I was off on my Alvin/Chipmunks guess. But we will be playing it starting January 25. Watch the website for the show schedule - we haven't decided on a matinee time yet.

You might have noticed the destruction going on in the lobby area. We are removing the 1980s-era brick paneling and replacing it with textured drywall, which will restore the lobby to the way it looked when the concession stand was first built. We're also getting rid of the "dropped" ceiling over the concession counter and the paneling in the stairway -- so the original Roxy stucco work will be visible again. And finally, we're replacing the brick paneling in front of the stage with "something," we haven't decided what just yet.

You might be saying: What were we thinking all those years ago, with the paneling and the tile ceiling and all? Well, the stairway was originally paneled (with crappy looking wood paneling) to hide a big hole in the stucco. When we remodeled in 1981, we decided to replace that paneling with something better looking, and the brick paneling was chosen. Then later when we enlarged the concession area, we just used the brick paneling because it matched the other paneling and was easier, cheaper and faster. Then still later, we used more brick paneling in front of the stage because.... well, it was easy, cheap and fast.

We're also doing a number of other smaller behind-the-scenes fix-ups, such as:
1. Fixing air leaks in the back of the building
2. Putting in a new exit door at the foot of the auditorium
3. Fixing the east display window on the front of the building and refurbishing the display boards

The project is probably taking longer than it normally would, because we are still open while it's in progress, so that means everything has to be cleaned up, put back in place, etc. in time for each night's show. So we're grateful to our contractor, Tom Ungefug, for cooperating with our busy schedule and not throwing anything at us (yet).

And of course we're grateful to you, the moviegoers, who make it all possible. We'll have pictures on the website of the remodel soon.

One other thing: You might be thinking...WHAT ABOUT THE RESTROOMS? That plan hasn't been abandoned, just "put on the back burner" until the contractor and the building inspector can come up with something we can all live with without ruining our nostalgic lobby. Stay tuned.

Another year!?

Wow, it's 2008 already. I was still writing "06" occasionally on my checks. I don't like to make 8s as well as I do 7s, and my 9s often come out looking like scribbled 7s or backwards question marks, so I'm in for a couple of rough years.

We will be playing "I Am Legend" this Friday the 11th...yep, you read it here first. We will be driving to another theatre to pick up the print, which we do maybe three or four times a year. Unless the weather turns nasty, we should be good to go!

People keep asking when "Alvin and the Chipmunks" is coming. Wow, that one came out of left field and surprised a lot of people including me. I figured it for a quick sink and a fast trip to video-land. Turns out it's going to be the second biggest hit of the 2007 holiday season (after National Treasure: Book of Secrets). Who knew? At any rate, we hope to play it next week the 18th, but won't know until next Monday. Such is the nature of showbiz!

Holiday season repeats (employee division)

We always enjoy the Christmas season because usually, a few of our recently-graduated employees will be home from college, and will fill in a few shifts for us. This season, our "repeat performers" include Nichole Pellant (now in college at Missoula); Lynde Fitterer (now in Bozeman) and Alex Matteson (a 2006 graduate, now in Washington DC).

It's always nice to hear their college adventures and see how "our kids" have changed since leaving the home (and Roxy) "nest."

Movie booking nightmares

The questions start coming every time we don't open a huge hit movie on the break.

"'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium?'" they say. "Where's 'I Am Legend?'"

And to a lesser extent, "Where's 'Alvin and the Chipmunks?'"

(Just fill in appropriate newer movies if you're reading this after mid-December 2007.)

Well the answer is always the same. We can't play every huge hit movie on the break for several reasons. Whenever we don't play one, one or more of the following reasons apply:

1. The movie studio would only take bookings of four weeks or more, which is too long for us. We can only play a movie two weeks (or possibly three, if we're talking "Star Wars" hugeness).

2. The studio didn't make enough prints to satisfy all the demand, and since we're in a small town, we are the first to get dropped from the list.

3. There is another movie opening next week that we want to play, so we have to pass on this week's movie (which would have to play for two weeks) in order to get next week's movie on the break.

4. Our booker has determined (based on several factors) that we wouldn't do enough business on the movie to make it worth playing for two or three weeks.

5. We just didn't realize the movie would be such a huge success and didn't get our request in on time. Our bad.

In the case of I Am Legend and Alvin and the Chipmunks, reason #3 applies. "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" opens on the 21st, and it looks like the one to beat this season, so we have to make the schedule fit around it.

Never fear, though....you can look for "Legend" and "Alvin" to hit our screen in January, unless some other gigantic blockbuster materializes in the meantime.

Upcoming schedule

Why not list some of the upcoming movies, I thought to myself. So here they are!

Disney's ENCHANTED plays through Dec. 5, by the way.

After that, and of course subject to changes:

Dec. 7 - Fred Claus
Dec. 14 - Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium + Beowulf
Dec. 21 - National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Actually the Dec. 21 booking is solid. The other two are the changeable ones. We'll also be adding a matinee on 12/22 but we don't know what it'll be, yet.

Not a lot to talk about?

It's been awhile since I had the time to write anything here. But, that's not surprising given the time of year we're in. This year we've also had the new wrinkle of adding our Gift Card program to the theatre's menu of products. We retired the old-fashioned MovieCard, which was good for five movies. The new Gift Card can be used for movies or concessions and it can be recharged.

If you are nostalgic for the old-fashioned MovieCard, don't despair. It will still be used whenever we donate movies to a charitable cause, so you might see one once in a while.

Otherwise, during November, I'm usually engaged in one of these pursuits:

1. Putting up the train layout at Valley Auto. If you haven't seen it, stop by the store anytime before January 10. It features several buildings built by my buddy Ray Deering (including a really cool 1/48 scale model of the Roxy), about 50 other buildings, a lot of model cars and trucks, and ... oh yeah, Lionel trains.

2. Putting up the Christmas lights at the theatre. If you've never seen them, just look up as you drive by. The lights go over the top of the building's middle arch. Looks like no big deal, but it's a challenge to get those lights up there and make them stay there. We decorate inside too -- the stage lights and the tinsel garlands in the entryway are over 25 years old! -- but the outside
lights are my favorite Roxy Christmas tradition.

3. Putting up the Christmas lights at home. I am constantly amazed at how perfectly-working lights can burn out while in storage at the house. The bulbs also come unscrewed from the sockets...how does that happen?