NationalAmusements Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Do you like comedy but aren't interested in seeing either You Don't Mess with the Zohan or Kung Fu Panda this week? Fortunately, if you live in Massachussetts or Connecticut, you have another option at your local multiplex: live stand-up comedy. Since mid-May, National Amusements has been featuring "Boston's best comics" on Thursday nights as part of a new alternative entertainment offering called "Stand Up Showcase." Locations for the weekly events include three Showcase Cinemas in Mass. (Randolph, Woburn and Blackstone Valley) and one in Conn. (Buckland Hills). The shows cost $14, and you must be 21 to be admitted.

Obviously this news fits with my weekly column, The Exhibitionist, but I've already written recently on National Amusement's decision to branch out into live entertainment. Stand-up is just another addition to the live music, satellite-broadcast Red Sox games and other alternatives meant to counter decreased movie attendance. According to N.A. spokesperson Wanda Whitson (quoted on Boston.com): "This is part of [chief executive officer] Shari E. Redstone's goal of turning our 122 locations worldwide into community entertainment centers." Kinda sad for a company that has been a real force in movie exhibition for more than half a century (never mind the company's majority holdings in Viacom).

There was a time in my life when I spent more of my weekends going to concerts than going to the movies. And many of those concerts were fittingly at a venue that had previously been a movie theater. Back then, though, I never thought about the significance of seeing The Mighty Mighty Bosstones in the same place I once watched A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. There was a fine distinction between live music and cinema.

Unlike now, when there's an ever growing feeling that for the exhibition industry cinema is dead, while live music is, umm, live. The signs have been visible for the past year: Garth Brooks selling out multiplexes; a Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert coming in at #1 at the box office. But nothing made the future seem as clear as last month's news that National Amusements is going into the live entertainment business.

The theater chain, which also technically owns most of Viacom, has apparently seen enough interest in live entertainment through "experiments" at its fancy Cinema De Lux locations that it will begin operating venues strictly for live entertainment, which will be called Showcase Live! (a name similar to the company's Showcase Cinemas brand of multiplexes). The first is set to open this August, and while it's the only one apparently planned out so far, the company expects to open three to five more within the next few years.

I'm old enough to have mourned single-screen theaters and drive-in theaters, and now I'm ready to begin mourning multiplexes. Of course, just as there are still some single-screens and drive-ins in existence, the beloved box-shaped movie theaters, which we've become so accustomed to frequenting in cattle-like fashion over the last forty years, are not becoming extinct anytime soon. In fact, there are new ones popping up all over the place; they're just newer models with more "luxurious" amenities. But specific multiplexes, perhaps some we have fond memories of, are indeed disappearing.

Well, disappearing might not be the right word, since some of the actual buildings aren't going anywhere just yet. But whole cinemas are shutting down, and it's not because their companies are going out of business or because they're going to be replaced with upgrades. Last week in the Hartford Courant, there was a terrific yet melancholy article about the recent closure of the Showcase Cinemas in East Windsor, Connecticut. The reason, according to its owner, National Amusements (which owns Viacom, too), is that the location was "no longer financially viable."

What sounds like the more highbrow date? Going to see the artsy film I'm Not There while sitting on a couch, eating a pizza and drinking a cold beer, or going to see the mainstream blockbuster National Treasure: Book of Secrets while sitting in a VIP section with reserved, "luxury seating," eating a "sophisticated entree" and drinking an "elegant martini creation?" Both options feature wait service, great picture quality and the benefit of not having any youths around. In their own way, each is equally lowbrow and highbrow, but depending on your definition of those terms (dumb vs. intelligent; cheap vs. expensive), you might have said one or the other. To me, highbrow is intelligent and intelligent is cheap; so I pick the former, which will cost a whole lot less.

The first option was what you might have experienced this weekend at Oakland, California's Parkway Speakeasy (other movie choices were Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and American Gangster). Your movie ticket would have been a mere $6, your personal cheese pizza a fair $8.50 and your pint of Sierra Nevada only $4.50. The second choice was one of this weekend's offerings at the new Lux Level of Randolph, Massachussetts' Showcase Cinema (the other available movie was I Am Legend). The movie ticket cost $21.25 (you definitely bought it online and paid that $1 service charge), the personal cheese pizza about $8 (I don't see anything on the theater's online menu appropriately considered to be "sophisticated entrée", though other Showcase Cinema menus feature items such as "Bourbon Street Steak Medallions") and your Raspberry Mocha Tini was about $9.

I don't much mind watching commercials before the movie anymore, but one advertisement I wish wasn't part of the pre-show program at my local theater is the army recruitment spot. It isn't even for particularly political reasons that I can't stand them, I just find them unbearable. But now one movie theater chain is indirectly bringing the marketing campaign full circle by giving back to armed forces personnel it may or may not have helped recruit. National Amusements has announced a new military discount on movie tickets at its U.S. locations. This discount will extend to the spouses and dependents of active service members and will begin May 1.

Until then, they get an even better deal. Beginning today (April 17) and continuing through April 30, those armed forces personnel and their families get free admission and free (small) popcorn and soda. Although it might have been more appropriate to give the freebies around Memorial Day, National Amusements was probably against the idea of offering Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for free. Regardless, I am always happy to see people get free movies, whether they be teachers or children or military personnel. I wish the program included veterans and people currently serving outside of the country, but whatever. For those who can take advantage of the special offer, be all you can be and go see Hot Fuzz this weekend.

When it comes to the cinema, Europeans do it better. Just look at any Hollywood remake of a European film if you don't believe me. Look how many directors made bad movies in Hollywood but made great films in Europe. Look how many of Hollywood's great films were made by Europeans. I don't mean to be so unpatriotic, but America is constantly getting it wrong at the movies. The latest case in point is National Amusements' new gaming service at their Showcase Cinemas in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It isn't exactly film-related, but a major fault with the movie industry in the States is with the theater chains, and one of the problems with this new service is that National Amusements isn't relating video games to cinema as much as they should be.

Earlier this month I reported that a multiplex in Belgium (it's in Europe) was launching a new gaming service, and I expressed my hopes that American theaters would follow suit. Unfortunately, the cinema in Ann Arbor is not offering a similar big-screen alternative for gamers. Their service, called CyGamZ, uses flat screen TVs. How this is different from the usual multiplex arcade games is that CyGamZ allows for multiple players and a high-speed internet connection. How this is different from your gaming at home is that it is more social. How this has anything to do with the movie theater experience is questionable.

I understand that theaters are in financial worry -- of course, I blame the studios -- and they need to find new ways of attracting customers, whether to the movies or to some other moneymaking idea, but setting aside a division of the floor to Xbox and Playstation gaming is not the answer. Other alternative plans, such as live concerts and sporting events, have made sense because they still utilize the auditorium and the big screen. Is National Amusements afraid to gamble on renting out an auditorium for gaming? Or are they unable to even think of such an idea because of studio influence on screen use? Whatever the reason, American theater chains need to figure something else out, because while Belgium's XL Gaming is innovative and smart, CyGamZ is desperate and stupid.