Each week, The Exhibitionist comments on the latest news, trends and innovations related to the theater industry, or it discusses long-continuing problems with and complaints against cinemas in general, or it simply relates a specific moviegoing experience of yours truly. But rarely does this column get into the subject of actual movies. Well, seeing as there's not much new in the industry this week, and seeing as I'm fortunately not being dragged to see Sex and the City and therefore have no experience to relate about being a sole male in an auditorium packed with women, I figure this is a perfect time to bring up actual movies. Not just any movies, though: I'm presently only interested in discussing movies about, set in or prominently featuring movie theaters.

The earliest movie that I'm familiar with that significantly involves a theater is Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The silent comedian plays a projectionist who falls asleep on the job then has a dream in which he literally climbs through the movie screen and into a detective film. A similar idea of breaking the boundary between auditorium and screen is used in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and in John McTiernan's The Last Action Hero, both of which involve a movie character who manages to leave his respective film within the film. But nothing tops Keaton's screen-entering stunt, which utilizes special effects that still astonish more than 80 years later.

As the son of an illustrator, I grew up appreciating movie poster artists more than probably do most movie geeks. And John Alvin, who passed away last Wednesday, was one of the artists I idolized. Alvin is considered one of the most important poster artists of the past 35 years, and it's no wonder. From E.T. to Gremlins to Blade Runner to The Goonies* to numerous Disney films, his art is as recognizable and iconic as poster design gets. The Smithsonian even named one of his works, for Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, one of the best posters of the 20th century.

His name may not be as familiar as that of Drew Struzan, another well-known movie poster designer whose work is quite similar. And it isn't that strange to (as I did often in my youth) confuse the work of the two illustrators, both of whom attended the same school as my father, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and both of whom worked for many of the same clients and for many of the same films. But there's no doubting that Alvin, who got his start with the poster for Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and worked on many of Brooks' film campaigns from then on, was a distinctly innovative artist.

In addition to designing original posters for more than 135 films, Alvin produced art for many special edition and anniversary releases, as well as collector's art for popular movies such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. There's probably a good chance that, if you're a real movie geek, you have something of his hanging up in your room or home. I think the closest thing for me is a Blade Runner t-shirt on which his poster art appears. And, of course, I can see a bunch of his talent clearly when looking over at my DVD collection*.

For a good list of his work, check out the filmography on his Wikipedia page, and for a fairly comprehensive look at images of his posters, check out this fan site.

*I just realized that the poster for The Goonies that I'm most familiar with, and which is on my DVD, is the one by Drew Struzan. Oops.

OK, so this is theoretical: Charles Dickens died in 1870, about 25 years before the very first motion pictures were shown. He published A Christmas Carol in 1843, when he was about thirty, which would have put his fictitious Ebenezer Scrooge several years older, with even less chance of ever having seen any movies. So we're just imagining that if Scrooge was around today, and still hated Christmas, but loved movies -- and preferred to spend Christmas alone watching mean, dark Christmas stories -- then these might be his favorites. A Happy Humbug -- er... Holidays to all!

1. Bad Santa (2003)
Of course: Billy Bob Thornton's Willie T. Soke has gone down as perhaps the greatest Christmas curmudgeon since the Grinch, and even Scrooge himself. His beautifully crafted dialogue is like an opera of swear words, soaring over the proceedings like the wings of drunken, unwashed angels. Terry Zwigoff's masterful direction walks an impossible line between vicious and sweet, hilarious and human. (Note: avoid the theatrical cut and the bogus "Badder Santa" version, and stick with the superior, official Director's Cut.)

2. Black Christmas (1974)
Bob Clark directed everyone's holiday favorite, A Christmas Story, but nine years earlier he made this horror masterpiece about the first holiday serial killer, a nasty piece of work who torments a girl's sorority house on the eve of the holiday break. But these girls (including Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey) are no innocent Cindy Lou Whos; they can out-drink and out-curse any slasher. Even Scrooge wouldn't accept the dreadful 2006 remake, however.

Gremlins was released in 1984, the summer I turned 10. I saw it with my cousin. We loved it. I bought the novelization and read it repeatedly. (It says Gizmo is an extra-terrestrial!) I bought a plush Gizmo toy that squeaked when you shook it. My school folders were festooned with Gremlins stickers, drawings, and other merchandise. To me, Gremlins was a perfect horror movie -- scary and fun with some humor thrown in for good measure.

Then I grew up and the Internet happened and I started to read other people's views on the film. Apparently it was a dark comedy? What?! That scene where Kate tells Billy how her dad died on Christmas Eve -- that was supposed to be morbidly funny, not sad? Huh.

With new eyes I watched Gremlins again recently, the first time in at least 15 years. Sure enough, it does play better as a macabre spoof of 1950s monster movies -- in fact, that's the only way the illogical and arbitrary "don't feed them after midnight" rule can even work: as a parody of illogical and arbitrary rules. Kate's story really is funny, as are the other juxtapositions of horror and Christmas (Santa Claus mobbed by gremlins, the monsters posing as Christmas carolers, etc.).

A few things struck me in particular this time around. First, as a protagonist, Billy (Zach Galligan) is pretty useless. He's painted as a nice guy with ambitions of being a cartoonist, but for some reason he still lives in his parents' attic, has a dead-end job at a bank, and drives a car that doesn't work. He's a loser. He manages to save his mother from a gremlin (after she's already taken care of three others by herself, thank you very much), and he succeeds in dispatching a theater full of others later on by doing something that doesn't take much brains or bravery: he sets it on fire. In the climax, it's Gizmo who saves the day while an injured Billy watches helplessly.

Billy is also kind of stupid. When Kate tells him she doesn't celebrate Christmas, he says, "What, are you Hindu or something?" That's not just insensitive, but clueless, too: In the United States, wouldn't Jewish be your first guess? I'm just sayin'.

When it comes to picking "scary movie" fare for kids, you want to walk that line between "just scary enough to be fun" versus "gives them nightmares for weeks." Of course, the appropriateness of any of these picks depends on your particular child and their tolerance for all things spooky, but here's a list of picks that I think my own brood (ages 10, 8, 6 and 4) would enjoy. Best of all, they're all available on DVD, so you can rent (or buy) them and watch them over and over again!

Ghostbusters -- My husband and I realized recently that our kids had never seen Ghostbusters, and set out to remedy that with a stop at the video store. I wondered how the film, now 23 years old, would play to kids raised on spectacular CGI special effects; I needn't have worried, as they were enthralled from start to finish. They laughed hysterically at the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and even loved the Ray Parker, Jr. theme song -- they sang and danced along with the song sequence, gleefully shouting "Ghostbusters!" at the appropriate times. Thankfully, none of them have (yet) asked to be the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man for Halloween -- not that that wouldn't be a cool costume, I just don't have time to make one -- though I suppose if I was really lazy I could just bungee-cord some pillows to their arms and legs, slap on a sailor collar and hat, and call it good.

As Scott informed you yesterday morning, Cinematical is stacking the month with tons of Halloween-related content. Every day, for the next 30 days, we'll be shoveling out all kinds of scary goodies -- including a daily Cinematical Seven and Retro Cinema, as well as a very cool contest (which we'll announce later today) and a bunch of other stuff. For those of you too old to go Trick-or-Treating, you'll want to stop by Cinematical every day this month for more scary movie-related snacks than you know what to do with. Trust me, if you're not a big horror fan, by the end of this month you'll walk away with a new appreciation for the genre Hollywood wants to hide under a PG-13 rating. That said, all this October talk brought back memories of my favorite movie-related Halloween growing up.

I was about 17-years-old, and the kind of guy girls wanted to be just friends with. I was stuck at that in-between stage -- where you're too old to go Trick-or-Treating, and too lame to attend a major Halloween house party. Mom was making cupcakes, and I was in charge of giving out miniature candy bars to the three kids who came knocking on our door throughout the night. To make matters even worse, right after tending to the first trick-or-treater, I noticed that my car -- the vehicle I had just obtained a few months earlier -- was covered in eggs. Nice.

Immediately afterwards, I received a phone call from my high school crush (and best friend, of course) -- she said she was sorry about my car, and that she told Craig not to do it. First he tries to date my high school crush, and then he eggs my car. Craig! That bastard! I was stuck inside one of those cheesy 80's teen flicks, and there was no escaping. Craig and his buddy were currently hanging with my crush and her friends in the schoolyard near my house, and I was outside, on my knees, cleaning the egg off my car with paper towels that prominently featured witches and pumpkins. "Erik, it's another trick-or-treater -- can you grab the candy bars please!" Mom yelled. The kid was dressed as a Princess. I tossed a candy into her bag -- she looked up, smiled and said, "Thanks ... sucks about your car."

I was in hell.

At the end of an article announcing Master Mind, The Hollywood Reporter slipped in some news that screenwriters Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons are busy working on a sequel to Small Soldiers for DreamWorks. This is a bit of a surprise since the original film wasn't quite the 'big movie' the studio's had hoped it would be. There isn't much revealed with this news, but let us hope that Joe Dante is brought to direct. He showed us with Gremlins 2: The New Batch that he can make a sequel even better than the original by giving it just the right amount of self-parody and satire. He also seems like he could use the work.

As a huge fan of Dante's work, I think it is a tragedy how little movies he's been able to put out, especially recently. Still, I was a huge doubter of Small Soldiers, maybe because of how dumb it looked filtered through the Burger King ads, and didn't even finally see the movie until about two years ago. Of course, I loved it, and I regretted not seeing it in the theater. But now my low expectations extend to the sequel, because if Dante isn't allowed to do it, the result will probably be as dumb as I had thought the original was going to be. I am already a bit worried about the unproven screenwriting duo, though I have to remember that Gremlins 2 had a different writer than Gremlins and it worked out brilliantly.

Others that I'd want to return for the sequel are Jay Mohr and David Cross and all the actors who provided their voices for The Commando Elite (hurry, some of the Dirty Dozen guys are getting up there) and The Gorgonites. The rest of the cast, especially Kirsten Dunst, are not required. Dante is supposedly currently working on The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, a film about his old boss, Roger Corman, and the making of the 1967 film The Trip. But since he isn't going to be involved with Gremlins 3 (such a shame, if it happens that way), he can follow up Kaleidoscope with Small Soldiers 2.

There might be some people out there who've been secretly counting the days until another chapter in the Gremlins saga is finally produced. Perhaps they're wishing for another appearance by Zach Gallighan and Gizmo. Or, maybe even pining for Phoebe Cates to brighten an otherwise dreary day? I can understand that last one -- Phoebe Cates was a babe. But in truth, as much as I liked the original movie, I am not one of those people who longs for another go-around. And neither, it seems, are Gremlin's director Joe Dante or producer Michael Finnell -- at least if the new chapter goes direct to DVD.

According to Movie Hole, both men would not welcome a third Gremlins movie if it wasn't a theatrical release. In an interview with Empire Magazine, cited in the article, producer Finell mentioned that Warner Premiere -- the new direct-to-video division of Warner Bros. -- may be in the mood for some more hot, wet Gremlin action. "They might do a low-budget direct-to-DVD version," but neither he nor director Joe Dante would want to be involved. Dante also chimed in: "There may be places for the jokes to go. But you've got a company who owns the rights to a movie that they don't quite understand. I think it's going to be difficult for them to make another one."

That's an interesting argument, Mr. Dante, but is it that hard to understand the movie or Warner's motivations for wanting another one? Maybe you're not giving Warner Bros. enough credit? I think they know exactly what they've got -- a way to cash in and make some quick bucks without having to spend too much or worry too much about quality. What's so hard to understand about that? Sounds like business as usual to me.

Feeling just a little bit cynical about the Christmas season by now? Sick to death of sweet seasonal flicks like It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story and, um, Bad Santa? Ready for a few choice chestnuts full of yuletide terror? Well unfortunately there are very few Christmas-based horror flicks that are actually, y'know, good movies. Most of 'em are low-rent horror knock-offs that are barely worthy of the celluloid they're stored upon, but hey, it's an amusing little sub-genre nonetheless. So let's get ready for a little late-night stocking stuffing and tons of creepy coal.

Silent Night, Deadly Night -- The first one is the flick that caused all that nasty controversy back in 1984, yet when you look at it today ... the thing's almost embarrassingly bad. But once you've seen a few of the sequels -- Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989), Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990) and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1992) -- the original doesn't seem quite so rotten anymore. (Actually, it is.)

Christmas Evil -- Also known as You Better Watch Out and Terror in Toyland, this 1980 cheese-fest benefits from an odd sense of humor (and the presence of longtime character actor Jeffrey DeMunn) but struggles to fill its overlong running time. It's basically another "looney in a Santa costume" schpiel desperately hoping to ape the success of Halloween, if not its attention to quality.

Silent Night, Bloody Night -- Just like the original Black Christmas was a forefather of Halloween and Friday the 13th, so too is this semi-starchy 1974 thriller a forefather of ... the original Black Christmas, kinda. It's about a guy who inherits an old mansion (one that used to be a lunatic asylum, natch) during the holiday season and must contend with, yep, a local psycho. Patrick O'Neal, Mary Woronov and John Carradine add a little color to the affair.

Producer Frank Marshall, whose credits include practically every movie ever made, spoke with IESB recently and updated us on a bunch of his projects currently in the works...or not. Next up for him is The Bourne Ultimatum, which will begin shooting on August 1st and have nothing in common with the book, except for its title.  Is that a good thing? Also teased was the possibility of a lovey-dovey relationship between Matt Damon and the Julia Stiles character.

According to Marshall, Indy 4 will immediately begin following Ultimatum. He hadn't read the script yet, but noted the project is moving forward and that everyone involved is very happy thus far. He would not confirm whether or not Sean Connery would return as Indy's father. After Indy, Jurassic Park 4 will begin its production. Hmm, so they are going ahead with it. Why?

I'm afraid that's as far as the good news will travel and, depending on your stance, the rest of it may bum you out. Marshall also officially squashed rumors of another Gremlins film and said that a Back to the Future 4 will not be made. Oh well, they could've just saved time and merged the two, having Mcfly travel back to the year 1984 to help fend off Gremlins and save Christmas. Then again, I'm not in charge. Damn.