theater Tagged Articles at Cinematical
French Cinemas to Protest ... for One Whole Hour!
Filed under: Fandom », Home Entertainment », Politics »
OK, so just before we start, I want you to know that I'm going to try very hard not to make any jokes about the French in this post (even though a certain line of dialog from The Last of The Mohicans keeps running in my head). But, back to the news at hand: Variety is reporting that more than 2,000 French movie theaters will be turning off their lights between 6 and 7PM in protest of a new anti-piracy law, and since Wednesday is new release day in France, exhibitors thought that would be the most opportune time to make their point. So what is their point exactly? Well, it turns out that French movie distributors are starting to feel the pains of rising services like VOD competing with first-run movie theaters for business. Originally, movie theaters were granted a six-month window of exclusivity before a flick could move on to other distribution channels, but under their new anti-piracy law, the home entertainment market will now only have to wait 4 months before a film becomes available for the DVD and VOD market. French cinema owners claim that this law is, "degrading of theater owners' economic conditions." (Even though, according to statistics, the box-office is up 3.4% from last year).
After the jump; French movie theaters aren't the only ones suffering...
Interview: Rainn Wilson
Filed under: Comedy », Casting », New Releases », Fandom », DIY/Filmmaking », Interviews »
Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.
Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.
While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.
Paul Thomas Anderson Directs Play With 'SNL' Members
Filed under: Casting », New Releases », RumorMonger », Celebrities and Controversy »
First, he gets a mainstream comic actor to act in a contemplative art house narrative with Punch-Drunk Love. Now, he's putting two of them on a stage. According to cigarettes and red vines, Paul Thomas Anderson has written and directed a play in Los Angeles with Saturday Night Live stars Maya Rudolph (Anderson's partner) and Fred Armisen. It premieres at the Largo on August 5, but specific details about plot remain unrevealed. Still, the prospects of seeing Anderson's eerily detached style in a live performance are intriguing, to say the least. As Slashfilm points out, the production has a few logical attachments to the filmmaker's past: Anderson directed a short film for SNL back in 2000, and Rudolph starred in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, which Anderson may or may not have ghost-directed in parts.Now that Anderson has proven he can craft epic period pieces of the raunchy (Boogie Nights) and morose (There Will Be Blood) kind, he's reached a point where audiences will basically allow him to take them wherever he wants to go. The dynamics of the stage, however, differ greatly from those of the cinema. Since the name and subject matter are a mystery, there's a lot left to the imagination. Will Anderson allow Rudolph and Armisen to unleash their comic potential? Or is that a milkshake I hear brewing?
Spike Lee Goes to Broadway
Filed under: Deals »
Nothing really happened when Spike Lee was set to remake Stalag 17 for the stage last year, but now he's reportedly heading to Broadway again. However, this time it's in a cinematic capacity.Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider reported last week that Lee is grabbing his cameras and spending part of July filming the Tony-winning Passing Strange. Originally developed at the Sundance Institute's Theatre Lab, the musical focuses on "a young black musician who sets off on a journey to find 'the real' after being raised in a church-going middle-class Los Angeles neighborhood." I have a sneaking suspicion that the guy wouldn't have to go far. Anyway, Lee will film two performances with an audience, and a third without, and while no distribution agreements have been reached, there's talk that the recording will hit cable television. (Variety investigated the report and their sources say an announcement about the production will hit on Wednesday.)
While recorded theater is not the same as the in-person experience, I'm happy to see more of New York's theater making its way out to the country/world. Joseph Papp did a lot of it in the late seventies and early eighties, and you might have seen some of them, like A Midsummer Night's Dream with William Hurt and Christine Baranski, or the theatrical version of Pirates of Penzance, which came before the film and featured the same cast (Kevin Kline, Lindsa Ronstadt, etc).
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Play
Filed under: Horror », Fandom »
At first, I thought the email message I received yesterday with the subject line "COME GET BLOODY!!!!!" was spam that escaped my filters. But some instinct told me to go ahead and open it anyway. Turned out that those horror-film-loving Primitive Screwheads are at it again. The Primitive Screwheads is a San Francisco theater company that likes to spoof classic horror movies ... and spray audiences with gallons of fake blood. Their first foray into gory drama was Evil Dead: Live!, which packed theaters for weeks. (No bonus points for guessing where the group got its name.) Last year I was lucky enough to catch their staging of Re-Animator, and especially lucky to get out of the theater without any permanent stains on my clothing. It was the most fun I'd had at a play in years, if ever.
The latest Primitive Screwheads production is Chainsaw Massacres, which is advertised as "a live theatrical parody that draws inspiration from both actual historical events of the late Seventies as well as from classic horror movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." If you're going to be in the Bay Area in late June or early July and want a unique theater experience, you might want to book tickets ahead of time ... these shows are extremely popular. And wear disposable clothing.
AMC Goes Arthouse
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Exhibition », Cinematical Indie »
I reported earlier that theaters have been
trying to find new ways
to attract audiences. Multiplex chain AMC has decided to boost movie attendance by shifting its programming in some
markets. The AMC Select program, starting this weekend, will devote 72 screens in 39 markets to arthouse/indy features
and documentaries. The upcoming movies listed for the AMC Select program are big-name, well-known films such as An Inconvenient Truth, Little Miss Sunshine, and A Prairie Home Companion. No foreign-language or micro-budget films were listed. AMC isn't taking any real risks with this venture or giving screens to films that might not have theatrical play otherwise. These are all films you might see in a Landmark-owned theater. The article also doesn't mention which cities AMC will target with this new program -- are they the same cities that already have Landmark or other arthouse theaters, or is AMC planning to bring these indy films to new cities? Will the AMC Select program really lure more people into theaters, or simply draw them away from competing theaters?
Movie Theaters Get Creative to Lure Audiences
Filed under: Exhibition »
Some movie theaters have finally realized that hey, maybe it's not just the
quality of the movies keeping audiences away, but the quality of the theater experience. A Mercury
News article (via The Risky Biz
Blog) lists some of the attempts theaters are making to lure audiences: reserved seating, kid-free screenings where
alcohol is served, and free popcorn. A sidebar to the
article notes that some theaters are returning to incentives used in the 1950s when television decreased theater
attendance: giveaways, gimmicks like 3D, and live accompaniments such as improv groups.Canadian theaters face the same problems. The Motion Picture Theater Association of Canada recently recommended that theaters consider hosting non-movie events, such as fashion shows and screenings of sports events. As Erik reported last month, U.S. theater associations have already recommended similar theater use.
Some of these initiatives sound great. However, I think theaters' plans to jam cell-phone signals in theaters will be a big bust. Parents on a night away from the kids want their phones to work in case of an emergency. And some of us just plain don't like theaters messing with our cell-phone signals, even if we do turn the phones off or switch them to vibrate-only during movies. Finally, I notice no theater or association in these articles has mentioned pre-movie ads, which keep me away from certain theater chains whenever possible. Perhaps providing audiences with a comfortable atmosphere, instead of treating them like a marketing demographic, would draw more crowds.
Transcript of Bubble commentary available online
Filed under: Home Entertainment »
When Steven Soderbergh released Bubble simultaneously (more or less) in
theaters, on TV, and on DVD, I opted to rent the DVD. This was due more to laziness than anything, but it did give me a
chance to listen to the audio commentary where Soderbergh and fellow director Mark Romanek discuss the philosphy behind
the movie, which was shot using non-professional actors who ad-libbed much of their dialogue. Soderbergh also used only
available light for scenes and worked without monitors. I immediately grew affectionate toward the movie itself, the
concept behind it, and the way it was released. I would go on, but Karina pretty much echoed my sentiments with her review.
Josh Oakhurst has transcribed much of the commentary on his blog, and you can read it here. It's not as funny as Soderbergh's commentary for Schizopolis where he interviews himself and insists the last half of the movie is an homage to the inside of his mouth, but for a movie as unique as Bubble it's nice to get some real insight into the mind behind it all.
[via HD for Indies]
New Orleans arthouse theater back in February
Filed under: Exhibition »
New Orleans is still in terrible shape, but at least residents will get to see
independent films again soon. The news that Canal Place Cinema, a Landmark
theater, will reopen on Feb. 10 was buried in a Times-Picayune article
about the Southeastern Film Critics Association. Canal Place Cinema is located on the outskirts of the French Quarter
and took a beating earlier this year due to Hurricane Katrina. While a number of movie theaters in the greater New Orleans area have reopened in the past couple of months, none showed independent or foreign-language films. Even The Prytania, the only single-screen theater in the area, shows big-budget films like King Kong. For example, New Orleans-area residents were eager to see Capote, which they saw advertised in national TV commercials, but the AMC-owned open theaters chose not to offer the film. Many of the 2005 films being given awards or lauded in critics top-ten lists have been unavailable to New Orleanians. Moviegoers have had to drive to Baton Rouge to see "smaller" films, which is a complete reversal from my LSU days when we drove from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to see foreign films. Once Canal Place Cinema opens again, movie-loving New Orleanians will have a lot of catching up to do.
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