Electric Shadow

Technology Shot Liberty Valance

Little did I realize that I had filed my last...month of columns as drafts rather than published pieces to the site. I proof them thoroughly and post them, and don't usually check the site itself to see how they look. I have added a couple images into one of them that I recently acquired, but they all are untouched from the way they were originally written. You can find all the following topics covered (in chronological order): Godzilla screens in Tallahassee Broken Flowers movie marketing terms, and what they really mean 2046 Junebug and American Kinship Additionally, there are some overheard Talking at the Movies bits in there too. I only noticed all this late last week, so I held my little piece from then until now (you can find it below as the next header), so that it did not also get lost in the mix of old posts. The technological middleman makes things so much easier in some ways, but it makes formerly simple steps terribly likely to miss entirely. I wonder if I had to physically type the column out on a typewriter and hand it to a copy editor, and then retype it with changes...would it be more reliable? If it were then an easier task, would it be worth the laborious process? I ask myself these questions just before snapping back from the daydreaming haze that has been my undergraduate life. Without fail, I proceed to apply my musing to the cinema, which of course cycles back into the way cinema comments on the modern day. In a number of older movies I've re-watched recently, technology (specifically the gas-powered auto) has brought about the death of one frontier or another without fail. In The Wild Bunch, we find the evil General Mapache (traslation: raccoon) riding around on a motorcar, dragging poor Angel (the 'innocent' member of the gang) behind. In our current state as a nation, we find ourselves in an eerily similar predicament. The American dependence on fossil fuels has twisted our necks for years, but with these hurricanes rolling through, I've seen stations out of gas all over town for the first time in my life. It was really bad after Katrina, and now after Rita (a hurricane that shares a first name with my mother, oddly), there are again stations with the 'white box' syndrome. As if gas hasn't been expensive for a while, I overhear people suddenly outraged that gas has broken the $3 bubble almost all over town. The general public likes round numbers, and in the case of gas they prefer those to be in fifty cent and dollar increments. I heard a lady remark that she found some cheap gas for $2.94 and almost chuckled. Did shitty movies like The Day After Tomorrow not teach anyone anything? It's been all over HBO, and it sold a blasted ton of DVDs. the general public saw a rather improbable global warming phenomena on their TVs or on the big screen, and it didn't change the way they lived their lives. Then we have a big fuckoff hurricane that's still in the early stages of cleanup, and all I see are a few more than usual SUV's for sale in parking lots. Has global warming become the new evolution? This turned into a political rant awhile ago, but not without due purpose or relation to film. Before I jump into Student Life Cinema's screening of Lawrence of Arabia last night (in glorious 35mm), I'll use last week's heldover story as an unintentionally brilliant segue.

The Yes Men

We brought one of the titular Yes Men from last year's documentary to Tallahassee this week. For those who don't know, the doc followed a big con pulled by a couple guys (part of a larger group) who assume the identities of people from a variety of companies and groups, from Dow Chemical to fringe groups of the Republican Party.

(from left) Tallahassee Democrat Movie Critic/Senior Writer Mark Hinson, SLC Marketing/Promotions Director Samir Mathur, and Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men
Mike Bonanno, minus his partner Andy (more on that in a minute), joined a few of us for dinner at a terribly trendy new asian restaurant in town for a state-reimbursed dinner before he went in front of the crowd.

Lucy Ho's Masa, home of the best asian lunch special in town
Among the things discussed were the utter ridiculousness of Live 8 and the idea of Bob Geldof & Bono leading a charge to Gleneagles. Bonanno pointed out that even though Geldof & Bono cited their purpose as going to meet with these people, and came out saying they'd negotiated a deal, "there was nothing to negotiate, and $32 billion of that $50 billion had already been promised." It's quite remarkable how much one person can learn just by paying attention and doing a little bit of research. It makes you wonder how focused our activist youth are on the things that matter as opposed to the amount of time deciding what to laser engrave on their new iPod.

Mike Bonanno plays to a house of over 200 undergrads, an outstanding turnout for a documentary on our campus
Mike Q&A'd for around an hour, and the best thing I could recommend after hearing him talk is Netflix or rent the movie. I hadn't seen it and now I have. I wanted him to prove it was worth the two hours of my time I wouldn't see some other documentary, from the man himself. The great thing about a live Q&A was the exclusive nuggets that came out. Bonanno revealed a choice bit that was cut from from the movie, where he and his partner are falsely promoting a product called the Reburger. The cut moment occurs when they tell a room full of high school students that the burger they have been eating has in fact been recycled from human waste. He also shared that Andy couldn't come that night (or to the U.S.) because he's a fugitive in France. who is stuck in Paris. Even though here we have freedom of speech and protection against charges of slander and libel, things are not so in jolly old 'liberal France'. After creating a website critical of a government minister, Andy was charged. He has been on television in France consistently for the last year, yet the authorities simply can't catch up to him. At the end of the night, he started selling merchandise. The customary DVDs and videotapes were a given, but he surprised us by pulling out Yes Men t-shirts. Battling corporate greed by appropriating a corporation-like identity. If you can't beat them at first, make it look like you joined them and beat them from the inside.

The Yes Men shirts are made from second-hand t-shirts, which, when sold to 3rd world countries, help to undermine their native textile industries. A friend got one made from a Jaegermeister shirt.

The State of Arabia

The latest in our series of classic cinema at FSU moonlights as one of my very favorite movies. Lawrence of Arabia carries on being significant more than forty years later, both technically and thematically.

Middle aged men (with their young sons), old women, and students at intermission.
I overheard a great number of people saying "huh" and snickering occasionally. A friend who had never seen the film sat next to me, and most of my enjoyment seeing it on the big screen was derived from so closely observing a first experience with the film.

Two undergrads talking fervently about the rise to glory and fall into madness of T.E. Lawrence.
Auda abu Tayi's late-in-the-movie faceoff with Ali in particular drew a wonderful reaction, where Auda insists learning the European way of governance is a waste of time for him. Ali insists he will learn to be an Arabian, even though Arabia as Europe saw it existed only in the Europeans' heads and on paper. Ali concedes to the effective colonization of the Middle East, despite his own assertion that it will never work. To me, the greatest tragedy is that Lawrence unwittingly dragged his greatest ally into the depths of insanity with him after a time.

An audience that saw very little attrition from one act to the next.
All the modernization for modernity's sake sank in for those with moderately-sized I.Q.'s, whether they understood the WWI politics going on throughout or not. Lawrence sums it all up, from the military-industrial complex to the cultural divide between the European/Western idea of freedom and the Middle Eastern state of freedom.

The girl on the left had never seen Lawrence before, and her friends are told-you-so-ing, especially the man with the magenta hair.
Telling a man that a syringe is filled with a vaccine does no good if you don't speak his language and he's allergic to the vaccine in the first place. We'd get along better if we weren't trying to ethnocentrically colonize the world, and by "we" I mean the human race.

Texting: The Other White Talent

There is one thing worse than a cell phone ringing in the middle of a movie: The guy next to you/in front of you/just to the side text messaging while watching a movie. Now, it wasn't just white people doing it, but a sea of LCD lights blinked and blipped throughout the movie. I've experienced this phenomena at other movies, movies people pay for, and I'll never like it. I get that some people were there for extra credit, but Instant Messaging (IMing) has spread so much that it's created another trendy-but-frustrating noun-turned-verb plague-on-humanity. I can dig people text messaging in general, that's fine, but text messaging while participating in an activity that integrally involves a dark, quiet place, the frequent flip-clacking of clamshell phones and bright-bright screens destroys the experience throughout rather than instantaneously. I don't often feel moved to violence, but so help me I might break a few phones if this keeps up. One asshole in the back row had his laptop out. During Lawrence of Arabia. He's on my "naughty" list for life.
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Junebug and Kinship

"I feel a special kinship with the American South," opines Embeth Davidtz's Madeline, an upper-class art dealer. The word "kinship" opens a gigantic can of worms, especially when cross-referenced with the South. What defines a kin relationship? Is nature or nurturing more responsible for the people we consider kin? Junebug explores kinship, but it occasionally (toward the beginning mostly) strays into the realm of "tries too hard". That isn't to say that the movie gets overtly didactic about the outsider-insider relationship between Madeline (Davidtz) and the southerners who fill out the cast. The first five minutes of Junebug passionately demonstrates a love for the Wes Anderson aesthetic as many others do. The 'quirky' (cringe) look, as I've previously mentioned, has established itself as the biggest fad since calling your movie "independent". As it exists in the opening parts of Junebug, it doesn't jive with the rest of the movie, and sticks out starkly. Alessandro Nivola has moments of profound depth throughout. The axiom of never being able to go home again provides most of Nivola's struggle throughout. He holds a great deal of his pain in very capably, but when he does let go his strength shows in the striking contrast between the before and after. Amy Adams stands head and shoulders above most other performances I've seen this year, playing her part as a real person, and not just a caricature of "the southern girl", thank god. She seems outrageous and socially retarded at times, but never unrealistically. The shock of the things she says and does comes only from the audience's prejudices toward a redheaded north Carolinian girl at face value. The same prejudices come into play for her mother in law Peg (played with razor precision by Celia Weston), a woman who makes reference to a distinctly southern concept (in name at least) of how one "does" with others. Madeline's inappropriate relationship with her husband's brother lives fictitiously in his mind just as much as his mother's, but unlike Madeline, momma knows what brother Johnny has in mind. Sadly, Junebug is suffering the same fate other "movies that make you think" are stuck with: limited release. This is a film that would have played great to southern audiences, but the theatre chains are less concerned with regional marketing and distribution than the Montreal Expos were with getting to the World Series. It's got its imperfections, but it's certainly not a film with serious flaws. If you missed it theatrically, catch it on DVD, it's better than the most mainstream movies you've seen this year.
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HongKong Cinema: 2046

Wong Kar-Wai's sequel to In the Mood for Love epitomizes the phrase "they don't make 'em like they used to," and then some. 2046 also manages to outdo most sequels ever made in that it succeeds at existing on its own, outside the confines of "you had to see the first one" syndrome. The story focuses on a writer, and at first, the audience is left a touch in the dark as to which reality they are being shown serves as their true frame of reference. Throughout the rest of the two-hour plus runtime, we are still misled here and there by a narrator (the writer) who lies to us. He'll profess to never see someone again, and then they reappear a half hour later. The role of the voice over narrator has been the subject of much debate and analysis throughout cinema history. Some would laud its use as a grand tradition evident in some of the greatest films, where others would lead you to believe it to be the pinnacle of didactic storytelling. Why just tell someone what's happening when you can show them? 2046 makes a fantastic case for the narrator by building our relationship to Chow partly in what we see him do on the screen and partly by the way we do and don't trust him as our guide through the story of a few years in his life. Wong has given us the portrait of many male writers' dreams, where the semi-hero (I wouldn't go so far as anti-hero) gets laid regularly, makes a living of writing, and manages to flourish in a mediocre, apathetic state of being for years on end. The ability to lose oneself in their writing to get away from the rigors of real life is gifted, but one who manages to wrest free of that fantasy world truly has power over himself. Chow's struggle revolves around whether or not he can break free of this tempting cycle, and it's an infinitely relatable situation. Folks stuck in terminally bad romantic relationships, those in dead-end jobs, and undergraduate college students in the middle of a bad economy all struggle with this conflict in some respect. 2046 runs too long for the modern viewer, but it's certainly the best 1960s "think" movie made in the 21st century. If you're going to the movies for action-packed, blockbuster thrill rides, you've bought the wrong ticket here. What Wong has done with this film is give us a lean, pulse-quickening portrait of an intriguing character: the man we all do and don't want to be all at once.
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Attack of the Marketing Clones or, The War on 'Quirky'

There used to be a much more classy tone to movie advertising. Posters were painted, not Photoshop-decapitation jobs. Trailers sampled choice pieces of meaty movies rather than giving away all the grade-A moments for free. Those days are of course long gone, but the new big trend seems to be Supreme Flattery. The saying goes, "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery," and if that's the case, Napoleon Dynamite's art department and Garden State's teaser trailer editor have become the toast and templates of the town. The following films, small and large release alike, have picked up The Dynamite/Garden look, along with the entire graphic design industry: The Chumscrubber, The Thumbsucker, High School Record, and the list goes onnnnn.... The above is rather plainly obvious to the observant among us, but where I'm going with this is the co-opting of words and styles (and success) in the post-modernist business the movies have become. There's a small set of standard words used ad nauseam in movie adverts, all with instantly recognized meanings by the general public. family comedy: (sweetly offensive n.): (1) a film (likely animated) that panders to the lowest common denominator in an effort to sell toys, DVDs, and video games, (2) the only sure-fire ticket-seller for the churchgoing crowd, (3) a movie that cannot possibly be hurt by how boring, vacant, or badly-acted it is action-packed thrill ride: (very tired n.) (1) over-pumped monosyllabic plot turned into a script with two or three polysyllabic words, (2) an eye for an eye relationship, within which one (more often many a) soul is traded for a paycheck (3) an event most commonly experienced in the second and third quarters of the calendar year intimate: (over-extended adj.) the studio expects audiences of six per screen on 150 screens for six weeks eye-popping (hyperbolic adj.) [as applied to CGI] gets a tiny bit closer to looking realistic than past attempts, but will ultimately fail, should one look for the seams sweeping (nebulous adj.) (1) possibly made in a language other than english (2) involving a period setting (3) involving complex or large costuming (4) involving Zhang Ziyi, with the exception of Rush Hour 2 (see action-packed thrill ride) (5) an occurrance Harvey Weinstein spends 50% of his year trying to ensure happens each February I'd love to go three months without seeing these words and countless others of the kind used in print ads, reviews (sometimes the same thing), and TV spots. In particular, if I never hear the word quirky again, I'll be a very happy man. Quirky has become the new indie. The definition of what constitutes an "independent" film was vague at the outset. Either you're talking about money, creativity, or both, whichever way you slice it. Was the movie made without studio money? The Star Wars prequels qualify just as much as Hustle & Flow. Was the movie composed creatively without overbearing studio influence? Million Dollar Baby qualifies, as I don't know who would want to cross Clint Eastwood. Warner did not, however, give two shits about properly expanding (or promoting) the theatrical release of the eventual Best Picture winner. Quirky has come to distinguish non-Fockers movies from the full-on Focked ones. People used to call them European, as opposed to good ol' 'Merican movies. These movies feature un-jubilant endings, actors "no one" has ever heard of, and plots that make you pay attention just a bit. I'd take it on as a badge of pride, but it's just a silly word. Have people always talked like they invented the language to this degree? "I just know that I am anti the abortion thing, because it's not right with Jesus." "I found the President's speech extremely impactful and it established a new president (precedent)" Are intelligent films endangered because the Coalition of the Stupid is growing at an exponential rate? I was worried about Tallahassee, but I worry more about the whole film industry. There will soon be two megacorporations officially in control of almost every cinema in the States, and a company owned by the two jointly is the exclusive in-theatre advertising company for all those screens. Most art movies get seen on DVD these days, and whether that is a result of DVD reaching more than home video has in the past, or is a signal of The Big Fade really happening, time will tell.
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Breakout Flowers

In Tallahassee terms, Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers is an outright indie hit, looking at its third consecutive week in release, which prior editions of this column would reveal is an extraordinarily rare occurrence around these parts. It's going to certainly outlast the now-playing Junebug and the coming-Friday 2046 for a singular reason: Bill Murray. Bill is what I'm sure studio marketers had joygasms about when they found out they had to build a campaign for the movie. They cared not a bit about Jeffrey Wright's masterfully (as usual) crafted, lived-in portrayal of Murray's best friend. They didn't even care about the presence of Sharon Stone or Jessica Lange. They didn't even try for the critical praise angle, they went the easy route, and who could blame them? The Broken Flowers advertising campaign relied less on the actual content of the movie than the "look" recognition of "Bill Murray in Lost in Translation 2: Murray In a Tracksuit. It has obviously paid off in admissions rolling in, but is there marketing morality to be considered. I had to break the paragraph, I started laughing so much. Marketing morals. I think I just invented something there. Marketing at its core is a deceptive practice, and in the case of Broken Flowers, the more deception, the better. A week or so ago, I went along with a few friends to see Broken Flowers for the second time. The biggest payoff came not only from a member of the group I was with, but a couple others seated nearby, detailed in the newest edition of...
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At the Cinemateque

Throughout the school year, FSU's Student Life Cinema will be screening classic films, and thus far in college, I've found each experience to be intriguing for varying reasons. Every film is a different experience, from The Third Man to Modern Times to Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Godzilla Attacks Tallahassee

Most of the time, when you think of Godzilla, the name conjures either images of camp japanese monster movies or the worst decision Matthew Broderick's agent ever advised him to make. The campus cinema I work for at FSU recently screened the franchise-spawning 1954 original film, retranslated and remastered in its director's cut, not the version seen by American audiences for the last half century. When Godzilla was acquired for American release, the Americans decided they could improve it (a trend throughout history in various contexts) by making it more palatable to the target audience. This process involved the shooting of new scenes with Raymond Burr that, combined with a mistranslated subtitle track, vastly changed the tone and storyline of the film. Lawrence of Arabia it's not, but Godzilla deserves a fair share of credit for being a great deal more socially relevant than previously thought. The movie carries an intensely anti-nuclear, anti-proliferation message that gets lost a bit in a late section of the movie where scifi melodrama grabs the wheel and takes on a lazy drive down denoument lane. The most striking part of seeing a classic film with an audience made up of mostly college students is the reaction you hear around you. Whether surprised, tearily touched, or tickled giddy, almost everyone around you has never seen the film before.

The line for Godzilla's first show, about an hour in advance.
In the case of a movie like Casablanca (shown last year) or Singin' in the Rain (coming soon), there is a chunk of the audience who know and love the film, having seen it over the years, whether young or old. Godzilla stood apart this past Sunday and Monday, as I knew for a fact I was one of two people who had seen this restored cut of the movie. It does drag in parts, but so many moments in the film still really went over with the audience. In particular, a moment where a young Japanese woman calls out members of Parliament for not dealing with the Godzilla catastrophe drew a flood of snickers throughout each audience I peeked in to over the two days. Additionally, every time there was an anglicized word used, like "geigeru counteru" or "oxygenu destroyeru", there were bundles of laughter from the linguistically aware clumps of the audience. You know, the ones who can read and listen at the same time.

Student Life Cinema employees spread the good word.
Our next Silver Screen Sunday (almost too alliterative to still be considered cute and not be from a bygone era, but then again, that seems to be the point) movie will be the Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly classic Singin' In the Rain.
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The Indecent Charm of the Aristocracy

The Aristocrats starts in Tallahassee this Friday, so I'm convinced there's still justice out there in the world. Unlike many I know, I was aware of The Aristocrats long before it became its own little documentary firestorm. I knew it simply as "the joke" that never ever gets told in public, partly because it doesn't go over with lowest common denominator audiences, but also because on some levels, the shock value (most of the punch) isn't as big a deal as it once was in the days you couldn't tell it on stage and not end up in jail. I've recently come into more personal contact with "the joke", which I prefer, since that's name by which I've always known it. Now that "everyone" so to speak knows the trick/secret/gimmick, it doesn't have as powerful shock value as it once did. Tallahassee, as I've noted in the past, is often behind the curve by weeks or months to the rest of the arthouse moviegoing public, and it coldn't be more true than with The Aristocrats. The really savvy already know about it and can't wait for it to come to town, but the general arthouse crowd is still catching onto it. I could think of no better reason to use it as an audition selection. This fall would be the last General Audition I would do at the FSU School of Theatre, so I not only wanted to challenge myself, but I dearly wanted to get cast in one show in particular, Amadeus. Peter Shaffer's masterwork has been frequently revised and recomposed since its original production on Broadway; moreover, the Milos Forman film deviates greatly from all versions of the stage play, though Shaffer had a direct role in the adaptation. One thing that is no different in all permutations of the epic is Mozart's filthy, filthy mouth. "What would most people auditioning do?" I asked myself. The answer, which proved to be entirely true: "something inoffensive and safe". I had misgivings leading up to, during as well as after the 90 seconds I had on the stage. FSU's auditions provide you with 90 seconds to do whatever you want: sing, dance, a monologue, you name it. I had a "safe choice" backup all the way until I was escorted backstage to wait, but I instead did what I can safely say was the most ballsy thing I've ever done at an audition. As a joke, The Aristocrats is completely malleable to one's audience, style, and needs as a performer, so I left it rude and coarse, but not as much as I could have. I've told "the joke" to friends who were curious in the past, or who started dirty joke contests, but I usually go on for a few minutes, so this was all a bit challenging. I also had to trim it to a minute and a half. I would reprint it as composed in its entirety, but that would betray the precision of it, as I ended up improvising a couple pieces of it even from the version I'd composed. Briefly though, it involved a mother, father, and son, with sodomy, incest, and shit-flinging involved, with a furious agent screaming "you'll never work in this town again, you depraved idiots! What do you call yourselves?" at the end. There were a good deal of students watching in addition to the faculty, some of whom were only watching, and others who were actually casting shows. Even though I was in the heat (pun intended) of the piece, I caught some wonderful reactions: 1) a girl in the back row covering her ears and seeming to silently scream in disgust 2) music theatre guys with their mouths gaping further open than I've seen them while performing onstage in Oklahoma or Evita 3) absolute dead silence after the first act of anal rape, followed by an embarrassed set of chuckles after the son takes over for dad, followed again by silence 4) the break in the silence five seconds after I left the stage, as the girl doing introductions broke out laughing, then followed by the rest of the auditorium for a good 30 seconds to minute and a half I'm sure part of my motivation came from wanting to be the first exposure many of those people had to "the joke" before the movie hit on Friday. As an Anthropology major, I find the phenomena of "Media Latching" rather striking, where in the instance of a popular film, people immediately co-opt the gimmick of the movie in question and act as if they were "in on the joke" the whole time. I have to say I'd be equally furious and delighted to be the production design team on Napoleon Dynamite. Look at everything from websites to school supplies to commercials, and Napoleonism is all over the place. I was on the bandwagon with "the joke" for a while before the documentary even showed up on the radar, so I was either striking while the iron was hot or giving "the joke" its Tallahassee wake. I'll be curious to see how many comics start putting the joke in their routines, or non-comics who co-opt it for cool points. Either way, I didn't get a callback. The terrible thing about being an actor is that you can never be entirely sure what that means. Odds are, with a "safe" choice, the result could have been the exact same. I'll never know what I could have done differently; however, I will be the guy who did "the joke" at that audition for the rest of my life, and regardless of the result it felt better than I could have imagined.
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There One Week, Gone the Next

In the first installment of Arthouse Cowboy, I got into the plight of Tallahassee's local arthouse, the Miracle 5 (recently acquired by the Regal Entertainment Group). Things have gotten worse. The movies disappear like Twinkies at Fat Camp. They appear and give so many so much hope, only to disappear almost instantaneously. More often than not, a movie will only play there for a week, and in a couple cases, get a big press push in anticipation of a multi-week stint. The most prominent victims include: Murderball, Heights, and The Beautiful Country. Countless more have come and gone in two weeks, including: Layer Cake, Walk on Water, Turtles Can Fly, Apres Vous, Happy Endings, Land of the Dead, and Ladies in Lavender (going from four screenings to one in its second week, so it's near-death). This weekend heralds the arrival of Sally Potter's Yes and the Courtney Cox thriller/suspense/muddy DV movie November. If I were to bet money, I'd say both will be gone next week. It seems, as in the case of Murderball, that we're getting these movies just past their window of greatest publicity and word of mouth, just as other Under 1000 Club (an arbitrarily chosen term for movies that open on less than a thousand screens, as just "indie" doesn't cover it anymore) flicks are gaining heat, soon to cool themselves. This has all happened during the summer, when a large chunk of the Tallahassee population (the college kids) weren't here. Running the cinema that way is going to do nothing but drive people away. Way back in July, I mentioned the screen count and programming similarity between the Miracle 5 and the Tara 4 (Atlanta). I thought this was a positive sign, but they seem to be diverging. Atlanta gets the arthouse movies sooner and for longer than Tallahassee does. From a business standpoint, this makes a lot of sense, as Atlanta is a much, much more "metro" area, with a population that is clearly larger as well as more diverse than that of Tallahassee. More arthouse moviegoers translates to more admissions. I felt myself tend toward the territory of conspiracy theory when pondering whether Regal wanted these movies to do badly in Tallahassee. No one could argue that Regal isn't bringing us the kinds of movies we want at Miracle, but the severely limited screening windows guarantee their ultimate lack of profitability. What a great way to bury an arthouse theatre.

The Missing Cowboy

I've been all but disappeared for the last couple weeks. The primary contributing factor was that I finally found a solid second job. Whether in the frame of reference of the city of Tallahassee or just the current national economy, that's no minor feat. Gone are my days of being late on rent and additionally having trouble feeding myself. Now those two things will just be a little less frequent. Back in the fall of 2003, I started as an Assistant Wedding Photographer for Susan Stripling Photography. I hauled bags, swapped out digital flash cards, swapped lenses, and would occasionally shoot "second unit" on weddings, just as occasionally seeing my shots in finished albums. I learned more than most of my friends have in four years of photo classes at university in a few months while being paid rather than paying for it. I met my boss Susan when we were both cast in a local production of Michael Frayn's Noises Off!, initially babysitting her daughter Emma when she and her husband wanted an evening away from the house and their adorable two year old. It's true, I moonlight as a babysitter. I get along great with kids, and I don't know why. Her last assistant got married and moved, so she needed a new one. The work was case-by-case, as she didn't need me for every single wedding she shot, but it was more consistent than a number of the odd jobs I've had while in college. Fast forward to this July, when Susan decided to actually open a studio space outside her home. She needed someone to manage the place who had computer skills, was familiar with the business, and above all, who she could trust. All of a sudden, just as my college life was starting to end, I had a job literally fall into my lap that would make things much less stressful for the year leading up to (hopefully) ditching town.

The Susan Stripling Photography Studio, nearing official opening.
I've been working huge hourly weeks while off between semesters at my other job helping get the place open in addition to continuing to run the business while moving things to the location.

The Other Job

The work that's now become my secondary source of income is chairing FSU's campus movie program.

The huddled movie masses.
Student Life Cinema shows more movie of more variety each week than any other campus movie program in the country, often premiering films in Tallahassee or for all of northern Florida. We're the second-run arthouse disguised as a Please The Masses Multiplex to many students.

A huge group, made up almost entirely of freshmen, waiting to be let in to see Top Gun.
Classes for the fall begin next week, and during the week leading up, we have traditionally shown a couple of movies for two nights each (screening twice each night) and garnishing each night with a different midnight movie.

A guy espousing why Christopher Guest needs to make more movies (because he said so) and my boss looking on.
The origin of the term "Midnight Movie" stems from a group I'll call the "Seminal Six": The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pink Flamingos, El Topo, Night of the Living Dead, The Harder They Come, and Eraserhead. I'd say these low-budget films were integral to the rise of what we call "indie films" these days. Movies of this pedigree are not often shown, and indeed, you'll occasionally see something like The Goonies or The Breakfast Club on our schedule at 11:59pm on a Friday. If there's anything I've learned in student programming, it's that you have to bait modern 18-24's with comfort food before you make them watch Divine eat dogshit. For example, this week's midnight lineup includes/included The Breakfast Club, Empire Records, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The fourth pillar was a showing of Top Gun along the lines of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 show by a local improv group, Oncoming Traffic.

The Oncoming Traffic crew, doing their thing.
People actually walked out of Top Gun, I'm assuming because it was their first time seeing the movie. Too bad they apparently didn't read the terribly blatant advertising materials past the line that said "Top Gun".

OT members posing as Jim Cash, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Tony Scott for a book signing.
I want to see us do something really fun, like get John Waters and do Pink Flamingos, or something my friend Nick (a grad now living and teaching in Japan) suggested: surprise them. The idea is to select a movie people really ought to see, but don't know they should, whether for hard and fast quality reasons or for cult value. Promote it as a Midnight Mystery Movie and push it hard through word-of-mouth. Do a couple each semester, and see how it goes. This space will most likely feature highlights from the program throughout the next year. I'm excited about our last event before classes get rolling, which is the North Florida Premiere of Godzilla (1954) this Sunday and Monday. A hurricane threatens to close campus Monday, so we'll see how the storm turns. I'll have pictures early next week.

On Scheduling

I'll be posting on Fridays for sure each week, with another update scattered somewhere early to mid-week, depending on what strikes me at the moment. That means you'll see two updates each week at minimum. If I have my way, it'll solidify as Tuesday/Friday, but we'll see how it goes. Thanks for reading, and keep coming back.
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Where's the Art?

In Hollywood's days past, stage-to-screen adaptations were a common trend. A well-known and loved stage property gets adapted to the screen and makes boatloads of money. Over the past ten to fifteen years, that trend has slowed a great deal, with play adaptations far less often gracing (or disgracing) the silver screen. By day, I work at both a campus cinema and photography studio, but by night, I'm an actor (and so far, a one-time director). I'm an anthropology major who does as much theatre as he can without declaring it as a major. I follow what's on Broadway (though I've never been to New York City), and read new plays as soon as they get to Borders, where I take full advantage of their reading chairs for afternoons at a time. When Tallahassee Little Theater selects its plays, a lot of what goes into a choice is marketable name recognition. A play like Laura or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum draws people in due to their familiarity and pedigree as shows (and particularly movies, in the age of DVD). So from where and wherefore did this dry spell of Broadwayless Hollywood come from, and why did Hollywood return to the well? "No one wants to see musicals anymore!" the businessmen and the audiences cried, similar to the recent call for the death knell of the blockbuster special effects action film. The same is often said about 'arty theatre plays'. When did the tide turn, and 'artsy theatre stuff' become okay again? If you ask me, this is nothing more than the cyclical nature of the film industry spinning back around again. The arrival of Moulin Rouge brought musicals (and eventually non-musicals) back to the fore, and as a result, non-musicals got a better shot at showing up anywhere other than HBO or Showtime.

Let Them Watch Pay-Cable

Donald Margulies' Dinner With Friends won the Pulitzer prize, but inexplicably got sent straight to HBO, just as Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical got sent straight to Showtime. Neither was revolutionary, surely, but they weren't nearly as bad as the vast majority of sub-par movies put on 2000 screens during either film's year of release. On the flipside, Proof and the upcoming Bat Boy are both receiving a full theatrical release. The former selections have a four person cast, and the latter share similar comic-horror themes. Where's the difference? Was it just these execs at that particular time, or full studio schedules, or just the quality of Broadway's output? Am I longing for the Age of the Mogul to return? If you try to think of memorable plays of the last ten or fifteen years, a few notable ones have been held up by legal issues, but large-scale musicals like Parade and Ragtime are ripe for big screen adaptation, certainly moreso than the version we got of Chicago was (Best Picture award notwithstanding). For that matter, where the hell is Sweeney Todd? I know Sam Mendes was attached at one point, but certainly someone would pick this gem back up.

The Retread Train

With Hollywood so often banking on movie versions of TV shows with moderately large (or huge) budgets, you'd think they'd at least "stoop" to adapting popular material. Instead, there's a big pile of remakes in the queue. There have been rumblings about anything from a Guys and Dolls do-over to another Damn Yankees. Do we really need remakes of these films, or is Hollywood just relying on familiar brand recognition all over again? I tend to lean toward the latter, preferring my memories of Brando and Sinatra to the option of seeing Hugh Jackman and Nathan Lane try a retread on screen. Don't get me wrong, I think they're both fantastic performers, but the difference between a stage revival and a screen remake is that the stage revival is only around for a limited time, and the film will laways be around on DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever. No one wants the risk inherent in hoping the millions your studio piles into a gamble produces the next classic. As a result, cinematic ambition has taken a gigantic nosedive in the past few years. Will we see film versions of Frozen, Doubt, or The Pillowman any time soon, if at all? Probably not.

The Best News All Day

Do look out for the upcoming movie version of BJ and the Bear* coming this fall from Fox! I almost forgot to mention how much I'm anticipating the upcoming movie based on Land of the Lost**. I can't wait to read that script... Rolling Blackout As a secondary note, my access to the internet is still sporadic, but once that gets fixed, you'll see a more regular twice-weekly schedule. *this is a joke **this is not a joke
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Pimp Theory 1106

Apologies, everyone (those growing few of you) for the tardiness of my late week column. I'm in the process of starting a new job and have had precious little time at an internet connection to upload this edition of Arthouse Cowboy. What you're reading below was composed during Thursday evening and polished on Friday. I've updated it with some data from the weekend. Why didn't Hustle & Flow hit? I touched on this briefly on Tuesday, but the biggest problem in my mind was screen count. Hit up Box Office Mojo and look at Hustle & Flow's weekend per screen average since opening. It consistently has one of the best per screen averages on the board for movies with 1000+ screens. On its third weekend, after having dropped 50% first week to second and about 40% second week to third, Hustle & Flow still held a top ten per screen average. Why only open it on 1013 screens? Why increase a definite per-screen leader by only 3 screens over its two weekends following release? Fear. Studios have nothing to fear but fear of lost gross. Why wasn't Hustle & Flow a tentpole Paramount release? Paramount could easily slip it into Paramount Classics and still turn a profit, as it only cost them the acquisition fee and marketing cost. Marketing it'd make back on DVD, and since it was most often advertised on MTV, they were paying their own parent company for advertising. Hustle & Flow also opened against Bad News Bears, a not-as-big-as-School of Rock success. In fact, it did worse than a big-budget Master Flop, The Island. Anyone else notice Hustle & Flow missed overtaking War of the Worlds by about $900k on less than 1/3 as many screens? If there had been just 1500 of Bad News Bears's screens given to Hustle & Flow instead, I think cities like Tallahassee would have contributed a lot more in receipts. Hustle & Flow only screened at theatres considered by all to be far inferior to the AMC 20 in the local mall, where the vast majority of weekend movie traffic goes. Some people really do just show up to the cinema with no idea what they want to see. I see it every time I go. I know it's rather pointless to do so, but I hope movies meant to be seen on a big screen continue to be found that way first, rather than on a TV.

Burying Techniques

I get that the companies involved have screen booking agreements (that feel more like mafioso 'agreements') and there's very little to do once those advance decisions are made, but for the love of good movies, these bookers need to pay attention to their successes and turn these golden cheap acquisitions into the Blair Witch success stories they should be. When you can turn a $20 trick into $20k, for god's sake, make the big move and take the other guy's money. I can't believe I'm advocating big business practice, but that's how people see movies nowadays. I know that the strong arthouse crowd in my town would love to see Murderball, Broken Flowers, Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Aristocrats, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and a host of other juicy movies that are getting just a handful of screens each nationwide. That translates to on-the-cusp cities like mine not being worth the risk. A great deal of people still read the newspaper, despite the popular bandwagon claim that "print is dead, long live the internet". If some stellar little indie is coming to town, and provided you have a decent arthouse population, they'll come out. If you screen it, they'll show up. That is, they'll show up provided you do it right. Point in case: Dallas' Angelika Film Center (the others as well). They print schedules that give you booking dates for all their current films so that you know when they'll be leaving town. You'll also find when new blood is on the way in, so you can plan ahead. The ten or so screens are small, relatively speaking, at 100 or less seats. Whereas in a smaller town, Capturing the Friedmans would be screened for a couple weeks at most in a 400 seat screen, at the Angelika, the same film could be there for a couple months.

The Gatekeepers

I see all this marketing/booking/exhibiting business as one ridiculously complex example of Supply/Demand economics, so why don't the people with the multimillion-dollar salaries? The answer is simple, as outlined earlier: risk is a scary word. Of course, the aforementioned theory is especially true if you don't know what you have or don't know how to promote it. If there's one thing that's most apparent, it's that Paramount had no idea how to market this thing. Looking at the trailers, it's as if they're marketing to african-americans, yet at the same time, they're talking down to them as a demographic. "Come and see our movie about how you all want to be pimps and hoes" seems to be the thrust of that first trailer to black audiences. White audiences are scared off because it's really "black-centric", and the alleged target audience is put off because they feel insulted. Denzel won his Oscar for playing the The Evil Black Man, and Halle Berry picked up hers for The Black Hussy/Space Cadet. Jamie Foxx's win for Ray improved the landscape of black actors winning awards for positive (to some extent) roles, but the way that trailer everyone saw paints him, Terrence Dashon Howard looks like a pimp who wants nothing more than to be a rich Evil Black Man. The trailer shows none of D Jay's quiet, contemplative moments, nor any of the pain and sensitivity we get in the film itself. The TV spots were too little way too late. It really does sadden me that people aren't seeing this movie on the big screen, and instead are spending $30mill on Dukes because the people with the keys to the kingdom just plain locked the American public out. It's hard out there for a pimp, especially when The Businessman won't let him better himself.
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Hustling a Fox

Here I thought they were smart, these guys. Surely, they'd expand Hustle & Flow, I said. Naturally, they'd give it an extra push. No dice. I disagree with Jeff's assertion that the American public failed the movie. I think the studio (and the marketing department, as mentioned previously) failed the movie. A bad trailer, bad sneak preview promotion (at least in my area), and a LOUSY screen count contributed to a bungling of this would-be hit. No one threw a phone, no one evangelized a cultish religion, and no one re-cut their ad campaign around an Oscar winner. There were no stupid extenuating factors here, just a dropped ball.

Stewie Griffin: The Studio Nightmare

Family Guy has become a major sensation across the country due in large part to its popularity on college campuses. Late-night cable saved the show and brought it back to a prime-time Sunday slot. Fans rejoiced to hear that a Family Guy movie was in the works. Set to be released straight to DVD, it was to be called Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. It was expected to be one of the biggest-selling discs of the fall.

One of the reasons TV on DVD has become so hot.
Over the last couple weeks, that all changed. Someone got a hold of a digital copy of the movie, condensed it to CD-burnable size, and started distributing it on the net. The general consensus is that it isn't as good as people hoped, reminding me of all my friends who shelled out for the Wake Up, Ron Burgundy edition of the Anchorman DVD. Huge anticipation and then unmeasurable letdown.

"So then the Home Video Executive said to the other, 'We're royally fucked'. What, too soon?"
The movie itself is basically a three episode story arc wherein a near-death experience causes Stewie (the English-accented evil mastermind baby) to re-examine his life. He eventually he sets out to find his real father, unconvinced that Peter is indeed his real dad. It's entertaining enough that it beats out most of prime-time TV, but honestly, that doesn't mean much when network television is nothing more than eighty reality shows, five variants each of Law & Order and CSI. Don't get me wrong, fans of the show will love this thing, but the anticipation factor crossed with the "dude, I got the Family Guy movie by being a hacker, like totally and shit" excitement is going to send the profit for this into the toilet. As soon as suburban, non-technophile dads are downloading this thing (probably already happening by the time of this writing), Fox is dead in the water for making any money off of this. If anyone's listening or cares, the best thing to do would be just release it early. Those who aren't savvy will be more likely to grab it than they were given two whole months to hear about it being out there, free, and essentially three pretty-good episodes told all at once. Friday, I'll dig into the touchy area of video piracy and how it relates to college campuses, from the side of the college citizen. I should also note that I myself did not download the movie in the way many are as we speak/read/type, but watched it in the company of others who had. It's slowly reaching everyone, two to five at a time. Packing the DVD with extras will help, Fox, I promise.
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Como Vaquero: Damelo subtitulado si quieres vivir

...or, "Give it to me subtitled if you want to live". I said these words to a Blockbuster clerk (who didn't understand me) in Spanish once. I acted out my frustration in a foreign language no one but hispanics or ahead-of-the-curve anglos would understand. My father came to this country in '81, and speaks understandable English, but has refused to completely homogenize. He is proud of his Cuban heritage, and with it, the language. If there's anything he loves more than our family and being Chinese-Cuban, it's movies. He loves movies to the point that he rents them in lots of ten. I exaggerate merely for effect, but sometimes he lives up to that very exaggeration when no one needs to leave the house for a long weekend. In the days before DVD, we would rent movies from the next farthest away Blockbuster because they were the one that stocked Spanish Subtitled tapes. When he lived in Miami, Florida for a couple years (running a legitimate business killed by the Cuban Trade Embargo), you could get subtitled tapes of anything, and for cheap. It was a crapshoot in Garland, Texas. DVD, I thought, would change everything. A subtitle track doesn't require you to put out multiple releases of the same movie anymore, how hard could it be? Too hard for the home video distribs, apparently. I didn't even think to look, but upon arriving home for the holidays one year, I realized they'd screwed me anonymously, and long distance at that. Beijing Bicycle, 1776, Fahrenheit 9/11, Signs, Ronin, ANYTHING from the Sundance or Criterion labels...any of these were off-limits for quality viewing time. Just a few that come to mind that either have a French track and no Spainsh or nothing but English at all. The studios have gotten better (though Miramax conspicuously does it right and then wrong), but it was a BIG problem a couple years ago. For every disc like Lawrence of Arabia, which has so many subtitle tracks it makes you wonder if they invented any languages, there are 400 that are done wrong. There are times when I remember an odd day when at the Blockbuster counter I realize I can't properly share The Quiet American or Ghost Dog or even Adaptation with him. Those moments are when I utter the empty threat above happen on days like today, my old man's birthday. I would have sent him a movie, but not only could I not afford to (college budget), but it didn't have spanish subtitles. So I say to the DVD studios: Damelo subtitulado si quieres vivir. I promise you'd make more money selling these DVDs to the, oh...two or three spanish speakers in the states. Feliz cumple viejo. It only takes five words to demand subtitles, but five hundred to say happy birthday.

Back in the Saddle

I've somewhat caught up on the money-making movie releases of the last few weeks at last, seeing Fantastic Four this week. Before you worry I spent money on FF, I used a free ticket I got inside my Man in Fire Collector's Edition DVD (for which you'll soon find a review in the Discland column). You may recall my first column dealing with the Regal takeover of a couple theatres in Tallahassee, and the Governor's Square 12 is where I happened to be that night. At the box office, I asked the attendant how she enjoyed working for Regal. "It fucking sucks, and I already hate it after three days," was her quick reply, followed with, "I hope it gets better, but it proba--goddamn computer--yeah, it probably won't." The major cinema chains (Regal, AMC/Loews) aren't run by the original families and movie enthusiasts who started them. These companies are run by investment banking groups. Each of them have four or five people (if that) of people who decide the screen count fate of American cinemas. The sad fact though is that these same people who make these decisions are courted the same way radio DJs were (and their replacements, Program Directors) in the days of Payola. If you aren't savvy, back in the heyday of radio stars (before video killed them), the hot DJs across the country got every kind of payoff possible. Backstage passes, money, probably whores. Hell, I wasn't there, so I don't know, but if you wanted it, then a record company would produce it to get a single on regular play. In a similar fashion, the Chain Gang of programmers are liable to be swayed by "show our shit movie opening weekend on 2500 screens and we'll give you more screens than the other chain for Remake 2: The Movie Musical Sequel".

We Are Robots

The trailers finished off with a whimper (Ice Age 2: The Worst Idea Since Dumb and Dumberer) and then I saw the Regal preshow reel. For those who don’t know, it starts like a tacky hi-tech roller coaster with a Star Trek-style control panel interface. "Welcome to Regal Entertainment," begins a robo-voice. "I can't do that, Regal," I respond. The cinema-on-autopilot feeling didn't dissipate until I left. The whole place felt cold, lifeless, and unwelcoming. I also meant to mention today that my call to Dick Westerling, VP of Marketing for Regal, went unreturned and I was hung up on the next time I called (during business hours). The movie was underwhelming to say the least. Gimmicky bits felt right (the 'for the fans' stuff), but the movie was nothing but two hours of going-nowhere exposition. The fact that I spent 400 words talking about going to see it and only spent three sentences on the movie should speak for itself.

It's Insurmountable Out There For a Pimp

My contemplation about the state of cinema in America got me to thinking about where Per Screen Average Overlord Hustle & Flow was going. I lack official data, but it looks as if the geniuses at the helm added around 20 screens for Hustle & Flow. At this rate, March of the Penguins will be on 1500 screens before the ascension of D Jay is on that many. In a related note, the campus paper I contribute to ran my H&F review with the headline: Do the 'Hustle'. No, I'm not kidding, and no, I didn't write the headline myself. Regardless of the fact that they don't pay me, they cut my tag at the end featuring a link here. I guess they need to save the ink for their readership of twelve.

A Tease

Upcoming bits to look for from me: Some DVD reviews in Discland, but more prominently... Tuesday you'll find a review of the straight-to-DVD Family Guy movie. You know, the one set for release in late September. Hey Fox Video, move the release up or you won't sell as many. Just a thought.
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State of the Cinema -- The Indie Hustle

My initial plan for Arthouse Cowboy is to do a somewhat shorter, reactive piece early in the week (Monday or Tuesday) coming hot off the past weekend, with a more substantive, multifaceted column later int he week (Thursday of Friday). After seeing Wedding Crashers last week, I also had an idea for a recurring feature...

Talking At the Movies

It doesn't even bug me that much, sometimes, because the above can actually enhance the experience for me. TatM will feature actual conversation I overhear week-to-week at the cinema. At War of the Worlds: Guy Next to Me Who Checks His Cell Phone for Texts and Receives Calls: "Dude, why don't the cars work?" His Fellow Text-Checker: "Bro [prounced "braaahh"], they said nothing electric works 'cause of the big lightning thing." Guy (as he checks for a text message, and emphatically): "But Bro, it's got a battery." His Pal: "Dude, they'll explain it, just wait." At Wedding Crashers: Dr. Quinn, Barechested Woman bares her femininity to Owen, Butterscotch Stallion Owen says something along the lines of "what should I do?" Thugged Out Seventeen Year Old: (pointing his finger at the screen) "Get up in that old bitch's rug!" For reference, the involved pillars of society were white as rice on a paper plate in a snowstorm.

The Indie Hustle

Hustle & Flow had a terrible first trailer. The rhythm of the newer TV spots syncs up better with the thick beats present in Craig Brewer's piece about attaining one's goals in spite of hardship and pessimism. At first, I thought the MTV acquisition was going to make this film open wide, right alongside Bad News Bears and the incredibly shrinking The Island. I was surprised to see it booked on 1013 screens, more than 700 less than even The Devil's Rejects, and 1/3 of the 3000 enjoyed by the aforementioned wide openers. The receipts told the tale on Monday, when H&F pulled a per-screen average of $7,914, bested (in 1000+ screen bookers) solely by Wedding Crashers. Hustle & Flow didn't just do well, it kicked the rest of the weekend movies' collective asses. How did MTV first bungle the marketing and then the booking on a movie everyone knew was going to be a big deal after its huge Sundance showing? This whole debacle (or so it seemed at the time) verged on pissing me off to grand effect. H&F a savagely loud and at once quietly dignified movie so good at nailing human nature, had been put down by the very company that wanted to make money off it. It was infuriating. Only the Regal theatres in town are showing it, so the vast majority of Tallahasseans missed even having it as a choice if they went to the mall cinema. Damn it, it deserves to be shown, I said, and I couldn't get why it got so stupidly underbooked.

The Slow Burn

Leave it to a major multinational media empire to confuse me. They're playing The Slow Burn. The Slow Burn is what I call a subtle (or not so subtle) marketing trend associated with the huge popularity of "indie" movies as a commodity rather than an aspect of a film's production (the source of the budget). There are a few "big movies" left for the summer, but none, I think, that can fend off H&F expanding its screen count hot off of great word of mouth. The movie is still just as cool and non-studio as its roots prove, but MTV wants this thing to be on everyone's lips during award season as "the indie sensation that won America's hearts and pocketbooks" around award season time. These guys are brilliant. They're devils, but they're brilliant. Opening the movie wide against the (now) failures of last weekend's "blockbusters" wouldn't have worked, as there weren't that many screens to get. With those flicks dropping screens like B or C-list actors dropping sequel rumors at a premiere, as well as the disappearance of early summer hits to the depths of second-run, H&F will be able to pick up screens left, right, and upside down. The thing that still sticks in my craw is that if the studio had full confidence in this flick on its merits, they would have found a wide release weekend for it and booked it big. The Slow Burn is the immediate indicator of a studio playing it safe with an indie just in case it does tank, or doesn't "find and audience," or whatever marketing/p.r. malarky they're chucking onto press releases this minute. Studios will keep cranking out the mediocre because that's "what's done," and it's the programming equivalent of "I was just following orders," but instead, it's "Herbie: Fully Loaded is what America wants." If MTV/Paramount/CBS/Viacom did effectively hustle the American public, I gotta say, "play on playa."
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The First Shot -- The Not-So Open Range

I decided a while back that reading the right columns and borrowing, buying, and watching too many pricey DVDs was a good alternative to spending my entire undergrad life doing nothing but taking film classes that I may or may not learn much (if anything) from. That said, Arthouse Cowboy will cover a wide variety of subjects, often focusing on the state of my local moviegoing scene and exploring the hostile landscape of the college cinematic experience. Unlike most Texans, I don't always use "y'all" in place of the less-rednecky "you." I do, however, come from the suburb of Dallas that was allegedly the model for the animated Mike Judge TV show King of the Hill. Some of us are just lucky that way.

The Not-So Open Range

I rarely get the chance to travel to larger cities that are within the scope of those "limited engagements" in which interesting movies tend to play most immediately. In these cities, you might see a restored print of Godzilla (the original 1954, Emmerich-free one), or something like Ladies in Lavender and even Rize without taking a long drive. One could never be very sure whether you'd have access to such films in Tallahassee. It'd be a crapshoot as to whether the local arthouse (Miracle 5) would show the little film that NY and LA see no matter what. With the recent acquisition of the Eastern Federal Corporation by Regal, that probability becomes less likely yet. The big news in cinema chain consolidation is the AMC-Loews merger, which effectively gives the world the two mega-chains of Regal and AMC/Loews (or whatever it'll get renamed). A couple months ago, Tallahasseeans were made aware that Eastern Federal, a southeastern U.S. movie theatre chain, was being bought by Regal. Eastern Federal has (well, had) twenty-two cinemas (238 screens) in three states (FL, NC and SC). Every so often, you'll see Ong Bak or another small release film hit the AMC or Governor's Square (but very rarely), leaving the Miracle as the only first-run arthouse in town. The only other options are the Cinemark Movies 8 and FSU's Student Life Cinema. The SLC has a dedicated once-a-week "cafe cinema" series and once again, very rarely, you'll see a piece the calibre of The Upside of Anger at the Movies 8. The first reaction around town from arthouse cinema patrons was outright panic. Where would Tallahasseeans see their beloved arthouse movies? The AMC 20, the IMAX? Not a chance in hell. The only thing people could do was upgrade their Netflix accounts in advance and get settled in for their role in The Big Fade. Staying away from the theatre was no longer a choice, but a necessity for the discerning moviegoer. At first glance, it would seem the arthouse was dead, so long live the Megacorporation Mediocreplex.

Light on the Horizon

Upon further investigation, that may not be the case at all. I jumped onto the Regal website to look over their Art Cinema theatres, and most of those listed don't remotely reflect that description. All of the aforementioned Non-Art Cinemas have over ten screens, which bodes well for the Miracle 5. There are a couple cinemas of a similar screen count that Regal programs similarly to the way the Miracle has been typically programmed. Taking a look at selected locations, notably Austin's Arbor 8, Atlanta's Tara 4, and Irvine's University Town Center 6, I was filled with hope. The Arbor I already knew as a decent location used by South by Southwest (a festival near and dear to my heart). Only two movies currently showing there classify as "mainstream" releases (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Cinderella Man). The University Town Center 6 features two movies I've never heard of, which is a minor miracle if you ask my friends. Those and a couple others are fine, it's the Tara 4 that worries me. At the time I did this research, on one of Tara's four coveted screens lay The Longest Yard (and that's precisely what it does, is just lay there). It's frightfully similar to the recent marquee at the Miracle 5. Whereas Miracle as recently as last week featured The Longest Yard along with four other movies, for the four weeks following its opening, it was on two screens. Films appeared and disappeared on the other three screens, but Sandler's wrecking crew persisted on two of them. The Regal press release came out in April, and it has been whispered that their guys had already started to take the programming reins by then, with this similarity to Tara at the time helping confirm those very suspicions. So, the potential positive comparisons to the Arbor & University aren't enough to assure me or anyone I know that our only sure source for smaller release movies is safe from Regal reshaping or outright closing Miracle in a year's time. It’s times like those that make me question the existence of God and whether he/she/it's punishing the human race, or just me all by myself. Regal cancelled all post-7:30pm shows at both Eastern Federal theatres with no notice outside of their box office listings at the theatres Thursday night (7.21) so that they could re-model and inventory both locations. I spoke to a Regal manager about the changeover that night, annoyed that I couldn't get into the now-cancelled 9:30pm Wedding Crashers. The gentleman smiled and directed me to a number at their corporate offices when he asked whether I was and I answered that indeed I was with the media. As of Friday morning, both cinemas were rebranded the Regal Miracle 5 and the Regal Governor's Square Stadium 12. The Tallahassee Film Society has spread word that Regal has informed them that they're "dedicated to Art Cinema," but we'll see what really happens to the little cinema that (usually) could. I'll followup with further developments, as well as photos and reactions from local folks, but this is all I have for the moment. As for now, all I can do is wait and hope. After three revisions (as its posting got pushed further and further back), this first piece turned out to be a beast so I'm going to hold on my Hustle and Flow analysis until after the weekend. My five word review for the moment: worth paying more than twice.
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