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.