Fade the Butcher
03-17-2006, 12:24 PM
I haven't been to the cinema in years. The last film I watched there (Luther) wasn't produced by Hollywood either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/movies/16show.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
In a loud corner of the Bally's hotel convention floor, a dozen beefy, bare-chested men wearing chicken masks and black Lycra tights leapt from a wrestling ring onto the exhibition floor. It was a welcome distraction at the annual ShoWest convention this week, where the aim is to whip up enthusiasm among movie theater owners for the coming summer blockbusters.
Theater owners and studios fret about smaller audiences, like this one for a 7 p.m. show of "The Hills Have Eyes" in Las Vegas on Monday. Readers Forum: Movies
Deftly stepping to avoid a flying wrestler (part of the promotion for the June release of a new Jack Black movie, "Nacho Libre"), Frank J. Rimkus, the chief executive of Galaxy Theaters, based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., mused on the subject preoccupying most convention attendees, namely, the future of American moviegoing.
"There is a general recognition that the world of entertainment is opening up in ways that we can't imagine today, we are launching into a whole new era," he said. He added, with a note of self-confession: "We are trying to understand what the public wants. And Galaxy does not yet have a handle on it."
The slide in American moviegoing was an open wound at the ShoWest convention, and was addressed with unusual directness by John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, and Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, in their speeches here.
The decline in attendance for three consecutive years "is a trend that must be reversed," Mr. Glickman declared in his address Tuesday; he still called himself "bullish about the moviegoing experience." A former secretary of agriculture, Mr. Glickman suggested that the film industry undertake something similar to the "Got Milk" campaign that promoted the dairy industry as a whole. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/movies/16show.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
In a loud corner of the Bally's hotel convention floor, a dozen beefy, bare-chested men wearing chicken masks and black Lycra tights leapt from a wrestling ring onto the exhibition floor. It was a welcome distraction at the annual ShoWest convention this week, where the aim is to whip up enthusiasm among movie theater owners for the coming summer blockbusters.
Theater owners and studios fret about smaller audiences, like this one for a 7 p.m. show of "The Hills Have Eyes" in Las Vegas on Monday. Readers Forum: Movies
Deftly stepping to avoid a flying wrestler (part of the promotion for the June release of a new Jack Black movie, "Nacho Libre"), Frank J. Rimkus, the chief executive of Galaxy Theaters, based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., mused on the subject preoccupying most convention attendees, namely, the future of American moviegoing.
"There is a general recognition that the world of entertainment is opening up in ways that we can't imagine today, we are launching into a whole new era," he said. He added, with a note of self-confession: "We are trying to understand what the public wants. And Galaxy does not yet have a handle on it."
The slide in American moviegoing was an open wound at the ShoWest convention, and was addressed with unusual directness by John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, and Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, in their speeches here.
The decline in attendance for three consecutive years "is a trend that must be reversed," Mr. Glickman declared in his address Tuesday; he still called himself "bullish about the moviegoing experience." A former secretary of agriculture, Mr. Glickman suggested that the film industry undertake something similar to the "Got Milk" campaign that promoted the dairy industry as a whole. . . .