Notes From The Program Director | Week of August 4th, 2023

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Notes From The Program Director

Week of August 4th, 2023

Melissa Tamminga

Rich Text

Hello, friends!

The “Barbenheimer” love continues, with folks still joyfully packing out the house, and so Barbie and Oppenheimer are sticking around for another week! How truly marvelous a thing it is to have two such fantastic films on screen. A few of you have asked how long we’ll be keeping both films, and the answer is, “it depends.” To give you a bit of a peek behind the curtain: essentially, we book films with the distributors for a contracted period of time, say, two weeks, and then how long we keep a given film after that time often largely depends on audience demand. If folks are still coming to films in significant numbers, we’ll keep a film around. If the attendance drops off, we’ll let a film go and bring in something new for a theatrical run. There are other factors involved in which films I decide to program and book, of course, but, particularly in determining how long to hold a film, you as patrons, by just coming to see a film, have a big say.

There are several other films I’m eager to bring to our screens this summer and many of you have asked about them -- Theater Camp, A Compassionate Spy, Afire, Blue Jean, The Unknown Country, Talk to Me, Passages, to name a few -- but we’ll have to continue to keep any booking dates up in the air, depending on Barbenheimer longevity. So keep an eye on our social media announcements and newsletters for any new bookings! So many great films we could play and too fewscreens to fit all of them is actually a good problem in many ways. The pandemic, which led to a halt in film production for a time and fewer films being made, meant that theaters across the country struggled to find films to put on screen, so having “too many” good options now is fabulous! Still, I am looking forward all the more, to our new space on Grand Ave. Were it up and running now, we’d not only be able to offer you Barbie and Oppenheimer, but 2-3 other wonderful films would be playing concurrently as well. So here’s to our new space on Grand and a much-anticipated opening day! More screens, more films, hurrah!

In addition to our continuing theatrical runs of Barbie and Oppenheimer, we also have a delightful, single day film-event coming up this week: the next entry in our Rocket Sci Fi series, Robot Monster, in 3D no less! Robot Monster is the first in the next line-up of our Rocket Sci Fi titles, curated by projectionist Steve Meyers, titles which will also include Creature with the Atom Brain, Zombies of Mora Tau, The Giant Claw, Attack of the 50 ft. Woman, and Reptilicus, and what a wonderful kick-off to a new season! 1953’s Robot Monster, billed as “the most demented, delirious, and delightful 3-D film of the Golden Age,” comes to us in a glorious restoration, and we’ll be providing old-fashioned 3-D glasses especially for the occasion. I’m also particularly pleased that we can offer the 3-D short film that accompanied Robot Monster as a prologue back in the day, “Stardust in Your Eyes,” and we also have a newly made introductory short film, “Saving Slick,” which offers explanatory context for the “Stardust” short as well as for the preservation work that went into restoring Robot Monster. What a treat! Robot Monster plays on Sunday, August 6, 1:45 pm. Tickets, as always, are just $6.