Is This Thing On ?
A couple weeks back we sent out our first newsletter. Nobody got it because I set up our mailing list wrong. You can find it here. I’m pretty sure I got this one right, but there’s only one way to find out…
Provoke Fest Starts Friday
Provoke Fest starts on Friday, and we’re really looking forward to it. You can read about it’s origins in the last newsletter that nobody got.
The short version? It’s a week long film festival entirely composed of horror films directed by women. The full lineup includes RAW, The Babadook, American Psycho, Blood Diner, The Invitation, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and Slumber Party Massacre II. Leading up to our first screening of Titane on Thursday night.
Festival Punch Cards
We didn’t have details ready for the initial announcement, but we’ll be handing punch cards at the box office. For each movie you see during Provoke, we’ll mark it off. After you’ve got 5 movies punched out, we’ll let you in to the last 2 on the house. We figure this gets people the savings of a festival pass, without requiring them to commit to a bunch of shows in advance.
Coming Soon
Titane (Oct 1)
Titane is live on the main page, and tickets for Sept 30 - Oct 7 are available. We’ve committed to playing Titane through the at least the 14th, and those tickets will be on sale soon.
“THe Good, The Bad, and The What” Podcast Presents: Pieces (OCtober 16)
Join the guys from The Good, The Bad, and the What? podcast for a special screening of Pieces.
Pieces takes everything good (and bad) about 80’s slasher movies, mixes in a little Giallo horror, and concentrates it down into 85 bloody, absurd minutes.
9:30 start time, with a brief intro by the folks from the podcast. Tickets available soon.
DUNE (Oct 22)
We were always leaning towards Dune, because of director Denis Villeneuve. He’s one of my (Nick here, I write all this stuff) favorite working directors, and based on our attendance records for Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, a lot of you feel the same way.
After the first wave of reactions came out (ranging from ‘good’ to ‘hyperbolically good’), we booked it, even though it will be available for home streaming. We’re of the belief that people go to movie theaters because they like them, not because it’s the only place to see the movie they want.
And it sounds like Dune was made for the big screen. To use the directors own words: “Frankly, to watch ‘Dune’ on a television, the best way I can compare it is to drive a speedboat in your bathtub… For me, it’s ridiculous. It’s a movie that has been made as a tribute to the big-screen experience.”
Eternals? Maybe?
We haven’t booked anything past Dune, but we’re looking hard at Eternals. We actually think that Marvel has done something really cool with their extended universe, but the individual installments don’t always fit here. Eternals looks just strange enough, and the trailers give hope that Chloe Zhao (The Rider, Nomadland) was able to maintain some of her unique voice, even working within the Marvel system. We’ll let you all know when we make the final call.
Patch Notes
Replaced the grab bag of A/V equipment we used to play alternative content with a single PS5. (Alternative content is theater-speak for anything beyond a digital print, like Blu-rays, Slide shows, or video games).
Oh yeah. We bought a PlayStation 5 for the theater. We’re not ready yet, but be on the lookout for better availability of private auditorium rentals in the future.
Was that last bullet point news? It was probably news. I’m not relocating it because we’ve got a festival in two days and I don’t have time for proper editing.
Improvements to audio for alternative content.
Almost finished getting all the little rope-lights in the auditorium working (Fun Fact: there are over 300 of them).
Got a freezer to keep delivered ice in until our ice machine arrives (it’s only 63 days late for delivery, so it’s still doing better than the entryway carpet.)
