Nicolas Cage and Technical Difficulties
Yesterday our media player (the half of the projector that actually plays the movies) stopped working. We don’t have a repair timeline yet, so we’ve cancelled all remaining shows of Killers of the Flower Moon. It probably won’t take that long, but we’d rather play it safe. We don’t want to sell tickets to a show that may not happen. Even in the worst-case scenario, we’re confident we’ll be back on screen by Friday.
Thanks again for your support, and we’re very sorry about the cancelled shows. If you’re curious just what’s up with our projector, there’s a more detailed explanation at the end of the newsletter.
ACTION CAGE
The initial draft for this week didn’t have anything to do with Nicolas Cage. We just wanted to chill out and play some badass 90’s action movies after a few weeks of extremely serious fare. Face/Off and The Rock were a given. Then we realized that, combined with Con Air, they were part of a Nicolas Cage action masterpiece hat trick, and we couldn’t pass that up.
The Rock, Face/Off, and Con Air play various times, November 10-16. Tickets
Cinema City: On the Run
On the Run is something of a departure for Cinema City. Alfred Cheung’s 1988 neo-noir thriller is a tightly focused, character driven film that doesn’t pull any punches. Though it has the same kinetic momentum as its contemporaries, On the Run is free of the wild tonal shifts and comedic relief that were so common in Hong Kong films of that era.
It also features Yeun Biao (Millionaires Express) turning in the best dramatic performance of his career. Biao is mostly known for action, and he’s a familiar face for Cinema City regulars. On the Run is one of his most serious roles, and it gives the actor a chance to prove he’s not just a guy who can do a flip off a two-story building and go straight into dialogue without a cut.
On the Run plays Wednesday, November 15 at 7:00. Tickets
The Cat returns
We love this movie, you love this movie, and the last show sold out. Of course we’re going to play it again. Don’t know what we’re on about? You can learn more on the Cinema City page.
The Cat plays November 10 at 9:30. Tickets
Ok, so what up with the projector?
Digital cinema equipment is a lot like your home kit, just with everything scaled way up. For our purposes, think of it as three pieces: the projector itself, the show player (i.e. the computer that actually plays the film), and the storage where the movie is saved. In our case, the media player and the storage are no longer on speaking terms.
By digital cinema standards, our kit is a dinosaur. But it’s a dinosaur that puts out a great picture, so we’ve been babying it along until we can afford a unit that’s truly better. We’re used to hiccups like this and regularly tackle them without interruption.
What makes this one different? There are no errors. None. Every individual piece of hardware thinks that everything is just fine. This means that, rather than go straight to the problem and fix it, we’re going through a guess-and-check process that will take somewhere between 10 minutes and 2 days.
Why are we confidant that we’ll have it sorted by Friday? Because Wednesday is our cut off for giving up and buying a new media player.
For anyone wondering how these costs effect the expansion we’re currently crowdfunding. The short answer is that it won’t. We have a reserve ready for exactly this situation. A big part of the fundraiser was making sure we didn’t need to break into those reserves, because (as we we’re just reminded) that would have been extremely short-sighted.
So, thanks again to everyone who donated. Things are slowly but surely moving along, and we should have some happier news to share next week.
