Saturday, September 13, 2008

Film Exhibtion in Baltimore- August 2008

This month, some passing observations from my filmgoing meanderings:

Seeing a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 Poster In the Lobby of the Charles

Although this did not come to pass, and may have been a joke on the part of the staff, I still was shocked to walk by this poster one evening. Was this a dream or a hallucination? I think it may reflect an interesting moment in the decision-making process on what to exhibit.

The Coming of Tyler Perry to the Senator

In the midst of the run of Tropic Thunder at the Senator, it became clear that the next feature, opening this weekend, was to be the new Tyler Perry film, The Family that Preys. I have nothing against the filmmaker or his films, but this is either a sign of his work earning a new cachet of respectability or of the Senator courting a new audience. Is it simply that this film is projected to be the No. 1 movie in America this weekend? It seems probable based on Perry's box office record, as the post-Batman pond drain that is the anemic weekend box office can have what are essentially flops as the No. 1 movie in America (Hello, Bangkok Dangerous!). In any case, I hope the Senator tucked away enough Bat-dollars to hunker down for a now Harry Potter-less fall movie season.

Poster Battle: Burn After Reading

When I first saw a poster for the new Coen brothers film up at the Charles, I thought "Yeah, Right." The Landmark had an epic run with the excellent film No Country for Old Men, and I was certain they would grab whatever was next. Then I found out it was a farce in the vein of their more out-there comedies, and that the reviews were coming in mixed at best. I then thought "Okay... Maybe." Then I started to catch the media blitz for the film, with the few stellar reviews plastered all over the paper and other media, and I knew that it was destined for the Landmark and the Senator. The Senator did decide to open it at the much smaller Rotunda, which may be a sign of lack of confidence in the film. If it does get bad word-of-mouth, it could get dropped and then be picked up by the Charles a la The Visitor. The big question: is this new film more The Big Lebowski or The Ladykillers? We shall see.

The End of the "Grab Bag" Revivals at the Charles

The grab bag revival series winded down with a micro-run of Kubrick (The Shining, Dr. Strangelove), some out-of-sequence early Bond (Goldfinger, Dr. No, From Russia with Love) and one remnant from the proposed (but apparently scrapped) French revival series (The Earrings of Madame De...). The Charles revival series is now on to a run of Preston Sturges films, and I, for one, am very pleased. The usual comprehensive list is available in the lobby.

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