INTERNATIONAL

FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE OMAHA / TMS– NOC LISTINGS VOL. 119, NO. 2 / FEBRUARY 2016 

INTERNATIONAL 

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 

February 2016 

FJI’s company directory 

to Theatre Management 

Systems and Network 

Operations Centers 

Atom Egoyan 

on Remember 

Return to 70mm 

Alamo Drafthouse 

Debuts in Omaha 

PHOTO: DAVID DOLSEN. TM & © MARVEL & SUBS. TM AND © 2015 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From the Editor’s Desk 

In Focus 

Shattering Records in 2015 

2015 will be a year to remember, as the motion picture 

industry established so many new records. Despite Netflix, 

Amazon and other competing entities, global box office 

revenues hit a record $38 billion. This record reinforces that 

going to the movies is a favored pastime that is enjoyed around 

the world by people from a wide array of cultures, all seeking 

the magical experience of the silver screen. 

Ticket sales hit these extraordinary levels because five films 

topped the $1 billion mark globally for the first time in one year. 

Four of those films are among the highest-grossing of all time— 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Furious 7 and Avengers: 

Age of Ultron—followed by the animated smash Minions. 

These pictures are responsible for the North American 

box office rebounding from an off year in 2014, with ticket 

sales climbing 6.3% domestically and revenues reaching 

$11 billion. Universal and Disney led the pack with record 

worldwide grosses. Universal finished the year with $6.89 

billion, with $1.67 billion of that coming from Jurassic World. 

Disney followed with $5.85 billion, including $1.33 billion from 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

Universal set new records in 2015 with $4.4 billion internationally 

and $2.45 billion domestic. Disney had a powerhouse 

record of five films grossing over $500 million globally. 

Star Wars is another story, as it set records for top 

domestic weekend and top global opening weekend; fastest 

film to reach $1 billion globally (12 days); biggest second 

weekend of all time, and a slew of other records. 

Star Wars has already slipped into third place on the alltime 

worldwide box-office chart and the speculation is that it 

will overtake Avatar. It hit two plateaus quicker than Avatar, as 

it passed $1 billion in worldwide grosses in 12 days, compared 

to 19 days for James Cameron’s film. The elusive $1 billion 

mark in North America is now possible and also a spot in the 

$2 billion global club seems certain. 

The movie’s enticement to fans and positive word of 

mouth are two of the reasons Star Wars might break the global 

record. Two other factors that could catapult it to that level 

are the enormous growth of the international market and 

the number of IMAX screens showing the film. Now that Star 

Wars has been released in China (since Jan. 9), it has another 

launch available to reach the record. 

These milestones were achieved in large part due to the 

burgeoning Chinese box office, which grew an astounding 48.7 

percent and reached a record $6.78 billion. The expansion 

marks the highest rate of growth since 2011; just five years 

ago, the total annual box office in China was $1.51 billion. 

The only question here is when China will surpass 

North America at the box office—experts predict that will 

happen by the end of 2017. Disappointing and frustrating to 

Hollywood is that 61.6 percent of the year’s total revenues 

were from Chinese films. Hollywood titles fell 7.1 percent to 

38.4 percent of the Chinese box-office gross this year. The 

reasons for this disparity are obvious: 

Blackout periods when foreign films are not permitted 

to play; 

China allowing only 34 foreign films into its cinemas 

each year on revenue-sharing terms; 

Premiering blockbusters on weekdays rather than 

weekends; 

Scheduling Hollywood tentpoles head-to-head. 

Here’s hoping less stringent policies are explored in 2016. 

More News from China 

Along with those record box-office figures, more big news 

has emerged from China in recent weeks. 

As expected, China’s Dalian Wanda Group finalized its 

purchase of Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion. Wanda 

already owns AMC Entertainment, the second-largest movie 

theatre chain in the U.S., and the Wanda Cinema Line, the 

number-one Chinese theatre chain, and this new pact is 

further evidence of the company’s ambition to be a global 

entertainment powerhouse. 

The deal is a good one for Wanda, since Legendary’s 

specialty has been the production of epic-sized action movies 

that Chinese audiences truly appreciate. Legendary has been 

part of the success of Pacific Run, Godzilla, Inception and Jurassic 

World. Legendary founder and CEO Thomas Tull will continue 

to oversee the company’s day-to-day operations. 

Meanwhile, Monster Hunt, the Chinese movie which last 

year established an all-time box-office record in China, is 

getting a North American release on Jan. 22. The film will be 

released in all major North American markets. 

Film Rise acquired the rights from Hong Kong-based Edko 

Films, which was lead producer on the film and international 

sales representative. The release will be both in the original 

Chinese version with English subtitles and also a new Englishdubbed 

version. The film is a hybrid of live action and CGI, 

written and directed by Raman Hui, one of the key creators of 

the Shrek franchise. 

FEBRUARY 2016 

WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 3

FEB. 2016 / VOL.119, NO.2 

EVERYONE INTO THE DEADPOOL / 8 

Ryan Reynolds morphs into latest 

Marvel hero in Fox’s super-acctioneer. 

PUBLISHING SINCE 1934 

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CRIME AND RETRIBUTION / 12 

Martin Landau and Christopher 

Plummer plot hard justice 

in Atom Egoyan’s Remember. 

ALAMO IN OMAHA / 16 

Alamo Drafthouse channels Star Wars 

in a Force-ful new location. 

DELIVERING 

ON THE PROMISE / 30 

DCDC connects 

content and cinemas 

large and small. 

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN / 32 

Theatres go back to 70mm 

with Hateful Eight roadshow. 

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, PG. 12 

DEPARTMENTS 

IN FOCUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 

REEL NEWS IN REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 

EUROPEAN UPDATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 

SNACK CORNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 

CONCESSIONS SPOTLIGHT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 

ASIA/PACIFIC ROUNDABOUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 

DAY AND DATE DOWN UNDER . . . . . . . . . . . .61 

TRADE TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 

FILM COMPANY NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 

FJI’s Guide 

to Theatre 

Management 

Systems and Network 

Operations Centers 

REVIEWS 

PGS. 34-38 

BAND OF ROBBERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 

THE BENEFACTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 

THE CLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 

THE CLUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO . . . . . . . . . . 49 

THE FOREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 

INTRUDERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 

IP MAN 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 

MOJAVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 

MONSTER HUNT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 

MOONWALKERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 

NORM OF THE NORTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 

A PERFECT DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 

RAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 

RIDE ALONG 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 

13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS 

OF BENGHAZI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 

THE TREASURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 

TUMBLEDOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 

THE STAR-WARS INSPIRED LOBBY AT ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE OMAHA, PGS. 16-29. 

RYAN REYNOLDS, PG. 8 

PG. 20

REEL 

NEWS 

IN REVIEW 

WANDA GROUP ACQUIRES 

LEGENDARY ENTERTAINMENT 

Chinese real estate and investment 

conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has 

offi cially acquired production company 

Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, 

marking the largest cross-border acquisition 

of an entertainment property by a Chinese 

company. “The acquisition of Legendary will 

make Wanda Film Holdings Company the 

highest revenue-generating fi lm company in 

the world, increasing Wanda’s presence in 

China and the U.S., the world’s two largest 

markets,” noted Wanda Group chairman 

Wang Jianlin. In past years, Legendary has 

had box-offi ce success with such fi lms as 

Jurassic World, Man of Steel and The Hangover; 

future releases from the company include 

Warcraft, Kong: Skull Island and Zhang Yimou’s 

The Great Wall, a China-U.S. co-production. 

2015 GLOBAL BOX OFFICE 

REACHES A NEW HIGH 

Good news on the financial front: According 

to Rentrak, 2015 was the first year the 

global box office surpassed $38 billion. All the 

international numbers aren’t in yet—a final 

tally could reach as high as $40 billion—but 

even so, that’s still enough to surpass the previous 

record for global box office, set in 2014 

with $36.7 billion. North American grosses 

($11 billion-plus) also beat the previous 

record, set in 2013 with $10.9 billion. 

UNIVERSAL AND DISNEY 

BREAK BOX OFFICE RECORDS 

Why was 2015 such a good year? In 

part, we can thank Universal and Disney, 

who both managed to surpass the previous 

$5.5 billion studio record set in 2014 by 

20th Century Fox. Universal, whose 2015 

hits included Jurassic World, Furious 7 and 

Minions, came out ahead with $6.89 million. 

They also beat the existing domestic and 

international records held by Warner Bros. 

and 20th Century Fox, respectively. Disney, 

meanwhile, earned $5.85 billion. This 

marks the third consecutive year three of 

their fi lms (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 

Avengers: Age of Ultron and Inside Out) 

surpassed $700 million worldwide. 

CHINA’S BOX OFFICE 

GROWS BY 48.7% 

Another factor in 2015’s success was 

the growth of the Chinese fi lm market, 

which saw box-offi ce grosses balloon by 

nearly 49%. Of the $6.78 billion earned in 

China in 2015, 38.4% went to Hollywood 

releases, down from 45.5% in 2014—the 

result of a concerted effort within the 

Chinese industry to support local movies. 

Experts predict that by 2017 China will 

surpass North America as the world’s 

largest fi lm market. Three Hollywood 

movies—Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron 

and Jurassic World—were among China’s 

top ten fi lms, with local efforts Monster 

Hunt, Lost in Hong Kong and Mojin: The Lost 

Legend also raking in the dough. 

SPACEY AND BRUNETTI 

TO RUN RELATIVITY MEDIA 

2015 wasn’t the best year for Relativity 

Media—see: bankruptcy—but the 

new year has brought Ryan Kavanaugh’s 

beleaguered company some new blood. 

Kevin Spacey and producer Dana Brunetti, 

who together run Trigger Street Prods. 

(“House of Cards,” Fifty Shades of Grey) 

have been tapped to run Relativity’s fi lm 

and scripted TV division. Starting in mid- 

February, Spacey will serve as Relativity 

Studios’ chairman, while Brunetti will be 

its president. Upcoming Relativity releases 

include the Kristen Wiig-Zach Galifi anakis 

heist comedy Masterminds and the Halle 

Berry-starring thriller Kidnap. 

GREG SILVERMAN 

REMAINS AT WARNER BROS. 

In spite of a tough 2015, Warner 

Bros. has chosen to re-up Greg Silverman 

as president of creative development 

and worldwide production. As 

before, Silverman will report to Warner 

Entertainment chairman/CEO Kevin 

Tsujihara as one of three studio heads; 

Silverman’s deal is good for at least three 

years. Over the coming year, Warner 

Bros. hopes to bounce back from the 

high-profi le failures of Pan and The Man 

from U.N.C.L.E. with Batman v Superman: 

Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Fantastic 

Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

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6 WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM FEBRUARY 2016

y Frank Lovece 

An 

A 

old headline trope, long ago appropriated by comicbook 

fans, goes: “Pow! Bam! Comics Just Aren’t Just 

for Kids Anymore!” It’s such a cliché, in fact, that the 

satiric newspaper The Onion ran an article titled “Comics Not 

Just for Kids Anymore, Reports 85,000th Mainstream News 

Story.” Which is all a way of suggesting that while 20th Century 

Fox’s rude ’n’ crude Feb. 12 release Deadpool isn’t the first 

superhero movie that’s not for kids—think Watchmen (2009) or 

Kick-Ass (2010) and its sequel, all similarly R-rated—it’s probably 

the first to be just so darn gleeful about it. 

“You’re probably thinking, ‘This was a superhero movie 

but that guy in the suit just turned that other guy into a f--ing 

kabob,’” narrates the antihero Deadpool in one of the film’s 

red-band trailers, over a scene of said kabob-ing. “Surprise,” he 

continues. “This is a different kind of superhero story.” If that’s 

not convincing enough, cut to legendary 72-year-old, Tony 

Award-winning songstress Leslie Uggams as the character 

Blind Al, dismissing the mumbling Deadpool with “Sounds 

like you have a d--k in your mouth.” 

“There were so many comic-book movies about to come out 

and so many superheroes in the culture,” says producer Simon 

Kinberg, harkening back a year and a half or so to when he first 

read Rhett Reese and Paul Wurnick’s Deadpool script, “that it 

was time to build a countercultural, R-rated movie around a 

raunchy hero, which seems like a strange way to describe him.” 

That time was a decade in coming. As star Ryan 

Reynolds explained last August, he’d been attached to the 

movie, a pet project, for 11 years by then, with the writers 

joining him five years after that and director Tim Miller 

in April 2011. And while the time now may be right and 

all, Fox still hedged its Deadpool bet, says Kinberg, and 

“committed to making it at a lower budget than they would 

a tentpole X-Men movie” like the $160 million X-Men: First 

Class (2011) or $200 million X-Men: Days of Future Past 

(2014), according to figures at BoxOfficeMojo.com. “That 

was part of the deal going in,” says Kinberg, who declines to 

specify a budget. “You guys can be more provocative, more 

Ryan Reynolds morphs 

EVERYONE INTO THE

insane, more original, more R-rated,” Fox told him, he says, 

“but you don’t have as much to make it with.” 

Surely also on the studio’s mind was that Deadpool, also 

played by Reynolds, had appeared as a non-costumed mercenary 

under his civilian name in the critically disappointing and commercially 

so-so X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Reynolds and 

actor/martial artist Scott Adkins also played the post-experiment 

version—here called Weapon XI, sans costume, and referred to 

colloquially by one character as “the dead pool” for the pooling of 

dead subjects’ abilities. As Reynolds stressed over the summer, the 

“Deadpool appearing in Origins is not the Deadpool we are representing 

in this film, in any way, shape or form.” He conceded, “We 

didn’t quite get Deadpool right, so this is kind of an opportunity to 

get the most authentic version possible on the screen.” 

The new movie does seem to well represent the Deadpool of 

Marvel Comics, where writer Fabian Nicieza and artist and character-conceptualist 

Rob Liefeld created him as a supervillain in 

The New Mutants #98 (Feb. 1991). In both screen and print, mercenary 

Wade Wilson is promised a cure for his terminal cancer if 

he undergoes an experiment designed to create rapid self-healing. 

Unbeknownst to him, those in charge of the project are actually 

planning to control and weaponize him. He escapes to become a 

superpowered mercenary, whose constant wisecrack yammering 

earns him the nickname “the merc with a mouth.” Oh, and he 

sometimes breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly. 

That came about gradually in the comics, beginning most 

prominently with a plot-recap page in Deadpool Vol. 3, #4 (April 

1997), in which writer Joe Kelly had three characters address the 

reader. But that was considered non-canonical since it wasn’t part 

of the story itself. In issue #27 (April 1999), Kelly, within the 

story, had Deadpool make an aside to the audience, but that generally 

was explained as the character suffering hallucinations and 

only thinking there was an audience. The concept became solidified 

in the following month’s issue, when Deadpool, replying 

to a supervillain’s query about how long it’s been since they last 

fought, replies, “Issue 16.” It went on from there, including when 

Nicieza himself returned in 2004 for the series Cable & Deadpool. 

“When you do that every month,” says the writer-editor, who’s 

also scripted for Captain America, the Avengers and other characters, 

“you’re meta-commenting about the relationship between the 

RYAN REYNOLDS (ALSO AT LEFT) WITH 

CO-STAR MORENA BACCARIN IN DEADPOOL. 

character and the readers in a much more personal manner” than 

otherwise—although he notes, “a little of that goes a long way.” 

Deadpool has continued to be a cult favorite in numerous 

series, miniseries, one-shot specials and guest appearances, fueled 

by his audacious, often vulgar banter and madcap if deadly 

antics—the result, Nicieza says, “of the constantly regenerating 

cells that fight the cancer. It drives him crazy. Because he can’t 

stay locked on a thought for very long. His brain cells, like his 

other cells, are perpetually regenerating.” He’s like a wisecracking 

Spider-Man with no fi lter whatsoever and a penchant for 

gleefully shooting bad guys in the head. And the fan-following 

Deadpool inspired helped to get the new fi lm made, Kinberg 

says, confirming a story Reynolds has told. 

In July 2014, two-year-old test footage of the star as Deadpool 

in an action sequence leaked online. “And the Internet,” Reynolds 

told late-night talk-show host Conan O’Brien in August, “put Fox 

in a hammerlock death-grip and they greenlit our movie.” That’s 

an oversimplification, but fan reaction to the footage indeed “was 

into latest Marvel hero in Fox’s super-actioneer 

PRODUCER 

SIMON KINBERG 

PHOTOS: JOE LEDERER. TM & © MARVEL & SUBS. TM & © 2015 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

a huge part of it,” Kinberg says. “There’s no question but that the 

response from the Internet was pretty undeniable to the studio. It 

proved just how fervent the fan base was for Deadpool and that it 

could ripple out past the core fans and into the general culture, at 

least on the Internet.” 

He doesn’t know who leaked it, he says. “I read things online— 

probably more than I should—and I’ve read all kinds of theories, 

from [it having been screenwriters] Tim and Ryan to, well, everyone. 

I think it was most likely a fan who got hold of it.” Similar 

leaks have occurred before, of course. “On one movie that was 

leaked, I think it had to do with the way the dailies were shared,” 

Kinberg says. “Another, it was the visual-effects house. You never 

really know. There are so many people who have access to so many 

parts of the process. You look at a movie’s credits—thousands of 

people and most of them have access to something.” 

Kinberg himself is getting access to help shepherd Fox’s version 

of a Marvel cinematic universe (not to be confused with 

Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige’s uppercase Marvel Cinematic 

Universe featuring the Avengers, et al., at Disney). “I started as 

a writer on the X-Men movies and then I transitioned into producing 

on the X-Men movies, then writing and producing them 

together and then becoming more involved in trying to help 

build an architecture here at Fox for what to do with their Marvel 

properties, X-Men and Fantastic Four,” Kinberg explains. So will 

he be the Kevin Feige of Fox? 

“That’s a shorthand and I get it,” he says, demurring. “Kevin 

does what Kevin does, and what I do is different. I have profound 

respect for Kevin–I actually made my first X-Men movie with 

Kevin many years ago and he’s somebody who’s changed the way 

movies are made,” with Marvel Studios successfully executing an 

interconnected continuity among different properties, something 

“that we would love to learn from and emulate at Fox.” 

Kinberg, who also wrote the hits XXX: State of the Union 

and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (both 2005) and co-wrote Sherlock Holmes 

(2009), is in a good position to do that: He produced the last two 

X-Men movies; wrote the screenplay, co-wrote the story and is a 

producer of X-Men: Apocalypse, due out Memorial Day weekend; 

and is producing two X-Men spinoffs, Gambit, directed by Doug 

Liman and starring Channing Tatum, and the untitled third 

Wolverine feature, directed by James Mangold and starring Hugh 

Jackman in his final turn as the character. 

He’s also had a hand in Fox’s other major Marvel property, 

as an uncredited contributor to the commercially successful but 

poorly reviewed 2005 Fantastic Four—“I spent a few weeks on that 

movie, right before they started shooting. They wanted some stuff 

ironed out, so I spent a few weeks as a script doctor, I guess you’d 

call it”—and last year’s even more ill-fated reboot. 

“The last movie wasn’t great, and I can say that as one of the 

filmmakers,” Kinberg grants. “You work as hard as, and often harder, 

on a bad movie as on a good one. It’s not like you were lazy on 

the bad ones. Nobody bats 1,000,” he says, utilizing a baseball percentage 

metaphor for perfect success every time. “You go out there 

and you can be the greatest hitter in the world and sometimes you 

miss. But we are really excited about the potential for the [franchise’s] 

future. We have a pretty clear idea what we want to do with 

the Fantastic Four, and that’s something I will wait to talk about.” 

Kinberg comes from a fi lmmaking family. Born August 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 

10 WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 

FEBRUARY 2016

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MARTIN LANDAU AND CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER PLOT 

HARD JUSTICE IN ATOM EGOYAN’S “REMEMBER” 

CRIME AND 


By Harry Haun 

Remember serves as both the title 

and the operative word for the 

new Atom Egoyan thriller from A24 in 

which a newly widowed nonagenarian, 

Christopher Plummer, conducts a crosscountry 

vendetta on the Auschwitz 

commander he believes killed his family. 

Making this “Mission: Impossible” 

extra impossible are several insurmountables 

which first-time screenwriter Benjamin 

August labors mightily to dwarf, 

starting with the age and advancing 

Alzheimer’s of Plummer’s Zev Guttman. 

Frequently, the character forgets what 

the question is and must consult a set of 

instructions to stay on track. 

Even worse, Zev is pursuing a question 

without a definite answer: The Nazi 

he is hounding has immigrated to the 

U.S. under the name of a victim and is 

now one of the four Rudy Kurlanders 

living in Canada, Cleveland, Boise or 

Lake Tahoe. Who did it? 

Fittingly enough—or, possibly, funnily 

enough—the letter of instructions 

that guides Zev from suspect to suspect 

comes from Martin Landau, who used 

RETRIBUTION 

FEBRUARY 2016 

WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM PHOTO COURTESY A2413

Atom Egoyan 

to get his marching orders every week on 

television from a tape recording that would 

self-destruct in five seconds and lead into 

Lalo Schifrin’s “Mission: Impossible” theme. 

Yes, director Egoyan concedes, you can 

read a little calculated irony in that casting. 

“That’s what’s so delightful about using 

these actors,” he says. “You’re importing 

their history to the picture and playing 

with it.” Landau is one of the four original 

members of the Impossible Missions Force 

still standing; he was the Brains between 

the Beauty (his real-life ex, Barbara Bain, 

84) and the Brawn (Peter Lupis, 83), all 

bossed by team leader Dan Briggs (played 

the first season only by Steven Hill, 93). 

Here Landau, 87, is a Nazi-chaser 

named Max. Hobbled by an oxygen tank 

and a wheelchair, he is forced to recruit the 

hardiest-looking specimen in his assistedliving 

facility to right an old wrong. After 

Zev sits shiva for his wife, Max slips him 

an envelope containing cash, a roadmap 

and some sleuthing results from the Simon 

Wiesenthal Center. By dawn, Zev is on the 

vengeance trail, weaving in and out of a 

mental fog but keeping Max’s letter as the 

constant that brings him back to lucidity. 

“The letter becomes vital to him. Every 

time he reads it, an emotion is triggered. 

There is this idea he’s being reactivated by 

continually rereading the letter.” 

It’s when Zev starts making notations 

on his own flesh that Remember betrays its 

heavy debt to Memento, Christopher Nolan’s 

time-jumbled suspenser in which a disoriented 

detective (Guy Pearce) used tattoos to 

remind him of his identity and his deadly 

mission. Senility is simply substituted here 

for short-term memory loss. 

Egoyan acknowledges the strong Memento 

echo but feels it was more of an influence 

on his screenwriter. “Ben is in his early 

30s, and that film was a huge influence for 

COURTESY A24 

someone of his generation. Memento was 

very present here. It’s there in the script. The 

moment that you see Zev writing directions 

on his skin, you think of Memento.” 

The fact all this improbability passes for 

plausibility is a testament to the enduring 

acting skill of Plummer, who, at 86, seems 

unfazed and untaxed by the heavy lifting. 

“People who’ve seen the picture have 

called me very concerned about Chris’ 

health when all he is doing, actually, is acting,” 

Egoyan admits, more than a bit bemused. 

“In real life, he is acutely intelligent 

and aware, and so much of this performance 

is about him feeling vacant and not quite 

there. He does some astonishing work here.” 

Granted, it sure beats grandfather 

roles, but Plummer had a specific reason 

for wanting to play Zev Guttman. “First 

and foremost,” Egoyan points out, “it was 

a character unlike any either of us had 

ever encountered in a play or film before. 

Zev is quite singular and unusual. On 

one level, what he’s doing is negotiating 

early-on Alzheimer’s, but, of course, what 

he’s actually negotiating is much more 

profound and much deeper. We were 

both very excited about the possibility of 

exploring it.” 

Giving Zev a clean slate was a pretty 

tall order for director as well as actor. “The 

thing that’s particularly hard about this 

role is that it has no subtext. Usually when 

you’re working on a performance, you’re 

dealing with subtext, but in this case you’re 

just dealing with the immediate present. 

There’s this huge history Zev carries 

around with him, and we don’t have access 

to it at all. None of this is on the screen. 

The normal conversation you have with actors—how 

the character got this way, what 

his background must have been or might 

have been—didn’t happen here. 

“My contribution to Chris’ performance 

was in making sure we extinguished 

any sense of subtext—any sense that there 

was anything being played but the moment—and 

making sure there was still 

enough kinetic energy in his observation of 

the present to make it compelling. It had 

to be very acute and heightened.” 

The prospect of peopling a film with 

octogenarians was, in itself, a daunting Mission: 

Impossible for Egoyan, who had better 

casting luck on this continent than abroad. 

The only German actor in Plummer 

and Landau’s age division who could be 

corralled for this film was Heinz Lieven, 

83. He plays the gay Rudy Kurlander, and 

it proved familiar turf for him. (He previously 

played the Auschwitz war criminal 

that Sean Penn tracked to America in Paolo 

Sorrentino’s 2011 This Must Be the Place.) 

“Heinz was quite definitely of that 

generation,” Egoyan underlines. “One of 

the most startling things that occurred 

at the press conference when the film 

premiered at the Venice Film Festival was 

that Heinz as much as admitted he was a 

Hilter Youth.” 

Otherwise, rounding up the usual 

name-brand German suspects was an 

arduous enterprise. “We were limited in 

terms of the German actors one would believe 

had been in America for a long time. 

That’s why Maximilian Schell would have 

been a wonderful choice, but he passed 

away in the early stages of our production. 

“Right up until a week before the 

shoot, we were planning to use for the final 

encounter Gunter Lamprecht, a Berlin actor 

who had been in several of Fassbinder’s 

films, but he got ill and had to cancel. It 

really wasn’t an easy film to cast, and there 

weren’t that many actors to pick from. 

Some, like Hardy Kruger, just really didn’t 

want to play a role like that—a role that 

might wind up being his swan song.” 

Eventually, Egoyan was obliged to 

compromise and cast his two crucial 

Rudy Kurlanders a decade younger than 

desired—with two 74-year-olds: Jürgen 

Prochnow, who captained Das Boot, and 

Bruno Ganz, a Swiss actor best known for 

his Hitler portrayal in Downfall. Disfiguring 

latex provided their icky aging. 

“I think it interesting that the last story 

we tell about this generation of survivors 

and perpetrators is not a story of reconciliation 

but a story of rage,” the director 

notes. “Anger at this type of racial hatred 

is still so prevalent in people’s lives. That 

I found fascinating. Even though I’m not 

Jewish, I found a completely normal way 

of dealing with this subject. I’m Armenian, 

but I certainly understand about genocide.” 

Indeed, Egoyan has made a film about 

his own tribe’s Holocaust—the 1915 Armenian 

Genocide perpetrated by Turks in 

the Turkish Ottoman Empire. It was titled 

Ararat and won five of Canada’s top Genie 

Awards in 2002. Otherwise, there is nothing 

on Egoyan’s resume to suggest he would 

be the go-to guy for a Nazi-manhunt film. 

“It has been an eclectic career,” he 

says with some pride about his 15 feature 

films. His debut opus, Next of Kin, 

picked up a major prize when it worldpremiered 

at the International Film 

Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg in 1984, 

and he has been a festival favorite (or at 

least follower) ever since. His commercial 

breakthrough came with Exotica, a film 

with a strip-joint setting that won him 


the Grand Prix at Brussels. 

The Sweet Hereafter, a mournful piece 

about a rural community dealing with a 

devastating school-bus tragedy, earned him 

Oscar nominations for his direction and 

screenplay. “It was the perfect project for 

my first adaptation,” he believes. “All of my 

scripts up to that point had been originals. 

When I read Russell Banks’ novel, it just 

opened a door for me and allowed me to 

go further in the films that followed.” 

Born in Cairo of Egyptian Armenians 

55 years ago, he was named Atom 

as a means of marking the completion of 

Egypt’s first nuclear reactor. It’s a name 

that did not sit well for easy assimilation 

when the family settled in Victoria, British 

Columbia. 

“My first name was the bane of my existence 

through my childhood,” he reveals 

rather gleefully now. “I hated it. I wanted 

to drop the A and just be Tom. In a small 

town on the west coast of Canada, anything 

that would stand out was so horrifying. 

Not only were we immigrants, nobody 

knew what Armenians were exactly.” 

It was only when Egoyan began his film 

career that he learned to stop worrying and 

love the Atom. In show business, being the 

only one in your class is a good thing. 

Deadpool continued from page 10 

2, 1973, in London, he is the son of Judson Kinberg, who wrote the Hammer Film 

Productions cult-classic Vampire Circus (1972). “My mother is British, originally South 

African, and my dad worked in film and television,” says Kinberg, who was six when 

his family relocated to Los Angeles. “My dad came out to L.A. to ply his trade and 

pretty soon he became a film professor. So my memory of my dad is primarily as a 

film professor, first at CalState Northridge and then at USC.” Simon, who attended 

Brentwood High School growing up, studied at Brown University, graduating Phi 

Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, and in 2003 earned an MFA from the Columbia 

University School of the Arts Film Program, where he received the Zaki Gordon 

Fellowship for Screenwriting. 

While Deadpool isn’t “the first ‘hard-R’ superhero,” as Entertainment Weekly glibly if 

inaccurately claimed—consider the wildly cursing, 10-year-old-girl hero, the graphic ultraviolence 

and a villain named The Motherf--ker in the Kick-Ass movies—the antihero is 

still a highly individualistic entity the filmmakers hope speaks to a different audience than 

for most such fare. 

That audience appears to be there. While Universal’s $30 million Kick-Ass did $96.2 

million box office and the $28 million sequel did $60.8 million, Fox’s own sorta-superheroish, 

R-rated spy-fi (spy/science-fiction) movie Kingsman: The Secret Service grossed a 

whopping $414.4 million on an $81 million budget. “Kingsman is a really good model,” 

Kinberg says. “R-rated, crazy and made four times as much as Kick-Ass did. So that also 

helped show there was a commercial paradigm out there that worked.” 

Will the massive Kingsman audience or the smaller Kick-Ass audience show up? Both 

films were based on comics by hit writer Mark Millar, so the effect of that creator’s own 

fan base seems a wash. Whatever happens, the X-Men pipeline shows no signs of slowing 

down. “X-Men Apocalypse is in post-production now,” Kinberg says. “It comes out 

in May and that’s taking up a lot of my time. We’re spending quite a bit of brainpower 

trying to figure out what the next X-Men movie will be. The new Wolverine movie starts 

shooting in May, and the Gambit film later this year.” For now, though, the heat is on and 

all concerned want everyone to jump in the Deadpool. 

LET’S BE 

FRANK 

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easier. The patented gear system with lift-off, dishwasher-safe 

rack plus the humidifed bun warming cabinet with oversized, 

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to your patrons. 

Contact Shelly Olesen at 847-616-6901 

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FEBRUARY 2016 


ALAMO IN 

As anyone who’s ever travelled 

for hours to get to an Alamo 

Drafthouse theatre can tell you 

(this writer is guilty), the opening 

of a new branch of the famous, 

funky—and famously funky—movie 

chain is a big deal. As the Austin-based 

chain’s reputation, not to mention its earnings, 

has grown, it’s increasingly expanded 

out of the Lone Star State to establish 

outposts in New York, California, Virginia, 

Colorado and more. November 2, 2015 

saw the movie lovers of Omaha, Nebraska 

get blessed with their very first Alamo 

Drafthouse. But this one’s a little different. 

Nerds, rejoice. 

With $5 Tuesdays and its signature 

Alamo programming—a mix of first-run 

films and repertory screenings that includes 

everything from Jacques Tati’s Mon 

Oncle to cult midnight favorite The Room— 

this new theatre has already won the heart 

of Omaha. But before it was the Midwest’s 

hottest new mecca for movie lovers, the 

Alamo Drafthouse Omaha in La Vista was 

just a patch of land and a dream. 

It’s also something of a family affair. 

The theatre is owned by Phil Rafnson and 

co-managed by his two nephews, Tyler 

and Chris Calabrese. A more metaphorical 

family is involved as well: movie theatre installation/operations 

powerhouse Moving 

iMage Technologies (MiT), which counts 

Rafnson as its chairman. 

MiT has had a strong relationship 

with Alamo Drafthouse for many years, 

overseeing the installation of its new theatres. 

Rafnson also boasts a friendship with 

Alamo Drafthouse founder and CEO Tim 


OMAHA 

Alamo Drafthouse Channels Star Wars 

in a Force-ful New Location 

by Rebecca Pahle 

AT RIGHT, THE STAR WARS-INSPIRED LOBBY 

League. So, really, when Rafnson decided to 

venture across the fence and try movie theatre 

ownership for the first time, becoming 

an Alamo franchisee was an easy decision. 

But the hands-on way Alamo approaches 

its business made the decision even easier, 

Rafnson explains, especially given his own 

admitted lack of knowledge about the filmbooking 

side of the business. 

“They have a really good organization 

set up for booking and marketing, and 

it’s proved to be very helpful in these first 

few weeks,” Rafnson notes. “Those are the 

FEBRUARY 2016 


kinds of things that, if I was doing this 

myself with inexperienced managers, it 

would be very difficult to know what to 

do and how to book and get a good mix 

of product. They’ve got set policies, and 

they keep in constant communication with 

Derek [Michael Dillon], our creative manager. 

And the booker is the same booker 

who works for all the other Alamos, too. 

It’s going really well.” 

The franchise fee that must be paid out 

to Alamo is, Rafnson admits, higher than 

he’s used to based on previous franchisee 

experience. But the help the brand-strong 

Alamo provides makes the deal more than 

fair: “Many, many franchises that go from 

anywhere from three to five percent of your 

gross give you almost nothing. It’s just the 

opposite with Alamo; they’re very, very 

active. They provide a lot of value for what 

they get paid. If I do another [theatre], it 

will almost definitely be Alamo.” 

On Alamo’s part, the decision to open 

a theatre isn’t one that’s made lightly. 

Notes League, “There’s a lot of research 

that goes into every new location. Demographic 

information and other theatres 

in the area are the main drivers. For every 

project, we develop a 

financial model, and 

all of the executives 

at Drafthouse approve 

the site before 

it can proceed.” 

For his part, 

Dillon knew that 

“Omaha has really 

been yearning for a 

place like the Alamo 

Drafthouse to open, because 

there’s just no other theatre in town 

that does anything like [what Alamo 

does].” A lifelong cinephile, Dillon was 

familiar with the Alamo Drafthouse brand 

before he ever thought he’d work at one 

of their theatres; in a refrain familiar to 

Alamo’s devoted fanbase, he drove three 

hours down to the chain’s Kansas City 

location back in 2014 for an eight-hour 

“Dismember the Alamo” horror-movie 

marathon. With experience on the board 

of directors for a Lincoln, Nebraska movie 

theatre in his back pocket, Dillon initially 

reached out via Twitter to inquire about 

volunteer opportunities, only to find himself 

with a full-time job offer a month later. 

Now that Omaha was 

getting their own brandspanking-new 

Alamo 

Drafthouse movie 

theatre, there was the 

Phil 

small matter of building 

Rafnson 

it. As one expects, MiT 

handled installation; 

in discussing the challenges 

of putting together 

the new-build theatre, senior 

VP of sales and president of Rydt 

Entertainment Jerry Van de Rydt jokes 

that “when my boss owns the theatre, it’s 

very stressful!” 

Still, barring a delay in construction 

due to an unnaturally cold Omaha winter—not 

something anyone has much 

control over, after all—the process of 

bringing the Alamo Drafthouse Omaha 

from “dirt to popcorn,” in the words of 

MiT’s VP of sales and customer service 

Tom Lipiec, wasn’t anything particularly 

out of the ordinary. “There are always 

challenges, because it’s a choreography of 

all the different disciplines that are happening,” 

Lipiec notes. 

MiT starts off working with the ar- 

The Liquid Sunshine Taproom 


The Alamo Drafthouse 

signature Death Star, 

from design to lobby. 

The Emperor’s throne 

chitect and goes on to procurement—“we 

inspect all the equipment, so you get the 

best presentation,” Van de Rydt explains. 

“Then we work with speccing the audio 

and digital projection systems… Once 

the equipment starts getting delivered, we 

become project managers. We work with 

the delivery companies and make sure everything 

gets scheduled. Our guys are here 

to receive it. We visit the job site every four 

weeks to check in on it and make sure the 

[subcontractors] are doing a good job and 

everything is up to par. And then we go to 

the grand opening party!” 

Or, Van de Rydt sums up nicely: “Give 

us an empty building, and we’ll fill it up.” 

The Alamo Drafthouse Omaha is 

home to eight screens, one of which features 

both Sony 4K projection and Dolby 

Atmos immersive audio. “It’s top of the 

line, really well-done,” Lipiec notes. On 

top of that, Van de Rydt explains, while 

Drafthouse locations normally use drapes 

on their in-theatre walls to reach a perfect 

acoustic balance, the Omaha theatre uses 

acoustic panels provided by EOMAC for a 

more “contemporary” and “structural” look. 

Panels are “considered a lot more new and 

fresh, more modern,” Lipiec adds. “Every 

few years it goes in cycles, where [panels 

are] in favor and then out of favor. Right 

now, we’re going through a cycle again 

where panels are the hip thing to do.” 

Alamo Drafthouse Omaha’s pièce de 

résistance, though, isn’t anything inside its 

theatres: It’s the custom Star Wars-themed 

lobby, designed and built by Dimensional 

Innovations and based on an original idea 

by Tyler Calabrese and architect Kip Coleman 

of Elevation Architects. All Alamo 

lobbies have a theme, but with their lobby, 

Dillon says, they wanted to “take it up a 

notch.” Initially, a Goonies-themed lobby 

was proposed, but Rafnson calls Star Wars 

more of a “natural fit [with] what we’re trying 

to do here.” He does, however, laughingly 

admit that “we kind of went overboard 

and spent more than I intended!” 

Any money spent was well worth it. 

The centerpiece of the lobby is the Emperor’s 

throne, which features controls 

that can be used by patrons to activate 

the lobby’s other main feature. That’s no 

moon…it’s a fully armed and operational 

Death Star hanging from the ceiling. OK, 

not “armed,” but the operational part is 

true. “As soon as you push the button [on 

the Emperor’s throne],” explains Brad 

Woods, practice director of Dimensional 

Innovations, “the sound engages and the 

Death Star begins the firing sequence. The 

lights in the lobby dim and flicker and the 

programmable LED lights ‘shoot’ from the 

crater into a nearby wall.” 

“The hardest part of the project was 

trying to figure out how to simulate a 

Death Star super-laser firing,” Woods 

continues. “Using DI’s innovations lab, 

we were able to design and install a proprietary 

LED system that was program- 


mable and resembled the laser from the 

Death Star in the movies. It had to be 

synced with the sound system, as well as 

be serviceable from the manager’s office.” 

The theatre manager can also adjust a time 

delay, which takes the form of a Death Star 

charging sequence and makes it so guests 

can’t push the button every five seconds. 

I think I speak on behalf of the Alamo 

Drafthouse Omaha’s employees when I 

say: Thank you. 

The lobby wasn’t just a challenge from 

a design/installation perspective: Sheldon 

Oxner, president of National Commercial 

Builders, Inc., notes that getting Coleman’s 

renderings for the lobby took their work 

building the theatre up a few notches in 

terms of difficulty. “This turned into a very 

complex project to frame and provide electrical 

for, [and] to get all the work ready 

for Dimensional Innovations to come and 

apply the Death Star. It was a great team 

effort to complete [in a] timely [manner]. 

It took great courage by the ownership to 

step up and spend the dollars to create this 

look.” 

The Alamo Drafthouse Omaha’s lobby 

ties into something we talk about a lot in 

the pages of FJI: the need to combat the 

growing popularity of Netflix, VOD and 

other streaming services by making moviegoing 

an experience that expands beyond 

sitting in a chair and watching a movie 

for two hours. “With something as iconic 

as this unique Alamo Drafthouse design, 

people are going to flock to the theatre,” 

Woods contends. “It is all about creating a 

memorable experience for moviegoers, and 

we feel that this begins in the lobby. Our 

designs help keep patrons engaged and 

coming back to see movies and thoroughly 

enjoy their experience.” 

The hours and money that everyone 

invested in the impressive lobby certainly 

didn’t go unrewarded. As Oxner notes: 

“Never in over 25 years of building theatres 

and entertainment facilities have we been 

involved in a project with so much excitement 

and media coverage.” 

Media coverage and how. Approximately 

a month after it opened, the Alamo 

Drafthouse Omaha experienced a media 

blitz the stuff of which theatre owners’ 

dreams are made of. On Dec, 1, Entertainment 

Weekly’s website ran a slight, 233- 

word story about how a new theatre in 

Omaha boasts a Star Wars-themed lobby. 

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening 

in just over two weeks, anticipation for the 

new addition to the franchise was at a fever 

Supplying Alamo 

Drafthouse Omaha 

FF&E: Moving iMage Technologies (MiT) 

Projectors: Sony 

Speakers & Amplifiers: QSC 

Immersive Audio: Dolby Atmos 

Seating: Irwin Seating Company 

Screens: MDI 

Architect: Kip Coleman 

with Elevation Architects 

Builder: National Commercial 

Builders, Inc. 

Assistance with 35mm systems: 

Strong 

Hearing-Impaired: Ultra Stereo 

Portholes: GST 

Sidewalls and Front Ends: EOMAC 

Aisle Lighting: Tempo 

Installation of Aisle Lighting: 

Wulf Installations 

Lobby: Dimensional Innovations 

Mill Work: Proctor Co. 

Bar/Kitchen: Proctor Co. 

Beer System: Draftex 

Congratulations 

On the opening of the new 

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Omaha! 

 

 

 

 

® ® 

 

© 2016 QSC, LLC, all rights reserved. QSC, and the QSC logo 

 

 

 

1++> 

1 1 3 

Monitors/Processors Amplifiers Loudspeakers 


CONGRATULATIONS PHIL! 

Alamo La Vista is out of this world! 

The force is strong with Alamo 

and Sony Digital Cinema 4K 

No matter the screen size, awaken your 

audience with the benefits of Sony 4K 

www.sony.com/digitalcinema 

© 2016 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without 

written permissio n is prohibited. Features and specifications are subject to change without 

notice. Sony, Sony Digital Cinema 4K, and their respective logos are trademarks of Sony. 

Creating Extraordinary

pitch; the timing for the story couldn’t 

have been better. “The Today Show” and 

“Good Morning America” came calling. 

Outlets from around the world picked up 

the story, and Wired magazine’s online arm 

named it one of the seven best theatres in 

which to watch The Force Awakens. 

“I had absolutely no idea that it would 

blow up as big as it did,” recalls Dillon. “It 

was crazy. I was super-excited about it.” 

When I spoke to Dillon, it was a few days 

before The Force Awakens’ grand debut, with 

screenings starting all over the country, 

including at the Alamo Drafthouse Omaha, 

at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17. Dillon 

modestly predicted that, with “the national 

attention we’ve been getting,” the theatre 

“might see a huge influx this weekend.” 

You don’t need the power of the Force 

to guess that his prediction came true. 

Local news crew were camped out with 

cameras on Thursday and Friday, and they 

had quite the show to point their cameras 

at: The local arm of the 501st Legion, a 

fan organization known for dressing up in 

high-quality Star Wars costumes, was on 

hand Thursday night, “hanging around the 

theatre and the bar, visiting with the kids,” 

Rafnson recalls. There was a special food 

and beverage menu—who wants “Trash 

Compactor Pizza” with “Wookiee Wasaka 

Berry Crêpes” for dessert and a “Tatooine 

Sunset” to drink?—and then, of course, the 

lobby itself. 

Star Wars weekend—indeed, the entire 

holiday span—went “even better than we 

anticipated,” says Rafnson. Even with a 

seat count much lower than that of larger 

chains in the area, and the fact that they 

can’t have as many shows per day as theatres 

without a food-service component, 

the Alamo Drafthouse Omaha ended up 

third in the Omaha marketplace for Star 

Wars over the opening weekend. 

And there was another challenge: By 

the time The Force Awakens opened, the 

Alamo Drafthouse Omaha had only been 

in operation for six weeks. “In a regular 

movie theatre, you have a ramp-up, but 

when you’re dealing with an Alamo Drafthouse, 

or, for that matter, an eatery, you 

have even more of a ramp-up. Because you 

have a menu, you have delivery training, 

you have the regular movie theatre training, 

you have the bar,” Lipiec explains. “You 

want to have a ramp-up that’s manageable, 

so by the time you get hit by a ton of 

bricks—which is basically what Star Wars 

is—you have it figured out. It sounds like 

six weeks is a long time, but in reality, for a 

restaurant-slash-movie theatre, especially 

when both are high-level, that six weeks 

goes by really fast.” 

But in the end, “it did just right,” Rafnson 

says. “If we had booked one or two 

more screens for Star Wars, we could have 

gotten more people. But we were almost 

at our max, because the other theatres that 

didn’t have Star Wars were doing well also. 

We didn’t want to overdo it, [because we 

had] an all-new staff, and we wanted to 

make sure everybody was really happy with 

their experiences. It worked out well.” 

The allure of the Alamo Drafthouse 

Omaha extends beyond its lobby, of course. 

A huge part of Alamo’s brand is their food 

and beverage service, here represented by 

the Liquid Sunshine Taproom, which, Dillon 

explains, “is aesthetically and designwise 

completely different from the lobby. 

Then you walk into the actual theatre, 

which is pretty much the Alamo standard. 

And it also completely stands out against 

the lobby and the bar. Most theatres, you 

walk in and everything looks the same. But 

with ours, design-wise, we have three different 

sections of the theatre. They all stand 

NCB is proud to have been the general contractor 

for the Alamo Drafthouse of Omaha, working with the team 

of Kip Coleman of Elevation Architects, 

Dimentional Innovations, and Moving Image Technology. 

National Commercial Builders, Inc. 

10555 Rene St. 

Lenexa, KS 66215-4054 

www.nationalcb.com 

Contact: Sheldon Oxner 913-599-0200 

Theatres • Restaurants • Nightclubs • 

Multi-Venue Entertainment Centers • Bowling Entertainment Centers 

We Go Where You Need Us 

Building Theatres and Entertainment Projects for 25 Years 

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE OF OMAHA / PHOTO BY TYLER CALABRESE 


out. They all have their unique spin. They’re 

all their own entity.” 

That eclectic flavor continues throughout 

the Alamo Drafthouse Omaha’s programming. 

In it first months of release, the 

theatre boasted sold-out screenings of Friday 

the 13th and The Room, with actor Greg 

Sestero in attendance. There was a Home 

Alone party and a screening of Die Hard, 

plus a Kill Bill “double feature feast,” comprised 

of back-to-back screenings of Kill 

Bill 1 and 2 along with a six-course meal. 

For Dillon, the most satisfying part 

of his job—which also involves serving as 

the theatres’ head programmer—is seeing 

audience members respond to the films he 

chooses. He cites a sold-out 35mm screening 

of The Dark Knight, which ended with 

a standing ovation. “A lot of our programming 

comes up in Austin, and we pick 

and choose what we’re going to play,” he 

says. “We ask ourselves: What would make 

sense here? How will Omaha react to this? 

Seeing Omaha reacting to the films we’re 

screening is super-gratifying.” 

Of course, an integral part of the 

Alamo experience is their famous (and 

famously enforced) “No talking, no texting” 

rule. As League explains, it actually isn’t 

that difficult to get new audience members 

Behind the Scenes: 

The Making of an Alamo Drafthouse 

Proctor Companies worked closely with Alamo Drafthouse 

franchisees Phil Rafnson and Tyler Calabrese to design, build 

and install the box office, concession stand, restaurant, bar and 

commercial kitchen for their newly opened location in La Vista, Nebraska. 

The Alamo Drafthouse concept pushes the in-theatre dining 

concept to its very limit. Auditorium 

diners typically place orders during 

a highly compressed timeline–often 

during the ten minutes of previews– 

and these orders crash in atop the 

orders from diners at the bar and 

the restaurant. So it’s critical that 

the facility’s systems be designed to 

support increased server traffic, high 

foodservice output, and strong communication. 

The Kitchen at the Alamo 

Drafthouse Omaha. 

As a result, Proctor’s kitchen design for the La Vista Alamo 

features wider backroom hallways and workspaces, a large, centrally 

located walk-in freezer, a mix of different ovens, warmers and stoves, 

and nearly triple the typical prep-surface area. These modifications 

enable large numbers of orders to be processed 

continued on page 28 


Proctor Companies: The Force 

Behind the Alamo Drafthouse. 

The Alamo Drafthouse’s Star Wars themed box offce. 

Proctor Companies supplied design services, 

casework, food and beverage equipment, 

and a full commercial kitchen for the 

beautiful, new Alamo Drafthouse in 

La Vista, Nebraska. 

Proctor can awaken the force of greater 

proftability for you too. Call us today! 

800-221-3699 

sales@proctorco.com

used to the concept: “There’s always a few 

folks who don’t understand, but the vast 

majority fall in line right away. We are very, 

very clear in our pre-movie announcements. 

People know that we are serious 

about the policy. They put away their 

devices, keep quiet and simply enjoy the 

show.” Dillon used social media—an integral 

part of the Alamo brand as a whole— 

to make sure Omaha moviegoers were up 

to speed before the new theatre opened its 

doors. “There’s a small percentage of people 

who might not like it, but the overall response 

is that 99% of the people that walk 

through our doors have gotten that concept,” 

he explains. “They love the concept, 

and they’ll actually be returning because 

our theatre offers that sort of haven for 

moviegoers.” 

Going forward, Dillon hopes that the 

Alamo Drafthouse Omaha can further 

establish itself as an integral part of its city. 

“Our involvement with the community is 

something that is extremely unique compared 

to other movie theatres. I’m working 

on many more partnerships with community 

groups and businesses,” he explains. 

And, of course, more screenings of awesome 

films, new and old alike. Including a 

Star Wars or two. 

Behind the Scenes continued from page 26 

simultaneously. Where possible, equipment is mounted on casters to 

make cleanup easier–which also keeps health inspectors happy. 

And then there are the details. Expanded foodservice capability 

requires more power, better lighting, more drain and sewer capacity, 

greater exhaust hood volumes, and fortified fire suppression and safety 

systems. Closed-circuit monitors and copious signage are required 

to keep orders straight and customers satisfied. Often overlooked, 

Proctor Companies made sure these considerations were baked into 

the plan at the very outset of the design phase. 

One of the key features of the Alamo model is a robust selection of 

tap beers. Proctor’s design helped organize the nearly quarter-mile of 

tap lines to make cleaning, maintenance and troubleshooting simple and 

fast. In addition, Proctor wrapped the keg room in clear glass to highlight 

the craft-brew nature of the operation, adding visual interest to the 

dining experience and prominently reinforcing a powerful narrative of 

the Alamo brand. 

Finally, there was one last hurdle to clear: the weather. During 

construction, unusually bad weather pummeled the Midwest, shortening 

the construction timeline to nearly half the original estimate. With 

a major premiere looming, Proctor sent additional installers to the job 

site and coordinated with Alamo management and other contractors 

to recalibrate the schedule. In the end, not a day was lost, and both 

Alamo and The Force awakened on time and on budget. 

An Alamo 

Drafthouse 

corridor 


Delivering on the Promise 

DCDC Connects Content 

and Cinemas Large and Small 

by Andreas Fuchs 

e have been really fortunate 

‘Win our development. And how 

fast we have grown!” acknowledges 

Randolph “Randy” Blotky, CEO of Digital 

Cinema Distribution Coalition (www. 

dcdcdistribution.com). In an exclusive 

update of the work accomplished since 

DCDC went live on Oct. 1, 2013 with 

“about 300 sites” deployed, Blotky reports, 

“Now we have 1,910 installed and we have 

more than 2,430 theatres that are under 

contract, with a backlog of 500 sites that 

we will continue to work on.” 

Once they all have come online, 

DCDC will serve over 28,000 screens 

across the United States, out of the roughly 

33,000 digital that NATO counts. By 

2018, its network will surpass 32,000 

screens in more than 3,000 theatre locations 

(see www.dcdcdistribution.com). 

“Eighty-nine exhibitors have signed up. 

On the content-provider side, DCDC 

started with six major studios–and that 

took a while,” Blotky admits. “There are 

now 31 content providers, including many 

independents in addition to alternativecontent 

providers as well.” 

“There’s a multiplicity of reasons” 

that led to this success, Blotky believes. 

“For the first time in the history of the 

industry you got five large, disparate 

companies on both sides of the aisle 

coming together to basically put their 

money where their mouth is. Namely, to 

provide an electronic delivery system to 

the industry.” The founding members were 

Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures on 

the studio side, and—with AMC Theatres, 

Regal Entertainment and Cinemark—the 

country’s three largest cinema chains. 

“All coming together in finding common 

ground so that things can move ahead.” 

Before moving ahead, things had to get 

going. That surely sounds like a challenge. 

Without “having to mention any names or 

companies,” Blotky provides an example of 

how the early conversations would pan out 

at a film studio. “I was talking about what 

we were going to be doing and how it was 

RANDY BLOTKY 

to be implemented. One of the folks…interrupted 

me and said, ‘Randy, what makes 

you think that–in a million years–I would 

ever deal with a company that is owned by 

two of my biggest competitors? And, worse 

than that, why would I ever do a deal 

with anybody who is owned by the three 

biggest exhibitors in the country? I don’t 

trust this as far as I know.’ So, one of the 

things that we found was…a lot of distrust 

among studios themselves and among 

exhibitors—and among the studios visà-vis 

exhibitors.” In response, Blotky and 

his team stated early on, “We understand 

that we need to build trust in us and your 

confidence that we will actually do what it 

is that we say we are going to do.” 

Did the business model behind DCDC 

help to smooth the satellite airways? “The 

fact that these folks were coming together, 

putting their industry hats on, and allowing 

us to work on this sort of egalitarian, 

industry-centered business plan” was key 

for Blotky. “[Putting] this together in a way 

that has zero cost of entry for the open network 

that we run for both content providers 

and for exhibitors” helped as well. “DCDC 

pays for all of the equipment that goes on in 

the theatres, we maintain all of that equipment, 

and we install all of that equipment at 

no cost to exhibition.” 

To make back their capital investments, 

DCDC charges fees for delivery to both the 

theatre and content provider. “I won’t discuss 

specific pricing for obvious reasons, but 

we priced it in a way that makes it way less 

expensive than for delivering hard drives 

and physical media to the theatres. And 

also, we priced it below the normal return 

freight for exhibitors. It became a win-win.” 

Part of winning the satellite distribution 

game is holding open cards, Blotky 

feels. And to invite everybody to the table. 

“We keep our word and are very honest 

about what it is that we can and cannot 

do. And why. It is just that simple.” Still, 

it took DCDC about a year and a half 

to have all of the studios sign on. In the 

process, “several major studios went out 

of their way and made us promise to be 

available to all. ‘You are not going to leave 

the little guys’ theatres behind in this process,’ 

they said. ‘This cannot be only the 

big guys with huge numbers of screens… 

The mom and pops need to get the service 

too.’” With the additional backing and 

collaboration of NATO, Blotky made that 

promise to find ways “to serve the entire 

industry and not just a precious few.” 

Blotky emphasizes that “when you 

are a customer of DCDC, the pricing you 

receive is exactly the same as everybody 

else’s.” AMC, Regal or Cinemark and 

Warner Bros. or Universal do not get “any 

pricing deal because they are also owners 

of the business,” he assures. “Once we start 

making enough cash, we can reimburse to 

each of the founding members what their 

capital investments in DCDC have been 

from the beginning.” After that, and better 

yet, DCDC intends to begin “using what 

otherwise would be posted as tax profits to 

actually rebate monies to the users of the 

system.” All customers will benefit in two 


ways. “One is weighted on a 50-50 basis on 

how much revenue they have been responsible 

for during the immediate past year. 

Secondly, we assess how much revenue 

was generated historically since becoming 

a customer. In other words, over time 

DCDC has the additional beneficial effect 

of driving the cost of delivery down even 

lower than it is now.” 

This is meant to address the fact that– 

as a huge cost-saving measure–all content 

is satellite-delivered to catch servers at 

every theatre on the network. Regardless 

of their respective sizes and whether they 

show the film or not at all, DCDC only 

charges distributors and exhibitors “once 

the film is actually booked,” Blotky explains. 

“The delivery to a multiplex has the 

same price as the delivery to a one-screen. 

For the latter, that represents basically 50 

deliveries per year… That is good for them 

and good for us. Although it is a very slow 

return compared to the larger number of 

deliveries to folks with multiple screens, we 

do them anyway.” 

In terms of deployment and bringing 

content on satellite, the DCDC team 

counted on the expertise of their skyward 

connection, Hughes Network Systems. 

“They told us about sites that would be 

ready,” Blotky recalls. “We first did a survey 

of the sites that were out there, all of 

them… What are the routes like? Are 

there any landlord issues that the exhibitor 

has to figure out? What kinds of points-ofentry 

are available off the roof and into the 

control room? Is there going to be enough 

room for a rack and all sorts of things?” 

Unlike the initial phase of deploying 

digital projection equipment, no attempt 

was made to pick a bunch in a given region. 

“It was all over the United States. 

There were 300 different teams working to 

get the equipment into the theatres simultaneously.” 

Adding pressure, that process 

did not get rolling until about June 2013, 

Blotky notes. “During those four months 

between June and September, we made it 

up to the 300 that we had promised everyone…that 

we would go live on” with Runner 

Runner from Twentieth Century Fox. 

Has it been running smoothly ever 

since? “As a highly technological business, 

by definition nothing runs like clockwork. 

But honestly it’s doing well,” Blotky reassures 

FJI readers. “Yes, there are issues that 

would come up every once in a while, with 

one computer not talking to another computer 

and having to figure that out. But we 

really have not had any major issues.” 

But some complications arose with the 

proliferation of different trailer versions. 

“When Deluxe and Technicolor joined 

hands and the universe was no longer split, 

if you will, the number of trailers on one 

delivery doubled overnight.” In response, 

Blotky says, DCDC attached a two-terabyte 

drive to its catch server that offloads 

the trailers from the main archival server. 

“Even though we have 12 terabytes of storage, 

honestly we could not possibly take 

all of the trailers and store them there for 

the length of time that folks like to have 

them stored. By and large, it’s all working 

very well. The people on the day-to-day in 

terms of how we operate, they work really 

hard to make it happen.” 

Looking at the rest of the world, does 

Blotky foresee expanding DCDC to other 

territories? “We have chosen to really focus 

on the U.S. and get this all done, maybe 

within 2016,” he attests. At the same time, 

“everybody out there,” from Canada, Europe, 

Asia, Australia, South America, is 

examining options and solutions “that 

mimic DCDC, including the technology 

from KenCast, while looking at our business 

model and the all-inclusiveness of the 

network.” The problems he sees are “that 

every single one of those territories is filled 

with their own very specific issues–political, 

economic, technological, regulatory, legal, 

you name it. It is very difficult to try to 

tackle those in any real way unless people 

are willing to go and put the money where 

their mouth is.” Just like DCDC’s founding 

partners have done across the United States. 

One example is laws and regulations 

in South America, he says, that require 

the satellite to be owned by the country in 

which the signal is received. With eight 

to twelve different satellites, “you cannot 

develop an economic model,” Blotky 

knows. “In Europe it is much the same, 

even though there is the EU. Each country, 

because of its own cultural independence, 

mostly maintains control over how 

movies and other cultural products are 

distributed. There is a lot of work to be 

done out there for anybody.” Even though 

he hopes “parts of the DCDC model will 

be copied. This would make the transition 

happen because the cost of delivery 

is even higher than the cost of delivery 

inside the United States was. So it would 

be good for the industry everywhere.” 

On that note, Blotky wishes to add 

delivery of his own message. “Our industry 

needs continued successful collaborations 

among people who are working inside 

similar and different companies.” In his 

view, “more direct collaboration between the 

exhibition community and the content-provider 

community” would prepare all of us 

for even bigger things. “I think once people 

understand how to program their screens, 

the sites will become true community center 

nodes on the network… While DCDC is 

a technology platform–and we do that very 

well–it is also far more than that,” Blotky 

urges. “I think at DCDC we create opportunities 

that were not there before. We 

create thinking pieces for people to begin to 

understand what it is that they have at their 

disposal and how they can be part of the 

whole system. It is really much bigger than 

anyone had ever thought of before, beyond 

the two-dimensional delivery of movies.” 

For more on the subject, see Randy 

Blotky’s April 2014 article at www.filmjournal.com, 

search for “special delivery: DCDC 

network.” 

FEBRUARY 2016 


Everything Old 

Is New Again 

Theatres Go Back to 70mm 

with Hateful Eight Roadshow by Rebecca Pahle 

It’s been several weeks since Quentin 

Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight hit theatres; 

the reviews have been shared, the 

interviews published, the friendly (or 

not so friendly) discussions brought 

to their conclusion. But there’s one subject 

we at FJI believe still merits some ink: Th e 

Hateful Eight’s two-week roadshow, which 

on Christmas Day made Tarantino’s latest 

the first film in nearly 50 years to be released 

in the Ultra Panavision 70 format. 

Other films in recent years have gotten 

into fighting shape 120 70mm projectors, 

what principal and co-founder Chapin 

Cutler admits is the “bear’s portion” of them 

left in the country. That’s enough for 89 

theatres—the remaining 11 were already 

equipped for 70mm—plus spare equipment 

to “scatter around the country in case of an 

immediate failure or immediate need.” 

Another challenge was finding and 

training projectionists; Cutler describes 

the 70 that Boston hunted down as a 

mix of “old-timers who had been in 

who did the installations, provided.” 

Falling into the “old-timer” category is 

John Sittig, who was ArcLight Cinemas’ 

projection maestro for 15 years before 

retiring and coming back into the biz as 

Reading/City Cinemas’ director of projection 

and sound. He admits that finding 

qualified projectionists was “the biggest 

challenge” of the process—but the ability 

to work with 70mm again made the 

process more than worth it. “I can tell 

you from personally running [The Hateful 

special 70mm screenings, specifically Paul 

Thomas Anderson’s The Master and Inherent 

Vice and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. 

But with The Hateful Eight, the goal 

was much more ambitious. Whereas those 

earlier screenings took place in the small 

number of theatres that still had 70mm 

projectors, this time around The Weinstein 

Company hired Boston Light & Sound to 

find and restore enough equipment for a 

100-theatre, nationwide rollout. With the 

roadshow nearly at an end as of press time, 

we thought it would be useful to take a 

look back at how 70mm’s great comeback 

actually panned out. 

Boston Light & Sound dug up and got 

ABOVE, WEHRENBERG THEATRES’ 

RONNIES 20 CINE IN ST. LOUIS 

SCREENED THE HATEFUL EIGHT 

USING A STRONG XENON CONSOLE 

AND CENTURY JJ 70MM PROJECTOR; 

AT RIGHT, HATEFUL EIGHT STAR 

SAMUEL L. JACKSON AND DIRECTOR 

QUENTIN TARANTINO. 

AT TOP, CHRISTIE’S AW3 PLATTER. 

business for some time and younger 

people, some of whom had run 70mm at 

archives and schools and other institutions.” 

Others, Cutler explains, knew 

fi lm but not 70mm: “They required some 

familiarization, which our technical staff, 

Eight] for a number of shifts at our Grossmont 

theatre [in La Mesa, California], the 

audience was very much in tune with the 

fact that they were watching 70mm. The 

overture would start and people would turn 

around and they’d give me a thumbs-up in 

the projection booth,” he recalls. 

Unfortunately, The Hateful Eight’s 

roadshow hit a speed bump before the film 

even officially opened. Projection problems 

at a Los Angeles press screening necessitated 

the switch from film to digital during 

the intermission, leading to a slate of 

articles questioning whether a successful 

revival of 70mm, even on a small scale, was 

possible with so few experienced projec- 


tionists currently in the industry’s ranks. 

Cutler calls the issue, which resulted 

from a parts misalignment that didn’t rear 

its head during the testing process, “an 

isolated occurrence. [The screening] was 

not a failure, because they completed the 

show. No one left without seeing the entire 

movie… That’s why we have projectionists 

and technicians. Because, just like your car, 

[a projector] will break down.” 

Ultimately, Chapin argues, “the number 

of shows that were deficient is far less 

than one percent. I think that’s a pretty 

good track record.” On Reading/City Cinemas’ 

part, Sittig says there were “no real 

problems” in any of their theatres, just a 

few minor technical issues involving calibrating 

the speed of the platters. 

Another location that’s had no problems 

with their screenings, which number 

four a day, is Wehrenberg Theatres’ Ronnies 

20 Cine, located in the St. Louis 

metro area. Like several of the Reading/ 

City Cinemas theatres, the Ronnies 20 

is planning to continue 70mm screenings 

of The Hateful Eight past the original 

two-week roadshow window set by The 

Weinstein Company. The reason for that, 

explains Wehrenberg president Bill Menke, 

is simple: The film’s 70mm screenings 

have been raking it in. “I would say virtually 

every showing from Christmas Day 

on through the New Year’s holiday was 

sold out in the 70mm house,” he says, with 

several screenings selling out online before 

the film opened. Even once the Ronnies 

also opened the non-roadshow version of 

The Hateful Eight—projected digitally, and 

minus the intermission and several minutes 

of footage—70mm was still far and 

away the preferred option among patrons. 

“[The digital version] caught the overflow 

of people who could not see it in the 

70mm format,” says Menke. “In the second 

week of the run, the 70mm house was still 

producing three times the gross that the 

digital format was… Right now, for us to 

end it would be not prudent for us as good 

businessmen and theatre operators, with 

the gross that the 70mm screen is producing. 

It’s still outperforming other shows 

that have opened in subsequent weeks.” 

Both Menke and Sittig cite Tarantino 

and The Weinstein Company’s success at 

making The Hateful Eight’s roadshow rollout 

into a capital-E Event, of the sort that 

were seen in the ’50s and ’60s with films 

like Ben-Hur and The Sound of Music. There 

are even The Hateful Eight programs that 

were given out at screenings. 

But, behind the curtain, a lot of 

work was put into checking and doublechecking 

equipment so things would run 

smoothly. “We went over our equipment 

not only with Chapin’s installers, but with 

our technical crews as well, and the expert 

[Boston Light & Sound] sent out did an 

outstanding job training our personnel,” 

we now know what to do in order to have 

resolved that. There are things that we could 

have done and should have done that we 

didn’t even know we had to do.” 

But the question remains: Will there 

be a next time? Cutler demurs, noting that 

it’s up to individual exhibitors and The 

Weinstein Company to determine whether 

Tarantino’s grand 70mm experiment was a 

success. It’s also The Weinstein Company’s 

call as to what happens to the equipment, 

which they own; they could conceivably 

use it themselves and/or work out a deal 

with other studios, who might be more 

willing to try something with 70mm now 

that they wouldn’t have to pay to restore 

the projectors themselves. (Cutler declined 

to mention how much the endeavor cost.) 

With projectors restored and projectionists 

trained, Sittig argues, “there’s a 

bit of an infrastructure that there wasn’t 

there before.” Though film’s never going to 

push digital off its throne, he argues that in 

the future we could be looking at “one or 

two” similar film rollouts a year, especially 

if film-loving directors like Christopher 

Menke explains. “We take a lot of pride in 

projection excellence, and, knock on wood, 

we’ve been running without interruption. 

We have some very happy customers.” 

On Boston Light & Sound’s part, Cutler 

admits that, next time around, he’d like to be 

able to institute even more double-checks— 

though, he argues, they simply were not able 

to do much more given the limited amount 

of time they had. (The company spent the 

last two months of 2014 planning and 

“started in earnest looking for equipment” in 

January of the following year.) 

“By and large, we have had some operational 

issues, primarily with platters,” Cutler 

continues. “But, having been through that, 

Nolan take this opportunity to throw their 

weight around. 

For his part, Menke is “very pleased 

with the result that we’ve had on this picture, 

and I think that Weinstein, if they 

had the kind of success that we’ve had here 

in St. Louis, ought to be very pleased with 

the effort that they’ve put toward presenting 

70mm… I think there are an awful 

lot of people out there who, first of all, 

saw 70mm for the first time, secondly saw 

film for the first time, and third saw Ultra 

Panavision 70 for the first time, that were 

blown away by it. So I think, by almost any 

metric, that makes it a success among the 

patrons of the theatres that played it.” 

FEBRUARY 2016 


MANAGING & 

A Guide to Theatre Management Systems 

Thanks to the rise of digital technology, 

it’s a whole new era for movie 

theatre operators, with a wide array of 

offerings that help a multi-screen cinema 

program, organize and oversee its movie 

and pre-show presentations and ensure 

that the show always goes on. Film Journal 

International debuts its first guide to 

Theatre Management Systems (TMS), the 

Network Operation Centers that provide 

24/7 support, and new systems that coordinate 

film scheduling and booking. 

THEATRE 

MANAGEMENT 

SYSTEMS 

Arts Alliance Media 

Screenwriter from Arts Alliance Media 

(AAM) is a market-leading Theatre Management 

System (TMS) that delivers unparalleled 

control of content and screens. 

Lost shows can be eradicated and disruption 

minimized with the help of Screenwriter’s 

proactive monitoring that alerts 

users to any problems before they happen. 

Screenwriter automates many processes 

which were previously time-consuming 

and inaccurate, and because it’s 

web-based, you manage it all from anywhere 

that has an Internet connection. 

All of which frees up exhibitors’ time to 

get back to do what they do best—creating 

the best movie experiences. 

Screenwriter is also the gateway 

to further enhance the capabilities of a 

traditional TMS. Designed to work seamlessly 

with cloud-based enterprise products, 

Screenwriter opens up a world of 

further efficiencies and cost savings when 

combined with circuit-level software. 

Contact: sales@artsalliancemedia.com 

Clients: AAM software is installed on 

over 25,000 screens around the world. 

They operate globally and have customers 

in countries from China to the USA, 

Australia to Ecuador, and many more in 

between. AAM works with exhibitors large 

and small; clients include Wanda Cinemas 

(China), Cinépolis (Mexico), Cineworld 

(U.K.), Mars (Turkey), Ster Kinekor (South 

Africa) and Hoyts (Australia). 

Ballantyne Strong 

Ballantyne Strong (www.Ballantyne 

Strong.com) offers a full suite of hardware, 

software, installation and support 

services for the cinema industry, digital 

signage and beyond. 

Their state-of-the-art 24x7x365 

Network Operation Center monitors 

and services more than 100,000 devices 

at 16,000 locations for over 1,000 global 

customers from multiple, fully redundant, 

and geographically located datacenter 

facilities staffed with industry experts. 

Ballantyne Strong’s custom, softwareagnostic 

LMS hardware is certified to 

work with every library and theatre 

management software provider and offers 

exceptional performance and reliability, 

with one of the best warranties possible 

to keep your system up and running when 

you need it the most. 

Contact: Blake Titman 

blake.titman@btn-inc.com 

CineDigitalManager 

Multiple challenges have risen since 

exhibitors started switching from film to 

digital projection, changing the way singlescreen 

as well as multiplex theatres are 

managed. CineDigitalManager ® Theater 

Management System (TMS) was designed 

to help cinemas through this transition 

and take advantage of new opportunities. 

Developed in close cooperation with 

projectionists and cinema owners, Cine- 

DigitalManager combines all key features in a 

user-friendly, tactile interface: Digital Delivery, 

KDM Management, Playlists Editor, Scheduling, 

Monitoring, Reporting and more. 

Compatible with most server and all 

projector brands, CineDigitalManager’s 

features include: 

• Quality system management 

• Digital signage 

• Equipment automation 

• Multi-theatre management 

• DCP encoding tool 

• Pre-show music management 

More than 6,000 screens worldwide are 

using CineDigitalManager TMS. 

Contact: Etienne Roux, Business 

Development Manager, +33689885956 

etienne.roux@cinedigitalmanager.com 


MONITORING 

and Network Operations Centers 

Clients: France: UGC, Ciné 

Alpes, Groupe Majestic, Circuit Grand 

Ecran, Noë Cinéma, Ciné Movida, 

CinéOde, Ociné 

Spain: Ciné Mancha, Cines Dreams 

Italy: M3C Cinema, Cinetuscia Village 

Germany: Union Cinema 

Denmark: Kino Grenaa, Værløse Bio 

Israel : Lev Cinemas 

South Korea: CGV, Primus Osan Cinema, 

Yawoori Cinema, Megabox Kimpo, 

Imsil Cinema, Lotte Sung Nam Cinema 

Taiwan: Cinemax (Gold Lion, In89) 

Canada: Magic Lantern Theatres, 

Rainbow Cinemas 

GDC Technology 

One of GDC Technology’s 

flagship products, the TMS-2000 

Theatre Management System (TMS) 

is a comprehensive solution that gives 

you centralized control over the 

entire theatre’s operation from one 

location. The latest version of the TMS- 

2000 offers a robust, user-friendly 

management system with increased 

operational efficiency with a start-up 

time that is 13 times faster than the 

previous version. Designed to streamline 

all theatre operations, the new Web 

access feature offers users the capability 

to monitor all screens in the theatre 

remotely. In addition, GDC developed 

an iPhone app to build on the success of 

the iPad app launched in 2014. 

Another innovative new feature is 

Content Watcher. Just picture this: Any 

time new content arrives from a specific 

source—such as a remote file server or a 

satellite—Content Watcher retrieves the 

new content automatically without any 

human intervention, ensuring new content 

will not be missed due to the user’s oversight. 

Basically, GDC designed Content 

Watcher to help maximize efficiency. To 

date, GDC TMS solutions are the secondlargest 

installation base in the world, covering 

16,000 screens in 2,400 theatres. 

Contact: Sylvia Lee. Assistant Marketing 

Manager, (852) 2507 9541, 

sylvia.lee@gdc-tech.com 

Hollywood Software 

Hollywood Software’s Theater 

Command Center (TCC)—the firstever 

TMS—currently runs more 

than 12,000 screens for 375+ circuits 

worldwide. TCC is the only TMS that 

builds show playlists automatically via 

POS imports and rules set for content, 

which means a complex with 10 or 

more screens can be programmed in 

less than 20 minutes each week. It 

centralizes content management and 

automates features, trailers and KDM 

transfers, creating significant efficiencies 

that enable theatre staff to focus on 

customers, and managers to oversee an 

entire complex from one screen and— 

with one mouse click—troubleshoot 

and solve problems instantly. 

TCC supports Dolby, Doremi, 

GDC, Qube and FilmStore players 

and can ingest digital files via hard 

drive, satellite or network share. It 

integrates with all major POS systems, 

and features APIs for the automated 

ingestion, programming and reporting of 

ad content. It even automatically trims 

content from packs in overlapping show 

situations based on asset prioritization. 

Coming soon: TCC 3.5, due in early 

2016, will include integration with the 

Barco Alchemy ICMP, plus enhancements 

to title mapping and preshow pack 

scheduling designed to give users even 

more flexibility with programming in 

today’s world of multiple formats and 

precious screen real estate. 

Hollywood Software’s TCC allows managers to oversee an entire complex 

from one computer screen. 

FEBRUARY 2016 


Contact: Larry McCourt, Senior VP, 

Sales & Marketing, (818) 961-0792 

larry.mccourt@hollywoodsoftware.com 

Clients: 375+ circuits worldwide use 

TCC including Marcus Theatres, Carmike 

Cinemas, Empire Cinemas, Palace Cinemas 

and Caribbean Cinemas. 

Countries Serviced: United States, 

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United 

Kingdom, the Caribbean. 

Moving iMage 

Technologies 

Moving iMage Technologies recently 

introduced a new division focusing on the 

business and operations of the cinema 

exhibition industry: Professional Cinema 

Enterprise Solutions. The new division 

is anchored by Cinergy, a modular, 

cloud-based Cinema Enterprise suite of 

software tools for complete, secure management, 

reporting and visibility of your 

theatres and their assets. Centralized at 

the corporate level with regional and localized 

drill-down capabilities to any digital 

asset or existing point of sale, Cinergy 

now allows you the most comprehensive 

management of your cinema business. 

A product of joint marketing and development 

with DCIP, Cinergy provides 

the most experienced and proven IT and 

software development professionals in 

the cinema industry. “Digital cinema was 

such a leap forward in technology for our 

industry that our focus was in the presentation 

of great pictures and sound,” 

notes Joe Delgado, executive VP, sales 

and marketing, at Moving iMage Technologies. 

“Having achieved the best presentations, 

what remained to all but a few 

was the management feedback from all 

these digital platforms. Since they generate 

such incredible amounts of invaluable 

data, there needed to exist the right software 

tools to extract, collate and manage 

that data. Cinergy does that.” 

Richard Manzione, CEO of DCIP, 

says, “Having a theatre operations background, 

I know how critical it is to have 

the right kinds of information. But having 

great amounts of raw data can be just as 

invisible to operations management as no 

data at all. What the DCIP team of programmers 

and developers has achieved 

by working with, and listening to, cinema 

operations professionals, is a modular 

software solution that can be tailor-made 

to any size cinema business. Cinergy 

cost-effectively scales to your particular 

needs and scope. And since software is 

not a static proposition, our group, along 

with MIT, looks forward to growing and 

innovating our products as you grow and 

innovate your business.” 

Contact: sales@movingimagetech.com 

Sony Digital Cinema 

Cinemas with multiple screens can 

enjoy convenient, efficient, centralized 

content management of their theatre 

operations with TMS from Sony. 

Create and schedule weekly show 

playlists across all your projectors, 

with direct data import from ticketing/ 

POS systems. Manage ingest of DCP 

content and KDMs to ensure that 

every projector is ready for the show. 

Monitor real-time operational status of 

up to 32 projectors. Save time with an 

Auto Delete function that intelligently 

manages media server capacity. Adding 

an optional license supports automation 

of advertising and other pre-show 

content. Everything’s easy with an 

intuitive drag-and-drop interface that 

simplifies workflow and demands on 

your resources. 

Contacts: Susie Beiersdorf, 

VP of Sales, Sony Digital Cinema (US) 

(310) 244-6649 

susie.beiersdorf@am.sony.com 

Oliver Pasch, Sales Director, 

Digital Cinema (Europe) 

+49 2151 36024 

oliver.pasch@eu.sony.com 

Ymagis 

Ymagis launched its Melody 

TMS solution in 2014. Since then, 

it has been deployed at 191 cinema 

sites across Europe with over 1,270 

licenses. The Melody TMS is an 

A Melody TMS screen shot 

intuitive, web-based user interface 

(drag-and-drop) that allows 

you to schedule and supervise 

shows on a weekly basis for any 

auditorium within your cinema site, 

manage KDMs with server push 

information, monitor equipment, 

manage content through a library 

management system, oversee 

screenings, create playlists, 

organize ingests and view their 

progress, and play background 

music ambient at will. 

The Melody TMS is compatible 

with any third-party software 

(e.g., digital signage, points of sale), 

making it fully automated and 

therefore requiring less human 

intervention. Meeting all exhibition 

needs, from single-screen sites 

to large multiplexes, it is also 

interoperable with all leading 

server brands and fully compatible 

with the Barco Alchemy cinema 

projector range. Version 2.1 was 

recently certified by European 

cinema advertising specialist 

Weischer.Media. The Melody TMS 

can be accessed from anywhere via 

its mobile app. 

Contact: Christof Federle 

+43 664 8130 030 

christof.federle@dcinex.com 


NETWORK 

OPERATIONS 

CENTERS 

Arts Alliance Media 

AAM’s Network Operations Centre 

provides thousands of screens around 

the world with proactive and reactive 

support services, monitoring hardware 

and software for any potential issues 

which can be either resolved remotely 

or highlighted directly to the cinema. 

AAM provides support to cinemas using 

their software, as well as to resellers 

in various countries to help to install 

and configure AAM products. The multilingual 

NOC team works in multiple 

languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, 

French and Portuguese. 

Ballantyne Strong 

(see listing under Theatre Management 

Systems) 

Bardan Cinema 

Bardan Cinema’s Network Operations 

Center (NOC) offers a comprehensive 

24/7 remote monitoring and 

support platform with real-time alerts, 

assuring exhibitors minimum downtime 

and optimum equipment health. Their 

corrective maintenance service seeks 

to restore normal operation of equipment 

after a malfunction. This service 

offers repair in the shortest possible 

time, replacement of damaged parts and 

components, and recovery of optimal 

functionality. 

Contact: Rodolfo Abarca 

rabarca@bardancinema.com 

Clients: Cineplanet (Peru and Chile), 

Royal Films (Colombia), Supercines 

(Ecuador), Movie (Uruguay), Life 

(Uruguay), Cine Monje Campero 

(Bolivia), Cinema Valladolid (Honduras), 

Silver Spot (US), Sercenco (Peru). 

DCinema NOC Brazil is operated by 

Quanta DGT. Clients in Brazil include 

Kinoplex, Cinematográfica Araújo, Cinesystem, 

GNC and Arcoplex. 

Christie 

Christie’s proactive monitoring 

keeps your systems running and your 

revenue flowing. Christie understands 

that downtime is not an option. Since the 

beginning of the digital cinema conversion, 

Christie’s Network Operations Center 

(NOC) has ensured thousands of digital 

theatre systems are running smoothly. 

Their state-of-the-art NOC features a 

24/7 technical help desk, remote monitoring 

and configuration management, preventative 

servicing, on-site emergency 

response and critical spares-replenishment 

programs. Their highly trained nationwide 

service team is available in most markets 

in as little as two hours. And now their 

new enhanced service portal supplies 

high-value information and analytics that 

support customers in making timely and 

insightful decisions about their operation. 

• Proactive diagnostic alerts: Discovery 

and warning triggers that alert operator 

of early failure. 

• Trend reports: Continuous monitoring 

and collecting of high-speed data 

for trend reports. 

• Case query: Problem tracking and 

collaboration tools. 

• Access to online training: Help 

bridge the gap of skilled experts. 

Christie services cinemas around the 

world. Call (877) 454-4267. 

Cielo 

Cielo has redefined NOC monitoring 

and is changing the way exhibitors are 

managing their cinemas. By leveraging the 

latest cloud-based technology, the Cielo 

platform provides exhibitors full visibility 

across their entire circuit from any internet 

connected device, allowing them to 

manage their cinema from anywhere. 

With Cielo, exhibitors can stay on top 

of expiring lamps, make sure playlists are 

correctly built, and address any equipment 

alert in real time, all from your mobile 

phone. Cielo integrates directly with the 

Cielo Support Center, staffed by factorycertified, 

multi-lingual support engineers, 

so you are always just one click away from 

best-in-class remote support. 

Cielo currently services over 2,000 

screens worldwide including prominent 

circuits such as Marcus Theatres, Goodrich 

Quality Theaters, Cine Colombia, and more. 

Contact: Alex Younger 

ayounger@cinemaequip.com 

(305) 776-8319 

GDC Technology 

Apart from manufacturing hardware 

and developing software for cinemas 

worldwide, GDC Technology also 

emphasizes providing value-added 

services to customers. In 2010, GDC 

opened their first Network Operations 

Center (NOC) in China to provide 

24-hour, real-time remote monitoring 

services for digital-cinema systems in 

China. Through a simple user interface, 

the NOC provides centralized screen 

and display controls at various locations. 

In 2014, GDC set up its second NOC in 

Singapore, ensuring hassle-free theatre 

screenings for exhibitors worldwide. 

Sony Digital Cinema 

Theatre operators can enjoy even 

more peace of mind with Sony’s Network 

Operations Center (NOC), providing remote 

monitoring and multilingual support 

in Europe, seven days a week from 9 a.m. 

to midnight. The U.S. NOC operates 24/7 

and delivers over 95% success rate with 

first calls, reports Sony. Potential issues 

can be pinpointed and analyzed remotely 

by their engineering specialists, giving 

theatre owners extra peace of mind that 

their Sony 4K projector fleet is in optimum 

condition for every performance. 

Ymagis 

Ymagis offers NOC services to its 

exhibitor clients, servicing over 9,500 

screens. Its services extend beyond 

remote repairs to include customer 

communication, problem analysis, 

maintenance management, equipment 

monitoring, manufacturer contact and 

integrator support, spare parts management, 

warranty claims and training. 

Ymagis NOC centers are located in 

Liège (international territories, including 

the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Benelux, Greece, 

Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, 

Russia and Turkey), Paris (France and North 

Africa), Valencia (Spain and Portugal) and 

Düsseldorf (Germany and Austria). 

Contact: Mirko Heukemes 

+32 4 364 12 54 

Mirko.Heukemes@dcinex.com 

FEBRUARY 2016 


FILM SCHEDULING/ 

BOOKING 

Digital Cinema 

Distribution Coalition 

(DCDC) 

DCDC was formed by AMC 

Theatres, Cinemark Theatres, Regal 

Entertainment Group, Universal 

Pictures and Warner Bros. to 

provide the industry with theatrical 

digital delivery services across 

North America through a specially 

created network comprised of 

next-generation satellite and terrestrial 

distribution technologies. 

It is capable of supporting feature, 

promotional, pre-show and live 

content distribution into theatres. 

DCDC currently has 1,910 sites 

installed and more than 2,430 theatres 

under contract, with a backlog of 500 

sites that it continues to work on. By 

2018, DCDC says its network will surpass 

32,000 screens in more than 3,000 

theatre locations. Thirty-one content 

providers use the DCDC network. 

Contact: Randy Blotky 

(310) 651-2600 

info@dcdcnetwork.com 

Hollywood Software 

(see listing under Theatre Management 

Systems) 

Share Dimension 

Share Dimension is a software development 

company based in The Netherlands 

specializing in state-of-the-art business 

intelligence and predictive analytics 

applications for the cinema industry. Cinema 

Intelligence (www.cinemaintelligence. 

com) is the first collection of business 

intelligence solutions aimed at cinema exhibitors 

designed to optimize forecasting, 

planning and scheduling of movies, alternative 

content and corporate events and 

proven to increase profitability. 

The sophisticated algorithm developed 

by Share Dimension combines 

advanced forecasting based on historical 

box-office information at the cinema level 

with cutting-edge scheduling technology. 

It generates unbiased estimates of future 

admissions per film, per location and per 

day based on automated analytics of past 

admissions and present trends. 

Cinema Scheduler, the core module of 

Cinema Intelligence, analyzes box-office 

data and automatically builds daily schedules 

optimized to increase the number of 

showtimes and the occupancy rate and 

minimize screen idle times. Schedules are 

automatically exported to the ticketing 

system of the exhibitor. Cinema Scheduler 

boosts productivity by allowing rapid creation 

of daily optimized schedules at each 

cinema across an entire cinema circuit. 

Share Dimension announced that they 

have signed a strategic partnership with 

Vista Group International, a global leader in 

cinema-management software. Vista owns 

50% of the company. Share Dimension has 

offices in the Netherlands and Los Angeles. 

Contact: sales@cinemaintelligence.com 

For North America: Christiane Ducasse, 

Sales & Business Development 

(310) 435-4063 

christiane.ducasse@sharedimension.com 

Select Clients: 

Pathe Theatres BV, Netherlands 

JT Bioscopen/Vue Cinemas, Netherlands 

CinemaxX/Vue Cinemas, Germany 

CinemaXimum/Mars Entertainment, Turkey 

JCA Cinemes, Spain 

Vox Cinemas, Middle East 

Alamo Drafthouse, USA 


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I N T E R N A T I O N A L 

FOR THE LATEST REVIEWS WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 

BUYING & BOOKING GUIDE 

VOL. 119, NO. 2 

13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS 

OF BENGHAZI 

PARAMOUNT/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital & Datasat 

Digital/144 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, 

Toby Stephens, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa, 

David Costabile, Freddie Stroma, Max Martini, David 

Guintoli, Wrenn Schmidt, Matt Letscher, Alexia 

Barlier, Peyman Moaadi. 

Directed by Michael Bay. 

Screenplay: Chuck Hogan, based on the book by Mitchell 

Zuckoff and members of the Annex Security Team. 

Produced by Michael Bay, Erwin Stoff. 

Executive producers: Richard Abate, Matthew Cohan, 

Scott Gardenhour. 

Co-producers: Michael Kase, Jasmin Torbati. 

Director of photography: Dion Beebe. 

Production designer: Jeffrey Beecroft. 

Editor: Pietro Scalia. 

Music: Lorne Balfe. 

Costume designer: Deborah Lynn Scott. 

A Paramount Pictures presentation of a 3 Arts Entertainment/Bay 

Films production. 

Saying that this powerful, fact-based 

action drama about the 2012 Benghazi consulate 

attack that killed Ambassador Chris 

Stephens is Michael Bay’s greatest film isn’t 

actually faint praise. 

That sound you hear 

while exiting the 

theatre as 13 Hours: 

The Secret Soldiers of 

Benghazi rumbles to a 

finish is something like 

relief. Because the last James Badge Dale 

thing that our panic 

room of an election season needed was a Michael 

Bay gasoline bomb getting dumped onto 

the simmering garbage fire that is the Benghazi 

investigation. That hasn’t happened. The 

closest that this bruising but respectful film 

comes to sounding like a cable-news shouting 

head is when one character, bemused that the 

news back home is attributing the attacks to 

protestors, says matter-of-factly, “We didn’t 

hear any protests.” Then it’s back to the 

shooting; we are in Bay country, after all. 

Fifteen years after hurting everybody’s 

brains with Pearl Harbor—which tried to 

merge his usual beer-ad fantasia with actual 

events—and almost a decade of near-criminal 

responsibility for the Transformers series, Bay 

has cracked the code for making an action 

film that does justice to the historical record. 

It’s still too much of a chest-thumper, with 

languorous shots of beefy warriors and a running 

theme of sniveling bureaucrats just getting 

in the way, to mark Bay as the next Paul 

Greengrass. But his command of space and 

sparkling cinematography could stand to be 

emulated by other filmmakers who think that 

shaky-cam and smash-cuts constitute grit. 

The tightly wound film adaptation of 

Mitchell Zuckoff’s tell-all book is set in 2012, 

just after the Libyan people, backed by NATO 

air power, overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. 

Following the first flush of independence, 

the country is starting to fracture into 

today’s militia-ruled state of chaos. A team 

of ex-military contractors codenamed G.R.S. 

has been assigned to provide security at a 

not-so-secret CIA station in Benghazi. It’s a 

tightknit and smartly cast group, from James 

Badge Dale’s assertive team leader “Rone” to 

Pablo Schreiber reveling in the smartass Bill 

Paxton role as “Tanto” and the Zen quietude 

of David Denman as the sniper “Boon.” Denman’s 

“The Office” co-star John Krasinski, 

normally best at playing cool-under-fire characters 

with a slashing sense of irony, may have 

been a poor choice for Jack Silva, the team 

member tasked with most of the emotional 

heavy-lifting in this gruff but genial group. 

After a brief introduction to the setting 

and the main players, the story jumps to 

September, when new Libyan ambassador 

Chris Stephens (Matt Letscher) arrives at 

the American consulate not far from the CIA 

station. For anybody not familiar with what 

happened, Chuck Hogan’s script provides 

plenty of bad-vibe foreshadowing, from the 

consulate’s cut-rate security (“This is some 

real dot-gov shit,” grumbles one of the G.R.S. 

team) to the skittish amateur “17th of February” 

militiamen providing backup. The oversaturated 

colors of Dion Beebe’s cinematography 

and the almost-too-lush seaside desert 

setting (nearby Malta substituting for Libya) 

are lulling at first, like an Anthony Bourdain 

travel special with high-caliber weaponry. 

When the siege begins, the film slams 

into action and keeps it rattling along at a 

blistering pace. The extremist militias appear 

almost out of nowhere—an unexplained turn 

of events that mirrors the Americans’ lack of 

insight into the situation. Once the consulate 

is assaulted, the G.R.S. team scraps with the 

CIA station chief, Bob (the reliably weasely 

David Costabile), who insists that they don’t 

have any authority to intervene. That excuse 

rattles up and down a chain of command 

fractured between the State Department and 

the CIA, neither of whom seem to have any 

clue about how to resolve the crisis, and the 

Pentagon, which has assets stationed nearby 

but, according to the film, wouldn’t deploy 

without orders. 

As the minutes tick past without outside 

rescue, the G.R.S. team mounts a desperate 

attempt to save the ambassador. The chaos 

of the situation is superbly handled, with the 

team having just as little idea as the viewers 

which of the men running through the streets 

with AK-47s are friendly and which are 

enemies. Their uncertainty and the occasional 

interruption of reality, like Jack losing his 

contact lens, hews closer to a more realistic 

modern combat film like Lone Survivor than 

one of Bay’s superheroes-with-guns films. 

The last third or so is a classically structured, 

white-knuckle set-piece in which the 

team establishes an Alamo-like defense of the 

CIA station against successive waves of extremists 

who materialize out of the darkness 

like wraiths. Throughout, Bay interleaves Go- 

Pro point-of-view shots and handheld firefight 

intimacy with swooping overhead shots that 

provide depth of field and context. 

The extent of Bay’s unexpectedly mature 

approach comes near the end, with a brief 

and humanizing scene of Libyan women 

keening over the bodies of the men who died 

attacking the Americans. 13 Hours is an ooorah 

story for sure, celebrating hired warriors 

above pencil-pushers. But it also has an 

awareness of tragedy and regret, particularly 

in the sober coda, that’s all too rare in the 

Call of Duty era. 

—Chris Barsanti 

MONSTER HUNT 

FILMRISE/Color/2.35/3D/Dolby Atmos/117 Mins./ 

Not Rated 

Cast: Bai Baihe, Jing Boran, Jiang Wu, Elaine Jin, Wallace 

Chung, Eric Tsang, Sandra Ng, Tang Wei, Yao Chen, 

Yan Ni, Bao Jianfeng, Wang Yuexin, Guo Xiaodong. 

Directed by Raman Hui. 

Story and screenplay: Alan Yuen. 

Produced by Bill Kong, Yee Chung Man, Doris Tse, Alan 

Yuen. 

Executive producers: Bill Kong, Wang Tongyuan, Sun 

Zhonghuai, Allen Zhu. 

Co-producers: Lv Jianchu, Hao Lee, Cai Yuan, Wang 

Jinghua, Dong Zijian. 

Director of photography: Anthony Pun. 

Production designer: Yohei Taneda. 

Editor: Cheung Ka Fai. 

Action director: Ku Huen Chiu. 

Music: Leon Ko. 

Visual effects supervisors: Jason Snell, Tang Bingbing. 


Visual effects producer: Ellen Poon. 

Sound designer (for monster creatures): Randy Thom. 

Sound designer: Kinson Tsang. 

An Edko Films Limited, Dream Sky Pictures Co., Ltd., 

BDU Films Inc., Shenzhen Tencent Video Culture Communication 

Ltd., Heyi Pictures Co., Limited, Beijing 

Union Picures Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Star River Artiste 

Management Company Limited, San-Le Films Limited, 

Zhejiang Films & TV (Group) Co., Ltd. and Edko (Beijing) 

Films Limited presentation of a Champion Star 

Pictures Ltd. production. 

In Mandarin with English subtitles. 

Bounty hunters try to save a monster 

queen’s baby from ruthless killers in a special-effects 

comedy that has become China’s 

top-grossing movie. 

Although it’s set 

in an indeterminate 

past Chinese empire, 

Monster Hunt will look 

very familiar to fantasy 

fans. Its monsters, 

fighters and battles 

Wuba 

fit comfortably into a 

world that includes Shrek, How to Train Your 

Dragon, and the Harry Potter series. Right now 

the movie’s Mandarin language and Chinese 

sensibilities are the biggest drawbacks for 

U.S. viewers. 

Polished and occasionally a lot of fun, Monster 

Hunt is also far-fetched and jarringly sentimental. 

Viewers here won’t have any trouble 

understanding the movie’s court intrigues, 

ruthless bounty hunters, or even the monsters 

themselves. A bit trickier to follow are things 

like mahjong battles, freezing spells, fertility 

practices, and treacly song-and-dance routines 

that exclaim, “I won’t forget the caring and 

love from the ones who brought me up.” 

Exiled from humanity, evil monsters are 

threatening to return to take over the world. 

To do that, they first need to find and kill the 

monster queen’s baby. Bounty hunters, or 

“monster hunters” as they’re called here, are 

led by the imperious, wealthy Ge (Wallace 

Chung). He orders his followers to bring him 

the baby monster, soon to be called Wuba. 

In the rural village of Yongning, the hapless 

Tianyin (Jing Boran) serves as mayor, tailor 

and part-time chef. When the monster queen, 

guarded by Gao (Eric Tsang) and Ying (Sandra 

Ng), seeks sanctuary in the village, she brings 

the bounty hunters right to Tianyin’s door. 

Before she dies, the queen impregnates 

Tianyin with her fetus. That complicates matters 

for beautiful monster hunter Huo Xiaolin 

(Bai Baihe), who takes Tianyin prisoner until 

she can sell the baby monster in a nearby city. 

Born in an inn (to the consternation of 

a couple in an adjoining room seeking fertility 

treatments), Wuba resembles a doughy 

daikon radish with big eyes and four limbs. 

Wuba also has a taste for blood, and as its 

“mother,” Tianyin has to pay the price. 

Huo sells Wuba in a pawn shop even as 

rival monster hunter Luo Gan (Jiang Wu) 

closes in on her. Will Wuba become the main 

course in Ge’s monster banquet? Or will Huo 

and Tianyin team up to rescue the monster 

before it’s too late? 

Among subplots involving cannibalism 

(two cute kids are marinated for the 

banquet), monster dung, how to induce labor 

in a pregnant man, and monster sing-alongs, 

veteran Hong Kong comedians Eric Tsang and 

Sandra Ng get to fool around a bit. Comic 

relief from Yao Chen as a conceited chef and 

Yan Ni and Bao Jianfeng as a couple trying to 

conceive is less effective. 

Jing Boran joined the project late after 

the original lead was arrested for drug possession; 

the movie is almost over before he 

comes to life as a performer. Bai Baihe, on 

the other hand, is a delight throughout, with 

killer moves and confused morals to go along 

with her tomboy costume. 

Born in Hong Kong, director Raman Hui 

worked as a supervising animator at Dream- 

Works, and played an important role in the 

Shrek franchise (he co-directed the third 

episode). Monster Hunt, his first live-action 

feature, may not be a total artistic success, 

but Hui knows what his audience wants—essentially 

a remake of Stephen Chow’s Journey 

to the West, with all the textual history and 

comedic rough edges rubbed away. 

Currently the box-office champ in Asia, 

the movie is being released in four versions 

in the U.S.: Mandarin-language in 2D and 3D, 

and a slightly shorter cut dubbed into English, 

also in 2D and 3D. 

—Daniel Eagan 

RIDE ALONG 2 

UNIVERSAL/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital & Datasat 

Digital/101 Mins./Rated PG-13 

Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt, 

Olivia Munn, Bruce McGill, Tika Sumpter, Sherri 

Shepherd, Tyrese Gibson. 

Directed by Tim Story. 

Screenplay: Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, based on characters 

created by Greg Coolidge. 

Produced by Will Packer, Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez, Larry 

Brezner. 

Executive producers: Nicolas Stern, Ron Muhammad, 

Scott Bernstein, Chris Bender, JC Spink. 

Director of photography: Mitchell Amundsen. 

Production designer: Chris Cornwell. 

Editor: Peter Elliot. 

Costume designer: Olivia Miles. 

Music: Christopher Lennertz. 

Sound designer: Benjamin L. Cook. 

A Universal Pictures presentation of a Will Packer Prods. 

and Cubevision production. 

Atlanta police detective and rookie cop 

travel to Miami to break up a drug ring in a 

bigger, splashier follow-up to the 2014 hit. 

Dressing up its 

tired storyline with 

explosions and bling, 

Ride Along 2 offers exactly 

what the original 

did—the opportunity 

to spend time with 

Ice Cube & Kevin Hart 

Kevin Hart. That should be enough for his 

fans to make this a similar-sized hit. 

Hart plays Ben Barber, now a probationary 

Atlanta police officer thanks to his heroics 

in Ride Along. About to marry Angela (Tika 

Sumpter), he’s desperate to win the respect 

of her brother James Payton (Ice Cube), a 

hard-bitten homicide detective. 

That won’t be easy, especially after Ben’s 

intervention botches a drug sting and gets 

Payton’s partner Mayfield (Tyrese Gibson) 

shot. The future brothers-in-law head to 

Miami, where clues point to computer hacker 

AJ (Ken Jeong). 

Teaming up with Miami cop Maya (Olivia 

Munn), Ben and Payton close in on millionaire 

philanthropist Antonio Pope (Benjamin 

Bratt), who uses his shipping empire to 

smuggle drugs and weapons. The cops and 

AJ have to devise a plan to break into Pope’s 

computer without getting killed first. 

Movies may not write themselves, but the 

script to Ride Along 2 feels close to automatic: 

giant parties on yachts and in nightclubs, a car 

chase so rote it becomes its own computer 

game, confrontations and shootouts that 

even the characters note are pointless. 

You could say that the movie’s container 

shipyard explosions, crashes in parking 

garages and backyard chases are ironic 

takes on an earlier generation of low-budget 

action movies (like Ice Cube’s All About 

the Benjamins). Perhaps they’re an attempt 

to cash in on Universal’s Fast and Furious 

franchise (which explains Gibson’s bit part). 

Or maybe they’re just cheap, lazy shortcuts 

by filmmakers who think their viewers don’t 

deserve any better. 

Even Hart seems a bit second-rate here. 

His motormouth-coward shtick works best 

when it’s bouncing off a strong character. 

He’s great fighting Sherri Shepherd’s wedding 

planner, for example, but surprisingly 

less successful with the cold and remote Ice 

Cube. Benjamin Bratt, meanwhile, looks like 

he’s having fun sending up his crimelord role. 

Olivia Munn looks stiff and uncomfortable in 

a part that is almost completely humorless. 

Hart’s fans won’t mind about Ride Along 

2’s shortcomings, especially when he starts 

ranting about ringtones, or sharing Star Wars 

trivia with Jeong. Still, it would be nice to see 

him take a few chances instead of milking this 

kind of character dry. (Expect more of the 

same when he teams with Dwayne Johnson 

in Central Intelligence.) Until then, Ride Along 

2 has enough laughs, action and scenery to 

corner the market in escapist fluff. 


IP MAN 3 

WELL GO USA/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital/105 Mins./ 

Not Rated 

Cast: Donnie Yen, Zhang Jin, Lynn Xiong, Patrick Tam, 

Mike Tyson, Karena Ng, Kent Cheng, Leung Ka Yan, 

Louis Cheung, Danny Chan Kwok Kwan, Baby John 

Choi, Sarut Khanwilai. 


Directed by Wilson Yip Wai Shun. 

Screenplay: Edmond Won, Chan Tai Lee, 

Jil Leung Lay Yin. 

Produced by Raymond Wong. 

Director of photography: Tse Chung To. 

Production designer: Mak Kwok Keung. 

Editor: Cheung Ka Fai. 

Music: Kenji Kawai. 

Action director: Yuen Woo-Ping. 

Wing chun consultants: IpChing, Ip Chun. 

Costume designer: Lee Pik Kwan. 

Sound mixer: Wang Zhe. 

Visual effects supervisors: Leung Wai Man, Yee Kwon 

Leung, Garrett K. Lam. 

A Well Go USA presentation of a Pegasus Motion Pictures 

(Hong Kong) Ltd., My Pictures Studio, Dreams Salon 

Entertainment Culture Ltd. and Starbright Communications 

Limited production. 

In Cantonese with English subtitles. 

Martial-arts instructor faces new challenges 

in the latest biopic about the Hong 

Kong legend. Mike Tyson in a supporting role 

should spark some interest stateside. 

Known to genre 

fans as Bruce Lee’s 

teacher, Ip Man has 

become a sort of 

Wong Fei Hung for 

the 21st century, open 

to interpretations and Donnie Yen 

embroideries. This is 

the fifth Ip Man biopic to receive a U.S. release 

in the last decade. The addition of Mike 

Tyson to the cast should help it draw more 

attention than usual. 

If you’ve come this far in the Ip Man saga, 

you’ll be familiar with what happens in this 

episode. Ip, played by Donnie Yen, will try to 

juggle his domestic life with battling corruption 

and defending of his brand of kung fu. In 

the first Ip Man, he fought against Japanese 

invaders in China during World War II; Ip 

Man 2 found him tangling with British officials 

in Hong Kong. 

In Ip Man 3, the teacher has established a 

well-regarded training system based on wing 

chun, a defensive style of kung fu from his 

home province of Fushun. But Ip’s hard-won 

peace and prosperity are threatened when 

Ma (Patrick Tam), a gangster working for 

real-estate developers, tries to shut down 

the elementary school his son attends. Ip and 

his students guard the school day and night, 

upsetting the teacher’s wife Wing Sing (Lynn 

Xiong), who learns that she is suffering from 

incurable cancer. 

Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang Jin), a 

rickshaw driver who wants to open his own 

school of wing chun, teams with Ip to fight 

thugs hired by Ma. But it turns out that 

Cheung has ties with Ma, fighting in his illegal 

underground matches. 

When their boys are kidnapped, Ip and 

Cheung team up again, fighting Ma’s men in 

a shipyard. Ma escapes and takes a contract 

out on Ip’s life. The only way Ip can survive is 

to fight Frank. Cheung then challenges Ip to 

a match to determine whose brand of wing 

chun is the best. 

That’s a lot of fighting, choreographed 

this time by Yuen Woo-ping, famous for his 

work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and 

the Matrix trilogy. Earlier episodes were 

choreographed by Samo Hung, known for 

his quick, brutal blows and for orchestrating 

brawls with geometric precision. 

With their wirework and undercranking, 

the fights in Ip Man 3 feel more abstract than 

in the earlier movies. Yuen often freezes his 

fighters to show off their poses, and pays 

less attention to the physical realities of, for 

example, balancing on a scaffold. 

Ip’s fight with Frank is interesting but inconclusive. 

(Tyson does a credible job acting 

in an undemanding role, even delivering some 

lines in Cantonese.) Ip’s climactic fight with 

Cheung also demonstrates the performers’ 

expertise with Butterfly Swords and Dragon 

Poles. (A rising action star in China, Max 

Zhang Lin played a villain in Wong Kar Wai’s 

The Grandmaster.) 

The best action in Ip Man 3 occurs as Ip 

is escorting his wife from a doctor’s office. 

As they enter a small elevator, they are attacked 

by a Muay Thai fighter played by Sarut 

Khanwilai. The confined space and restricted 

movements give viewers a good idea of just 

how difficult it is to execute each thrust and 

parry. When the fight spills into a stairwell, 

Yuen switches to an overhead camera that 

descends with the performers, highlighting 

their grace, ingenuity and remarkable repertoire 

of moves. 

Yen, now 51, has hinted that this might be 

his last full-out action movie. More a screen 

presence than a performer, he still adds a 

quiet dignity to Ip Man 3’s battles. 


THE CLUB 

MUSIC BOX FILMS/Color/2.35/98 Mins./Not Rated 

Cast: Alfredo Castro, Roberto Farías, Antonia Zegers, 

Jaime Vadell, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, 

Marcelo Alonso, José Soza, Francisco Reyes. 

Directed by Pablo Larraín. 

Screenplay: Guillermo Calderón, Daniel Villalobos, Pablo 

Larraín. 

Produced by Juan de Dios Larraín. 

Executive producers: Rocio Jadue, Juan Ignacio Correa, 

Mariane Hartard. 

Director of photography: Sergio Armstrong. 

Production designer/costume designer: Estefania Larraín. 

Editor: Sebastián Sepúlveda. 

A Fabula production. 

In Spanish with English subtitles. 

From the director of No, this drama about 

pedophile priests replaces the depiction 

of ethical and moral dilemmas with all the 

details one might hear on a daytime reality 

show. 

Pablo Larraín’s latest narrative feature, The 

Club, is about four defrocked, pedophile 

priests, and Father Ortega (Alejandro Goic), 

whose sin was his participation in a Chilean 

adoption ring that stole newborns from 

unwed mothers. Ortega is inspired by the 

real-life Father Gerardo Joannan, who comforted 

the mothers by saying Mass for their 

“stillborn” infants. Largely impenitent, the 

priests live together in a remote coastal town 

in Chile, and are kept in check by a creepy 

former nun, Sister Mónica (Antonia Zegers, 

Larraín’s wife). Their confinement in the 

house, equipped with a chapel and supported 

by the Catholic Church, is penance for their 

past transgressions. 

The priests celebrate Mass twice a day, 

sing hymns, and in their brief hour of freedom 

walk an abandoned stretch of beach. Sister 

Mónica, who may or may not be an innocent 

victim of wrongdoing, and the five priests also 

race a prize-winning greyhound. The money 

they garner from betting on it has built a nest 

egg for the day when they believe the Church 

will abandon them. After Larraín lays out the 

pattern of life in the house, a new priest joins 

the group, one somebody in town recognizes. 

Soon, and predictably, a Vatican representative 

arrives, a psychologist, who is to decide 

the final fate of the priests. It is through 

Father Lazcano’s interviews with the five men 

that we learn in graphic detail the nature of 

their crimes. 

Like the Chilean writer-director’s 

other crime films, Tony Manero (2008) and 

Post Mortem (2010), The Club is fueled by a 

fascination with psychopaths, although here 

Larraín adds the minutiae audiences get from 

daytime reality shows. Tony Manero and Post 

Mortem are the first two entries in a trilogy 

set in Pinochet-era Chile that concluded with 

No (2012), about the plebiscite that removed 

the dictator from power. With the exception 

of No, Larraín’s movies are atmospheric and 

deeply disturbing dramas, not unlike his first, 

Fuga (Fugue, 2006), which is about a talented 

composer’s psychological breakdown. In 

The Club, Larraín imagines the broad sweep 

of the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal 

largely from the point of view of the priests, 

although he maps, in part, the Vatican’s response 

in the actions of Father Lazcano (José 

Soza, who appeared in Fuga). 

Similarly, in Post Mortem, the explosive 

events that ended Salvador Allende’s life and 

his legally elected government, unfold from 

the point of view of a morgue attendant who 

knows only that there will be no room for all 

of the dead. His indifference to the overcrowding 

and to the cover-up he witnesses 

of Allende’s murder is a foreshadowing of the 

brutality of Pinochet’s rule. None of Larraín’s 

protagonists and supporting characters in the 

crime dramas is sympathetic; on the contrary, 

they are mostly rebarbative, so while his 

well-crafted movies may be seen as character 

studies, what the viewer takes away is the 

vapid, soulless center of a psychotic personality—in 

The Club, that of each of the priests. 

Larraín’s crime movies are not to be mistaken 

for parables—they are far too linear and 

austere, and they lack a moral high ground. 


Larraín simply fashions, as he does in The 

Club, a portrait of depravity in which condemnation 

is meaningless. While audiences might 

accept that circumstance and the writer-director’s 

resulting nihilism in his illustrations of 

Pinochet-era Chile, they will be hard-pressed 

to accept it in a movie about the Catholic 

Church’s decisions with regard to men who 

raped children. In choosing the microcosm, 

a few priests to represent the many, and one 

briefly despairing Vatican cleric, Larraín is not 

compelled to background the events, to depict 

complexity or nuance, or even the longstanding 

internal strife in the Church over 

what to do with pedophiles. In many ways, 

this mirrors medical science’s debate in the 

last half of the 20th century over the nature 

of male homosexuality and the psychopathology 

of child rapists. 

Larraín’s indictment of the institutional 

Church in The Club is deserved and apt, but it 

is accompanied by some simplistic conclusions, 

and a leering interest in the priests’ 

sexual habits, rather than the violent core of 

their personalities. In Father Lazcano’s troubling 

interviews with Father Vidal (Larraín 

regular Alfredo Castro), the defrocked priest 

rather unconvincingly argues for the sanctity 

of homosexual lovemaking. In doing so, he 

appears to celebrate both his sexual orientation 

and the indefensible, incurable illness of 

pedophilia. In the eyes of the Church, Father 

Vidal sins on both counts, but in reality his 

homosexuality is distinct from his criminal 

behavior, from his domination and torture of 

children. While Larraín touches upon Father 

Ortega’s misogyny, there is a notable absence 

in the film of heterosexual pedophile priests. 

Had The Club been about the dilemma 

Church authorities confronted, and myopically 

avoided with a cover-up, then Father 

Lazcano’s actions might serve as an object 

lesson, and the film a parable about institutional 

wrongdoing. When the cleric discovers 

the depths of the scandal, and confronts his 

own tenuous position at the Vatican should it 

become widely known, he saves his own skin. 

Everybody is tainted in The Club. In Larraín’s 

dystopia, excess is the primary means of expression. 

Sandokan (Roberto Farías), a local 

fisherman and a stand-in for the priests’ victims, 

is just one example. A defining scene unfolds 

early in the film in which the fisherman, 

though admiring of a naked young woman, is 

unable to consummate his desire for her; his 

sexuality is confused, and the woman senses 

it, as well as the potential for violence in 

that circumstance. Rather than trusting this 

portrait of a victim of child rape, Larraín later 

provides Sandokan with a heap of psychological 

maladies, and the admission that he wants 

to be cared for by priests because the priest 

who raped him was his first love. 

Sandokan loudly recounts his victimization 

throughout the movie, threatening 

the house’s anonymity. Larraín apparently 

views him as a Christ figure, but because the 

screenwriters fail to place their story in an archetypal 

context, the miserable drunk is simply 

a stereotypical victim in a debauched and 

indifferent universe. The Club’s melodramatic 

conclusion, involving Sandokan as the center 

of an arcane Biblical ritual, accompanied by 

Arvo Part’s relentless score, would be farcical 

if the movie possessed any moral complexity 

or authority. It does not, leaving one to wish 

for the deft hand of Luis Buñuel—or perhaps 

for the appearance of Vincent Price and the 

unfolding of an old-fashioned horror movie. 

(House on Haunted Hill is better title for Larraín’s 

movie.) There, the docile greyhounds 

would exact revenge in true Biblical fashion, 

as the hounds of hell. —Maria Garcia 

MOJAVE 

A24/Color/2.35/93 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac, Louise Bourgoin, 

Walton Goggins, Mark Wahlberg. 

Written and directed by William Monahan. 

Produced by William Green, William Monahan, Justine 

Suzanne Jones, Aaron L. Ginsburg. 

Executive producers: Andy Horwitz, Nick Quested, Jason 

Spire. 

Director of photography: Don Davis. 

Production designer: Robb Buono. 

Editor: John David Allen. 

Costume designer: Arielle Antoine. 

Music: Andrew Hewitt. 

An Atlas Independent, Henceforth Pictures and MICA 

Entertainment production. 

Oscar Isaac’s over-the-top performance 

as a menacing drifter can’t save this turgid 

neo-noir western. 

Mojave’s premise 

sounds like the set-up 

for a joke: A movie 

star walks into the 

desert, where he’s 

greeted at his campfire 

by a drifter pretending Garrett Hedlund 

to be the Devil. Unfortunately, 

The Departed screenwriter William 

Monahan’s latest–which he both wrote and 

directed–is a laugher only in unintentional 

ways, affecting an air of self-seriousness that’s 

so crushing as to be embarrassing. Stuffing 

its players full of Shakespearean quotes as it 

wrestles with existential questions that are 

only used as embellishments for an empty 

narrative, it’s an aimless film that, like its 

protagonists, searches blindly for itself, only 

to come up empty-handed. 

The celebrity at the center of this fauxphilosophical 

neo-noir western is Tom (Garrett 

Hedlund), who’s introduced on video 

lamenting the fact that he’s been famous since 

he was 19. With shaggy hair, a scruffy goatee, 

and a deep, laid-back voice that exudes both 

world-weariness and a devil-may-care arrogance, 

Tom heads out into the Mojave Desert 

to get away from it all, only to promptly crash 

his jeep (a rental from his newest movie). At 

a campfire shortly thereafter, he’s greeted 

by Jack (Oscar Isaac), a rifle-wielding man of 

mystery in a cowboy hat and duster jacket 

whose menacing demeanor is matched by his 

habit of discussing “To be or not to be” as 

the fundamental issue of all men, and to state 

that he’s less fond of Moby-Dick than the Bard 

because “I’m into motiveless malignity.” 

Jack naturally doesn’t trust Tom, and 

after a violent scuffle, Tom winds up retreating 

to a cave where he accidentally kills an 

innocent lawman. This propels him back 

to his miserable Hollywood life, where he 

continues to sleep with a budding actress 

(Louise Bourgoin)–his wife and child have 

left him for London–and have meaningless 

exchanges with his lawyer (Walton Goggins) 

and producer (Mark Wahlberg), both of 

whom speak in the same sort of overenunciated 

Tarantino-esque patois. Those 

two figures are Mojave’s main means of 

poking fun at Hollywood extravagance, but 

Monahan’s dialogue is too affected, and his 

visuals are too blandly austere, to generate 

any sort of satirical electricity. Instead, the 

film putters along at a pace that’s meant to 

suggest hallucinatory dreaminess but comes 

across as merely somnambulant. 

By the time the proceedings get around 

to again pitting Tom and Jack against each 

other in the desert–this after Jack has spent 

the better part of the film tracking Tom 

through his ennui-infected life of luxury–the 

script’s talk of man’s “duality” and “infinite 

complexities” feels strained to the point 

of pretentiousness. Amplifying that mood 

is Hedlund’s monotonous brooding, which 

makes him seem like the most full-of-himself 

bore to ever make it big in L.A. Isaac fares 

better as a man of ill-defined malevolence, if 

only because the actor’s charismatic overacting 

helps sell what amounts to an underwritten 

part. However, stuck quoting literary 

giants at regular intervals, as well as referring 

to Hedlund as “brother” like some evil latterday 

Hulk Hogan, Isaac is ultimately a victim of 

material that plays like a pulpy put-on. 

—Nick Schager 

NORM OF THE NORTH 

LIONSGATE/Color/1.85/86 Mins./Rated PG 

Voice Cast: Rob Schneider, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong, 

Colm Meaney, Bill Nighy, Loretta Devine, Gabriel 

Iglesias, Michael McElhatton, Maya Kay. 

Directed by Trevor Wall. 

Screenplay: Malcolm T. Goldman, Steven M. Altiere, 

Daniel R. Altiere. 

Produced by Nicolas Atlan, Liz Young, Mike Young, Steven 

Rosen, Ken Katsumoto, Jack Donaldson, Derek Elliott. 

Executive producers: Max Madhavan, Paul Cummins, 

Noah Fogelson, Kamal Khanna, Daniel Engelhardt, 

Silvio Astarita, Shi Wen, Han Tao, Xia Xiao Ping. 

Co-producers: Steven M. Altiere, Daniel R. Altiere. 

Head of story: Tim Maltby. 

Music: Stephen McKeon. 

Editor: Richard Finn. 

A Lionsgate presentation, in association with Splash Entertainment, 

Assemblage Entertainment and Telegael, 

of a Splash Entertainment/Lionsgate production. 

FEBRUARY 2016 


Often ridiculous but mostly harmless kiddie 

fare that tends to go for lowbrow humor 

while preaching an overused ecological 

message. 

It’s hard to fathom why anyone would want 

to go outside during the cold, freezing month 

of January to watch a movie about a dancing 

polar bear other than the fact it may be the 

only way to get their bored kids out of the 

house over a long holiday weekend. Previous 

family hits like Snow Dogs and Eight Below have 

proven this to be the case. 

Granted, not every animated movie can 

deliver quality on the caliber of Disney or 

Pixar or other proven animation houses. 

Most of the better houses take their product 

and their viewers seriously enough to treat 

their films with the same level of skill and expertise 

as the directors of live-action movies, 

especially when it comes to story. 

And then you have Norm of the North, 

clearly the vision of a producer who realized 

what easy marks young kids can be, knowing 

that neither they nor their parents will be 

aware how long Norm of the North has been 

shuffled around the release schedule, the last 

delay being for over a year. 

Animated movies do take time to get 

made, but it doesn’t seem like that extra time 

has been used to make Norm of the North 

better. The title character of Norm is a polar 

bear voiced by once semi-relevant Adam 

Sandler sideman Rob Schneider, who has figured 

out he can talk directly to humans while 

entertaining them with his dance moves. 

After his grandfather, the King of the Arctic 

(voiced by Colm Meaney) disappears, greedy 

developer Mr. Greene (Ken Jeong) wants to 

build condos on their land, forcing Norm to 

travel to New York where he pretends to 

be an actor in a bear costume to infiltrate 

the villainous Greene’s operation in order to 

stop him. 

Beyond how ridiculous and even confusing 

that plot might seem at times, when all 

else fails Norm of the North relies on formula 

and the lowest-brow bathroom humor, essentially 

treating its pre-pubescent audience 

as if they aren’t cultured or smart enough 

to want more from their animated movies. 

Granted, some of the jokes and references 

will go above their younger heads, but one 

still hopes kids these days are smart enough 

to know when they’re being patronized to. 

Norm of the North even has its own 

version of the Minions or the lemurs from 

the Madagascar movies in the form of “lemmings,” 

similarly adorable creatures there to 

help Norm in his adventure. When not acting 

cute, they’re responsible for the worst cases 

of potty humor in the form of constant flatulence 

and inopportune urination. Otherwise, 

there are too many strange characters introduced 

too quickly, mostly voiced by a fairly 

low-rent cast, other than possibly Bill Nighy 

as a gull psychologist named Socrates. 

Norm of the North does have a few saving 

graces, one of them being the Heather 

Graham-voiced Vera Brightley, the main marketing 

person for the crooked Greene, who 

is mainly concerned with getting her smart 

daughter Olympia (Maya Kaye) into a better 

school. For some reason, this seems like a far 

more relevant topic to parents and kids than 

the film’s weak attempt at preaching ecological 

responsibility to the most impressionable 

young kids. (With a better education, they 

can learn this stuff from better teachers than 

a goofy animated movie.) 

Also in the film’s favor, Norm’s trademark 

Arctic Shake dance moves are accompanied by 

catchy dance-pop tunes by the likes of Walk 

the Moon and Sheppard, which offer better 

entertainment value than most of the jokes. 

In other words, Norm of the North may 

be just fine for the youngest of kids, at least 

to try to get them out of the house, but for 

anyone over a certain age or IQ, it’s likely to 

be fairly mind-numbing. —Edward Douglas 

THE CLAN 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital/ 

108 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzini, Lili Popovich, 

Gastón Cocchiarale, Giselle Motta, Franco Masini, 

Antonia Bengoechea, Stefania Koessl. 

Directed by Pablo Trapero. 

Screenplay: Pablo Trapero, Esteban Student, Julian 

Loyola. 

Produced by Hugo Sigman, Matias Mosteirin, Agustin 

Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Ester Garcia, Pablo 

Trapero. 

Executive producers: Pola Zito, Leticia Cristi. 

Director of photography: Julián Apezteguia. 

Production designer: Sebastián Orgambide. 

Editors: Pablo Trapero, Alejandro Carrillo Penovi. 

Music: Sebastián Escofet. 

Costume designer: Julio Suárez. 

A Kramer & Sigman Films, Matanza Cine and El Deseo 

production, in co-production with Telefe and Telefonica 

Studios. 

In Spanish with English subtitles. 

Based on a sensational crime story from 

1980s Argentina, in which a former intelligence 

officer uses his skill to supplement 

the family income. Director Pablo Trapero, 

best-known for Lion’s Den and Carancho, was 

awarded the Silver Lion for best direction at 

the 2015 Venice Film Festival. 

Pablo Trapero’s The Clan is ostensibly a 

true crime drama, based on the lives of the 

late Arquimedes Puccio and his family, who 

lived in a northern suburb of Buenos Aires, 

Argentina. It has been 30 years since Puccio, 

his sons Alejandro and Daniel, and three 

unrelated accomplices were convicted and 

jailed for kidnapping and murder. Despite the 

lapse of time, this criminal ring still captures 

the popular imagination in Argentina. Puccio 

was a former member of the country’s 

intelligence agency during the seven years of 

military dictatorship that preceded democratic 

elections in 1983. An estimated 30,000 

Argentinians “disappeared” in that government’s 

“Dirty War.” Between 1983 and 1985, 

some of Puccio’s associates were still around, 

and the ring pursued their grim undertaking 

with impunity. 

Puccio abducted four wealthy victims, 

and held three for ransom in a basement 

room in his home in San Isidro, where presumably 

his wife and four children could hear 

their arrival, and their later cries of distress. 

Trapero chronicles the fate of all four in The 

Clan, beginning with the first, a member of 

Alejandro’s rugby team. Alejandro (Peter 

Lanzani) entraps him, thinking that his father 

(Guillermo Francella) will simply collect the 

ransom. Little is known about the roles family 

members played in the crimes, but Trapero 

hints at various levels of involvement and 

awareness. For instance, Epifanio (Lili Popovich), 

Puccio’s wife, cooks for her family and, 

as Trapero suggests in the opening scene, 

presumably prepared meals for the victims. 

The eldest daughter, a teenager, admits to 

Alejandro that she hears the cries of at least 

one victim. 

All the Puccios benefitted from the 

ransom money, especially Alejandro, who at 

one point in the film is paid cash by Puccio 

for his participation in a kidnapping. While 

Alejandro and Daniel received jail terms 

along with their father, as they do in The 

Clan, Epifanio and her two daughters were 

released. In real life, Alejandro died while on 

parole, the eldest daughter died from cancer, 

and Daniel disappeared after his release. The 

youngest daughter, who is now in her 40s, is 

often referred to as “the innocent” on TV 

news shows in Argentina. She lives with her 

mother in the family home in San Isidro. 

In the movie, Alejandro is portrayed 

as living in fear of his psychopathic father. 

Trapero depicts their relationship with great 

authenticity, painting Puccio as a masterful 

manipulator. He tells Alejandro that it is his 

money and influence that landed him on the 

country’s rugby team. Whether this is the 

case, or simply hyperbole on Puccio’s part, 

it has the desired effect: Initially, Alejandro 

abandons his marriage plans and bends to 

his father’s will. At first, the film’s political 

overtones are unmistakable, the crimes 

harkening back to the Dirty War, yet for 

international audiences the movie remains 

a crime story, and in that genre, Trapero’s 

characterization of Puccio is too lean. Except 

for his unconvincing Mafia don diatribe at the 

beginning of The Clan, about the importance 

of family, the film consistently fails to explain 

why Puccio turns to kidnapping. Rather than 

the psychological thriller one might expect, 

The Clan is a senseless and sanguinary depiction 

of criminal behavior. 

Trapero’s previous film to receive U.S. 

distribution, Carancho (2011), is a vivid portrayal 

of institutionalized fraud in Argentina 

through the story of a lawyer who steals his 


clients’ insurance benefits. The flaw in that 

screenplay is similar to the one in The Clan: 

Sosa (Ricardo Darín), the main character, 

lacks a backstory and a motive for his crimes. 

Like The Clan, many of Trapero’s films are 

set in Buenos Aires, including El Bonaerense 

(2002), named for the inhabitants of the 

city, Carancho (“Vulture,” 2010), and White 

Elephant (2012), the latter about priests who 

work in the barrio. If Trapero’s screenplays 

are wanting, his visual style is not. He is a 

meticulous filmmaker whose framing and use 

of sound are often brilliant. 

In The Clan, the music, sometimes mixed 

at an earsplitting volume, louder than the 

underlying dialogue, is of a bygone era, and 

possesses an air of indifference, or signals 

the breakdown of social norms. Trapero’s 

use of “Just a Gigolo” is one example, not a 

song that would immediately come to mind 

for a movie like The Clan, but in the lyrics 

the gigolo bemoans the “part I am playing.” 

Certainly, kidnapping is a “part,” albeit a 

diminuition of Puccio’s previous government 

position. More significant is the fact that 

Puccio and the gigolo are signs of cultural 

dissolution. The family business relied on the 

complicity of corrupt local authorities, and 

on the apathy or inertia of neighbors who 

claimed not to know. 

“Clan stories,” fueled by a belief in the 

impossibility of escape, find their greatest 

expression at the movies, where one fivesecond 

close-up of Puccio’s blank stare yields 

film memories of dozens of “dons,” allowing 

filmmakers to skip characterization and complex 

plots. As long as viewers do not expect 

the Trapero of El Bonaerense, where virtuoso 

filmmaking was matched by content, The Clan 

can be appreciated for Lanzani’s performance 

as Alejandro and, in a smaller role, Popovich 

as Puccio’s wife. Francella (The Secret in Their 

Eyes) possesses a certain screen presence, but 

it is not from a talent for acting. Rather than 

true crime, or the film noir style of Carancho, 

The Clan takes its inspiration from gangster 

films where the blood flows more easily than 

the dialogue, and film editing, for instance, 

can consist of crosscutting a sex scene with 

a kidnapping. Apparently, Trapero liked the 

similarity of the groans. 

—Maria Garcia 

THE BENEFACTOR 

SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS/Color/2.35/92 Mins./ 

Not Rated 

Cast: Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James, Dylan 

Baker, Cheryl Hines, Clarke Peters. 

Written and directed by Andrew Renzi. 

Produced by Kevin Turen, Jason Michael Berman, Jay 

Schuminsky, Thomas B. Fore. 

Executive producers: Michael Finley, Ruth Mutch, Walter 

Kortschak, Justin Nappi, Richard Loughran, Shelley 

Browning, Michael Diamond, George Paaswell, Andrew 

Corkin, John Friedberg, Mark Moran. 

Co-producers: Brett Potter, Andrew Kortschak. 

Director of photography: Joe Anderson. 

Production designer: Ethan Tobman. 

Editors: Dean Marcial, Matthew Rundell. 

Music: Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans. 

Costume designer: Malgosia Turzanska. 

A Celerity Pictures and TideRock Media presentation, in 

association with Treehouse Pictures, Follow Through 

Prods., Soaring Flight Prods., Audax Films and Magnolia 

Entertainment. 

Richard Gere camps it up as a guilt- and 

drug-riddled, reality-resistant millionaire 

trying to buy himself a family in this intriguing 

but dramatically uneven drama. 

Nobody would deny the right of Franny 

(Richard Gere) to have himself a good long 

wallow. At the beginning of Andrew Renzi’s 

The Benefactor, a good-hearted if not quite 

finished-seeming story, Franny is the apotheosis 

of the devil-may-care rich guy. He’s 

using his millions to build a new children’s 

hospital in Philadelphia and celebrating that 

do-gooder high (as well as an actual high) 

with his married best friends from college, 

Bobby (Dylan Baker) and Mia (Cheryl Hines). 

One calamitous accident later, he’s lost them 

both. Franny’s only connection to Bobby and 

Mia, their teenage daughter Olivia (Dakota 

Fanning), cuts him off. Again, a deep dive into 

depression would be expected. 

But by the time the story catches up 

with Franny, five years have passed. He’s 

transitioned from over-exuberant millionaire 

with too much time on his hands to bearded 

Howard Hughes-ian shut-in living on liquid 

morphine cocktails and self-pity. Then, Olivia 

calls. She’s pregnant and has a steady guy, an 

earnest young doctor, Luke (Theo James). 

Olivia wants to reconnect with her eccentric 

old pseudo-uncle, as he’s the closest thing to 

family she has left. 

Franny’s transformation is electric. He 

throws the windows open, cuts his shaggy 

locks, dresses in eccentric millionaire casual 

(scarves and canes are key), and holds a 

soiree to announce that he’s bringing on Luke 

as the newest doctor at the hospital. Not one 

for small measures, Franny also buys the couple 

her parents’ beautiful old country home 

and pays off Luke’s student loans. He throws 

windfall after windfall at the overwhelmed 

pair, desperately trying to recreate the glowing 

synergy he had with Olivia’s parents. But 

not only can money not buy happiness, it also 

can’t buy friends and family, no matter how 

much cash Franny flings around. 

Initially, The Benefactor presents as the 

slightly sad-sack story of a man who’s had 

very few genuine relationships in his life trying 

to buy some before it’s too late for him. 

Renzi’s inspiration for this personal prison of 

entitlement was apparently John du Pont, also 

the basis for Foxcatcher. Although the performances 

don’t quite deliver, on paper Renzi’s 

script is a psychologically astute portrait of 

showy insecurity and neediness—Franny 

always has to be the life of the party, even 

when there is nothing remotely like a party 

going on—twinned with a stinging, bullying 

cruelty that flashes out whenever he’s not 

getting exactly what he wants. 

That leaves Olivia and Luke uncomfortably 

stuck. Although their cramped apartment 

shows that they obviously wouldn’t 

mind having a little cash and good fortune, 

the price gets steeper and steeper. Luke is 

especially caught in the middle, with Franny 

grooming him via gifts and undue amounts 

of praise to be his next best buddy, the reincarnation 

of Bobby. Luke’s initial discomfort 

at his new role is well suited for a performer 

like James, whose resting state is usually an 

annoyed glower. 

Gere amps up everything to match 

the intensity required for Franny’s deeply 

rooted self-loathing and petulant craving 

for affirmation. “I always wanted everybody 

to love me,” he admits in a rare moment of 

self-awareness. This works in small doses, 

like the ones where Franny visits the sick 

children at the hospital, imagining that his 

immaturity makes him a natural Patch Adams 

figure. It’s ultimately a shallow performance, 

though, and makes you wish that a more 

truly rascally actor like Bill Murray could 

have brought it to life. 

That lack of depth becomes more acute 

once the story pushes into the darker 

territory of Franny’s addictions. All the right 

phrases and scenes are trotted out (“I’m not 

a drug addict,” Franny pleads at one moment 

before threatening the job of a doctor who 

won’t refill his prescription), but they feel 

stock and merely bolted onto an entirely 

different story. Worse, the addiction plotline 

further distances an already mostly absent 

Olivia from the film. Although the opening 

scenes would have had you think that her 

relationship with Franny was the heart 

of this story, Renzi neglects her for long 

stretches of time. 

The Benefactor has the right materials 

here. It’s a neatly developed dramatic triangle 

embedded with guilt, money, power and 

longing. But it’s an off-kilter film that leaves 

too many promising elements behind to make 

room for more capering and raging from 

Gere. Less would have been much more. 

—Chris Barsanti 

TUMBLEDOWN 

STARZ DIGITAL/Color/2.35/103 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Jason Sudeikis, Dianna Agron, Blythe 

Danner, Griffin Dunne, Joe Manganiello, Richard 

Masur. 

Directed by Sean Mewshaw. 

Screenplay: Desi van Til. 

Produced by Kristin Hahn, Aaron L. Gilbert, Margot 

Hand. 

Executive producers: Desi van Til, Mark Roberts, Sheldon 

Rabinowitz, Ross Jacobson, Jason Cloth, Alan Simpson, 

Jeff Uhl, Kelly Morel, John Raymonds. 

Director of photography: Seamus Tierney, 

Production designer: Jane Ann Stewart. 

Editor: Sandra Adair, Suzy Elmiger. 

Music: Damien Jurado, Daniel Hart. 

Costume designer: Amela Baksic. 

An Echo Films, Bron Studios and Hahnscape production, 

in association with Rusticator Pictures. 

FEBRUARY 2016 


How bad do the moviemakers want us to 

feel about a recently dead “artiste” in this 

contrived, annoying and pretentious bore? 

Very bad. 

There could not be a worse time to release 

Tumbledown than now, what with the recent 

devastatingly sad loss of David Bowie. He was 

a true artist, whose death touched at least 

a couple of generations in a real and stinging 

way, and who went out in a rare blaze of 

glory with his final album and the magnificent 

play Lazarus, which both redefined and 

redeemed the concept of the “jukebox” musical. 

Next to this, the concerns of Tumbledown, 

about the “tragedy” of a one-hit-wonder folksinger-songwriter’s 

death and the rush to immortalize 

him by his grieving widow (Rebecca 

Hall) and the eager-beaver Hofstra literature 

professor (Jason Sudeikis) who comes to her 

Maine town to research his biography (and, 

of course, fall in love with her), seem piddling 

indeed, not to mention downright obnoxious. 

The basic setup is similar to that of 

Keeper of the Flame, one of George Cukor’s 

lesser, garishly Gothic efforts, in which 

reporter Spencer Tracy tries to track down 

the truth about the late husband of an affectedly 

mournful Katharine Hepburn, a great 

political figure and thinker who turns out to 

be a secret Fascist. In Tumbledown, we never 

see the greatly fussed-about genius, Hunter 

Miles, who perished in a mountain fall, but 

are meant to glean his genius through the 

whining, droningly insipid songs (by Damien 

Jurado) we hear bleating away at regular 

intervals. “Small loss” is all you can think, 

impiously, throughout the film’s contrived 

progress and annoyingly hushed and reverent 

ambiance. 

Writer-director Sean Mewshaw’s script is 

littered with “deep thoughts,” as when he has 

his heroine intone while watching a grizzly 

bear root through garbage, “You spend your 

whole life trying not to die in some way or 

another, and then something terrible happens 

to someone, and you wish it was you.” 

Hall, with her lanky, melancholy beauty, 

like a pre-Raphaelite Olive Oyl, can be a 

decent actress, as she proved in Woody Allen’s 

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but comes across 

as narcissistic and grievingly faux-deep in her 

too casually chic Ralph Lauren-ish “rural” 

ensembles. (It is revealed that she has a PhD 

from Brown and even wrote a book herself, 

Renascence and Renewal: Seasonal Motifs in the 

Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, typical of the 

movie’s embarrassing literary strain.) Sudeikis 

has zero opportunity to display the comic 

flair and invention from his “Saturday Night 

Live” stint–rare that someone so conventionally 

handsome can be so funny–and is further 

weighted down by impossible lines like “I’m 

rescuing you. Hunter was an amazing guy, but 

all I see is the girl he wrote his best songs 

about, and I love the shit out of her.” 

Joe Manganiello as a dimwitted macho 

suitor of Hall’s (his typecasting must get him 

down), Griffin Dunne as her elfin small-town 

newspaper editor, and Blythe Danner, doing 

some kind of weird overbearing Jewish mother 

shtick, try to enliven things. They all fail. 

—David Noh 

RAMS 

COHEN MEDIA GROUP/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital/93 

Mins./Not Rated 

Cast: Sigurdur Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte 

Böving, Jón Benónýsson, Gudrún Siburbjörnsdóttir, 

Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarssonm, Jörundur Ragnarsson, 

Porleifur Einarsson. 

Written and directed by Grímur Hákonarson. 

Produced by Grímar Jónsson. 

Executive producers: Thor Sigurjónsson, Alan R. Milligan, 

Tom Kjeseth, Eliza Oczkowska, Klaudia Smieja. 

Co-producers: Jacob Jarek, Ditte Milsted. 

Director of photography: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen. 

Editor: Kristján Lodmfjörd. 

Production designer: Bjarni Massi Sigurbjörnsson. 

Music: Alti Örvarsson. 

Sound mixers: Björn Viktorsson, Pétur Einarsson. 

Sound design: Huldar Freyr Arnarson, Björn Viktorsson. 

A Netop Films production, in co-production with Profile 

Pictures, in association with Film Farms and Aeroplan 

Film, in collaboration with Act3, Askja Films, 

Hljodgardur, Red Rental and Trickshot. 

In Icelandic with English subtitles. 

Scrapie, a contagious, incurable disease, 

threatens sheep farmers in a remote Icelandic 

valley. Low-key drama won the Prize Un 

Certain Regard at the 2015 Cannes Films 

Festival. 

Shot with documentary precision, Rams 

examines estranged brothers who live on 

adjoining farms in rural Iceland. What starts 

as a slice of deadpan Scandinavian miserabilism 

turns into something much darker by 

the movie’s end. A critical favorite at Cannes, 

where it won the Prize Un Certain Regard, 

Rams will find an art-house audience among 

fans of Roy Andersson and Per Petterson. 

Writer-director Grímur Hákonarson focuses 

first on Gummi (Sigurdur Sigurjónsson), 

an elderly, taciturn sheep rancher whose life 

seems completely circumscribed by his farm. 

It’s not until his ram Garpur loses in a local 

contest that we learn that Gummi’s brother 

Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson) lives right next door. 

For reasons that emerge slowly, Gummi 

and Kiddi haven’t spoken for 40 years. (They 

communicate through notes carried by Kiddi’s 

dog, Somi.) So when Gummi finds possible evidence 

of scrapie in Kiddi’s flock, the brothers 

are not in the condition to handle the news. 

Highly contagious, scrapie attacks the 

brain and nervous system of sheep. Since 

there is no cure, the only alternative is to kill 

all of the stock, dismantle and disinfect their 

stalls, and wait two years to start again. 

Although the government compensates 

the farmers for their livestock and equipment, 

many are unwilling to continue raising 

sheep, and elect to leave the valley. Kiddi 

refuses to cooperate at all, instead drinking 

himself into stupors before passing out in 

subzero temperatures. Gummi at first appears 

to go along with authorities, but he has 

a secret that will force the brothers to face 

each other and their future. 

Hákonarson’s vision is strict and exact. 

He isolates his characters in Iceland’s beautiful 

but unforgiving landscape, placing them 

alone in rough meadows under a glowering 

sky. Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s camera is as 

shy and defensive as the characters, who have 

trouble speaking or even making eye contact. 

Day-to-day details—cooking, washing, 

mending fences—make up much of 

the movie. Life on a remote sheep ranch is 

exotic enough to make Rams easy to watch, 

although the spare narrative ultimately becomes 

trying. Both leads are powerful actors 

completely at ease with both their charges 

and the emotional demands of the story. 

Rams might have made more sense 

as a short than a feature, especially since 

Hákonarson intentionally avoids overtly dramatic 

situations until it is too late to help anyone. 

That his dour, bleak outlook is perfectly 

appropriate for his story doesn’t make it any 

easier to watch. 


BAND OF ROBBERS 

GRAVITAS VENTURES/Color/2.35/95 Mins./Not Rated 

Cast: Kyle Gallner, Adam Nee, Matthew Gray Gubler, 

Hannibal Buress, Melissa Benoist, Daniel Edward 

Mora, Stephen Lang, Eric Christian Olsen, Johnny 

Pemberton, Beth Grant, Cooper Huckabee, Lee 

Garlington, Creed Bratton. 

Written, directed and edited by Aaron Nee, Adam Nee. 

Produced by John Will, Rick Rosenthal, Matt Ratner, 

Arun Kumar. 

Director of photography: Noah Rosenthal. 

Production designer: Rodrigo Cabral. 

Music: Joel West. 

Costume designer: Autumn Steed. 

A Torn Sky Entertainment and Whitewater Films production, 

in association with Blacklist Digital, Lola’s 

Prods. and Tilted Windmill Prods. 

Inspired by the most celebrated works of 

Mark Twain, this sprightly and very funny caper 

film–which is also an affecting meditation 

on friendship and the pain of growing up–is 

surprisingly engaging. 

A good yarn is a good yarn, and there have 

been endless adaptations, in every conceivable 

medium, of Mark Twain’s Adventures of 

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Writerdirectors 

Aaron and Adam Nee’s Band of Robbers 

is the latest, much more of an “inspired 

by” effort than a literal screen transferral, but 

it’s so damn fresh and entertaining it practically 

feels like the first one. 

Here, Tom (Adam Nee) and Huck (Kyle 

Gallner) are small-town close friends from 

childhood, except in adulthood they have 

trodden very different paths. Huck has just 


een released from prison, while Tom is a 

rookie policeman, stuck in the hell of issuing 

motorists tickets. Huck wants to stay 

straight and hopefully create the family he 

never had for himself, but Tom is obsessed 

with finding a local mythical treasure they’ve 

known about for years. He also drags poor 

Huck into his wacky, half-baked scheme to 

form a band of thieving-from-the-rich Merry 

Men, comprised of the two of them and three 

other none-too-bright but ingratiating pals 

who all too easily bear the telling label of 

“manchild.” Their aim is to find that gold mine 

by any means necessary, but they run afoul of 

the very scary Injun Joe (Stephen Lang), who 

soon enough is terrifyingly on their trail. 

The Nee brothers confidently sets up a 

very wry and dry comic tone from the first 

frame, and I found myself chuckling over the 

many deadpan comic moments–like those 

involving Huck and his overly religious, bigoted 

old witch of a landlady–and then falling 

in love with the characters. That happened 

for me during the scene in which Tom holds 

the first meeting of his band in the “mancave” 

–i.e., the basement of one member’s house, 

overseen by his sullen wife, formerly–and 

now awkwardly–the girlfriend of our fearless 

leader. They’re all hapless bumblers, but so 

funny in their monumentally clueless ways 

that you have no basic problem with blithely 

going along with the Nees’ wild and woolly 

but ultimately quite canny agenda. 

The band’s first heist, a pathetically 

bungled robbery of a pawn store, is one 

hilarious comedy of the worst errors and, in 

the later, more hardcore action scenes, when 

these boys must contend with Injun Joe and 

sundry other homicidal villains, the Nees’ 

comic invention never flags, even as bullets 

fly and the nominal heroine, of course Becky 

Thatcher (charming Melissa Benoist, playing a 

policewoman in serious like with Tom), gets 

seriously hurt. Things turn even darker when 

Jorge (Daniel Edward Mora), an illegal immigrant 

gardener (and stand-in for the immortal 

slave, Jim), who works at Huck’s residence, 

becomes very adversely implicated in the 

gang’s harum-scarum plot. 

Technical credits are very strong, with 

Noah Rosenthal‘s handsome cinematography 

and Joel West’s nicely subtle and winsome 

music score happily adding to the sprightly, 

inventive mix. 

The cast of largely unknowns is a simple 

trove of human delight. Adam Nee proves 

himself a wonderfully deft and droll farceur, 

with a lovely sense of the absurd at all times, 

apologizing to his gang for the format of 

the big heist plan he passes out to them (“I 

couldn’t get the Wizard to exit resume”). 

Gallner, who narrates the film, although 

diminutive, has a matinee-idol-handsome face 

and, while game to go along with his buds, 

movingly conveys Huck’s deeper sensitivity 

and inner longing, utterly foreign to the other 

guys. Lang has made a tidy career of playing 

psycho- and sociopaths of varying stripes and, 

pretty amazingly, delivers a performance as 

Injun Joe which yet manages to be full of surprise 

and danger. The other characters, who 

all amusingly strive to be politically correct–a 

running gag here–naturally question his offensive 

name and are patiently met with the 

piquant answer, “It’s not meant to offend; I’m 

really into the culture and the aesthetic.” 

—David Noh 

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO 

STRAND RELEASING/Color-B&W/2.35/105 Mins./ 

Not Rated 

Cast: Elmer Back, Luis Alberti, Maya Zapata, Rasmus 

Slatis, Jakob Ohrman, Lisa Owen, Stelio Savante. 

Written and directed by Peter Greenaway. 

Produced by Bruno Felix, San Fu Maltha, Femke Wolting, 

Cristina Velasco L. 

Co-producers: Liisa Penttila-Asikainen, Peter De Maegd, 

Guy Van Baelen, Wilfried Van Baelen. 

Director of photography: Reinier van Brummelen. 

Production designer: Ana Solares. 

Editor: Elmer Leupen. 

Music: Sergei Prokofiev. 

Costume designer: Brenda Gomez. 

A Submarine, Fu Works and Paloma Negra presentation, 

in co-production with Edith Film, Potemkino, 

Mollywood. 

In English and Spanish with English subtitles. 

Peter Greenaway rightly adores the great 

Sergei Eisenstein, but at times it’s hard to 

tell from the excessive, chaotic, cartoonish 

and far too noisily salacious portrait he 

presents. 

Sergei Eisenstein, had he done nothing besides 

the jaw-droppingly innovative, eternally 

iconic The Battleship Potemkin, was assuredly 

a great filmmaker, one of the very greatest, 

and in Eisenstein in Guanajuato, self-confessed 

admirer Peter Greenaway focuses on the director’s 

time in Mexico in 1930. The trip was 

at the invitation of a Mexican film company, 

headed by socialist writer and activist Upton 

Sinclair and his wife Mary, to make an apolitical 

feature, and this movie sort of explains 

why that movie never really happened. 

It begins exuberantly, with the arrival of 

Eisenstein (Elmer Back) in this brave new Latin 

American world, reveling in the vivid sights 

and sounds which both inspire and confound 

him. Greenaway employs his familiar battery of 

flamboyant cinematic techniques–split screens, 

green screens, crazy editing. gaudy flashbacks 

and collage-like visual insertions depicting 

Eisenstein’s Russian past and Hollywood 

debacle when he was fired by Paramount and, 

always, gorgeous, gorgeous cinematography– 

to what seems, at first, good effect. 

But this subject in particular demands that 

a story be told, and it is here that Greenaway 

runs afoul. Although Eisenstein’s homosexuality 

is, like that of Ozu, in the opinion of some 

largely a matter of conjecture, a gay affair in 

Mexico is concocted, featuring his guide, one 

Palomino Canedo (Luis Alberti), a religious 

scholar who is married but not averse to relieving 

the 33-year-old Russian of his supposed 

virginity. Artistic license is fine, and a dewy 

queer relationship for Eisenstein is an appealingly 

bold trope, but Greenaway has always 

been a director far more adept at shock (and 

pontificating) than romance. The film degenerates 

into crassly prurient sensationalism which, 

despite all the explicitness and trademark genitalia–the 

film could almost be subtitled Sergei’s 

Foreskin–like all the sex in Greenaway movies 

is profoundly unerotic. This is exacerbated by 

the fact that the two never stop blabbering on 

and on about socialism, sexual politics, Sergei’s 

Old World vs. Palomino’s New, and blood, 

of course, being painfully shed in a nasty and 

tiresome schoolboy notion of gay coupling. 

(Remember Brokeback Mountain’s spit-andmount 

moment?) It all culminates in Palomino 

sticking a miniature Soviet flag in Eisenstein’s 

pillaged posterior. 

Small wonder that the film never quite 

recovers from that scene, and what follows– 

an extended vituperative encounter with 

the outraged Sinclairs, who want to pull the 

project’s plug, memorable for their cartoonish 

portrayal and a show-offy unbroken 

tracking shot; and the brief actual scenes of 

filming which, perhaps inspired by Eisenstein’s 

strong connection with an admiring 

Chaplin, have a shallowly antic, slapstick 

feel–seems increasingly trite. This work, 

being Greenaway, is also obsessed with 

death, and the Mexican Day of the Dead rite 

predictably becomes a huge motif, with a 

surfeit of dancing skeletons along with constant 

returns to the town’s Museum of the 

Dead, filled with ancient, rotting corpses. 

Eisenstein’s climactic, sorrowful exit from 

his Paradise Found is almost his one quiet 

moment in the entire film, but Greenaway 

heavy-handedly makes it more blubberingly 

bathetic than truly poignant. 

A mixture of Soviet pressure for Eisenstein’s 

return (to a Stalinist country which 

decreed homosexuality a crime deserving 

ten years’ hard labor, where he died after 

the triumphs of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the 

Terrible at age 50), his distracted, lackadaisical 

work ethic, and the company’s dissatisfaction 

with his results and the man himself 

are posited for the project’s truncated 

termination. Both lead actors are to be commended 

for their above-and-beyond commitment 

to this intense vision of cinematic 

greatness. Back does manage to capture 

something of this genius’ complexity and 

excessive, quixotic nature–when he’s not 

vomiting or defecating in the streets, mumbling 

about how constipated he was in Russia–and 

it’s not his fault that his director has 

him often behaving like Roberto Benigni in 

his most over-the-top awards-show manner. 

Palomino is a sleek clotheshorse in Brenda 

Gomez’s natty period bespoke, conveying 

both charm and intelligence, explaining his 

country’s culture to Sergei, before displaying 

other impressive talent. —David Noh 

FEBRUARY 2016 


THE TREASURE 

SUNDANCE SELECTS/Color/2.35/89 Mins./Not Rated 

Cast: Cuzin Toma, Adrian Purcarescu, Corneliu Cozmei, 

Cristina Toma, Nicodim Toma. 

Written and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu. 

Produced by Marcela Ursu. 

Co-producers: Julie Gayet, Sylvie Gayet, Olivier Pere, 

Nadia Turnicev. 

Director of photography: Tudor Mircea. 

Production designer: Mihaela Poenaru. 

Editor: Roxana Szel. 

Costume designer: Monica Florescu. 

A 42 Km Film/Les Films du Worso/Rouge International/Le 

Pacte production, in co-production with Arte France 

Cinéma. 

In Romanian with English subtitles. 

Don’t expect a big payoff in Corneliu 

Porumboiu’s long-build satire about some 

hapless diggers for buried treasure; the 

journey is the joke here. 

If there were a 

form that somebody 

needed to fill out with 

identifying information 

about The Treasure, 

right under nation of 

origin (“Romania”) Cuzin Toma 

there would probably 

be a box for genre. Most people would 

probably write “comedy,” followed a few 

pencil-chewing moments later by a question 

mark. That’s about as close to a one-word 

description one is going to get for Corneliu 

Porumboiu’s mordant history lesson of a film, 

where the comedy isn’t played for laughs but 

instead a kind of shrugging, knowing grimace 

which says, “That’s Romania for you.” 

The snail’s-pace story starts with a 

scheme that sounds like a bad idea to 

start and becomes more absurd as the film 

progresses. Costi (Cuzin Toma) is an office 

worker just barely able to support his wife 

and son, Cornel (Corneliu Cozmei). One 

night, storytime with Cornel is interrupted 

by their neighbor Adrian (Adrian Purcarescu). 

He wants to borrow several hundred 

euros, ostensibly for his mortgage, which he 

hasn’t been paying for years. After an initial 

rebuff, Adrian comes clean about the real 

reason for the requested loan. A shred of 

a family legend has him convinced that his 

great-grandfather had buried treasure on 

their land just before the Communists took 

over in 1947. Now he wants to rent a metal 

detector and find the treasure. If Costi will 

put up the money, Adrian will split half of 

whatever they find. 

A buried fortune tends not to bring 

out the best in people, particularly fictional 

characters. But while Porumboiu is certainly 

aiming at human folly here, he’s after 

different targets than the average honoramong-thieves 

drama. What unfolds after 

Adrian’s proposal is like a slow-motion and 

low, low-wattage gloss on The Treasure of 

the Sierra Madre, only recast as a sideways 

history lesson. 

The main thrust of the plot follows the 

mechanics of the hunt. First Costi must 

convince his skeptical wife that any of this 

makes sense. He has to actually find a place 

to rent an affordable metal detector and 

operator. They have to determine where on 

Adrian’s family plot makes the most sense to 

search. A lot of time is spent in discussion 

over whether or not to declare what they 

find to the authorities (the government gets 

to claim anything they determine as being 

of historical interest). Lastly, he and Adrian 

have to actually dig when the detector starts 

sputtering and squeaking. None of this goes 

easy. As in Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective, even 

the most basic activities are gluey and slow, 

tripped up by bureaucratic complications 

and an unending stream of human error and 

suspicion. While there are some seriocomic 

nods to daring bandit exploits (Costi is 

reading Robin Hood to Cornel), it’s clear that 

these are not criminal masterminds at work. 

Everything about Adrian is like an 

advertisement for distrust, from his evasive 

answers to his offhandedly random planning; 

“We’ll drive to Bucharest and sell it to the 

gypsies” is the extent of his thinking about 

what to do if they end up finding any treasure. 

Costi is a deliberate type at the best 

of times and constitutionally unsuited to any 

kind of deception. His attempt to sneak out 

of the office to rent the equipment is so badly 

bungled and with such an awkward aftermath 

that it almost scans like a video being shown 

to office employees called “Things Not to 

Do.” The two men are symbolically chaotic, 

as though the country’s decades of pre- and 

post-Cold War bleakness have rendered 

them incapable of planning ahead. So much 

scraping and scrounging has left them so 

desperate to escape debt that if they ever get 

their hands on actual treasure, there’s every 

indication they’ll blow it almost instantly. 

Stitched onto this narrative is a kind of 

running commentary on the current state 

of Romania (cluttered and turtle-paced, it 

would appear) as well as its history (one 

upheaval to the next). Porumboiu uses the 

hands-changing aspect of Adrian’s family 

land as his primary vehicle for this aspect of 

the film. While the men scan carefully over 

the grass with the metal detector, it’s as 

though they’re performing an X-ray of the 

country’s past, from the revolution of 1848 

to Nazi occupation, and the overthrow of 

Ceausescu. 

Anybody familiar with Porumboiu’s 

work isn’t going into this expecting fireworks 

of any kind. The performances are 

stiff enough to be anesthetized and the hijinks 

are all of the symbolic variety. As such, 

the “comedy” here is mostly theoretical and 

the final gag too slim to hang the climax on. 

Still, The Treasure’s deadpan study of human 

folly has a cumulative impact that fortunately 

doesn’t depend on getting an actual laugh 

out of the audience. —Chris Barsanti 

A PERFECT DAY 

IFC FILMS/Color/2.35/105 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko, 

Mélanie Thierry, Fedja Stukan, Eldar Residovic, Sergi 

López. 

Directed by Fernando León de Aranoa. 

Screenplay: Fernando León de Aranoa, Diego Farias, 

based on the novel Dejarse Llover by Paula Farias. 

Produced by Fernando León de Aranoa, Jaume Roures. 

Executive producers: Patricia de Muns, Javier Méndez. 

Director of photography: Alex Catalán. 

Production designer: César Macarrón. 

Editor: Nacho Ruiz Capillas. 

Costume designer: Fernando Garcia. 

Music: Arnau Bataller. 

A Reposado and Mediapro production. 

In English, Bosnian, Spanish and French with English 

subtitles. 

Oscar-winning actors Benicio Del Toro 

and Tim Robbins are able to give a Spanish 

filmmaker’s Balkan war comedy a muchneeded 

boost. 

So many films are hitting the festival circuit 

each year that are barely getting a theatrical 

release, but realizing that the English-language 

debut by Spanish filmmaker Fernando León 

de Aranoa (Mondays in the Sun, Princesas) 

includes Oscar-winning actors Benicio Del 

Toro and Tim Robbins may make you wonder 

why A Perfect Day is mainly relying on VOD to 

find its audience. 

Aranoa’s sporadic output consists of a 

film every five years dealing with the Spanish 

working class, which makes A Perfect Day, 

based on the novel Dejarse Llover by Spanish 

author Paula Farias, a clear departure in more 

ways than just its language and locale. 

The opening shot of a bulbous corpse 

being hauled out of a well sets up a film about 

a group of feisty outsiders working for “Aid 

Across Borders” in a war-torn area “somewhere 

in the Balkans” in 1995, trying to help 

locals whose well has been contaminated, 

forcing them to buy fresh water from those 

responsible. 

Del Toro’s Mambrú and Robbins’ “B” 

keep the viewer invested with their untraditional 

tactics that constantly put them in conflict 

with the United Nations, but they’re very 

different men: Robbins’ character doesn’t 

take anything too seriously, while Del Toro 

gives the film some much-needed soul. 

Their travelling companions include 

Olga Kuryenko as Katya, a Russian beauty 

with whom the married Mambrú once had 

an affair; Mélanie Thierry (Babylon A.D.) as 

new girl Sofie, and actual Balkan native Fedja 

Stukan (In the Land of Blood and Honey) as 

their interpreter, Damir. Along the way, they 

take a local boy under their wing, trying to 

protect him from bigger kids that have been 

bullying him. 

Watching Aranoa’s latest film, it’s hard 

not to be reminded of Richard Shepard’s 

overlooked The Hunting Party, which used 

a similar “spoonful of sugar” method to 

educate and inform viewers about the Balkan 


war between the Muslims and Serbs without 

taking things too seriously. Dark comedies 

set during wartime can often be a hard sell 

tonally, but A Perfect Day works better than 

other recent attempts like Bill Murray’s Rock 

the Kasbah, mostly due to Aranoa’s solid writing 

and casting. 

What’s lacking is much of a story, because 

the whole movie is literally about the search 

for rope to get that body out of the well, so 

it becomes more about the relationships between 

unlikely co-workers thrown together 

by their situation. Most of the interactions 

are enhanced by witty repartee from Del 

Toro and Robbins, but the two women aren’t 

handled nearly as well, with Katya there 

solely as temptation for Mambrú. Thierry’s 

never able to adjust to the tonal shifts, going 

overboard with her reactions and acting 

scared in any given situation, whether appropriate 

or not. The inability of the cast to shift 

with the changing tone results in an uneven 

film whenever we’re reminded of the horrors 

of their environment. 

Aranoa’s decision to use a mostly rock 

soundtrack, complete with vintage Ramones 

and Lou Reed, gives A Perfect Day a distinctive 

feel that makes it far more enjoyable 

than it might have been in the hands of a less 

experienced filmmaker, but that music only 

does so much to make up for the flimsy plot. 

Although it does eventually deliver a satisfying 

resolution to that story, the movie feels 

slightly padded with unnecessary character 

moments which keep it from being nearly as 

effective as it could have been. 

—Edward Douglas 

THE FOREST 

GRAMERCY PICTURES/Color/1.85/Dolby Digital/ 

95 Mins./Rated PG-13 

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa, 

Eoin Macken. 

Directed by Jason Zada. 

Written by Ben Ketai, Sarah Cornwell, Nick Antosca. 

Produced by Tory Metzger, David S. Goyer, David Linde. 

Executive producers: Len Blavatnik, Aviv Giladi, Lawerence 

Bender, Andrew Pfeffer. 

Director of photography: Mattias Troelstrup. 

Production designer: Kevin Phipps. 

Editor: Jim Flynn. 

Music: Bear McCreary. 

Costume designer: Bojana Nikitovic. 

A Lava Bear Films and AI-Film production. 

The night is dark and not so full of terrors 

in “Game of Thrones” star Natalie Dormer’s 

first foray into C-grade J-horror. 

A decade ago, Hollywood’s 

horror-movie 

pipeline was clogged 

by English-language adaptations 

of Japanese 

horror films, where 

a steady stream of Natalie Dormer 

pretty Caucasian 

actresses were menaced by ghosts imported 

from that Pacific island nation. The cycle 

began with Naomi Watts in 2002’s The Ring 

and eventually grew to include Sarah Michelle 

Geller (2004’s The Grudge), Jennifer Connelly 

(2005’s Dark Water), Amber Tamblyn (2006’s 

The Grudge 2) and Kristen Bell (2006’s Pulse). 

That J-horror remake boomlet has mercifully 

died out, but faint echoes can be heard in 

The Forest, which uses Japan as a setting—although 

the film was shot almost entirely in 

Serbia—within which to tell a supernatural 

story that, while intensely familiar, isn’t technically 

based on an existing film. 

Let’s not give The Forest too many bonus 

points for originality, though. After all, 

screenwriters Ben Ketai, Sarah Cornwell and 

Nick Antosca have based the script around a 

famous piece of Japanese paranormal lore—a 

choice that could be interpreted as culturally 

insensitive if one were inclined to think more 

deeply about the movie than the filmmakers 

obviously have. The story takes its inspiration 

from the notoriety surrounding the Aokigahara 

Forest, a 14-square-mile “Sea of Trees” 

swelling in the shadow of Mount Fuji. 

Legend has it that Aokigahara is a 

playground for demons, and also houses the 

ghosts of the men and women who have 

traveled there to end their lives. In fact, the 

number of suicides within the forest remains 

significantly high to this day, high enough to 

make international headlines and require 

regular patrols of the area to remove dead 

bodies. Employing that setting for an American 

horror movie is somewhat akin to a Japanese 

film crew shooting a fright flick at one of 

America’s most high-profile suicide spots: San 

Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. 

It might have been easier to look past The 

Forest’s skeevy appropriation of a culturally 

loaded subject had it offered a more compelling 

story and, certainly, better scares. But in 

those departments, the movie is stridently 

generic, despite the spirited efforts of its star, 

Natalie Dormer. A British actress tip-toeing 

her way into American films after high-profile 

roles on internationally successful TV series 

like “Game of Thrones” and “The Tudors,” 

Dormer has a wickedly entertaining screen 

presence that’s all too often stifled in the role 

of Sara, who travels to Aokigahara on a mission 

to find her missing-and-presumed-dead 

twin sister, Jess (also played by Dormer). 

Already unnerved by being a stranger in a 

strange land—her fish-out-of-water moments 

include being served live, wriggling sushi 

and having a homeless man bang on her taxi 

window and cackle hysterically—Sara only 

grows grimmer and more determined as she 

reaches Aokigahara. On the outskirts of the 

forest, another conveniently attractive (and 

even more conveniently American) traveler, 

Aiden (Taylor Kinney) becomes her friend, 

guide…and maybe executioner? Don’t worry, 

that’s not a spoiler; in a psychological-horror 

two-hander like this, that kind of potential 

betrayal is inevitable. 

But psychology and horror proves to 

be terrain that the screenwriting team and 

director Jason Zada struggle to navigate effectively. 

It’s established early on that there’s 

something not quite right about Sara, who 

survived a childhood tragedy that supposedly 

affected Jess in more pronounced ways. Once 

inside Aokigahara, those internal demons 

claw their way out of her subconscious, and 

further eat away at her sense of reality. Unfortunately, 

Zada doesn’t demonstrate a firm 

enough grasp of the film’s visual language to 

convincingly track how Sara’s mind is warping; 

we get the usual jump scares and foreboding 

shots of a darkened forest, but there’s little 

texture or genuine terror in his evocation of 

this supposedly haunted locale. 

He also misses out on realizing a Lynchian 

element that’s embedded in a script 

that’s otherwise closer to Wrong Turn, one 

that ties into Sara’s understanding of her 

own identity. In fact, the closing moments 

of The Forest seem to push the story into 

Mulholland Dr. or Lost Highway territory, a 

leap that Zada isn’t prepared to make. Like 

its heroine, The Forest spends much of its 

runtime lost in the woods, unable to find the 

path to a scarier, more satisfying feature. 

—Ethan Alter 

MOONWALKERS 

ALCHEMY/Color/1.85/107 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint, Robert Sheehan, 

Eric Lampaert, Kerry Shale, Tom Audenaert. 

Directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet. 

Written by Dean Craig. 

Produced by Georges Bermann. 

Director of photography: Glynn Speeckaert. 

Production designers: Patrick Dechesne, 

Alain-Pascal Housiaux. 

Editors: Bill Smedley, Chris Gill. 

Music: Kasper Winding, Alex Gopher. 

Costume designers: Agnes Dubois, Christophe Pidre. 

A Partizan Films production. 

Despite an amusing central gimmick, 

this Space Age showbiz comedy is curiously 

airless. 

Among the many wild theories mentioned 

in Room 237, Rodney Ascher’s wonderfully 

wacked-out deconstruction of Stanley 

Kubrick’s The Shining, is the suggestion that 

the eccentric director embedded his adaptation 

of Stephen King’s seminal horror novel 

with references to the “fact” that he helped 

the American government fake the Apollo 

11 moon landing in 1969. You know, that one 

where Neil Armstrong famously talked about 

taking a small step for a man, and a giant leap 

for mankind. As the hypothesis—advanced 

in Room 237 by Shining-ologist Jay Weidner, 

but originated well before him—goes, NASA 

needed a victory to carry America over the 

Space Race finish line ahead of the USSR. 

With Apollo 11’s chance of success appearing 

uncertain, officials turned to the filmmaker 

whose 1968 opus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 

made moviegoers feel as if they were taking a 

FEBRUARY 2016 


trip to the stars and back. Sworn to lifelong 

secrecy, Kubrick hid his achievement inside 

the ghost-strewn halls of the Overlook Hotel, 

ensuring that only the truly dedicated would 

follow the clues and have their illusions about 

America’s Space Age superiority shattered. 

That grand theory is a grand load of 

hooey, of course. That grainy space-cam 

footage featured in virtually every montage 

about the ’60s really does feature Armstrong 

placing his foot upon the moon’s surface, not 

an actor taking a small step on a top-secret 

soundstage under Kubrick’s watchful eye. 

But the notion that the moon landing was 

the director’s stealth sequel to 2001 is prime 

fodder for a fun alternate history of 20thcentury 

cinema history, right up there with 

such amusing “What ifs” as “What if Tom 

Selleck had actually played Indiana Jones?” 

and “What if Star Wars had bombed?” Enter 

British screenwriter Dean Craig, who takes 

that nugget of a premise and uses it as the 

jumping-off point for Moonwalkers, an Argostyle 

caper picture with comic, rather than 

serious, overtones. Wait a minute—Argo 

was a real story, you say? Maybe…but after 

screenwriter Chris Terrio and director Ben 

Affleck got through with it, it sure played an 

awful lot like fiction. 

Veracity aside, Argo does, at least, spin its 

yarn with conviction and clarity of purpose. 

Moonwalkers feels like a doodle that Craig 

and first-time feature filmmaker Antoine 

Bardou-Jacquet extrapolated on the fly. The 

shambling plot involves CIA operative Kidman 

(Ron Perlman, whose perpetual glower 

is the funniest thing in the film), who flies 

to England to enlist Bronx-born Kubrick’s 

participation in his native country’s out-ofthe-world 

deception. Sitting down with a man 

purporting to be Kubrick’s manager—but 

who, in fact, is simply a screw-up-prone, 

small-time band manager named Jonny (Rupert 

Grint)—Kidman promises a substantial 

payout for this deep-cover film project, and 

that’s all Jonny needs to hear to volunteer his 

client’s involvement. 

Since he doesn’t manage the real Stanley 

Kubrick, though, he enlists his drug-addled 

roommate, Leon (Robert Sheehan), to 

impersonate the reclusive filmmaker, a deception 

that works about as well as you might 

expect…which is to say, not at all. Luckily for 

Jonny, Kidman can’t go back to his employers 

empty-handed and so they join forces to fool 

the American government into thinking they 

can fool the American people, hiring Warholesque 

buffoon Renatus (Tom Audenaert) to 

make the moon landing a reality in Kubrick’s 

place. Meanwhile, Kidman’s blunt-force tactics 

have managed to piss off a crew of British 

mobsters, and they prepare to descend on 

the set, adding a deadly ticking clock to an 

already tension-fraught situation. 

In addition to Argo, Mel Brooks’ immortal 

comedy classic The Producers is another 

clear reference point for Moonwalkers, 

with Perlman playing the Zero Mostel part, 

while Grint flails about like Gene Wilder 

and Audenaert does a hippie variation on 

Christopher Hewett’s flamboyant stage director. 

And in place of musical-theatre parodies 

like “Springtime for Hitler,” Bardou-Jacquet 

offers up comedy-laced homages to famous 

Kubrick scenes, most notably a slow-motion 

bathroom brawl scored to classical music a 

la Clockwork Orange, as well as the inevitable 

blast of “Also sprach Zarathustra” when Renatus 

calls “Action” on the fake moon landing. 

While mildly amusing in the moment, 

these air-quote-infused recreations underline 

the awkward artificiality of the entire 

film. Craig and Bardou-Jacquet want to make 

it clear that they don’t believe any of this 

nonsense about Kubrick directing the Apollo 

11 landing either, but in doing so, they fail 

to establish a convincing comic reality that 

the actors—or, for that matter, the audience—can 

hook into. The random bursts of 

cartoonish ultraviolence that occasionally 

crop up courtesy of that ill-advised gangster 

subplot are similarly jarring, and suggest that 

the filmmakers don’t have a firm grasp on 

what this movie wants to say about filmmaking 

in general or Kubrick in particular. Not 

out there enough to work as gonzo period 

comedy, and certainly not trenchant enough 

to succeed as satire, Moonwalkers is an imitation 

of a real movie. —Ethan Alter 

INTRUDERS 

MOMENTUM PICTURES/Color/1.85/90 Mins./ 

Not Rated 

Cast: Beth Riesgraf, Jack Kesy, Martin Starr, Joshua 

Mikel, Rory Culkin, Leticia Jimenez. 

Directed by Adam Schindler. 

Written by T.J. Cimfel, David White. 

Produced by Steven Schneider, Jeff Rice, Lati Grobman, 

Erik Olsen. 

Executive producers: Tommy Vlahopoulos, Christa 

Campbell, Matthew Lamothe, Brian Netto, Rob Van 

Norden. 

Director of photography: Eric Leach. 

Production designer: James Wiley Fowler. 

Editors: Adam Schindler, Brian Netto. 

Costume designer: Gayle Anderson. 

A Black Fish Films, Jeff Rice Films, Campbell Grobman 

Films and Vicarious Entertainment production. 

In this clever variation on the home-invasion 

formula, a woman fights back against 

three men intent on robbery. 

Anna (Beth Riesgraf) has just nursed her 

beloved older brother, Conrad (Timothy T. 

McKinney), through a long, punishing death 

from pancreatic cancer; throughout his 

illness, the lone bright spot in her days has 

been chatting with baby-faced Dan (Rory 

Culkin), who delivers prepared meals daily. 

The family house is on a sizeable lot, so there 

are no neighbors to notice that Anna has 

become a shut-in (Intruders’ original title), unable 

even to venture out onto the porch. So 

isolated that her only recent visitor has been 

her brother’s lawyer 

(Leticia Jimenez), 

looking to finalize 

some paperwork, 

Anna is inordinately 

grateful for Dan’s 

brief visits. 

Beth Riesgraf 

On the day of 

Conrad’s funeral, which Anna can’t bring 

herself to attend, three men–Vance (Joshua 

Mikel), Perry (Martin Starr) and JP (Jack 

Kesy)–break into the house, assuming there 

won’t be anyone home. Ghoulish though it 

may be, the practice of perusing obituaries 

and burgling homes during funerals is not uncommon. 

Anna can’t bring herself to flee and 

her presence is betrayed by a boiling kettle. 

But while clearly frightened, Anna isn’t as 

terrified as one would expect, even after the 

intruders make it clear that once she gives up 

the money they know is hidden in the house, 

they intend to kill her. Anna, it turns out, has 

hidden resources, including the house itself– 

much like the apparently fragile Anna, it isn’t 

as ordinary as it appears. 

If not entirely plausible–though, sadly, 

the reason the house is riddled with hidden 

corridors and rooms stops short of being 

completely preposterous–Intruders is tautly 

directed by first-time feature filmmaker 

Adam Schindler (from a scrrenplay by T.J. 

Cimfel and David White) and benefits greatly 

from Riesgraf’s performance as the agoraphobic 

Anna. She simultaneously conveys both 

a sense of psychological damage and hint of 

inner steel from the beginning–there’s an icy 

almost-threat in her demand that the dying 

Conrad not call her “Birdie,” a childhood 

nickname she despises that’s at odds with her 

otherwise evident devotion to her brother. 

The filmmakers make subtle use of the bird 

motif throughout, from a vulnerable parakeet 

in a cage to the china knickknacks on the 

living-room mantle; it culminates in the lesson 

explored by Daphne du Maurier and Alfred 

Hitchcock in, yes, The Birds: Appearances can 

be deceptive. —Maitland McDonagh 

For the latest reviews, visit 

www.filmjournal.com 


I N T E R N A T I O N A L 

CALENDAR OF FEATURE RELEASES VOL. 119, NO. 2 

A24 (646) 568-6015 

Now Mojave 

Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac 

C/93 mins/R 

Now Room 

Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay 

C/DD/118 mins/R 

2/12 Remember 

Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau 

95 mins 

2/19 The Witch 

Dir. Robert Eggers 

92 mins/R 

3/18 Krisha 

Dir. Trey Edward Shults 

83 mins 

4/1 Green Room 

Dir. Jeremy Saulnier 

95 mins 

2016 De Palma 

Dirs. Noah Baumbach, 

Jake Paltrow 

2016 How to Talk to Girls at Parties 

Dir. John Cameron Mitchell 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

There Are Monsters 

Zoe Kazan, Scott Speedman 

Tresspass Against Us 

Michael Fassbender 

Into the Forest 

Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood 

101 mins 

The Adderall Diaries 

Amber Heard, James Franco 

Equals 

Dir. Drake Doremus 

ALCHEMY (310) 893-6289 

Now Moonwalkers 

Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint 

107 mins/R 

2/19 Rolling Papers 

Dir. Mitch Dickman 

80 mins 

3/11 The Lobster 

Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz 

118 mins 

3/25 Mia Madre 

Dir. Nanni Moretti 

106 mins 

April Evolution 

Dir. Lucile Hadzihalilovic 

2016 Free Fire 

Armie Hammer, Brie Larson 

TBA Zeroville 

Dir. James Franco 

BLEECKER STREET (212) 951-5700 

Now Trumbo 

Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren 

DD/124 mins/R 

3/11 Eye in the Sky 

Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul 

102 mins/R 

4/15 Elvis & Nixon 

Michael Shannon, Kevin Spacey 

TBA Captain Fantastic 

Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella 

TBA 

TBA 

The Last Word 

Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried 

Denial 

Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson 

BROAD GREEN PICTURES 

(323) 860-2470 

3/4 Knight of Cups 

Christian Bale, Natalie Portman 

Dir. Terrence Malick 

118 mins/R 

4/1 The Dark Horse 

Cliff Curtis 

11/23 Bad Santa 2 

Billy Bob Thornton, 

Dir. Mark Waters 

2016 Voyage of Time 

Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett 

Dir. Terrence Malick 

2016 Untitled Terrence Malick Film 

Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, 


2016 Buena Vista Social Club: Adios 

Dir. Lucy Walker 

2016 Brain on Fire 

Chloë Grace Moretz 

2016 The Infiltrator [ID] 

Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger 

TBA Just Mercy [ID] 

Michael B. Jordan 

TBA Untitled L.A. Riots Film [ID] 

Dir. John Ridley 

COHEN MEDIA GROUP 

(646) 380-7929 

Now Mustang 

Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven 

C/97 mins/PG-13 

Now Hitchcock/Truffaut 

Dir. Kent Jones 

80 mins/PG-13 

2/3 Rams 

Dir. Grímur Hákonarson 

C/DD/93 mins/NR 

2/19 City of Women 

Dir. Federico Fellini 

April Marguerite 

Catherine Frot 

Spring Les Cowboys 

Dir. Thomas Bidegain 

104 mins 

2016 Standing Tall 

Catherine Deneuve 

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS (512) 219-7800 

Now Where to Invade Next 

Dir. Michael Moore 

Now The World of Kanako 

Dir. Tetsuya Nakashima 

3/25 The Invitation 

Dir. Karyn Kusama 

Summer Raiders!: The Story of the 

Greaest Fan Film Ever Made 

Documentary 

2016 Men and Chicken 

Mads Mikkelsen 

ENTERTAINMENT ONE (516) 484-1000 

TBA The Program 

Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd 

C/103 Mins 

TBA The Death and Life 

TBA 

of John F. Donovan 

Kit Harington, Jessica Chastain 

Dir. Xavier Dolan 

Hard Sell 

Kristin Chenoweth 

EPIC PICTURES 

(323) 207-4170 

Now Jeruzalem 

Dirs. Doron Paz, Yoav Paz 

2/12 Nina Forever 

Dirs. Ben Blaine, Chris Blaine 

EUROPACORP (310) 205-0255 

4/29 Nine Lives 

Dir. Barry Sonnenfeld 

6/17 Shut In 

Naomi Watts, Jacob Tremblay 

7/15 The Lake 

Dir. Steven Quale 

7/21/17 Valerian and the City 

TBA 

of a Thousand Planets 

Dir. Luc Besson 

Warrior’s Gate 

Dave Bautista 

FILM MOVEMENT (212) 941-7744 

Now Theeb 

Dir. Naji Abu Nowar 

C/D/100 mins/NR 

3/18 Take Me to the River 

Logan Miller, Robin Weigert 

84 mins 

April Men Go to Battle 

Dir. Zachary Treitz 

Now 

Now 

FILMRISE (718) 369-9090 

Monster Hunt 

Dir. Raman Hui 

C/Atmos/117 mins/NR 

Janis: Little Girl Blue 

Dir. Amy Berg 

104 mins 

FIRST RUN FEATURES (212) 243-0600 

Now Troublemakers: 

The Story of Land Art 

Dir. James Crump 

Summer Last Cab to Darwin 

Jackie Weaver 

FOCUS FEATURES (646) 543-3303 

Now The Forest 

Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney 

DD/95 mins/PG-13 

Now The Danish Girl 

Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander 

DD/120 mins/R 

Now Suffragette 

Carey Mulligan, 

Helena Bonham Carter 

C/DD/106 mins/PG-13 

2/19 Race 

Stephan James, William Hurt 

3/4 London Has Fallen 

Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman 

3/11 The Young Messiah 

Sean Bean, David Bradley 

4/29 Ratchet & Clank 

Voice of Sylvester Stallone 

8/19 Kubo and the Two Strings 

Voices of Matthew McConaughey, 

Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes 

10/14 A Monster Calls 

Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson 

2016 Nocturnal Animals 

Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal 

Dir. Tom Ford 

2017 The Trap 

Idris Elba, Benicio Del Toro 

Dir. Harmony Korine 

TBA Bastille Day 

Idris Elba, Richard Madden 

TBA The Book of Henry 

Naomi Watts, Maddie Ziegler 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT 

(310) 369-1000 

Now Brooklyn 

Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson 

111 mins/PG-13 

Now Youth 

Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, 

Dir. Paolo Sorrentino 

C/Atmos/118 mins/R 

1/29 The Clan 

Dir. Pablo Trapero 


4/8 Demolition 

Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts 

C/100 Mins/R 

5/13 A Bigger Splash 

Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes 

7/1 Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie 

Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley 

2016 Wilson 

Woody Harrelson, Judy Greer 

TBA J.R.R. Tolkien Biopic [ID] 

Scr. David Gleeson 

TBA Can You Ever Forgive Me? [ID] 

Julianne Moore, 

Dir. Nicole Holofcener 

TBA Gifted 

Chris Evans, Octavia Spencer 

TBA Table 19 

Anna Kendrick 

FREESTYLE RELEASING 

(323) 330-9920 

Now The Letters 

Juliet Stevenson, Max von Sydow 

114 mins/PG 

Now Martyrs [Anchor Bay] 

Troian Bellisario 

Now Monkey Up 

Voice of John Ratzenberger 

4/29 Meet the Blacks 

Mike Epps, Mike Tyson 

Listing includes release date (TBA=To Be Announced), film title, cast or director, and technical information: C=Cinemascope • D=Dolby • DD=Dolby Digital • 

DTS=Datasat Digital • SD=Sony Digital • EX=Surround EX • LF=Large Format • ID=In Development 

FEBRUARY 2016 


GKIDS (212) 349-0330 

Now Only Yesterday 

Dir. Isao Takahata 

Now Boy and the World 

Dir. Alê Abreu 

DD/80 mins/PG 

3/25 April and the Extraordinary World 

Voice of Marion Cotillard 

2016 Phantom Boy 

Dir. Jean-Loup Felicoli, 

Alain Gagnol 

GRAVITAS VENTURES (310) 388-9362 

Now Band of Robbers 

Kyle Gallner, Adam Nee 

C/95 mins/NR 

3/11 Barney Thomson 

Robert Carlyle 

HANNOVER HOUSE (479) 751-4500 

Now Borrar de la Memoria 

Dir. Alfredo Gurrola 

Now Encounter 

Dir. Susannah O’Brien 

ICARUS FILMS (718) 488-8900 

3/30 I Don’t Belong Anywhere: 

The Cinema of Chantal Akerman 

Documentary 

4/1 No Home Movie 

Dir. Chantal Akerman 

IFC FILMS (212) 324-8500 

Now 45 Years 

Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay 

95 mins/NR 

Now Rabid Dogs 

Lambert Wilson, Virginie Ledoyen 

Now A Perfect Day 

Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins 

C/105 mins/R 

Now Anesthesia 

Dir. Tim Blake Nelson 

3/11 City of Gold 

Dir. Laura Gabbart 

3/18 The Preppie Connection 

Dir. Joseph Castelo 

3/25 Born to Be Blue 

Ethan Hawke 

4/22 Tale of Tales 

Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel 

Dir. Matteo Garrone 

TBA Personal Shopper 

Dir. Olivier Assayas 

JANUS FILMS (212) 756-8822 

Now Chimes at Midnight 

Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau 

2/5 I Knew Her Well 

Dir. Antonio Pietrangeli 

115 mins 

KINO LORBER (212) 629-6880 

1/29 Rabin, The Last Day 

Dir. Amos Gitai 

153 mins 

2/12 Mountains May Depart 

Dir. Jia Zhangke 

131 mins 

April The Measure of a Man 

Dir. Stéphane Brizé 

2016 Tikkun 

Dir. Avishai Sivan 

Now 

Now 

Now 

Now 

Now 

LIONSGATE (310) 314-2000 

Dirty Grandpa 

Robert De Niro, Zac Efron 

Norm of the North 

Voices of Rob Schneider, Bill Nighy 

86 mins/PG 

Exposed 

Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas 

The Hunger Games: 

Mockingjay - Part 2 [3D] [LF] 

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson 

C/Atmos-Auro-DTS/136 mins/PG-13 

Love the Coopers [CBS Films] 

Diane Keaton, Olivia Wilde 

C/107 min/PG-13 

Now Sicario 

Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin 


2/5 The Choice 

Benjamin Walker, Teresa Palmer 

2/5 Misconduct 

Josh Duhamel, Alice Eve 

2/19 Busco Novio Para Mi Mujer 

[Pantelion] 

Dir. Enrique Begne 

2/26 Gods of Egypt [Summit] 

Gerard Butler, 

Nicolaj Coster-Waldau 

3/18 The Divergent Series:Allegiant [Summit] 

Shailene Woodley 

4/15 Criminal [Summit] 

Kevin Costner, Ryan Reynolds 

4/22 Compadres [Pantelion] 

Dir. Enrique Begne 

Spring Natural Born Pranksters 

Roman Atwood, Dennis Roady 

6/10 Now You See Me 2 [Summit] 

Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo 

7/15 La La Land 

Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone 

Dir. Damien Chazelle 

7/29 Genius 

Colin Firth, Dir. Michael Grandage 

8/12 The Shack [Summit] 

Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer 

8/26 Mechanic: Resurrection 

Jason Statham, Jessica Alba 

9/30 Deepwater Horizon 

Mark Wahlberg, Dir. Peter Berg 

10/7 Middle School: 

The Worst Years of My Life 

Lauren Graham 

10/28 Untitled Horror Film 

2016 John Wick 2 

Keanu Reeves 

3/24/17 Power Rangers [Saban Films] 

Dir. Dean Israelite 

6/9/17 The Divergent Series: 

Ascendant [Summit] 

Shailene Woodley 

11/3/17 My Little Pony 

Voice of Kristin Chenoweth 

2017 Robin Hood: Origins 

Taron Egerton, Eve Hewson 

2017 The Expendables 4 

Sylvester Stallone 

TBA The Glass Castle [ID] 

Dir. Destin Daniel Cretton 

TBA The von Trapp Family: 

A Life of Music 

Matthew Macfadyen 

TBA Stronger 

Jake Gyllenhaal, 

Dir. David Gordon Green 

TBA Now You See Me 3 [ID] 

TBA Imperium 

Daniel Radcliffe, Toni Collette 

MAGNOLIA PICTURES (917) 408-9530 

Now Synchronicity 

Dir. Jacob Gentry 

100 mins/R 

Now Entertainment 

Gregg Turkington, Tye Sheridan 

110 mins/R 

1/29 2016 Oscar Nominated Shorts 

2/5 Viva 

Dir. Paddy Breathnach 

100 mins 

3/4 The Wave 

Dir. Roar Uthaug 

104 mins 

3/18 My Golden Days 

Dir. Arnaud Desplechin 

4/8 A War 

Pilou Asbæk 

115 mins 

5/13 Sunset Song 

Dir. Terence Davies 

2016 High-Rise 

Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller 

112 mins 

TBA Danny Says 

Documentary 

TBA Harry Benson: Shoot First 

Documentary 

MOMENTUM PICTURES 

Now Intruders 

Dir. Adam Schindler 

90 mins/NR 

2/5 All Roads Lead to Rome 

Sarah Jessica Parker, Raoul Bova 

2/19 Forsaken 

Kiefer Sutherland, 

Donald Sutherland 

MUSIC BOX FILMS (312) 492-9364 

Now Flowers 

Itziar Ituño 

99 mins 

Now Censored Voices 

Documentary 

84 mins 

2/5 The Club 

Dir. Pablo Larraín 

CC/98 mins/NR 

OPEN ROAD FILMS (323) 464-6034 

Now Spotlight 

Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, 

Mark Ruffalo, Dir. Tom McCarthy 

DD/128 mins/R 

1/29 Fifty Shades of Black 

Marlon Wayans 

2/26 Triple 9 

Aaron Paul, Chiwetel Ejiofor 

115 mins 

4/1 Collide 

Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones 

4/29 Mother’s Day 

Julia Roberts, Dir. Garry Marshall 

5/13 Snowden 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 

Dir. Oliver Stone 

8/26 Max Steel 

Ben Winchell 

2016 Bleed for This 

Miles Teller 

2016 Life on the Road 

Dir./Scr. Ricky Gervais 

TBA The Nut Job 2 

Voice of Jeff Dunham 

THE ORCHARD (212) 201-9280 

Now Lamb 

Dir. Ross Partridge 

2/5 Southbound 

Larry Fessenden, Dana Gould 

89 mins 

2016 The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma 

and the Silk Road Ensemble 

Documentary 

TBA Crocodile Gennadiy 

Documentary 

OSCILLOSCOPE LABORATORIES 

(212) 219-4029 

2/17 Embrace of the Serpent 

Dir. Ciro Guerra 

125 mins 

3/11 River of Grass 

Dir. Kelly Reichardt 

Spring The Wait 

Juliette Binoche 

TBA The Vanished Elephant 

Salvador del Solar, Angie Cepeda 

TBA Ma Ma 

Penélope Cruz 

PARAMOUNT (212) 654-7000 / 

(323) 956-5000 

Now 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers 

of Benghazi 

John Krasinski, Dir. Michael Bay 

C/DD-DTS/144 mins/R 

Now The Big Short 

Christian Bale, Steve Carell 


Now Daddy’s Home 

Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell 


Now Anomalisa 

Voice of David Thewlis 

Dirs. Charlie Kaufman, 

Duke Johnson 

90 mins/R 

2/12 Zoolander 2 

Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson 

C/DD-DTS/100 mins 

3/4 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot 

Tina Fey, Martin Freeman 

3/18 The Little Prince 

Voices of Rachel McAdams, 

Paul Rudd, Marion Cotillard 

4/1 Rings 

Dir. F. Javier Gutiérrez 

4/15 Everybody Wants Some 

Dir. Richard Linklater 

6/3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 

Out of the Shadows 

Megan Fox, Stephen Amell 

7/22 Star Trek Beyond [LF] 

Dir. Justin Lin 

8/12 Ben-Hur [MGM] 

Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell 

10/21 Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 

Tom Cruise, Dir. Edward Zwick 

11/23 Untitled Romantic Thriller 

Brad Pitt, Dir. Robert Zemeckis 

2016 Silence 

Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson 

Dir. Martin Scorsese 

2016 Story of Your Life 

Amy Adams, Dir. Denis Villeneuve 

1/13/17 Monster Trucks 

Voices of Rob Lowe, Jane Levy 

1/13/17 Friday the 13 th [ID] 

Dir. David Bruckner 

6/9/17 World War Z Sequel [ID] 

Brad Pitt 

5/19/17 Terminator 2 [ID] 

12/25/17 Downsizing 

Matt Damon, Dir. Alexander Payne 

2017 Untitled Darren Aronofsky Film 

Jennifer Lawrence 

2017 Untitled Transformers Movie [ID] 

Dir. Michael Bay 

2017 Baywatch 

Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron 

1/12/18 Gnomeo & Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes 

Voices of Johnny Depp, 

James McAvoy 

6/29/18 Terminator 3 [ID] 

2/8/19 SpongeBob SquarePants 3 

Voice of Tom Kenny 

3/22/19 Amusement Park 

TBA G.I. Joe 3 [ID] 

Scr. Aaron Berg 

TBA The Devil in the White City [ID] 

Leonardo DiCaprio, 

Dir. Martin Scorsese 

TBA Untitled Enzo Ferrari Biopic 

Christian Bale, Dir. Michael Mann 

TBA Mission: Impossible 6 

Tom Cruise, 

Dir. Christopher McQuarrie 

TBA Collider 

Dir. Edgar Wright 

PICTUREHOUSE (646) 392-8831 

2/19 The Great Gilly Hopkins 

Julia Stiles, Kathy Bates 

RELATIVITY MEDIA 

3/25 The Disappointments Room 

Kate Beckinsale 

5/13 Kidnap 

Halle Berry 

9/30 Masterminds 

Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson 

94 mins/PG-13 

RIALTO PICTURES (646) 893-2996 

Now Ingrid Bergman: in Her 

Own Words 

Documentary 

102 mins 

ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS 

(323) 882-8490 

Now Chi-Raq 

Dir. Spike Lee 


2/12 Touched with Fire 

Katie Holmes, Luke Kirby 

110 mins 


3/11 Hello, My Name is Doris 

Sally Field, Max Greenfield 

95 mins/R 

2016 A Hologram for the King 

Tom Hanks, Dir. Tom Tykwer 

TBA The Sea of Trees 

Matthew McConaughey, 

Dir. Gus Van Sant 

SABAN FILMS (310) 203-5850 

2/26 Stand Off 

Thomas Jane, Laurence Fishburne 

86 mins/R 

3/11 Backtrack 

Adrien Brody, Sam Neill 

90 mins/R 

3/18 The Confirmation 

Clive Owen 

4/29 I Am Wrath 

John Travolta 

Now 

Now 

SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS 

The Benefactor 

Richard Gere 

c/92 mins /NR 

Prescription Thugs 

Dir. Chris Bell 

86 mins 

SCREEN MEDIA FILMS (310) 203-5850 

2/12 Bad Hurt 

Theo Rossi, Karen Allen 

May Mothers Day 

Christina Ricci 

TBA Colonia 

Emma Watson 

SONY (310) 244-4000/(212) 833-8500 

Now The 5th Wave 


C/DD-DTS-SD/PG-13 

Now Concussion 

Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw 

C/DD-DTS/121 mins/PG-13 

Now Spectre 

Daniel Craig, Dir. Sam Mendes 


Now Goosebumps [3D] 

Jack Black, Dylan Minnette 

C/DD-DTS/103 mins/PG 

Now Hotel Transylvania 2 [3D] 

Voices of Adam Sandler, 

Selena Gomez 

DD-DTS/89 mins/PG 

Now The Night Before 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen 


2/5 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 

Lily James, Sam Riley 


2/19 Risen 

Tom Felton, Joseph Fiennes 

3/11 The Brothers Grimsby 

Sacha Baron Cohen, Isla Fisher 

3/18 Miracles from Heaven 

Jennifer Garner 

5/13 Money Monster 

George Clooney, Julia Roberts 

Dir. Jodie Foster 

5/20 The Angry Birds Movie [3D] 

Voices of Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad 

6/24 The Shallows 

Blake Lively 

7/15 Ghostbusters 

Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy 

8/12 Sausage Party 

Voices of Seth Rogen, James Franco 

9/2 Patient Zero 

Matt Smith, Natalie Dormer 

9/16 When the Bough Breaks [Scr. Gems] 

Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall 

9/23 The Magnificent Seven 

Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington 

10/14 Inferno 

Tom Hanks, Dir. Ron Howard 

10/21 Underworld: Next Generation 

[Scr. Gems] 

Kate Beckinsale, Theo James 

11/11 Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk 

Joe Alwyn, Vin Diesel, 

Steve Martin, Dir. Ang Lee 

12/21 Passengers 

Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt 

12/25 Jumanji 

Scr. Zach Helm, Scott Rosenberg 

1/13/17 The Dark Tower 

Dir. Nikolaj Arcel 

1/27/17 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter 

Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson 

2/17/17 Bad Boys 3 

3/17/17 Baby Driver 


3/31/17 Get Smurfy 

Dir. Kelly Asbury 

6/2/17 Barbie [ID] 

Scr. Jenny Bicks, Diablo Cody 

6/30/17 Uncharted 

Prod. Avi Arad 

7/28/17 Untitled Spider-Man Reboot 

Tom Holland, Marisa Tomei 

8/11/17 The Emoji Movie [ID] 

Dir. Anthony Leondis 

9/29/17 The Equalizer 2 

Denzel Washington 

9/21/18 Hotel Transylvania 3 

12/21/18 Animated Spider-Man [ID] 

Scr. Phil Lord, Chris Miller 

3/23/18 Peter Rabbit [ID] 

Scr. Will Gluck 

7/3/19 Bad Boys 4 

TBA Sonic the Hedgehog [ID] 

TBA Robotech [ID] 

Dir. James Wan 

TBA The Rosie Project [ID] 

TBA Untitled 21 Jump Street Spinoff 

TBA Charlie’s Angels [ID] 

Dir. Elizabeth Banks 

TBA Untitled Animated Ghostbusters 

TBA Untitled Trainspotting Sequel 

Dir. Danny Boyle 

TBA Molly’s Game [ID] 

Dir./Scr. Aaron Sorkin 

TBA Grasshopper Jungle [ID] 


SONY PICTURES CLASSICS 

(212) 833-8833 

Now The Lady in the Van 

Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings 


Now Son of Saul 

Dir. László Nemes 

DD/107 mins/R 

Now Truth 

Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford 

C/121 mins/R 

Now Grandma 

Lily Tomlin, Dir. Paul Weitz 

79 mins/R 

Now Labyrinth of Lies 

Dir. Giuilo Ricciarelli 

124 mins 

3/18 The Bronze 

Melissa Rauch, Sebastian Stan 

108 mins 

3/25 I Saw the Light 

Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen 

123 mins/R 

4/1 Miles Ahead 

Don Cheadle, Ewan McGregor 

100 mins/R 

4/22 The Meddler 

Susan Sarandon, Rose Byrne 


5/6 Dark Horse: The Incredible 

True Story of Dream Alliance 

Dir. Louise Osmond 

85 mins/PG 

5/20 Maggie’s Plan 

Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke 

92 mins 

TBA 13 Minutes 

Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel 

TBA Land of Mine 

Dir. Martin Zandvliet 

100 mins 

TBA Our Little Sister 

Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda 

128 mins 

TBA Julieta 

Dir. Pedro Almodóvar 

STARZ DIGITAL MEDIA 

(818) 748-4000 

2/12 Tumbledown 

Rebecca Hall, Jason Sudeikis 

C/103 mins/R 

April One More Time 

Amber Heard, Christopher Walken 

TBA The Family Fang 

Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman 

105 mins 

STRAND RELEASING (310) 395-5002 

2/5 Eisenstein in Guanajuato 

C/105 mins 

3/4 Cemetery of Splendour 

Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul 

Summer Closet Monster 

Dir. Stephen Dunn 

TBA May Allah Bless France! 

Dir. Abd Al Malik 

TBA Sworn Virgin 

Alba Rohrwacher 

STX ENTERTAINMENT (310) 742-2300 

Now The Boy 

Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans 

PG-13 

Now Secret in Their Eyes 

C/DD-DTS/Julia Roberts, 

Chiwetel Ejiofor 


3/4 Desierto 

Gael García Bernal 

5/13 Free State of Jones 

Matthew McConaughey 

7/29 The Space Between Us 

Asa Butterfield, Dir. Peter Chelsom 

8/19 Bad Moms 

Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis 

9/30 Untitled High School Comedy 

Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson 

10/14 The Bye Bye Man 

Dir. Stacy Title 

TBA Russ & Roger Go Beyond 

Josh Gad, Will Ferrell 

SUNDANCE SELECTS (646) 273-7336 

Now The Treasure 

Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu 

C/89 mins/NR 

2/26 King Georges 

Dir. Erika Frankel 

2/26 Marguerite & Julien 

Anaïs Demoustier, Jérémie Elkhaïm 

3/11 City of Gold 

Dir. Laura Gabbert 

Spring Disorder 

Matthias Schoenaerts, Diane Kruger 

101 mins 

2016 Dheepan 

Dir. Jacques Audiard 

109 mins 

20TH CENTURY FOX (213) 277-2211 / 

(212) 261-2500 

Now Joy 

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, 

Robert De Niro, 

Dir. David O. Russell 


Now The Revenant 

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy 

Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu 


Now Alvin and the Chipmunks: 

The Road Chip 

Voices of Justin Long, Kaley Cuoco 

DD-DTS/92 mins/PG 

Now The Peanuts Movie 

Dir. Steve Martino 

Atmos-DTS/88 mins/G 

Now The Martian [3D] 

Matt Damon, Dir. Ridley Scott 

C/Atmos/141 mins/PG-13 

Now Maze Runner: 

The Scorch Trials [3D] 

Dylan O’Brien 

C/Atmos-Auro/113 mins/PG-13 

1/29 Kung Fu Panda 3 [3D] [DreamWorks] 

Voice of Jack Black 

C/Auro-DD/95 mins/PG 

2/12 Deadpool 

Ryan Reynolds, Gina Carano 


2/26 Eddie the Eagle 

Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman 

3/11 The Other Side of the Door 

Sarah Wayne Callies 

5/27 X-Men: Apocalypse 

James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender 

6/24 Independence Day: Resurgence 

Jessie Usher, Jeff Goldblum 

7/8 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates 

Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick 

7/22 Ice Age: Collision Course [3D] 

Voice of John Leguizamo 

9/23 A Cure for Wellness 

Jason Isaacs, Dir. Gore Verbinski 

11/4 Trolls [3D] [DreamWorks] 

Voice of Anna Kendrick 

11/11 Why Him? 

Bryan Cranston, James Franco 

12/21 Assassin’s Creed 


12/25 Miss Peregrine’s Home 

for Peculiar Children 

Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson 

Dir. Tim Burton 

2016 Keeping Up with the Joneses 

Jon Hamm, Zach Galifianakis 

1/13/17 Hidden Figures [ID] 

Dir. Theodore Melfi 

2/10/17 The Mountain between Us [ID] 

Rosamund Pike, Charlie Hunnam 

2/17/17 Maze Runner: The Death Cure 

Dir. Wes Ball 

3/3/17 Untitled Wolverine Sequel 

Hugh Jackman, Dir. James Mangold 

3/10/17 Boss Baby 

Voices of Kevin Spacey, 

Alec Baldwin 

4/7/17 The Story of Ferdinand [3D] 

Dir. Carlos Saldanha 

5/12/17 Untitled Mother/ 

Daughter Comedy [ID] 

Amy Schumer 

6/16/17 Kingsman 2 

Taron Egerton 

7/14/17 War of the Planet of the Apes 

Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis 

10/6/17 Alien: Covenant 

Michael Fassbender, 

Katherine Waterston 

Dir. Ridley Scott 

12/22/17 The Croods 2 [DreamWorks] 

Voice of Emma Stone 

12/25/17 The Greatest Showman on Earth 

Hugh Jackman 

12/25/17 Avatar 2 [ID] 

Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana 

Dir. James Cameron 

2017 Gambit 

Channing Tatum 

2017 The Little Mermaid 


2/16/18 Larrikins [DreamWorks] 

Animated, Dir. Tim Minchin 

6/29/18 How to Train Your Dragon 3 

[3D] [DreamWorks] 

3/23/18 Anubis [3D] [ID] 

Dir. Chris Wedge 

Dec ‘18 Avatar 3 [ID] 


2018 Puss in Boots 2: Nine Lives 

& 40 Thieves [DreamWorks] 

Voice of Antonio Banderas 

2018 Madagascar 4 [DreamWorks] 

2019 Avatar 4 [ID] 


TBA More Soul Food [ID] 

Scr. George Tillman Jr. 

TBA Fortunately, The Milk [ID] 

Johnny Depp, Dir. Edgar Wright 

TBA Captain Underpants 

Voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms 

TBA Murder on the Orient Express [ID] 

Dir. Kenneth Branagh 

TBA Fantastic Voyage [ID] 

Dir. Guillermo del Toro 

TBA Little White Corvette 

Dylan O’Brien 

FEBRUARY 2016 


UNIVERSAL (818) 777-1000 / 

(212) 759-7500 

Now Ride Along 2 

Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Olivia Munn 


Now Sisters 

Tina Fey, Amy Poehler 


Now Krampus 

Dir. Michael Dougherty 


2/5 Hail, Caesar! 

George Clooney, Josh Brolin 

Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen 

DD-DTS/PG-13 

3/25 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 

Nia Vardalos, Dir. Kirk Jones 

4/8 The Boss 

Melissa McCarthy, Peter Dinklage 

4/22 The Huntsman: Winter’s War 

Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron 

5/20 Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising 

Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, 

Zac Efron, Dir. Nicholas Stoller 

6/3 Conner4Real 

Andy Samberg 

6/10 Warcraft 

Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton 

7/1 The Purge 3 

Dir. James DeMonaco 

7/8 The Secret Life of Pets 

Voices of Kevin Hart, Louis C.K. 

7/29 Untitled Jason Bourne Movie 

Matt Damon, Dir. Paul Greengrass 

8/12 Spectral 

Emily Mortimer 

9/16 Bridget Jones’s Baby 

Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth 

10/7 The Girl on the Train 

Emily Blunt 

10/14 Kevin Hart: What Now? 

Kevin Hart 

10/21 Ouija 2 

Dir. Mike Flanagan 

11/23 The Great Wall 

Matt Damon, Dir. Zhang Yimou 

12/9 Let It Snow [ID] 

Scr. Kay Cannon, Jordan Roter 

12/21 Sing 

Voice of Scarlett Johansson 

2/10/17 Fifty Shades Darker 

Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson 

3/24/17 The Mummy [ID] 

Dir. Alex Kurtzman 

4/14/17 Furious 8 

Dir. F. Gary Gray 

8/4/17 Pitch Perfect 3 

Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson 


6/22/18 Jurassic World sequel 

Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard 

TBA The Red Queen [ID] 


TBA The Girl in the Spider’s Web [ID] 

Scr. Steven Knight 

WALT DISNEY (818) 560-1000 

Now Star Wars: Episode VII— 

The Force Awakens [3D] 

Harrison Ford, John Boyega 

Dir. J.J. Abrams 

C/Atmos/135 mins/PG-13 

Now The Good Dinosaur [Pixar] [3D] 

Voices of Jeffrey Wright, 

Raymond Ochoa 

C/DD-DTS/93 mins/PG 

Now Bridge of Spies 

Tom Hanks, Dir. Steven Spielberg 


1/29 The Finest Hours 

Chris Pine, Ben Foster 

C/Atmos-DTS/PG-13 

3/4 Zootopia 

Voices of Idris Elba, 

Ginnifer Goodwin 

4/15 The Jungle Book 

Voices of Scarlett Johansson, 

Idris Elba 

4/29 A Beautiful Planet 

Documentary 

5/6 Captain America: Civil War 

Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. 

5/27 Alice Through The Looking Glass 

Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska 

6/17 Finding Dory [Pixar] [3D] 

Voice of Ellen DeGeneres 

7/1 The BFG [DreamWorks] 

Dir. Steven Spielberg 

8/12 Pete’s Dragon 

Bryce Dallas Howard, Karl Urban 

11/4 Doctor Strange 

Benedict Cumberbatch 

11/23 Moana [Pixar] 

Voice of Dwayne Johnson 

12/16 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 

Felicity Jones, 

Dir. Gareth Edwards 

3/17/17 Beauty and the Beast 

Emma Watson, Dir. Bill Condon 

3/31/17 Ghost in the Shell [DreamWorks] 

Scarlett Johansson, 

Dir. Rupert Sanders 

5/5/17 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 

Chris Pratt, Dir. James Gunn 

5/26/17 Star Wars: Episode VIII 

Dir. Rian Johnson 

6/16/17 Cars 3 [Pixar] [ID] 

7/7/17 Pirates of the Caribbean: 

Dead Men Tell No Tales 

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom 

11/3/17 Thor: Ragnarok 

Chris Hemsworth, Dir. Taika Waititi 

11/22/17 Coco [Pixar] 

Dir. Lee Unkrich 

12/22/17 Untitled Disney Fairy Tale 

2/16/18 Black Panther 

Chadwick Boseman 

Dir. Ryan Coogler 

3/9/18 Gigantic [Pixar] 

Dir. Nathan Greno 

5/4/18 Avengers: Infinity War - Part 1 

Dir. Joe Russo, Anthony Russo 

5/25/18 Untitled Han Solo Star Wars 

Anthology Film 

Dir. Phil Lord, Chris Miller 

6/15/18 Toy Story 4 [Pixar] 

Dir. John Lasseter 

7/6/18 Ant-Man and the Wasp 

Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly 

Dir. Peyton Reed 

11/2/18 Untitled Disney Fairy Tale 

5/3/19 Avengers: Infinity War - Part 2 

Dir. Joe Russo, Anthony Russo 

6/21/19 The Incredibles 2 

Dir. Brad Bird 

3/8/19 Captain Marvel 

Scr. Meg LeFauve, Nicole Perlman 

5/24/19 Star Wars: Episode IX 

Dir. Colin Trevorrow 

TBA Dumbo [ID] 

Dir. Tim Burton 

TBA The Haunted Mansion [ID] 

Dir. Guillermo del Toro 

TBA Bob: the Musical [ID] 

Dir. Michel Hazanavicius 

TBA Mary Poppins [ID] 

Dir. Rob Marshall 

TBA Cruella 

Scr. Kelly Marcel 

TBA The Night Stalker [ID] 


WARNER BROS. (818) 954-6000 / 

(212) 636-5100 

Now Creed 

Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone 


Now In the Heart of the Sea 

Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy 

Atmos-DTS/121 mins/PG-13 

Now Point Break [3D] 

Edgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey 

C/DD /114 mins/PG-13 

Now The 33 

Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro 


2/12 How to be Single 

Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson 

DD/Rated R 

3/4 Me Before You 

Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin 

3/18 Midnight Special 

Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton 

3/25 Batman v Superman: 

Dawn of Justice 

Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill 

4/15 Barbershop: The Next Cut 

Ice Cube, Nicki Minaj, Common 

4/22 Keanu 

Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele 

5/6 Going in Style 

Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine 

5/20 The Nice Guys 

Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling 

6/10 The Conjuring 2 

Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson 

6/17 Central Intelligence 

Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart 

7/1 The Legend of Tarzan [LF] 

Alexander Skarsgård, 

Margot Robbie 

7/22 Lights Out [New Line] 

Teresa Palmer 

8/5 Suicide Squad 

Will Smith, Margot Robbie, 

Jared Leto 

8/19 Arms and the Dudes 

Dir. Todd Phillips 

9/9 Sully 

Tom Hanks, Dir. Clint Eastwood 

10/7 The Accountant 

Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick 

11/4 Bastards 

Owen Wilson, J.K. Simmons 

11/18 Fantastic Beasts and Where 

to Find Them 

Eddie Redmayne, Scr. J.K. Rowling 

12/16 Chicken Soup for the Soul [ID] 

2016 Unforgettable 

Katherine Heigl, Rosario Dawson 

1/13/17 Geostorm 

Gerard Butler, Katheryn Winnick 

2/10/17 The Lego Batman Movie 

Voices of Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes 

2/17/17 Untitled King Arthur Movie 

Charlie Hunnam, Dir. Guy Ritchie 

3/10/17 Kong: Skull Island 

Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson 

6/2/17 The House 

Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler 

6/23/17 Wonder Woman 

Gal Gadot, Chris Pine 

7/21/17 Dunkirk 

Dir. Christopher Nolan 

9/22/17 Ninjago 

Animated 

10/6/17 Jungle Book: Origins 

Dir. Andy Serkis 

11/17/17 Justice League Part One 

Dir. Zack Snyder 

12/15/17 Ready Player One 

Dir. Steven Spielberg 

2017 Live by Night 

Dir. Ben Affleck 

2017 Tomb Raider 

Dir. Roar Uthaug 

2017 Untitled Creed Sequel [MGM] [ID] 

3/23/18 The Flash 

Ezra Miller 

5/18/18 The LEGO Movie Sequel 

Dir. Rob Schrab 

6/8/18 Godzilla 2 [ID] 

Dir. Gareth Edwards 

7/27/18 Aquaman 

Jason Momoa, Dir. James Wan 

9/21/18 Untitled Scooby-Doo Movie 

Dir. Tony Cervone 

4/5/19 Shazam! 

Dwayne Johnson 

5/24/19 The Billion Brick Race [ID] 

Dir. Drew Pearce, Jason Segel 

6/14/19 Justice League Part Two 

Dir. Zack Snyder 

4/3/20 Cyborg 

Ray Fisher 

6/19/20 Green Lantern Corps 

2020 Godzilla vs. Kong [ID] 

TBA The Stand [ID] 

Dir. Josh Boone 

TBA Kung Fu [ID] 

Dir. Baz Luhrmann 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

TBA 

Untitled Blade Runner Sequel [ID] 

Harrison Ford, Dir. Dennis Villeneuve 

CHiPS 

Dir. Dax Shepard 

Shaft [New Line] [ID] 

Scr. Kenya Barris, Alex Barnow 

100 Bullets [New Line] [ID] 

Tom Hardy 

Pinocchio [ID] 

Robert Downey Jr. 

Scr. Paul Thomas Anderson 

Death Note 

Dir. Adam Wingard 

Journey 3: From the Earth 

to the Moon 

Dwayne Johnson, Dir. Brad Peyton 

Illuminae [ID] 

Scr. Jay Kristoff 

Project XX [ID] 

Scr. Michael Bacall 

THE WEINSTEIN CO. (646) 862-3400 

Now The Hateful Eight 

Samuel L. Jackson, 

Jennifer Jason Leigh 

Dir. Quentin Tarantino 


Now Carol 

Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett 

DD/118 mins/R 

Now Macbeth 

Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard 

C/DD/110 Mins 

1/29 Jane Got a Gun 

Natalie Portman 

2/5 Regression [Radius] 

Emma Watson, Ethan Hawke 

2/19 Viral 

Sophia Black, Annaleigh Tipton 

4/15 Amityville: The Awakening 

Bella Thorne, 

Jennifer Jason Leigh 

11/25 The Founder 

Michael Keaton, Laura Dern 

2016 Gold 

Matthew McConaughey, 

Édgar Ramirez 

2016 Hands of Stone 

Édgar Ramírez 

2016 Viral 

Analeigh Tipton 

2016 Lion 

Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman 

12/22/17 The Six Billion Dollar Man [ID] 

Mark Wahlberg, Dir. Damián Szifrón 

TBA About Ray 

Elle Fanning, Naomi Watts, 

Susan Sarandon 

TBA Sing Street 

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Dir. John Carney 

TBA Richard Pryor: 

Is It Something I Said? 

Mike Epps, Dir. Lee Daniels 

TBA The Current War 

Jake Gyllenhaal, 

Benedict Cumberbatch 

TBA Paddington 2 

Dir. Paul King 

WELL GO USA (972) 265-4317 

Now Ip Man 3 

Donnie Yen 

C/DD/105 mins/NR 

March Kill Your Friends 

Nicholas Hoult, James Corden 

Summer River 

Dir. Jamie M. Dagg 

2016 November Criminals 

Ansel Elgort, Chloë Grace Moretz 

XLRATOR MEDIA 

2/19 Admiral 

Charles Dance, Rutger Hauer 

3/4 Camino 

Zoë Bell, Nacho Vigalondo 

4/1 Pandemic 

Rachel Nichols, Mekhi Phifer 

4/8 It’s So easy and Other Lies 

Duff McKagan, Slash 

4/22 Paradox 

Zoë Bell 


EUROPEAN UPDATE 

ANDREAS FUCHS 

FJI EXHIBITION/ 

BUSINESS EDITOR 

BFI SUPPORTS 

BAFTA NOMINEES 

This year’s contenders for 

the BAFTA Film Awards include 

heavy hitters with a heavy load of 

nominations. Leading the charge are 

Steven Spielberg and Todd Haynes 

with nine nominations each for 

Bridge of Spies and Carol, followed 

by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and The 

Revenant with eight. Rounding out 

the Best Films of the year, as seen 

by the British Academy of Film and 

Television Arts, are The Big Short 

and Spotlight. Not much tea time in 

any of them. 

That may account for six fi lms 

vying for Best Outstanding British 

Film (without Spectre) and the 

Minions’ trippy trip to swinging 

London entering the animated 

race. Ben Roberts, director of the 

BFI Film Fund, which supported 

six of the fi lms that garnered a 

total 11 nominations, including 45 

Years and Brooklyn, was pleased 

“to see a number of excellent 

British fi lms and fi lmmakers across 

the Outstanding British and 

Outstanding Debut categories.” 

BFI Lottery investment supports 

the U.K.’s independent sector, 

he explained, “where so many of 

our brightest stars are born, and 

where talented teams work with 

extraordinary tenacity and skill to 

bring their stories to the screen.” 

BERLINALE WATCHES 

SHOOTING STARS 

The jury of industry experts 

as appointed by European Film 

Promotion (EFP) selected ten 

“gifted young actors” to become 

the 2016 European Shooting Stars 

(www.shooting-stars.eu/en). In the 

19th year of the Creative Europe- 

MEDIA supported Programme, 

they hail from Belgium, Croatia, 

France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, 

Italy, Spain, Switzerland and The 

Netherlands. Among the past recipients 

of this recognition is Alicia 

Vikander (Sweden), double BAFTA 

nominee in leading and supporting 

acting categories for The Danish 

Girl and Ex Machina. This year, she 

also co-starred in Burnt with fellow 

former Shooting Star Daniel Brühl 

(Germany). Alexander Fehling 

(Germany, 2011) and Sven Schelker 

(Switzerland, 2015) were just cast 

for the fi fth season of TV drama 

“Homeland.” 

“We are proud to present 

these emerging artists on a world 

stage at the Berlinale,” said jury 

member Anamaria Marinca. The 

Romanian Shooting Star of 2008 

described the diffi culty in selecting 

the participants from a pool of 24 

submitted by EFP member organizations. 

“We watched fi lms from all 

over Europe, brimming with fresh 

young voices. Our fi nal selection of 

ten actors refl ects the diversity and 

vitality of European cinema.” 

EURO FILM MARKET BOOKED 

Also in Berlin, Germany, the 

“fi rst fi lm market of the year” is 

solidly sold out. The European 

Film Market expects more than 

8,000 producers, exhibitors, world 

sales agents, buyers and fi nanciers 

Feb. 11-19 (www.efm-berlinale. 

de). No fewer than 38 “stateof-the-art 

cinemas are at the 

service” of market participants, 

organizers noted. (Check them 

out at www.efm-berlinale.de/en/ 

screenings/screening-facilities.) 

EFMCinemobile is a new addition 

that seats 80 and offers digital 

3D, just outside the iconic market 

center of Martin-Gropius-Bau. 

The joint ASEAN (Association 

of Southeast Asian Nations) 

booth marks another premiere. On 

Feb. 17, EFM’s ongoing partnership 

with the “Bridging the Dragon” 

network presents its very fi rst 

Sino-European Seminar. Thirty-fi ve 

European producers will spend the 

entire day with Chinese experts 

“in order to gain a deeper insight” 

into the People’s Republic as part 

of EFM Asia. “Our new initiatives 

are an appropriate reaction to the 

development of and great changes 

in the international fi lm and media 

landscape,” noted EFM director 

Matthijs Wouter Knol. 

YMAGIS GROUP GROWING 

Ymagis Group has a new 

deputy chief executive offi cer. 

Georges Garic joined the European 

“specialist in digital technologies 

for the cinema industry” after 

three years at Asteelfl ash with 

6,000 employees and US$900 

million in revenue. His positions 

at this international electronic 

manufacturing services company 

included oversight of the United 

States and China (2008) and 

Europe, Middle East and Africa 

(2012). Commenting on this 

strong international background, 

Jean Mizrahi, Ymagis Group 

president and CEO, expects “this 

seasoned professional” who has 

worked in “highly competitive 

industrial sectors” to “accelerate 

the synergies among our group’s 

businesses and prepare it for the 

next steps in our development.” 

One such step is a recent 

agreement with Smartjog. Executed 

in line with Mizrahi’s “strategy to 

become the undisputed leader 

in digital content delivery across 

Europe,” Ymagis acquired their 

remaining stake in Smartjog Ymagis 

Logistics. SYL was founded only 

two years ago to offer the cinema 

industry “integrated solutions” to 

meet delivery needs for theatrical 

releases, second-run and classic 

fi lms, trailers and cinema ads. 

Taking full operational control 

will allow Ymagis to integrate related 

activities in two other subsidiaries 

(dcinex SA and Eclair Media SAS) “in 

a more effi cient manner,” the Group 

envisions—as well as leading to 

“joint business initiatives” across the 

delivery services at DSAT Cinema, 

as part of their global agreement 

announced in June. 

As of that same date, 7,172 

screens in Europe were under 

exhibitor-services contracts with 

Ymagis, and 6,401 screens were installed 

under VPF contracts. While 

a network of 3,300 connected 

cinemas may pale by comparison 

to the number anticipated as part 

of the Digital Cinema Distribution 

Coalition (featured on page 30 of 

this issue), Ymagis Group is the 

only company capable of delivering 

content digitally via satellite, DSL 

and/or fi ber. 

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE 

SERVES UP CLASSICS 

All that (admittedly important) 

talk about digital delivery 

made this columnist hungry for 

some old-fashioned cinéma. At the 

French Institute-Alliance Française 

(FIAF) in Manhattan, the monthly 

CinéSalon not only serves wine 

and cheese after its screenings but 

also the most delicious of auteurinspired 

dishes. 

As part of its February series 

honoring the “incredible technological 

innovations and evolving 

fi lmmaking practices of the past halfcentury” 

in cinematographer Pierre 

Lhomme’s fi lms, FIAF selected representative 

titles, from The Army of 

Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) 

to Maurice (1987, with director 

James Ivory attending a Q&A after 

the screening). While the majority 

of the fi lms are being presented in 

pristine restorations, The Mother and 

the Whore (1973), considered one 

of the greatest French fi lms of the 

post-War era, is showing in a rare 

35mm screening. Series curators 

attribute the fi lm’s success “to the 

trust and artistic complicity that 

developed between Pierre Lhomme 

and director Jean Eustache over the 

course of a manic four-week shoot.” 

For more information, go to www. 

fi af.org/events/winter2016. 

FEBRUARY 2016 


SNACK CORNER 

LARRY ETTER 

FJI CONCESSIONS EDITOR 

THE RETAIL EFFECT 

Keepsake Items Enhance 

the Concession Offering 

The latest trend in foodservice 

operations is to 

include a vessel of some 

type that ties the movie patron 

to the fi lm franchise. Retail items 

such as popcorn tins and fl ashy 

collectible cups have fl ooded the 

concession stands, all with the goal 

of increasing sales incidence. This 

trend is changing the way we as 

operators present our goods and 

services, while building loyalty to 

the cinema business. 

The Retail Effect, as I call it, 

is that move from selling a single 

bag of popcorn to selling a highend, 

multicolored, highresolution 

popcorn tub 

made from a reliable 

metal as the primary 

source of revenue. 

The graphics on 

plastic soda cups 

are eye-catching and 

notable features that 

create a spontaneous 

purchase. The 

sipping device known 

as a straw has become a 

premium collectible warranting 

a price of dollars for an item that 

was once free of charge. And the 

kids’ combo has now become a 

means to sell toys as opposed to 

a snack box with a popcorn, soda 

and small candy. 

Patrons enter the theatre with 

certain expectations of the experience. 

The theatre operator has a 

responsibility to exceed those expectations, 

and in foodservice we 

are adding retail items to achieve 

that goal. Customary concession 

items have often been literal with 

a concrete purpose: Hold the 

drink or popcorn until it can be 

consumed. These items have been 

functional, utilitarian and overt. 

Now, the practice is to design 

a delightful, engaging, pleasurable 

INSIDE 

OUT 

TOPPERS 

experience, with the vessels as 

a means to connect the patron 

to the fi lm product itself. 2015, 

a big year for franchise fi lms, 

saw an explosion of new vessels 

that became a real revenue 

driver. Even though collectible 

cups have been sold in years 

past, Avengers: Age of Ultron saw 

the addition of popcorn tins 

used as means to entice more 

sales of popcorn. Jurrasic World 

brought us collectible cups, 

dinosaur toppers, and even 

candy. Minions caricatures of the 

loveable lead characters became 

more important than the actual 

snack itself. The Hunger Games— 

Mockingjay, Part 2, with its 

popcorn tins in multiple graphic 

styles, induced the patron to buy 

two instead of one, and key rings 

and water bottles accentuated 

the entire “retail” promotion 

for concessions. And then Star 

Wars: The Force Awakens blew 

up the world with collectibles: 

Four various styles of popcorn 

metal tins, plastic 200-ounce 

buckets, collectible cups, toppers 

and other sundry items led to 

huge increases in sales on the 

concession revenue scale. 

The truth is we may not be 

selling snacks as much as we are 

selling vessels and premiums that 

just happen to come with 

popcorn or soda 

inside. This action 

creates concession 

bliss. The 

movie patron now 

believes they are 

a part of the fi lm 

itself. They are 

“buying into” the 

experience, not 

only for the time 

at the theatre 

but for savoring 

it later at home. 

The average 

customer senses 

that they “own stock” in the fi lm 

brand. Patrons now have the fi lm 

images in their hands, characters 

in their possession, and mementos 

of that theatre experience that are 

concrete, no longer just imaginary. 

By selling/offering these higherprofi 

le vessels, we are improving 

the value proposition extended to 

the guest. Our offerings no longer 

seem manufactured but unique, 

not so much mass-produced as 

individually portioned. 

These keepsake items are 

growing sales at the concession 

stand exponentially. Example: 

If a theatre circuit sold 100,000 

kids’ combos in the past, and now 

adds the topper at $2 per unit, 

sales would grow by $200,000. 

If the same circuit sold 100,000 

souvenir cups (44-oz. beverages) 

and decided to add a $1 upcharge 

for the vessel, another $100,000 

in new sales would result. And 

if a theatre circuit sold 25,000 

popcorn tins at a charge of $5 

per unit, that would add another 

$125,000 in revenue. This modest 

example posits a viable growth of 

$425,000 in annual sales. (Please 

note: The sample described above 

can be adjusted up or down 

depending on a circuit’s pricing 

philosophy and only represents an 

example of what could occur.) 

The essence of this message is 

that retail items are improving the 

image of the snacks offered at the 

food outlets. But it is important to 

understand that the profitability 

model also changes. Retail packaging 

costs more, quite a bit more. However, 

the actual dollar profit results 

in more dollars actually deposited 

in the bank. Food and beverage 

managers should not be averse to 

selling these premium items because 

the percentage profit does not meet 

the standards of soda and popcorn 

percentages. The increase in sales 

dollars leads to higher revenues per 

patron, which offsets the cost of 

labor and overhead expenses as percentages. 

The overall intent should 

always be: Put as much cash in the 

bank as possible–we deposit dollars, 

not percentages. 

This trend of retail augmentation 

can help theatre owners subtly 

and still increase the pleasure 

of the theatre experience if presented 

in a professional manner. It 

is a means to increase customer 

loyalty as well as increase dollar 

revenues. Seems like a win-win for 

all concerned. 


FEBRUARY 2016

THE WORLD’S SECOND 

MOST INTERESTING MAN 

Bruce Proctor Is a Longtime Friend 

to the Concession Industry 

CONCESSION SPOTLIGHT 

This month, our Concessions 

Spotlight features Bruce 

Proctor, a longtime veteran 

of the cinema industry who has 

been a generous friend, counselor, 

mentor and advisor to countless 

industry professionals, from 

single-unit theatres to multiplesite 

operators. 

Bruce is a product of the 

industry. His father, Bill Proctor, 

operated theatres in the Midwest in 

the 1950s and ’60s and introduced 

his son to the industry at the tender 

age of eight. Bruce helped out by 

popping popcorn, pouring soda and 

cleaning up. “I remember my dad taking 

me out to our drive-in and having me 

pick up all the trash in the blazing summer 

heat,” Bruce recalls. “That’s how I 

learned the value of hard work. When 

I was fi nished, he would put a nice, cold 

Coke in my hand. That’s how I learned 

to enjoy the fruits of my labor.” That’s 

also how he developed a fondness 

for Coca-Cola, which, Bruce’s friends 

know, continues to this day. 

By 1963, Bill had sold his theatres 

and was managing a national theatre 

distribution facility. He brought Bruce 

onboard and started to teach him 

the business. Five years later, when Bill 

resigned his position to found Proctor 

Companies, Bruce again came along, working side-by-side with his 

father to build Proctor Companies from a shoestring start-up to the 

thriving enterprise it soon became. When Bill stepped aside in 1988, 

he confi dently handed the reins of Proctor Companies to Bruce, who 

by that time was an industry veteran in his own right. Bruce serves as 

president and CEO of Proctor Companies to this day. 

A true visionary, Bruce sees what others cannot. Under his direction, 

Proctor Companies has overseen more than 3,500 concession 

and foodservice projects and has expanded its operations to Australia, 

Brazil, Russia and more than 30 other countries around the world. The 

creativity, innovation, processes and systems Bruce has introduced to 

the industry including the Station Concept, Pass-Thru Design, the Self 

Serve/Cafeteria Model and In-Theatre Dining paradigms, have changed 

THE CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, PROCESSES 

AND SYSTEMS BRUCE HAS INTRODUCED 

TO THE INDUSTRY, INCLUDING 

THE STATION CONCEPT, PASS-THRU DESIGN, 

THE SELF-SERVE/CAFETERIA MODEL 

AND IN-THEATRE DINING PARADIGMS, 

CHANGED THE CINEMA BUSINESS FOREVER. 

THE ATRIUM CINEMA ON STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. 

the cinema business forever. 

The respect the industry holds 

for Bruce’s talent, dedication and 

selfl ess commitment to the development 

of a new generation of theatre 

operators is refl ected in the positions 

he has held and the accolades he has 

received. In 1997, after more than 

ten years on the board of the National 

Association of Concessionaires 

(NAC) where he served as chairman 

of the Marketing Committee, 

NAC awarded him the prestigious 

Bert Nathan Memorial Award for 

his outstanding contributions to the 

concession industry. He also holds 

a Concession Manager Certifi cation 

(CCM) and is one of fewer than 

50 people in the world to hold the 

Executive Concession Manager Certifi 

cation (ECM) title. 

Domestic industry events such as 

ShoWest, the NAC Expo, CinemaCon 

and ShowEast and international shows 

like Kino Expo, Cine-Europe and Cine- 

Asia have tapped Bruce to provide his 

unique insights into the successful design, 

construction and operation of commercial 

foodservice systems. In addition, 

Bruce has authored numerous trademagazine 

articles covering specifi cations, 

guidelines and professional protocols for 

the design of concession stands. 

In his free time, Bruce enjoys the outdoors. When asked where he 

would go if he could travel anywhere in the world, he doesn’t hesitate: 

“Patagonia.” His eyes light up at the prospect of hiking, fi shing and 

trekking in a place that untrammeled. “I’ve climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 

mountains over 14,000 feet, but Patagonia is a part of the planet that’s 

even wilder than Colorado. It’s on my bucket list. I can’t wait!” 

Until he heads south, Bruce enjoys skiing, fl y fi shing and spending 

time with his family: Michelle, his wife of 15 years, their delightful young 

son George, his children from a previous marriage, Grant and Jill, and his 

new grandson Cormac. 

So let’s toast this month’s most interesting man in the world by raising 

a refreshing glass of–you guessed it–nice, cold Coca-Cola! 

Cheers, Bruce! 

FEBRUARY 2016 


ASIA/PACIFIC 

RoundAbout 

THOMAS SCHMID 

THAI COURT REAFFIRMS 

BAN ON GAY FILM 

Thailand’s Administrative 

Court on Dec. 25 ruled that the 

ban imposed by the country’s 

National Film Board in 2010 on 

local gay-themed movie Insects 

in the Backyard was lawful and to 

be upheld. The ruling came as 

a surprise, as one of the judges 

presiding over the case had only 

in early December recommended 

during a preliminary hearing that 

the ban be revoked. 

The court said in its ruling 

that Insects in the Backyard would 

continue to be banned primarily 

because of a brief scene depicting 

graphic sexual intercourse, 

which violates Section 287 of the 

Criminal Cod e which prohibits 

“content that has a negative 

impact on public morality and 

social decency.” However, the 

judges also ruled that the movie 

could be screened if the offensive 

scene were to be cut. But even 

then, the fi lm would have to be 

rated 20+, meaning it could only 

be shown to audiences aged 20 

and older. 

Insects in the Backyard tells the 

story of a transvestite father who 

raises a teenage son and daughter 

on his own. Both children have 

a confused sense of their own 

sexualities and eventually enter 

the commercial sex industry. The 

scene in question is merely three 

seconds long and shows the father 

watching a gay pornographic movie 

on his home TV set. 

Director Tanwarin Sukhapisit 

fi led a lawsuit with the Administrative 

Court when her movie 

was fi rst banned by the National 

Film Board in 2010, arguing that 

the ban restricted her freedom 

of expression. Tanwarin, who is 

a transgender person herself and 

plays the character of the father, 

has passionately defended her fi lm 

throughout the case proceedings. 

“The fi lm is meant to talk about 

family problems and mostly lessons 

learned from my own experiences. 

It doesn’t intend to cast a 

negative light on the country,” she 

was quoted by local news media in 

early December after one of the 

judges had reportedly recommended 

lifting the ban. 

Tanwarin said she accepted 

the ruling and won’t appeal. But in 

an interview with Kong Rithdee, 

the highly respected fi lm critic 

of local newspaper Bangkok Post, 

she also highlighted interpretation 

problems brought on by Thailand’s 

vaguely worded Film Act of 2008 

and the apparently “arbitrary” 

censorship powers executed 

by the National Film Board, a 

body supervised by the Ministry 

of Culture. “Back in 2010, the 

INSECTS IN THE BACKYARD 

censors couldn’t tell me exactly 

why they banned my movie. They 

mentioned underage prostitution, 

they mentioned the penis shots, 

they mentioned the ‘bad [morality] 

examples.’ They said many things, 

but were very vague. They were 

unable to tell me what I had to cut 

so the fi lm would pass,” she told 

Rithdee. “Now the court has told 

me which shot was the problem– 

the porn image on the TV screen– 

and I can accept that.” 

Tanwarin is the fi rst local fi lmmaker 

ever to having used a legal 

channel in an effort to attempt lifting 

a fi lm ban since Thailand’s Film 

Act was introduced in 2008. A 

number of local and international 

movies have been banned since 

that time. 

SINGAPORE FILM FEST 

WRAPS WITH INDIAN WIN 

Indian fi lmmaker Gurvinder 

Singh was honored at the recent 

26th Singapore International Film 

Festival with the top prize in the 

Asian Feature Film category, re- 

THE FOURTH DIRECTION 


FEBRUARY 2016

DAY & DATE 

DownUnder 

DAVID PEARCE 

ceiving the Best Film trophy at the 

festival’s glamorous Silver Screen 

Awards ceremony for his 2015 

drama The Fourth Direction. The 

Indian-French co-production is 

set in 1984 against the backdrop 

of the bloody anti-Sikh riots that 

enveloped India’s northern Punjab 

State and culminated in the 

storming by Indian troops of the 

Sikh community’s holiest shrine 

in the capital Amritsar, where 

Sikh separatists had barricaded 

themselves. The Fourth Direction 

already had its world premiere at 

last year’s Cannes Film Festival, 

where it was screened in the Un 

Certain Regard section. 

Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi 

took the Best Director Award 

for his drama Happy Hour (2015), 

while young Turkish actors Yakub 

Özgür Turgaal, Ömer Uluç and 

Taha Tegin Özdemir shared the 

Best Performance Award for 

their work in Turkish drama Snow 

Pirates (2015). Meanwhile, Iranian 

director Moshen Makhmalbaf 

received the festival’s Honorary 

Award and Malaysia-born actress 

Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, 

Hidden Dragon; Tomorrow Never 

Dies) picked up the Cinema 

Legend Award. It was the fi rst 

time the festival has awarded this 

trophy. 

Controversy erupted over 

Israeli fi lmmaker Avishai Sivan’s 

Tikkun (2015). The mystery drama 

didn’t pass Singapore’s stringent 

fi lm censorship laws and thus 

could not be publicly screened 

during the festival. A closed-door 

screening had to be held for the 

jury, which then awarded the fi lm 

a Special Mention. The 26th Singapore 

International Film festival ran 

from Nov. 26 until Dec. 6, wrapping 

with the Silver Screen Awards 

Gala on its last evening. 

For inquiries and feedback, 

contact Thomas Schmid at thomas. 

schmid@fi lmjournal.com. 

Plans are afoot for a movie 

museum in Sir Peter Jackson’s 

hometown of Wellington, 

New Zealand. The NZ$134 

million (US$89 million) 10,000- 

square-foot development will be 

three stories high and will be built 

on prime waterfront land in the 

heart of Wellington. The Wellington 

foreshore already has a highly 

acclaimed museum, Te Papa, which 

features on many tourist itineraries 

(more later). 

The new museum is a joint 

venture between Jackson, Sir Richard 

Taylor and the Wellington council. 

The council will build the property, 

with Jackson and Taylor financing 

the internal fit-out of the facility. 

“The movie museum will be 

home to thousands of the priceless 

designs, props, models and pieces 

from numerous fi lm productions,” 

said project director George Hickson. 

The facility will have the space 

for whole sets. 

St. Jude 

patients 

Sam and 

Gabby 

TE PAPA MUSEUM FEATURES A DREAMWORKS ANIMATION EXHIBITION. 

Well, how can I not talk 

about Star Wars: The Force 

Awakens? As in the majority of 

territories around the world, 

It has broken records in both 

Australia and New Zealand, with 

best opening day, best weekend 

and best week records tumbling. 

The advent of digital projection 

also allowed the fi lm to achieve 

the widest release ever in Australia, 

where it ran on 941 of the 

country’s approximately 2,000 

screens. Analysts expect it to fi n- 

ish up as the highest-grossing fi lm 

ever in both territories. 

The aforementioned Te Papa is 

holding a DreamWorks Animation 

exhibition. It includes early drawings, 

characters in various stages of 

progression, final drawings and more. 

It will be at Te Papa until late March. 

DreamWorks is about to change 

its distribution Down Under. In 2016, 

distribution of DreamWorks films 

will be overseen by eOne under the 

brand of Amblin Partners in both 

Australia and New Zealand. eOne 

is also handling DreamWorks in the 

U.K. and Benelux. 

Contact David Pearce at insidemovies@hotmail.com. 

to help more kids live. 

Visit stjude.org/theatrepartners for more information 

©2015 ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (21001) 

The lifesaving work of St. Jude Children’s Research 

Hospital ® is powered by movie magic. Each year, theatre 

partners across the country donate pre-show advertising 

space during the holidays to run the St. Jude Thanks 

and Giving ® campaign movie trailer. Featuring a cast 

of Hollywood celebrities, this star-studded trailer lets 

moviegoers everywhere know that at St. Jude, we won’t 

stop until no child dies from cancer. Please join today and 

support St. Jude’s mission: Finding cures. Saving children. ® 

FEBRUARY 2016 WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 61

TRADE TALK 

NATO TO HONOR 

CARMIKE’S PASSMAN 

The National Association of Theatre 

Owners will honor David Passman, president 

and chief executive offi cer of Carmike Cinemas, 

with the 2016 “NATO Marquee Award” 

during this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas. 

He will receive his industry tribute as part 

of CinemaCon’s “State of the Industry: Past, 

Present and Future” presentation on Tuesday 

morning, April 12. 

CARMIKE’S 

DAVID PASSMAN 

“Everyone associated with NATO is thrilled 

to recognize David Passman with our most 

signifi cant award,” noted John Fithian, president 

and CEO of NATO. “David completely revitalized 

a major theatrical circuit while simultaneously 

serving as chairman of NATO for two 

terms. What more could you ask of an industry 

leader?” 

“With genuine interest, care and concern 

for its success, David was deeply involved in 

the planning of CinemaCon during his tenure 

as NATO chairman. His insight and guidance 

are valued by the entire CinemaCon team and 

it is only befi tting that the industry single him 

out for all he has done with the 2016 NATO 

Marquee Award,” stated CinemaCon managing 

director Mitch Neuhauser. 

Passman became director of Carmike 

Cinemas in June 2003 before being appointed 

president and CEO, as well as chair of the 

board’s executive committee in June 2009. 

Carmike Cinemas is the fourth-largest U.S. 

exhibitor with 275 theatres and 2,931 screens 

across 41 states. 

SCREENVISION REVITALIZES 

EVENT CINEMA PROGRAMMING 

Leading cinema-advertising company 

Screenvision announced the formation of a 

strategic alliance with former NCM/Fathom 

executives Shelly Maxwell and Dan Diamond to 

re-launch their event cinema business. Screenvision 

struck the deal with KAOS Connect, a 

newly formed company founded by Maxwell 

and Diamond, who are experts in alternative 

content for movie theatres. KAOS will be 

Screenvision’s exclusive source of event cinema 

programming beginning in early 2016. 

“We are deepening our commitment 

to content and believe the KAOS alliance 

represents a signifi cant step in that direction,” 

said John Partilla, CEO of Screenvision. “Their 

events team is led by two of the best in the 

business–Shelly Maxwell and Dan Diamond–and 

they will greatly help us broaden the content 

opportunities available to brands.” 

Screenvision has a history of bringing 

exclusive event cinema content to theatres. 

Their content has spanned categories like anime 

(DragonBall Z: Battle of Gods), children’s fare 

(My Little Pony: Equestria Girls) and Broadway/ 

performing arts (Company, Driving Miss Daisy and 

Romeo and Juliet). The company put a temporary 

hold on event cinema programming during the 

proposed merger with National CineMedia. 

VISTA GROUP PARTNERS 

WITH SHARE DIMENSION 

Vista Group International Ltd. announced 

the signing of a strategic partnership with Share 

Dimension, a Dutch software development company 

specializing in predictive-analytics businessintelligence 

solutions for cinema exhibitors. The 

transaction will see Vista owning 50% equity. 

Share Dimension’s fl agship product, Cinema 

Intelligence, offers a collection of modules 

aimed at optimizing the scheduling of fi lms to 

increase the profi tability of cinema exhibitors. 

Using an algorithm to predict the “optimal” 

positioning, in scheduling terms, of a fi lm, Share 

Dimension’s offering combines advanced forecasting 

based on historical box-offi ce data with 

precise fi lm-scheduling technology. 

“Combining ‘Cinema Intelligence’ and Vista 

is all about giving customers powerful tools to 

enhance their business,” said Claudiu Tanasescu, 

CEO of Share Dimension. “The partnership 

signifi cantly expands and strengthens Share 

Dimension’s product, geographic reach and 

channels to market.” 

CINEMARK COMMITS TO 80 

NEW D-BOX SYSTEMS 

Cinemark has committed to installing 

D-BOX motion systems in at least 80 new 

screens in 40 theatres over the next 24 months. 

The majority of these screens will be installed 

in the United States and some will be deployed 

in Latin America. Cinemark currently has 112 

D-BOX screens installed or in backlog in the 

United States and Latin America. 

“Based on the strong moviegoer reaction 

and ticket sales generated, we are pleased to 

further expand our D-BOX footprint,” stated 

Robert Copple, Cinemark’s president and 

chief operating offi cer. “We are proud to be 

the largest exhibitor in the world in terms of 

D-BOX-equipped venues and look forward to 

our continued partnership with D-BOX as they 

continue to expand globally.” 

CHRISTIE REPORTS 

HIGH SALES IN CHINA 

Christie reported that its CP2208 digital 

cinema projector has generated record-breaking 

sales in China since it started shipping in 

October. 

To date, Christie’s partner Beijing Donview 

Technology Development Co., Ltd (Donview) 

has purchased over 500 units of this DCIcompliant 

projector, making it the best-selling 

cinema projector of its class in China to date. 

Christie says this is four times the number of 

cinema projectors of the same class sold by 

a competitor in the Chinese market between 

October and December 2015. 

Aimed at theatres whose screen sizes 

are less than 10.6 meters (35 feet) wide, the 

CP2208 is the latest in the series of Xenon 

lamp-based Christie Solaria projector systems. 

The CP2208 is capable of delivering images at 

9,000 lumens within the DCI color space and up 

to 10,000 lumens when presenting alternative 

content. 

TOHO CINEMAS PLANS 

MORE MEDIAMATION 

Following their initial MX4D® installations 

in TOHO Cinemas LaLaport Fujimi, TOHO 

Cinemas Roppongi Hills and TOHO Cinemas 

Shinjuku in early 2015, Sony Business Solutions 

Corporation and U.S. 4D cinema company MediaMation, 

Inc. (MMI) announced eight upcoming 

MediaMation MX4D motion EFX theatre 

installations for TOHO Cinemas, Japan’s largest 

theatre chain. The eight installations range from 


TRADE TALK 

72-seat to 112-seat confi gurations. 

Sony Business Solutions became the exclusive 

distributor of MediaMation MX4D Motion 

EFX cinema theatres in Q1 2015. The eight new 

TOHO Cinemas venues scheduled to debut 

include Nishinomiya OS, LaLaport Funabashi, 

Namba, LaLaport Yokohama, Utsunomiya, 

Konan, Kawasaki and Nijo. 

MX4D is MediaMation’s branded “4D” 

pneumatically driven motion EFX seating system. 

In general, 4D refers to immersive cinema 

technology which allows moviegoers to experience 

Hollywood and locally produced fi lms in 

a new way via the addition of moving seats, air/ 

water blasts, leg/neck ticklers, fog, seat/back 

pokers, seat rumblers and other special effects 

that emanate from specially designed theatre 

seats, or from inside the theatre itself. 

STAR WARS ROGUE ONE 

TOPS FANDANGO SURVEY 

Fandango surveyed moviegoers during the 

last weeks of December about the fi lms, stars 

and roles they are looking forward to seeing on 

the big screen in the new year. The results of 

Fandango’s 2016 Hot List survey are below. 

Most Anticipated Movie: 

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Dec. 16) 

2. Finding Dory (June 17) 

3. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 25) 

4. Untitled Jason Bourne Movie (July 29) 

5. Captain America: Civil War (May 6) 

6. Star Trek Beyond (July 22) 

7. Independence Day: Resurgence (June 24) 

8. X-Men: Apocalypse (May 27) 

9. Zoolander 2 (Feb. 12) 

10. The Jungle Book (April 15) 

Most Anticipated Actress: 

1. Melissa McCarthy (Ghostbusters) 

2. Scarlett Johansson (Captain America: Civil War) 

3. Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: Apocalypse) 

4. Emily Blunt (The Girl on the Train) 

5. Charlize Theron (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) 

Most Anticipated Actor: 

1. Matt Damon (Untitled Jason Bourne Movie) 

2. Will Smith (Suicide Squad) 

3. Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) 

4. Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) 

5. George Clooney (Hail, Caesar!) 

CARMIKE CINEMAS 

OPENS CHERRY BLOSSOM 

Carmike Cinemas opened the Cherry Blossom 

14 featuring The IMAX Experience ® in 

Traverse City, Michigan on Dec. 17, in time for 

the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

Ongoing promotions at this location 

include “Stimulus Tuesday” ($2 popcorn, 

$2 fountain drinks and $2 candy with ticket 

purchase every Tuesday) and “Super Bargain 

Matinee” ($5.75 admission prices for all 

movies between 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., with 

standard surcharges for IMAX, 3D and special 

showings). 

The Cherry Blossom 14 has stadium 

seating, DLP digital projection and 7.1 surround 

digital sound for all screens, with seating 

capacity for more than 2,900 guests. 

Carmike also opened the remodeled 

Carmike Cinema 12 theatre complex in 

Missoula, Montana, featuring The IMAX 

Experience. 

JAPAN EMBRACES 

4DX THEATRES 

CJ 4DPLEX, an immersive theatre 

technology featuring moving seats and 

environmental effects, opened 12 new 4DX 

theatres in their fastest-growing market, Japan, 

in December. The 12 screens were the result 

of partnerships with fi ve different cinema 

exhibitors–AEON Cinemas, United Cinemas, 

109 Cinemas, US Cinemas and Korona World. 

In 2015, Japanese exhibitors added 25 

screens, bringing the total number operated 

in the country to 33. 4DX has seen dramatic 

growth, increasing the number of theatres 

over four times in comparison with eight sites 

installed in 2014. Attendance is also up over 

three times compared to the previous year. 

United Cinema Toyosu had an average 

occupancy rate of 60% in 2015, a much higher 

rate than non-4DX screens in Japan. United 

Cinemas has rolled out additional 4DX theatres 

in Maebashi, Sapporo, Kasukabe, Nigata, 

Toshimaen, Iruma, Mito, Hirakata, Canal City, 

and Kashihara. 

4DX recently added a 4DX theatre 

in Minatomirai, Yokohama, through their 

partnership with AEON Cinemas, the largest 

cinema chain in Japan. 109 Cinemas added a 

fourth 4DX theatre in Sano to its total. And 

with its newest sites, US Cinemas became 

the fi rst Japanese exhibitor to operate a 4DX 

screen at every one of its locations. 

BOLIVIA’S CINE CENTER 

INSTALLS SONY 4K SYSTEM 

Bolivia’s biggest cinema operator is the fi rst 

customer in Latin America for Sony’s highbrightness 

SRX-R515DS 4K dual-projection 

system for large screens. 

Cine Center has installed a total of four 

SRX-R515DS systems–with two systems now 

operational in the Bolivian capital La Paz and a 

further pair in Santa Cruz. 

Cine Center has installed over 50 Sony 4K 

projectors at sites across La Paz, Santa Cruz, 

Cochabamba, Quillacollo and Riberalta. 

SONY’S SRX-R515DS 4K 

KOREA’S CGV DEBUTS 

CHRISTIE LASER PROJECTOR 

CGV, a subsidiary of CJ Group and South 

Korea’s largest multiplex cinema chain, became 

the fi rst exhibitor in the world to be equipped 

with Christie’s new RGB laser projection 

system featuring added wavelength diversity to 

countermeasure speckle on silver screens. 

The system consists of a Christie CP42LH 

3DLP ® 4K RGB laser projector and laser 

modules that generate white light from 

multiple combinations of RGB primary color 

wavelengths. It has been installed by Christie’s 

Korean partner, Ray & Resources, at SphereX 

CGV Youngdeungpo in Seoul. 

CGV’s SphereX is a specially designed, 

curved silver screen to maximize immersive 

3D. The auditorium at Youngdeungpo has a 

19-meter-wide curved screen and 387 seats. 

The installation includes a state-of-the-art 

Christie 4K laser projection head, RGB laser 

modules, a modular laser light farm with fi beroptic 

delivery, Christie integrated media block 

(IMB) and Network Attached Storage (NAS). 

FEBRUARY 2016 


film 

CO 

news 

[DISNEY] 

Emma Stone is in talks to play 

puppy-hating villainess Cruella 

de Vil in a live-action origin story 

for Disney. Certain key elements 

of the fi lm are yet to be locked 

down—like, for example, a director—but 

Disney is reportedly aiming 

for production to begin later 

this year. Cruella was written by 

Fifty Shades of Grey’s Kelly Marcel, 

with Aline Brosh McKenna (The 

Devil Wears Prada) working on an 

earlier version of the script. 

A rumored shortlist is making 

its way around for the role 

of young Han Solo in Phil Lord 

and Chris Miller’s 2018 Star Wars 

spinoff. Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, 

Dave Franco, Jack Reynor, Logan 

Lerman, Emory Cohen and Blake 

Jenner are reportedly being considered, 

with Disney for the most 

part keeping its eye on actors in 

the low- to mid-20s. Harrison 

Ford, by comparison, was 34 when 

Star Wars: Episode IV–A New Hope 

fi rst debuted. The Han Solo prequel 

doesn’t come out until May 

25, 2018, with shooting commencing 

next January. However, rumor 

has it that Disney wants to lock 

down a star soon so their chosen 

young Han can potentially fi lm a 

cameo for Star Wars: Rogue One, 

out next December. 

[DRAFTHOUSE FILMS] 

Drafthouse Films has found 

their latest cult-friendly film: the 

documentary Raiders! The Story of the 

Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, about 

the decade-spanning attempts by 

two friends to create a shot-for-shot 

remake of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders 

of the Lost Ark. Jeremy Coon and Tim 

Skousen wrote and directed the film, 

which has made waves on the festival 

circuit with screenings at SXSW, 

Hot Docs and more. Drafthouse 

will give the film a limited theatrical 

release, along with a VOD/digital 

rollout, this summer. 

[FIRST RUN FEATURES] 

First Run Features acquired 

U.S. and Canadian English-speaking 

rights to Australian comedy/drama 

Last Cab to Darwin, about a curmudgeon 

(Michael Caton) suffering 

from a fatal illness who sets off on 

a continent-crossing drive so he 

can take advantage of a local euthanasia 

law. Ningali Lawford-Wolf 

and two-time Oscar nominee Jacki 

Weaver (Animal Kingdom, Silver Linings 

Playbook) co-star in the factbased 

fi lm, which was directed and 

co-written by Jeremy Sims. It will 

open theatrically this summer. 

[NEW LINE] 

The screenwriting duo of Chad 

and Carey Hayes (The Conjuring, 

2005’s House of Wax) have sold 

their pitch for action-adventure 

fi l m The Burn, about “elite wildlife 

fi refi ghters,” to New Line Cinema. 

The brothers are a hot property 

right now, with The Conjuring 2 

opening this summer, The Crucifi xion 

now fi lming and Journey 3: From the 

Earth to the Moon slowly gravitating 

towards theatres. Can we go ahead 

and put in a request for Dwayne 

Johnson to play a heroic fi refi ghter 

with a heart of gold, please? 

[MAGNOLIA] 

Magnolia Pictures has acquired 

the worldwide rights to two 

upcoming music-related docs. The 

fi rst, director Brendon Toller’s 

Danny Says, is about eccentric 

music executive Danny Fields, who 

managed Iggy and the Stooges, 

MC5 and the Ramones. The 

second, Matthew Miele and Justin 

Bare’s Harry Benson: Shoot First, 

turns its camera on photographer 

Harry Benson, who throughout 

his career captured iconic images 

of, among other subjects, The 

Beatles’ famed fi rst trip to the 

United States. 

[OSCILLOSCOPE] 

Oscilloscope Laboratories 

acquired U.S. rights to The Wait 

(L’Attesa), starring Juliette Binoche 

as a woman meeting her son’s fi ancée 

(French actress Lou de Laâge) 

for the fi rst time. This is the 

feature directorial debut of Piero 

Messina, who served as Paolo 

Sorrentino’s assistant director on 

COOGLER CORNERS BLACK PANTHER 

Ryan Coogler—of Creed and, earlier, Fruitvale Station 

fame—has officially been tapped by Marvel Studios to direct 

Black Panther, coming to theatres on Feb. 16, 2018. Chadwick 

Boseman (Get on Up) stars in the film, about a superhero/leader of 

the (fictional, for those not up on their geography) African nation 

of Wakanda. Boseman will make his official Marvel debut in 

Captain America: Civil War, opening this May. 

LAWRENCE TEAMS WITH ARONOFSKY 

The first filmic collaboration between Jennifer Lawrence and 

Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky has landed at Paramount. 

Little is known about the yet-untitled film, save that it focuses 

on a couple whose calm, happy life is disrupted by the presence 

of unwanted houseguests. Javier Bardem is reportedly in talks to 

co-star in the film, which is expected to hit theatres in 2017. 

NOLAN LANDS AT DUNKIRK 

Christopher Nolan is venturing into war-movie territory 

with Dunkirk, about the famed evacuation of more than 300,000 

Allied troops from a French beach during World War II. This is 

the film that Warner Bros. previously slated for a July 21, 2017 

release, back before we knew anything about it other than who 

its director is. Now we know that Nolan wrote the script and 

Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and two-time Nolan collaborator 

Tom Hardy are in talks to join the ensemble cast, though the 

leads will reportedly be unknowns. 

the Oscar-winning Italian fi lm The 

Great Beauty. Oscilloscope plans to 

release The Wait in the spring of 

this year. 

[PARAMOUNT] 

“Bayhem” returns! Michael 

Bay has confi rmed to Rolling 

Stone that he will be back to 

direct the fi fth installment of the 

multi-billion-dollar Transformers 

franchise, which is tentatively 

slated to hit theatres in 2017. 

Bay’s return was in some doubt, 

as Paramount has made clear 

their intention to retool the 

franchise somewhat, establishing 

a writer’s room to convert their 

smash ’em, bash ’em series into 

something more like a Marvelesque 

shared universe. The 

writing duo of Art Marcum and 

Matt Holloway (Iron Man) will pen 

Transformers 5, along with Ken 

Nolan (Black Hawk Down). 

Paramount’s World War Z 

sequel has hit a snag, with director 

Juan Antonio Bayona, who 

directed the fi rst fi lm, stepping 

down. An offi cial statement from 

Paramount cites “pre-existing 

fi lm commitments” on the director’s 

part; Bayona is in the midst 

of post-production on Focus 

Features’ fantasy fi lm A Monster 

Calls, which opens this October. 

Paramount still plans to make the 

World War Z sequel this year, thus 

keeping to their June 9, 2017 release 

date. Brad Pitt will return in 

his dual roles as star and producer, 

though World War Z’s writers (Damon 

Lindelof, Drew Goddard and 

Matthew Michael Carnahan) have 

been replaced by Steven Knight 

(Eastern Promises, Locke). 

[SONY] 

Emmy- and Oscar-winning 

screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is set 

to make his directorial debut with 

Molly’s Game, based on the true 

story of Molly Bloom, a skier who 

made the unlikely career transition 

to “underground Hollywood 

poker madam.” Sorkin is also on 

scripting duties for the project, 

which will see him working off 

of Bloom’s 2014 memoir Molly’s 


FEBRUARY 2016

Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to 

Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, 

My High-Stakes Adventure in the 

World of Underground Poker. The 

project has been set up at Sony. 

[20TH CENTURY FOX] 

Guillermo del Toro is in 

talks to add another movie to his 

always-full plate: a remake of Fantastic 

Voyage for 20th Century Fox 

and James Cameron’s Lightstorm 

Entertainment. Del Toro will 

reportedly develop and direct the 

film, which is based on a treatment 

and script by David Goyer (Batman 

v Superman: Dawn of Justice, del 

Toro’s Blade II). The original 1966 

film centered on a submarine crew 

who are shrunk to microscopic 

size and venture into the body 

of a Cold War scientist whose 

attempts to defect to the West 

were put on hold by an assassination 

attempt. 

Twentieth Century Fox is 

reteaming with its Maze Runner 

star Dylan O’Brien for Little White 

Corvette, an action comedy to be 

directed by “The Inbetweeners” 

co-creator Iain Morris. O’Brien 

will play half of a brother-sister 

duo that goes on the run after uncovering 

a stash of cocaine in their 

late father’s car. The sister has not 

yet been cast, though Emma Stone 

was rumored for the role earlier 

in the development process. Michael 

Diliberti (30 Minutes or Less) 

wrote the script. 

Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant 

has found its female lead in 

Katherine Waterston, co-star of 

Warner Bros.’ upcoming Harry 

Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and 

Where to Find Them. Covenant, 

which takes place in between Prometheus 

and Alien, sees Waterston 

reunite with her Steve Jobs co-star 

Michael Fassbender, returning to 

the franchise as the android David. 

Noomi Rapace, who made it out 

of Prometheus alive (if just barely), 

has been confirmed by Scott to 

have only a small role in Covenant. 

Scott will reportedly begin shooting 

early this year, with the film 

slated for a theatrical release on 

Oct. 6, 2017. 

[UNIVERSAL] 

Pack up the Coronas: Straight 

Outta Compton director F. Gary 

Gray has his eye on Cuba as the 

next exotic locale for the Fast 

and Furious franchise to get fast 

and furious in. As noted in an 

official statement from Universal, 

the studio is “currently in the 

process of seeking approval from 

the United States and Cuban 

governments to explore shooting 

a portion” of the eighth Fast 

and Furious movie in Cuba. If 

everything pans out, the film will 

be the first major Hollywood 

release to shoot there since the 

U.S. embargo of Cuba began in 

1962. A little more than a year 

ago, diplomatic ties between 

the two nations were somewhat 

restored. Other locations 

reportedly in the mix for Furious 

8 include Russia and Iceland, 

though the production’s home 

base will be in Atlanta. The film is 

scheduled to zoom into theatres 

on April 14, 2017. 

[WARNER BROS.] 

Warner Bros. has set a Sept. 

9, 2016 release date for Sully, their 

biopic of “Miracle on the Hudson” 

pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. 

Clint Eastwood will direct the film, 

his first since 2014’s über-successful 

American Sniper, with Tom Hanks 

starring. Jamey Sheridan, Aaron 

Eckhart, Anna Gunn and Laura Linney 

also star, with Todd Komarnicki 

(Perfect Stranger) penning the script. 

Warner Bros. and MGM are 

planning to get a Creed sequel in 

FEBRUARY 2016 WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 65

☛ 

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Alamo Drafthouse Cinema .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 

Arts Alliance Media .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 

Ballantyne Strong .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 

C. Cretors & Company.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 

Dolphin Seating.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 

Embedded Processor Design.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 

Enpar Audio .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 

Franklin Designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 

Hannover House.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 

Irwin Seating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 

Lightspeed Design/DepthQ.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 

Moving iMage Technologies .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 5, 19, 29, 68 

National Commercial Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 

Port Window Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 

Proctor Companies .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 

QSC Audio.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 

Rentrak.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 

Sony Digital Cinema. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 

St. Jude Children’s Hospital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 

Will Rogers Foundation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 

☛ 

Film Company News continued from page 65 

gear for a 2017 release date, according to Variety, who spoke with MGM 

CEO Gary Barber and Sylvester Stallone on the subject of the new film. According 

to the Italian Stallion himself, the franchise’s next installment could 

take place in the past, allowing Rocky and Apollo Creed to reunite: “Think 

of ‘The Godfather 2.’ ” If execs do end up aiming for 2017, that could mean 

Creed’s Ryan Coogler would be out as a director, since—see above—he’d 

be busy with Marvel’s Black Panther, out early 2018. 

[INDEPENDENT] 

Up-and-comer Chadwick Boseman (42, Black Panther) will star as attorney/civil-rights 

pioneer Thurgood Marshall in the legal drama Marshall, the 

sixth feature film from House Party director and Django Unchained producer 

Reginald Hudlin. The film will focus on a case early in Marshall’s career, 

long before he became the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice. 

Jacob Koskoff (Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth) collaborated with his trial lawyer 

father Michael Koskoff on the script, and Thurgood Marshall’s estate has 

given their full cooperation to the film’s producers. 

Breaking Glass Pictures added the dark comedy My Big Night, from 

Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia (The Last Circus, Witching & Bitching), to 

its 2016 slate. The film centers on the less-than-smooth preparations for 

a TV network’s New Year’s Eve spectacular. Blanca Suárez (I’m So Excited!, 

The Skin I Live In) and I’m So Excited!’s Hugo Silva star alongside Spanish 

musical superstar Rafael. A theatrical release is slated for this April. 

Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Film Journal International, P.O. Box 215, Congers, NY 10920-0215. Canadian Publication 

Mail Agreement #41450540. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: MSI, P.O. Box 2600, Mississauga, On L4T OA8.

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