Boxoffice - March 219

COCKTAIL FOR TWO
CMX CinéBistro’s multilevel
layout includes two screening
rooms on each floor
and complete food and
beverage service.
from home entertainment options.
A smart approach to programming explains
why the IFC Center had its biggest year ever in
2018, despite a lack of the amenities many other
theaters have, or even the amenities the IFC Center
itself will have after its renovations are complete
at some to-be-announced date. “We’ve never
really had the space to experiment with amenities
or additional sales opportunities, like dine-in and
so forth,” says Senior Vice President and General
Manager John Vanco. “We’re so cramped as it is,
we’ve not been able to dive into this brave new
world of luxury loungers and so forth that a lot of
other theaters have.”
What the IFC Center does have is a wide-ranging
lineup, both in terms of its day-to-day screenings
and special events like DOC NYC, the offbeat
genre series What the Fest?!, and the recent Iranian
Film Festival, just to name a few. People—not necessarily
the same people—come to the IFC Center
for documentaries and Oscar-nominated shorts (the
cinema’s biggest program of the year) and its annual
screenings of It’s a Wonderful Life. IFC will keep
something like the Oscar-nominated foreign film
Border for months—on one screen, maybe just for
one show time a day, but still selling out as word-ofmouth
expands.
A diversity of programming is reflected, by necessity,
in many theaters across New York City. That’s
true of the CMX CinéBistro, which, while it leans
more mainstream than the IFC Center, still makes
an effort to blend blockbusters with movies that will
“satisfy more targeted audiences,” says Martí. “At
CMX, we recognize the need for an elevated cinema
experience, and we are in the process of understanding,
in-depth, our guests’ interests and needs in
order to offer a more diverse array of movie content,
services, and amenities that appeal to New York City
and Upper East Side audiences.”
It’s this “diverse array” of movies that makes
the New York City theatrical space so vital, even
if the old guard isn’t always able to keep up with
the bigger chains in terms of the latest and greatest
theatrical amenities. In terms of programming,
studio releases, indies, foreign films, cult classics,
and repertory screenings are represented, as well as
any other sort of movie that New Yorkers may want
to see. Which is all of them.
38 MARCH 2019