That’s one other reason I think Mann was stupid to let The National go as it gives them 1 less move-over house for times like this. I worry that Mann dumping The National might come back to bite them on occasion and that The Village and Bruin might suffer a bit long term. The Simpsons is only getting 1 large screen showtime: Thursday midnight at the Dome. Other than that, it’s multiplex screenings for the rest of its run.
Alan’s right. I don’t visit this site everyday (sometimes even every week) and I didn’t know about the Exorcist shows until they were over. It was announced Wednesday for shows happening on Friday and Saturday. It was almost like the showtimes were set up and someone just expected other people to do the work and spread the word.
And regardless of the showtime, the rules still stay the same… you have to show the right films. Trainspotting and Fight Club are great films, but they aren’t the right film’s to get people into Westwood on a Friday Midnight. I mean, Repo Man might be a great midnight movie, but not for the National. Leave that for the Nuart.
So, here’s my Monday morning quarterback suggestions.
1) Set up a website, even if it’s just a single page with the schedule of what’s playing now and what’s scheduled to play. If nothing else, it gives other sites something to direct people to (and I have to imagine, if you were showing a cool film, sites like aintitcoolnews and various other sites and forums would be willing to link to a main schedule page). I don’t check out cinema treasures everyday, but I do often check the Arclight and Cinemateque websites. If The National had a page, I’d bookmark it.
2- Figure out the online ticketing thing. The Crest can do it and The National should too. It’s very easy, when it’s 11PM on Friday night, to blow off a midnight show that you were previously gung-ho about. If I had the ability to buy tickets when my enthusiasm is greater, I’m likely to. And it’s not at all convenient to drive down to Westwood to pick up my tickets ahead of time, so online means more sales, earlier.
3- Remember, The National’s heyday was the late 70s and 80s, so remember that when you’re programming the films. Pulp Fiction is a great film to see in a theater, but not right up front. You need to build awareness and (I think) that’s by playing films that play to The National’s huge presentation and history. Play to its nostalgia and grandeur, because that what those of us that are here are interested in. The list I provided is missing many great films from the 70s and 80s, but that’s because I don’t think they’ll cause the kind of excitement you want The National to provide. The Breakfast Club is an awesome movie, but it wouldn’t do much for me to see it at The National. Conversely, A View to a Kill is not necessarily a great Bond movie, but it would be so much fun to see that at The National. If you want to show The Breakfast Club (or Trainspotting), I would wait until you’ve had some success and there’s more of a built up audience aware of the shows and coming back to the theater on a continuous basis.
4- Like Alan said, have a plan. Like I suggested, pick films that you can help along at first. Do a Batman/Superman style comics festival and advertise it (more than just a few days before the first shows) at comic book stores frequented by the very same people likely to be excited about such shows.
5- As an addendum to #3, don’t expect the college to make midnight shows successful. They vanish every summer and they’re not going to be as dependable overall as hardcore movie fans from all over Los Angeles and the Valley. Whenever I go to a movie at The Village or the Bruin, the audience is not made up of students, even during the school year.
6- Don’t feel compelled to play by the rules. As I stated earlier, if there’s nothing first run of value to play during regular showtimes, then you couldn’t do any worse to throw in some revival shows in between other bookings. If you’re only selling 50 tickets a show to something like Sicko, is 50 tickets to a showing of Top Gun more or less profitable?
William,
I understand that. I’m not insisting that every print shown has to be 70mm, but that should the first type they try to acquire and if that proves too difficult, then go to 35mm. I saw a screening of Big Trouble in Little China a few years ago at the Arclight at the 35mm print they ran was brand new. It looked incredible. Similarly, the print of Poltergeist I recently saw was incredible and I’m sure in much better condition than any 70mm they might have been able to show. But a 70mm show of Poltergeist would have raised the cool factor on that show by a factor of 10. I’m just saying, if you can do it, that’s the way it should be done. But hey, if you can get me a 35mm print of Blue Thunder to watch at The National, I’m there.
Alan, Howard the Duck is indeed a strange title, but:
– more than 10 years into the format, there still is no DVD release (meaning the movie is pretty much unavailable anymore and certainly not in any decent version)
and
– people that were young when that movie came out are in their 30s now and there’s a nostalgic quality attached.
But, the main message is don’t program for UCLA (which isn’t the primary audience for the Village or Bruin either), program for the National and the right audience will come to you.
(And the T1/T2 combo was just left out because of the sheer number of movies I have rattling around in my head.)
I was happy to see midnight shows were happening at the National, but to be honest, I didn’t think the film selection was the greatest for that time period. While I would love to see Goodfellas or Pulp Fiction on that huge screen, my first reaction when seeing that list was, “Gee, some of those are kind of long for midnight and don’t seem to have that WOW, gotta get out at midnight!” vibe. Snatch and Fight Club are great films, but relatively speaking, they feel so recent that they lack that event feeling that you need to get you out at midnight for a show at the National. I was actually putting together a suggestion list for them that I thought might generate more interest from the kinds of people most inclined to brave the drive to Westwood at midnight. Even though it seems useless now, here’s a handful of my suggestions.
First, following Roadshow’s lead you create themes for some of the shows, while also offering more than one offering to entice people to go for more than a single midnight show, such as…
Have a mini comic book festival and show:
Friday – Superman: The Movie
Saturday – Superman II
the following weekend
Friday – Batman
Saturday – Batman Returns
(you could probably even have taken a flyer for this program to the Secret Stash a few blocks away and sold out or majorly filled your shows.)
With Live Free or Die Hard in theaters right now:
Friday – Die Hard
Saturday – Die Hard II
Do actor themed features:
Friday – Terminator 2
Saturday – Predator
These are the kinds of showings that would get me out of the house two nights in a row to see a movie (like I did a few weeks ago when the Aero showed double features of Poltergeist & Creepshow, and Tron (70mm) & Star Trek II).
I also asked my wife what kinds of movies would get her out of the house to see a midnight show and she agreed that it had to be something big and something old enough to possibly not have seen theatrically initially or that you just want to see again in a theater. Ultimately, I would say you don’t want to have a midnight show of anything newer than 1997.
Here is a partial list of movies I would have been first in line to see at the National:
Die Hard
Predator
The Indiana Jones Trilogy
The Star Trek Series (especially the original crew films)
The Star Wars Trilogy (a tough one to book, but it’s a dream list)
Lethal Weapon 1&2
Batman and Batman Returns
The Abyss
The James Bond Films (up until Goldeneye)
The Rambo Trilogy (especially with a 4th coming)
The Goonies
The Back to the Future Trilogy
Superman 1 & 2
Howard the Duck (an odd choice, but one that has a sizable following who has never seen it in a theater)
Ghostbusters
Gremlins
Poltergeist
The Thing
The Dark Crystal
Krull
Brainstorm
The Road Warrior
Top Gun
The Untouchables
Speed
Under Siege
Cliffhanger
Conan The Barbarian
Blue Thunder
Commando
Big Trouble in Little China
Alien, Aliens, & Alien 3
Clash of the Titans
The Lost Boys
Silverado
Roadhouse
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Black Hole
Dragonslayer
Blade Runner
Willow
Jaws (and maybe even Jaws II)
A 3D festival (Jaws 3D, Friday 3D, Spacehunter 3D)
The Last Starfighter
Total Recall
The Muppet Movie
1941
Streets of Fire
The Rocketeer
The point of the above list is that there’s some spectacle to be had in a lot of these titles. You can’t program the National like the Nuart or the Rialto. The National has something none of those other theaters have… it’s the National! You’re not just selling the movie, what you’re really selling is the spectacle surrounding it. Spirited Away is an amazing film, but it’s not going to make me rush right out, cash in hand. I want to see something I haven’t seen in a theater in 20 years, or better yet something I haven’t seen in a theater at all. What I want most of all, is to go into the theater and, for two hours, feel like I’ve entered a time warp and I’m 11 years old again. When I saw Poltergeist a few week back, that’s exact how it felt and it was amazing. I’d pay over and over to get to re experience that. I also disagree with those that said you shouldn’t program similar to other the other midnight shows, I think the National should be programmed appropriately for that screen. That’s the selling point.
Two last points:
– I also think that special prints (70mm) are one of the keys to success. It may be a pain in the ass, but this would also raise the visibility of what the National shows beyond just another set of “Midnight Movies."
and
– I don’t think the National should be afraid to play around with their programming format. When The Dome ran a restored print of Scarface a few years back as a special engagement, they actually had to hold it over because it was so popular. The El Capitan has had success with some of their revival programs as well. If a movie like Sicko is dropping off in attendance and you don’t have anything promising to play, try a week long engagement of a 70MM print of Close Encounters. You might find that it’s more profitable over the course of the week. Just don’t be afraid to think outside the box with The National. It’s already at a disadvantage as an independent theater, but that is something that can actually be used to it’s advantage. I don’t care what I see at the National, as long as I get to keep seeing stuff there.
Reading this makes me want to cry. As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, The National, more than any other theater in Westwood, could instantly transport me back to those wonderful, informative years as soon as I entered the lobby. The theater has a wonderful, nostalgic, retro vibe, while still giving you a state of the art presentation, which is only found in a few other houses in LA. If it is truly going to be going, I’ll be very sad indeed.
I think the perfect use for this theater would be as a revival house (but a nice one) to offer people another chance to see some of these films on a wonderful, giant screen. I’d love to have the opportunity where I could show up and see Alien, Superman, 2001, Top Gun, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark… They could even start it off with another engagement of The Exorcist! I have to believe this town, more than any other, could support that. If I had the money, I’d do it myself.
One of the interesting things about this theater (or maybe not as I don’t know how common this was) is that the screen was actually made up of hundreds of 2" ribbons of screen hung top to bottom. During the late 80s, early 90s I worked for United Artists and all managers were invited down to the Cooper for special early exhibitor screenings (Black Rain, Total Recall, Die Hard 2). At one of these screenings we were taken all over the theater and up close to the screen where you could more easily see these ribbons (at normal viewing distance they were invisibly blended). It was explained to us that because of the Coopers' deeply curved screen, it had to be fashioned from these ribbons in order to not have the screen bow in the center. I’ve never seen that in any other theater, but perhaps it is more common than I know.
Having grown up in Northglenn from 1977 through 1990, I know for a fact that this theater was twinned and become the Commonwealth Northglenn Twin. There were no other theaters in Northglenn until December 1983 when the Mann Northglenn 6 opened across the street. When it was twinned, I don’t know (sometime mid-70s). I could rattle off about 30 movies I saw there growing up (Battlestar Galactica, Deathtrap, Octopussy…). It was located at the corner of I-25 and 104th Ave in the back parking lot of the old Northglenn Mall. (If you know the area, it was located at the same point where the walkway over I-25 is) It had two large marquees, one next to the theater that faced I-25 and one that faced 104th. In about 1985, the twin theaters were twinned again and the theater (unable to compete with the Mann and no longer under the Commonwealth name) became a four screen dollar theater and even had a dollar video rental store in the lobby. The theater closed around 1990 and was torn down a year or so later, as was all of Northglenn Mall. The odd thing about the theater was that when it was twinned the first time, the seating was left as is, so each of the auditoriums' seating was slightly skewed towards the center wall and not perfectly aligned with the screens. Regardless, I really miss that theater after seeing the photos above (and I haven’t thought about it for years).
That’s one other reason I think Mann was stupid to let The National go as it gives them 1 less move-over house for times like this. I worry that Mann dumping The National might come back to bite them on occasion and that The Village and Bruin might suffer a bit long term. The Simpsons is only getting 1 large screen showtime: Thursday midnight at the Dome. Other than that, it’s multiplex screenings for the rest of its run.
Alan’s right. I don’t visit this site everyday (sometimes even every week) and I didn’t know about the Exorcist shows until they were over. It was announced Wednesday for shows happening on Friday and Saturday. It was almost like the showtimes were set up and someone just expected other people to do the work and spread the word.
And regardless of the showtime, the rules still stay the same… you have to show the right films. Trainspotting and Fight Club are great films, but they aren’t the right film’s to get people into Westwood on a Friday Midnight. I mean, Repo Man might be a great midnight movie, but not for the National. Leave that for the Nuart.
So, here’s my Monday morning quarterback suggestions.
1) Set up a website, even if it’s just a single page with the schedule of what’s playing now and what’s scheduled to play. If nothing else, it gives other sites something to direct people to (and I have to imagine, if you were showing a cool film, sites like aintitcoolnews and various other sites and forums would be willing to link to a main schedule page). I don’t check out cinema treasures everyday, but I do often check the Arclight and Cinemateque websites. If The National had a page, I’d bookmark it.
2- Figure out the online ticketing thing. The Crest can do it and The National should too. It’s very easy, when it’s 11PM on Friday night, to blow off a midnight show that you were previously gung-ho about. If I had the ability to buy tickets when my enthusiasm is greater, I’m likely to. And it’s not at all convenient to drive down to Westwood to pick up my tickets ahead of time, so online means more sales, earlier.
3- Remember, The National’s heyday was the late 70s and 80s, so remember that when you’re programming the films. Pulp Fiction is a great film to see in a theater, but not right up front. You need to build awareness and (I think) that’s by playing films that play to The National’s huge presentation and history. Play to its nostalgia and grandeur, because that what those of us that are here are interested in. The list I provided is missing many great films from the 70s and 80s, but that’s because I don’t think they’ll cause the kind of excitement you want The National to provide. The Breakfast Club is an awesome movie, but it wouldn’t do much for me to see it at The National. Conversely, A View to a Kill is not necessarily a great Bond movie, but it would be so much fun to see that at The National. If you want to show The Breakfast Club (or Trainspotting), I would wait until you’ve had some success and there’s more of a built up audience aware of the shows and coming back to the theater on a continuous basis.
4- Like Alan said, have a plan. Like I suggested, pick films that you can help along at first. Do a Batman/Superman style comics festival and advertise it (more than just a few days before the first shows) at comic book stores frequented by the very same people likely to be excited about such shows.
5- As an addendum to #3, don’t expect the college to make midnight shows successful. They vanish every summer and they’re not going to be as dependable overall as hardcore movie fans from all over Los Angeles and the Valley. Whenever I go to a movie at The Village or the Bruin, the audience is not made up of students, even during the school year.
6- Don’t feel compelled to play by the rules. As I stated earlier, if there’s nothing first run of value to play during regular showtimes, then you couldn’t do any worse to throw in some revival shows in between other bookings. If you’re only selling 50 tickets a show to something like Sicko, is 50 tickets to a showing of Top Gun more or less profitable?
William,
I understand that. I’m not insisting that every print shown has to be 70mm, but that should the first type they try to acquire and if that proves too difficult, then go to 35mm. I saw a screening of Big Trouble in Little China a few years ago at the Arclight at the 35mm print they ran was brand new. It looked incredible. Similarly, the print of Poltergeist I recently saw was incredible and I’m sure in much better condition than any 70mm they might have been able to show. But a 70mm show of Poltergeist would have raised the cool factor on that show by a factor of 10. I’m just saying, if you can do it, that’s the way it should be done. But hey, if you can get me a 35mm print of Blue Thunder to watch at The National, I’m there.
Alan, Howard the Duck is indeed a strange title, but:
– more than 10 years into the format, there still is no DVD release (meaning the movie is pretty much unavailable anymore and certainly not in any decent version)
and
– people that were young when that movie came out are in their 30s now and there’s a nostalgic quality attached.
But, the main message is don’t program for UCLA (which isn’t the primary audience for the Village or Bruin either), program for the National and the right audience will come to you.
(And the T1/T2 combo was just left out because of the sheer number of movies I have rattling around in my head.)
I was happy to see midnight shows were happening at the National, but to be honest, I didn’t think the film selection was the greatest for that time period. While I would love to see Goodfellas or Pulp Fiction on that huge screen, my first reaction when seeing that list was, “Gee, some of those are kind of long for midnight and don’t seem to have that WOW, gotta get out at midnight!” vibe. Snatch and Fight Club are great films, but relatively speaking, they feel so recent that they lack that event feeling that you need to get you out at midnight for a show at the National. I was actually putting together a suggestion list for them that I thought might generate more interest from the kinds of people most inclined to brave the drive to Westwood at midnight. Even though it seems useless now, here’s a handful of my suggestions.
First, following Roadshow’s lead you create themes for some of the shows, while also offering more than one offering to entice people to go for more than a single midnight show, such as…
Have a mini comic book festival and show:
Friday – Superman: The Movie
Saturday – Superman II
the following weekend
Friday – Batman
Saturday – Batman Returns
(you could probably even have taken a flyer for this program to the Secret Stash a few blocks away and sold out or majorly filled your shows.)
With Live Free or Die Hard in theaters right now:
Friday – Die Hard
Saturday – Die Hard II
Do actor themed features:
Friday – Terminator 2
Saturday – Predator
These are the kinds of showings that would get me out of the house two nights in a row to see a movie (like I did a few weeks ago when the Aero showed double features of Poltergeist & Creepshow, and Tron (70mm) & Star Trek II).
I also asked my wife what kinds of movies would get her out of the house to see a midnight show and she agreed that it had to be something big and something old enough to possibly not have seen theatrically initially or that you just want to see again in a theater. Ultimately, I would say you don’t want to have a midnight show of anything newer than 1997.
Here is a partial list of movies I would have been first in line to see at the National:
Die Hard
Predator
The Indiana Jones Trilogy
The Star Trek Series (especially the original crew films)
The Star Wars Trilogy (a tough one to book, but it’s a dream list)
Lethal Weapon 1&2
Batman and Batman Returns
The Abyss
The James Bond Films (up until Goldeneye)
The Rambo Trilogy (especially with a 4th coming)
The Goonies
The Back to the Future Trilogy
Superman 1 & 2
Howard the Duck (an odd choice, but one that has a sizable following who has never seen it in a theater)
Ghostbusters
Gremlins
Poltergeist
The Thing
The Dark Crystal
Krull
Brainstorm
The Road Warrior
Top Gun
The Untouchables
Speed
Under Siege
Cliffhanger
Conan The Barbarian
Blue Thunder
Commando
Big Trouble in Little China
Alien, Aliens, & Alien 3
Clash of the Titans
The Lost Boys
Silverado
Roadhouse
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Black Hole
Dragonslayer
Blade Runner
Willow
Jaws (and maybe even Jaws II)
A 3D festival (Jaws 3D, Friday 3D, Spacehunter 3D)
The Last Starfighter
Total Recall
The Muppet Movie
1941
Streets of Fire
The Rocketeer
The point of the above list is that there’s some spectacle to be had in a lot of these titles. You can’t program the National like the Nuart or the Rialto. The National has something none of those other theaters have… it’s the National! You’re not just selling the movie, what you’re really selling is the spectacle surrounding it. Spirited Away is an amazing film, but it’s not going to make me rush right out, cash in hand. I want to see something I haven’t seen in a theater in 20 years, or better yet something I haven’t seen in a theater at all. What I want most of all, is to go into the theater and, for two hours, feel like I’ve entered a time warp and I’m 11 years old again. When I saw Poltergeist a few week back, that’s exact how it felt and it was amazing. I’d pay over and over to get to re experience that. I also disagree with those that said you shouldn’t program similar to other the other midnight shows, I think the National should be programmed appropriately for that screen. That’s the selling point.
Two last points:
– I also think that special prints (70mm) are one of the keys to success. It may be a pain in the ass, but this would also raise the visibility of what the National shows beyond just another set of “Midnight Movies."
and
– I don’t think the National should be afraid to play around with their programming format. When The Dome ran a restored print of Scarface a few years back as a special engagement, they actually had to hold it over because it was so popular. The El Capitan has had success with some of their revival programs as well. If a movie like Sicko is dropping off in attendance and you don’t have anything promising to play, try a week long engagement of a 70MM print of Close Encounters. You might find that it’s more profitable over the course of the week. Just don’t be afraid to think outside the box with The National. It’s already at a disadvantage as an independent theater, but that is something that can actually be used to it’s advantage. I don’t care what I see at the National, as long as I get to keep seeing stuff there.
Reading this makes me want to cry. As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, The National, more than any other theater in Westwood, could instantly transport me back to those wonderful, informative years as soon as I entered the lobby. The theater has a wonderful, nostalgic, retro vibe, while still giving you a state of the art presentation, which is only found in a few other houses in LA. If it is truly going to be going, I’ll be very sad indeed.
I think the perfect use for this theater would be as a revival house (but a nice one) to offer people another chance to see some of these films on a wonderful, giant screen. I’d love to have the opportunity where I could show up and see Alien, Superman, 2001, Top Gun, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark… They could even start it off with another engagement of The Exorcist! I have to believe this town, more than any other, could support that. If I had the money, I’d do it myself.
One of the interesting things about this theater (or maybe not as I don’t know how common this was) is that the screen was actually made up of hundreds of 2" ribbons of screen hung top to bottom. During the late 80s, early 90s I worked for United Artists and all managers were invited down to the Cooper for special early exhibitor screenings (Black Rain, Total Recall, Die Hard 2). At one of these screenings we were taken all over the theater and up close to the screen where you could more easily see these ribbons (at normal viewing distance they were invisibly blended). It was explained to us that because of the Coopers' deeply curved screen, it had to be fashioned from these ribbons in order to not have the screen bow in the center. I’ve never seen that in any other theater, but perhaps it is more common than I know.
Having grown up in Northglenn from 1977 through 1990, I know for a fact that this theater was twinned and become the Commonwealth Northglenn Twin. There were no other theaters in Northglenn until December 1983 when the Mann Northglenn 6 opened across the street. When it was twinned, I don’t know (sometime mid-70s). I could rattle off about 30 movies I saw there growing up (Battlestar Galactica, Deathtrap, Octopussy…). It was located at the corner of I-25 and 104th Ave in the back parking lot of the old Northglenn Mall. (If you know the area, it was located at the same point where the walkway over I-25 is) It had two large marquees, one next to the theater that faced I-25 and one that faced 104th. In about 1985, the twin theaters were twinned again and the theater (unable to compete with the Mann and no longer under the Commonwealth name) became a four screen dollar theater and even had a dollar video rental store in the lobby. The theater closed around 1990 and was torn down a year or so later, as was all of Northglenn Mall. The odd thing about the theater was that when it was twinned the first time, the seating was left as is, so each of the auditoriums' seating was slightly skewed towards the center wall and not perfectly aligned with the screens. Regardless, I really miss that theater after seeing the photos above (and I haven’t thought about it for years).