Two week runs
Written by Dan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say I don't have enough time to devote to the blog, and yet here I am writing TWO posts in TWO days. Why? Because it's a REALLY slow weekend, that's why. Friday and Saturday set all-time lows for weekend attendance, but since this is only our fourth weekend being open, that doesn't say much. Either way, we learned a valuable lesson: if you own a single screen theater, don't play a movie exclusively for two weeks. Yes, BROKEN FLOWERS has been strong, but not strong enough to warrant the time we allotted for it. Thank goodness for SAVING FACE, which catapulted last Tuesday and Wednesday's stats into weekend-like numbers. In case you didn't know, I'm a whore for metrics. I love keeping track of our stats and writing formulas to plot and graph every little trend. Anyways, I'm getting off track here.
It's been a slow weekend. Piss poor slow. Paul, our booking agent, urged us to hold BROKEN FLOWERS for two weeks so we could "ride the wave" of a popular movie. In this business, especially in the indie sector, you have to jump on every mini-mega-hit you can (i.e. MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, etc.). Unfortunately, BROKEN FLOWERS hasn't proven quite that popular. It's been big, but not that big. I had a bad feeling this would happen, so I pushed for a more diverse October schedule... unfortunately, we had to take what we could (we were on a tight deadline), so our film selection suffered as a result. November will be much better. We have a couple movies in store that may prove to be bigger than BROKEN FLOWERS, but they'll both be split with more offbeat movies.
Like I said in the past, October is our experimentation month.
Conclusion #1: No more nine o'clock movies on Sundays. Matinees are big on Sunday, but the later shows are sparsely attended. We had 6 for our 7:00 show and 10 for our 9:30... compared to 29 for our 2:00 and 15 for our 4:30.
Conclusion #2: I'm going to bring in a laser pointer and burn out the eyes of anyone who has the audacity to speak while I'm giving the personal introduction.
On another note, we now have advertising in our restrooms. A local marketing group is leasing the space from us to run ads for local businesses. Yay for advertising revenue! Speaking of which, our advertising rate sheets are finished. If you'd like to see your ad on the Moxie's kinda BIG screen, let us know. End of plug. Anyways, back to the new bathroom ads... in the old men's restroom (which is now the blue unisex restroom), there's an ad for a certain hair cutting joint here in Springfield. I won't mention the name of the business, because I'm not "that guy," but I will reproduce their ad for you VERBATIM:
Top 10 reasons not to cut your own hair:
- Everyone else knows it. Look in a mirror.
- Special occasions mean getting a left-handed date.
- Eeeeeewww! That's not hair gel.
- Your girlfriend will leave you.
- 631 % chance your girlfriend will cheat on you.
- Celabci Sucks.
- Blue Balls do too.
- No car, no job, live with Mom. Why make it worse?
- Yes, those good-looking girls were laughing at you.
- Fat chicks love do-it-yourselfers.
Now, I'm certainly not one to pick on a local business (I love them with all my heart), but... come on! Is that not the most mean-spirited ad you've ever read in your whole entire life? Particularly number ten. Also, what does reason number two mean? I'm assuming it has something to do with masturbating, but I can't seem to make the connection. Celabci? I'm sorry [unnamed hair cutting place], but I don't think that's the kind of image you want to be sending to your potential clientele. For a successful ad, all you really need is a nude woman and a pair of scissors. The placement of the scissors would depend on the business, of course. I'm busy making a Moxie ad with that very motif. The copy reads: "Come see a movie at The Moxie. Why? Because fat chicks sweat a lot and all the Smurfs are latent homosexuals."
I'm going to get sued for this post, aren't I?
PS - The title of this post makes it sound like it's going to be about me eating Taco Bell for two weeks straight.