Leading Ladies

I thought about writing this whole blog in Spanish in honor of two of the current films at a/perture, Broken Embraces and The Maid, but then I realized the extent of my language abilities was Brendan Fraser learning how to say "The cheese is old and moldy" in Encino Man. Thank goodness A Serious Man is playing so I can still write in my native tongue. Although if you do go see the Coen Brothers film, and notice subtitles at the open, don't panic and think we started the wrong movie. It has a scene at the beginning that I'm still trying to decipher and understand how it fit in with the rest of the film. How's that for a ringing endorsement? I promise it's good.

One of the first films that Lawren had high hopes of bringing to town was Broken Embraces. You might recall her first takeover of the blog, which had a picture of her and Lluis Homar at the Toronto International Film Festival (I've resurrected it so you don't have to go searching). I've also attached a photo of Lluis with co-star Penelope Cruz. I'll let you be the judge of which leading lady looks better on Lluis's arm...

This is the part where I'm supposed to say "Come on, Lawren looks better with Mr. Homar than Penelope Cruz", but IT'S PENELOPE CRUZ! This is the part where I ask our readers if anyone has a spare couch for me. Just kidding honey, you're waaaayy hotter than Penelope. She's not even in my top ten of free passes. I really should stop before I get in more trouble.

This weekend we add The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, directed/written by author Rebecca Miller to the rotation. With an all-star cast including Robin Wright Penn, Blake Lively (who may or may not be on that free pass list), Winona Ryder, Monica Bellucci, Maria Bello, Alan Arkin, and Keanu Reeves (best work still Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure), forget about the supposed snow/wintry precipitation and enjoy the warmth of our theaters.



Wait, they make movies out of books? I was sure that movies had to come first after watching George Lucas bastardize the Star Wars franchise with all the subsequent novellas (wikipedia, what do you not know??)

Everyone wants to go on forever, I just wanna burn out hard and bright...

Like our lamphouse. What was already a dreary, gray day out (which should have been perfect for seeing a movie) got a little darker when s/tudio 1 lost power right as The Messenger kicked off at 12:20. A thousand apologies to everyone whose plans were disrupted by our malfunction, but we felt like we came up with the most diplomatic solution by replacing the 5:20 screening of An Education with the film that had been dark all day. If it makes you feel any better, our own son was ashamed of us after hearing what had happened. Exhibit A:

But I'm turning all emo schoolgirl on you, and whining about all the things that have gone wrong, when in fact things have been going even better than we could have hoped. There was a great piece in this week's YES! Weekly chronicling our open, and highlighting all the wonderful comments we've gotten on our facebook page. We thought it would be at least a month before we'd have to change out our chalkboard question, but you all made us do it after a week.

We are down to one studio for the time being, but working our darndest to be back at full operation ASAP. So tomorrow's schedule is a little different, so if you know someone who was planning on coming out for a film, let them know that we've added a 3:20 to try and give Winston it's fair shake of The Messenger, and that An Education is showing at 5:40. The late weekday show (8:00) will be The Messenger again. It's a holiday, so come out and see us early!

Our doors are open (but we're getting a brand new one tomorrow)

Wow. What else can I say? We tried to sneak opening up a movie theater past you guys this weekend and we failed miserably. It probably didn't help that Lawren was everywhere last week (WXII, the Winston-Salem Journal, etc.), but I should have known better than to think we could pull one over on the fine people of Winston-Salem. You all came out and shared some great movies with us and we were humbled by your comments and well wishes. Many of you were also introduced to the awesomeness that is the Yummy Goodness Bake Shoppe and their "Cakeballs" and "Cupcake Parfaits". The first weekend could not have gone any better. Who am I kidding, it was chaos back there. A few of you may have seen firsthand why I complain about the Point-of-Sale system everyday. Our ability to do math in our head was tested constantly. We almost ran out of wine on Friday. The speakers almost fell off the wall (not really, but they were buzzing pretty loud at the beginning of one of the shows). But our crackpot staff of concessionaires (Anna, Jordan, Megan, and Mike) along with our projectionists (Nate, Patrick, Scott, and Tony), under the leadership of Genevieve and Lawren, never cracked. And they're ready to do it all again this weekend. Starting this Friday, An Education starts its second week, and The Messenger comes to Winston (before Greensboro!). There's still time to catch A Town Called Panic! and NY, I Love You, so don't miss out!

No time for words....well maybe just a few

There are only 3o minutes left until January 8, 2010....these are perhaps my last minutes of calm before we open the doors of a/perture tomorrow. Jigar is busy making journal entries and double-checking his favorite POS system, so the curator is back at the helm. I am getting a bit sentimental as I sit here thinking about tomorrow. It really has been such an incredible adventure. As I sat in the theaters with my staff, test screening our opening films earlier tonight, I realized what a long road it has been and how it has all been TOTALLY worth it. I have to use this opportunity to thank everyone who has been so supportive of a/perture and the idea of bringing a small indie theater to downtown Winston-Salem. I never thought so many people would be this excited and I hope we live up to all your expectations. We will sure try our best to! As much as the recent press has focused on me, I really could not have done any of this without my wonderful family. My dad has hammered and nailed and glued and worked miracles on a low budget making things look spectacular. My mom has babysat on a moments notice and run errands and become a pro at laminating things. My sister-in-law, Jigna, has now become a part-time au pair/marketing intern/concessionaire/translator,etc.etc. My brother Jay, pushed a pallet-jack back and forth across fourth street in lunch time traffic and is always promoting a/perture on facebook. My sister-in-law, Katie, has also contributed babysitting hours which you can probably tell by now is a very important job. My in-laws, Sam and Sheela, endured Chuck-e-Cheese last week when Jake spent a week with them so that we could spend every waking hour getting things ready at a/perture. My son has made me laugh and really appreciate every single time he says that he wants to go "downtown." (And thanks to Nigel too, just for being a dog.) And last but not least, I have to thank Jigar. He has been at many times a "silent" partner and let me enjoy most of the glory and that is why I love him. I could go on thanking a slew of others, but I will save that for another day because I should probably get some sleep. Below are some recent pictures. For those of you who plan to come opening weekend, we look forward to your patronage!

And check out this video from our open house....

We don't just pop collars...

Less than 10 days to the soft opening of a/perture cinema. You may have noticed my absence which this time was due neither to epidemics nor laziness, my two most trusty excuses. Instead, we've been doing everything we can to get ready for January 8th. Decorations, concession area design, bane of my existence Dymo Label Printer, and silly little things like occupancy and ABC permits. Some might say those last things are imperative to officially being in business, but as a movie theater, we made that leap the other day when we did the following:

That's right, the popcorn popper is operational. Our secret recipe of pre-mixed idiot proof movie theater popcorn will knock you off your feet with yummy goodness. Some of the staff is already enjoying it.

Scott "4-D Viewmaster" DuVall, Lawren "Popcorn Czar" Desai, and Jigar "I already eat too much popcorn and candy without partly owning a theater" Desai enjoy the first batch.

So I just indirectly introduced you to one of our master projectionists Scott. Aside from still having an ABBA song stuck in his head from his first official screening at a/perture, he along with the other projectionists have managed to avoid concussions in the low clearance projection booth while getting the place ready for some films. But who was taking pictures while you guys were chowing down? Photo credits go to our jack-of all trades assistant manager Genevieve Moore.

Not only can she make popcorn look artsy, she makes some mean cookies, likes schedules and lists just as much as Lawren, and has helped the curator keep her sanity for the last month by doing everything. I'm hoping you'll get to know Scott and Genevieve and the rest of our amazing staff by coming to visit a/perture, and maybe even through some guest blog spots and interviews.

Not only are these bags earth-friendly, but they're specially designed to keep the "golden" popcorn topping in the bag and out of your lap. Who says we don't love you?

I will survive...

Jigar, 1. H1N1, 0.5. I'm just glad I was able to get it out of the way, before we opened and I was working concessions, passing it along to all my peeps. It's not that I wouldn't try and stay home to keep the virus from spreading, it's that if I was well enough to shovel snow, drive in the worst blizzard since '93, keep working on that bane of my existence point-of-sale system, learn to thread a projector, and operate power tools (which if you know me, is probably scarier than any flu and ice on the road combined), odds are I would be forced to work if we were open. Run on sentence much? Speaking of being open, we're getting a lot of questions about that. What's the date? How do I score free tickets? Seriously, when are you opening? Are you really opening a movie theater? WHY DO YOU LIE???

Kanye'd again! I know I'm like 6 months late on this joke, but I was watching the Karate Kid III like it was the first one as noted the other day, so it seems somehow appropriate. Come back in April when I make a joke about how I slept with Tiger Woods, too!

While we're waiting on some final things to fall into place construction wise before we let you in on any new scoop, at least we finally have our new website up. We're really excited about how it turned out and how sweet it looks, so if you're like me and just have this blog as your favorite, check out the main site and let us know what you think of it. Feel free to let us know if we're missing something, too. Hopefully with the next update I'll have some more pictures of the projection booth in its completed state.

Long live public radio

Sorry to disappoint all of you Jigar fans out there, but the curator has taken over the blog once again. Jigs is a little under the weather, not only fighting the flu but also the weird dreams that are a side-effect of the miracle drug Tamiflu. We have had a sick household for the past few days, but we have a theater to open in only a few short weeks, so we (or I in this case) must press on. To that end, the blog will be short on written words. Instead, you will be treated to my first radio interview, courtesy of David Ford at 88.5 WFDD. Other than the fact that I say "actually" a lot, I think I did an okay job. Here is the link: 88.5 WFDD Interview

I have also added some recent (and random) photos, so you can see some of what else has been going on in the world of a/perture.

at December's Gallery Hop with the Christmas Tree Lady

our projectionists!!!

the first screen test

Okay, I really have to get back to taking care of Jigar....he is watching Karate Kid III now.

There's a reason E.T. didn't want to leave Earth

So remember how when you were 15, you couldn't wait to get your driver's license so you could get out of the house whenever you wanted? Then, when you did get the license, it was turning 18 so you could assert your independence, and get out on your own? Then, it was turning 21, so you could do whatever kids do at that age. Then, turning 25 so your car insurance rates would go down? That constant feeling of let's just get here and then everything will be awesome pretty much sums up how things are at the theater. Screens? Seats? Projection Equipment? Point-of sale systems? All the million little things that you keep saying you'll do later, then one day you're less than a month from opening up???? If the housing market wasn't so bad, I'd just sell the house and go ahead and move into a/perture's office space, since Lawren and I have been living there, along with other family members, who have been amazingly accomodating through all of this mess. However, all my worries melted away when the magical delivery truck caring all of this showed up the other day.


Sweet, sweet candy. I know we looked for suggestions on crazy stuff to serve up, and we've filed them away, but starting out the fare is pretty classic, with maybe a trick or two up our sleeves. I'm just happy to see Reese's Pieces, possibly the most underrated candy ever made. There, I said it, and E.T. would agree. These various nectars of the gods have got to have a home, right?

The soda fountains are coming in this week (Coca-Cola products, in case you were wondering) and we might even pull that popcorn popper out of storage. And I did finally figure out how to use Lightspeed, no thanks to any of you. I'll remember that when we're open. Double ticket prices for all blog readers! That's the kind of power I have since I did setup the POS (point-of-sale, not the other commonly used acronym). Not the kind of deals you were looking for, huh? Ok, I'll change it back to regular price for you guys. Only because I love you all.

So tell me whacha want, what you really really want...

December has snuck up pretty quickly on us. With the cold weather has come a general propensity to hide under the covers rather than write blogs. But with crunch time approaching this is my preferred method of procrastination, winning out over working on our point-of-sale system. Anyone know how to setup Xsilva's Lightspeed to run a movie theater? Bueller? Bueller? I'll keep struggling along...speaking of struggling, we had projection equipment delivered this past Thursday. Our last crew of helpers sparked cries of sexism and lack of nepotism, so Lawren recruited our first official employee at a/perture, her mom and brother Jay "Don't call me Dan Dickau" Callahan, who in turn recruited some of the Salem Spirits soccer players to unload three pallets of an a/v geek's dream (that geek is me). Girl power is still alive.

Thanks ladies and gentleman. If you ever need to rent a pallet jack, apparently there's a place out on Union Cross road. Lawren's a bigger tool (user) than I am. Hehe. See what I did there? I've just been grounded for a week.

I teased with some pictures of the seats the other day, and now our PR team has delivered with a brand new video for you to enjoy. If I say "Uh" any more my 10th grade English teacher is going to have a coronary. Why do people keep saying I have a face and voice for blogging?

Trailers aren't just for haulin' dirt

So now that Lawren has become a celebrity, the approval process for my blogs has become more cumbersome, so if you don't have updates as frequently as you like, don't blame me. Black Friday not only saw some wicked deals at your local Wal-Mart, but two articles about Lawren (with very slight mentions of me, and hardly any of my wonderful mother, brother, and sister-in-laws, or any other family for that matter - just go ahead and call all of us the Chad Lowe to Lawren's Hillary Swank). The Winston-Salem Journal wrote a great piece as did the Triad Business Journal (subscription only, but here's a slight preview). I imagine there are a few new readers here because of those articles, so welcome, and no I cannot get you free tickets.

So front of the house is pretty close to wrapped up, and we're expecting to get most of the fun projector equipment that Lawren won't let me touch because I'll probably end up breaking it this week. That can only mean one thing. We should be opening soon. While we don't have a firm date, the rumors of a January opening are pretty on target. Here are two films of the films we'll be screening for our opening month. Drumroll please....

A Town Called Panic



New York, I Love You



Who says I'm not in the loop? If you want to find out more inside info, like why there are urinals in our front window, stop by our table at the First Friday Gallery Hop on Trade Street (December 4th).