Nuttin' Honey...

Ah, the weekend. The weather is finally nice, so hopefully that means you all will get a chance to enjoy the sun during the day, and then hide from the evening cold at a movie at a/perture. Tonight we started showing Wesley, and had an enthusiastic crowd, who were pleasantly surprised by the director John Jackman providing a couple of Q&A sessions. We're fortunate to have him coming back on Monday. Come see the movie this weekend, then come back again to catch everything you missed the first time and discuss this fine film with the man behind the camera!

What else have we learned today?

1. Winston-Salem is nuts about nuts (tee hee - it was the most popular option suggested for new concessions on our blog and facebook page).
2. Our new t-shirts are pretty awesome. Aside from our popular unisex option, we now have gender specific shirts, which I hope to have modeled soon (Nigel the dog is out in Milan doing another photo shoot, should be back in the States by Monday).
3. We're going to be showing The Young Victoria starting March 5th.

And Abe Lincoln loves movies and a/perture.

After I realized the last picture posted in this blog was Jay freakin' Thomas, I really needed to work in something else. And who better than Honest Abe. Uh, I have to hit post now or I'm not making the day's deadline.

Let's all go to the lobby...reprise

We're hitting the home stretch of blog posts being shoved in your face. I think I've realized why I work with numbers, since there are really only ten to choose from as opposed to the pantheon of words and subjects available for writing. Yet here I am without a good topic for the night. Our curator has been going non-stop today. Aside from getting ready for normal operations this evening, a/perture was host to a meeting by the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership as well as the previously mentioned short Becoming Abe. See? We got more than just movies up in this piece. Tiger was going to hold his "press conference" at our place, but after seeing our "No one has ever, ever paid admission to see an excuse" posters he had second thoughts. If I can ever figure out how to set up the Wii to work, I'm going to have some rad Rock Band parties. Who's with me?

Alright, I know I've asked about this before, but now that you've been in and had a chance to experience the intimate lobby, and see we don't really have a ton of room to work with behind the counter, we want more of your thoughts on concessions. The cakeballs have become a hit in downtown Winston-Salem, thanks to the gals at Yummy Goodness. People are coming in just to buy those. We're hearing your pleas for something healthier. I still don't know how food gets any better for you than peanut butter covered in a chocolate candy shell, but my doctor says different. I survived for one week only eating Fudge Stripe cookies by those magical Keebler elves. My mom thought I'd get sick of them after awhile and ask for something else. Score another one for Jigar.

So here are some of our criteria for suggestions. Our refrigerator is already pretty packed, so nothing that requires much cold storage. A little bit of a shelf life would be nice, too, cause we don't like to waste. The staff have their own little Christmas on Tuesdays when we have unsold cakeballs and cupcake parfaits. Last requirement - I have to be able to spell it. If I can't spell it, I won't eat it, and we won't sell it. That's why I tell my wife I spell it sushee, so we can't order it on take out night. Alright, we haven't been disappointed yet, from your prior suggestions for concessions to the facebook movie suggestions (we are listening, for you people on the "discussions" tab). Don't let me down like I'm going to with our first Friday post in our blogging history.

contest...contest....contest!!!!

So blog #4 is going to be short and sweet! We have to catch up on our backlogged recordings of The Office. We do have something exciting to announce though...a CONTEST!!! Starting Friday, February 26 we will be screening the 2010 Oscar Nominated Shorts for one week only. There are two different feature presentations which will run at various times throughout the week.

Feature #1 - Live-Action Shorts

1.) The Door

2.) Instead of Abracadabra

3.) Kavi

4.) Miracle Fish

5.) The New Tenants

Feature #2 - Animated Shorts

1.) French Roast

2.) Granny O'Grimms Sleeping Beauty

3.) The Lady and the Reaper

4.) Logorama

5.) A Matter of Loaf and Death

These are separate presentations so you can attend one or both (and if you like them you can come back to see them over and over). The 2010 Academy Awards will air on March 7, so this is a great opportunity to see them before the Oscars are handed out. Okay, so here is the deal with the contest. In honor of the Oscars, after each feature we will be handing out our own ballots for you to vote (one time only please) on your favorite short. We will collect separate ballots for both Features. If the live-action or animated short you voted for wins an Oscar you will receive $1.50 off your next bag of popcorn and be placed in a drawing for a Becket level membership in our a/v society.

Check out the official website for more information and the trailer!

The really tall elephant in the room?

So the Deacs have crushed my soul once again. I promise not to go all Edgar Allan Poe macabre on you, but while the wound is open, I'll talk about a subject that's been a bit of a sore spot for some people - the screen height. If I were a chiropractor looking for some new clients, I could understand some cries of shenanigans. However, when you're not building a megaplex out in the suburbs and working with an existing building, you've got to do the best with what you've got. I'd say we accomplished our goal of cozy and intimate. You wouldn't know it used to be a conference room and offices and a clothing store before that if I hadn't just told you, right? In fact, in the basement in our storage room, you can see tons of phone numbers written all over the wall. That means it used to be the order room for the store, or a sketchy gas station restroom that I once happened to be occupying at 7pm when I noticed a note that said "Be here at 7 pm on .... for a good time" on some date that I've successfully blocked out of my mind. It's the only time I've considered driving off without paying for my gas.

That history is part of the charm of the theater for us, but it also presented some challenges. The aforementioned basement left us without many options for sloping the floor as we've become accustomed to with newer theaters and stadium seating, since a new foundation couldn't be built to support tons of extra concrete. After consulting with our architects and theater design experts, the best move was putting the screen up a little higher to make sure someone's Marge Simpson hair didn't sully the view of the person sitting behind Marge. It's reminiscent of the old North Point Theaters non-traditional floor, so just more charm! We tried to make sure the seats were extra padded to help the viewer snuggle in, and forget all their other worries, including the slightly set up screen. It seems to have worked for the most part, but some have still wondered why, so I hope that explanation suffices.

One of our other goals in opening a/perture was to be able to showcase some of the amazing talent we have in our own backyard. We're fortunate to be accomplishing that in two ways this coming week. Local creative advertising type-guru Mike Foley will be world premiering his short film Becoming Abe on Thursday, with a screening of the 10 minute feature beginning at 4pm. Here's Mike's own description of the film from his website:

"the mike foley art true story of Peter Holland, a Hollywood outcast who escaped the boulevard of broken dreams only to reconstitute his life as Abraham Lincoln in the Blue Ridge Mountains--Lover's Leap, Virginia.

Not pretty enough to be a leading man, is Peter ugly enough to be someone special? Written, directed and produced by Mike Foley Art in association with Once upon a Blue Ridge. Edited by Michael Murphy. Music by Peter Holland, Redroom Studio, DF&O Sound Lounge. Produced by NOBODY with a FURNACE, heat your SINGLE-WIDE with the oven door DOWN STUDIOS."

Also, we're lucky to have another great film with tons of local ties beginning its one week run at a/perture this Friday, February 19th - Wesley!

"The feature film Wesley is based closely on the actual events of Wesley's life, a story that already reads much like a Hollywood screenplay. Wesley is a compelling and controversial main character that women found intensely attractive; there is adventure on the high seas, a terrible storm and near-shipwreck. In the newly settled Savannah, Georgia, there is an incredibly romantic but star-crossed love affair that ends tragically. Wesley is crushed, and on his return to England we experience his spiritual struggle and finally renewal. We are then swept away with his preaching in the fields and his efforts to help the lowest classes of society. His ministry is controversial, there is mob violence, confrontation, and tension followed by his victorious preaching to thousands in his home town.

In short, this true story has everything that Hollywood loves to put into movies! The movie has the seafaring adventure of Master & Commander, the bittersweet romance of Sense and Sensibility, but at the same time tells a compelling story of conversion, faith, dynamic social reform and ministry."

It sold out just down the road at the Stevens Center a few months ago, so make sure you catch it here. Trailer included for your viewing pleasure, and the official site is here for further information.



42.8571% of the way there. See you again tomorrow!

CHALLENGE??!?!?!?

So Day 2 of this crazy 7 day posting bonanza is upon us. If only every day was Monday, and Jake the bachelor (only the second Jake to make me question my son's handle - I'm talking to you, Delhomme) was trying to decide which "lady" (and I use the term loosely) will stick around long enough to make his 15 minutes about 27. This challenge would be a breeze if that was the case. But American Idol is going to put me to the real test. But if Ryan Seacrest can host Idol, have a radio show, and produce a reality show with the Kardashians, I can make this happen.

So we've been open for a little over a month now, and we're still definitely in the learning process. The staff has been amazing, allowing us to leave for a week, and handling both the front and the back of the house as well as we could have hoped. We've been compiling all the feedback and doing everything we can to make sure a/perture is the best experience it can be. One of the things that would be noticeable is the addition of a second register for the weekends, to help usher people into the movies more quickly. Now you people have to keep showing up to test our mettle, and justify our first major unbudgeted expense since being operational. Nigel, no more doggy day spa trips for you.

We've gotten a lot more questions and suggestions, including but not limited to screen heights, website layout, concessions, and movie times in the newspaper. Hmmm.... four topics, five more days of posting?? Does it count as a post if it would have fit into a tweet? I fear I'm really going to test this quality vs. quantity thing...until tomorrow.

7 blog posts in 7 days

We're back! I know it has been awhile and hopefully we've been missed. We are challenging ourselves to write 7 blog posts in 7 days. In order to start us off on the right foot, the curator has once again usurped the blog. Since it is President's Day tomorrow and Jigar has the day off hopefully he can author at least a few of these posts. We certainly have enough to write about. But first and foremost while things are still fresh in my mind (trust me they don't stay that way for very long these days), I wanted to share how we spent our last week. We left all our babies (human, canine, aquatic and small business venture) for a trip out west to the warm sun and the 25th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Known for its celebrity tributes, sbiff is considered a prelude to the Oscars, but we surprisingly didn't run into anybody very exciting. I guess we could have waited in line to see Julianne Moore walk the red carpet, but honestly we were really more excited about having some good sushi (well actually just me, Jigar thinks it's gross). We did enjoy some great films and some not so great ones. It was nice to see 14 films all with my husband - it was like date night three times a day.

For consistency purposes, I will use the same evaluation criteria as I did with the toronto fest. It seemed to work well last time:

Longest time spent in line: 20 minutes...so totally different than toronto. one of the best aspects of the festival.

Buckets of popcorn consumed: 1 large popcorn and we were very excited to see that the venue also uses our same eco-friendly popcorn bags.

Coolest Q&A: with Neil Finn formerly of Crowded House and SplitEnz. He was screening the documentary The Sun Came Out about making the album 7 Worlds Collide. Jigar was in heaven watching behind the scenes footage of Wilco and Radiohead band members. If you like either of these bands you should definitely pick up the album on iTunes, proceeds go to the Oxfam International charity.

Biggest Surprise Hit: Exam, by British director Stuart Hazeldine. It had a unique premise, a great young cast and it left me guessing until the very end...eight talented candidates have reached the final stage of selection to join the ranks of a mysterious and powerful corporation. Entering a windowless room, where an armed guard keeps watch, they are given 80 minutes to answer one simple question. Check out the trailer: With any luck it will find a distributor. Also, just found out that this won The Panavision Spirit Award of Independent Cinema, given to a unique independent feature that has been made outside mainstream Hollywood.

Celebrity Sightings: Jay Thomas of Murphy Brown fame...here is a photo to help you refresh your memory...yep that's it...we missed Colin Firth by a day...

Best photo op: The only three photos we took the entire trip were of Jigar and a pigeon in the background (I was trying to make it look like the pigeon was on his shoulder). I will refrain from posting since I am really not a great photographer.

New favorite song: Nothing to do with sbiff or any film seen there...but have to say it is Tik Tok by Ke$ha. oooooouuuwoahawoahwoah

Number of visits to Starbucks for coffee: 6 to 8....it was right across the street. But we did also find two great local coffee houses that we highly recommend if you are ever in the SB area. The French Press and Our Daily Bread (thanks to cousin Emmy for the recs).

Number of visits to Starbucks for free wifi: zero...it was only free IF you have an account with AT&T...boo

World Premieres: at least a handful of the films were world premieres. Most of these were from other countries and subtitled. We saw films from Iran, Bulgaria, China, Chile, Australia, Germany, Austria, Great Britain and Canada. We saw a total of 3 American films.

Films that I hope to bring to a/perture: It will definitely be more difficult to get a lot of the films to a/perture. But if the planets aligned and we thought there was an audience I would definitely consider Exam, Bran Nue Dae, and The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner.

Films that I will never in a million years bring to a/perture: I actually can't say anything bad about any of the films. Even if some may have been hard to get through Jigar and I stayed until the credits for each and every film (okay, I may have taken a quick power nap or two, but it was dark and nobody could tell).

Films with the most buzz that I wish I could have seen: Reverse and The Secret of Kells

If you would like to learn more about any of the films I've mentioned above check out the official sbiff website

One down six to go....

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....