Vermont small-town cinemas face big challenges

Can local movie houses survive the digital world?

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110814/NEWS03/708149917

The Big Picture Theater & Café in Waitsfield, photographed this summer, is one of numerous small theaters in the state.
Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / Staff File Photo

Published August 14, 2011 in the Rutland Herald

Rocky picture show: Vermont small-town cinemas face big challenges

By Kevin O’Connor

Springfield’s small-town movie house drew national press for hosting the 2007 world premiere of “The Simpsons Movie.” But that hasn’t kept local development leader William Morlock from hearing complaints that current fare such as “The Smurfs” is too cartoonish.

Morlock could remind naysayers how the downtown cinema barely survived a 2008 blaze. How the local housing authority he leads had to persuade its state counterpart to restore the burned block, which also houses apartments. How they then needed to persuade the town Chamber of Commerce to assume the theater lease and hire an outside operator before the landmark could reopen last month.

But deflecting criticism by dramatizing all the challenges seems too easy. And as theater operators statewide attest, nothing about showing Hollywood movies in the Green Mountains is simple.

Burlington, Rutland and the state’s capital region have multiplex cinemas, but smaller Vermont towns are losing film screens and longtime operators, spurring newcomers and nonprofits to try to satisfy the increasingly diverse demands of locals plugged into cable and computers.

“People just see the theater and they don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes,” Morlock says. “It’s harder than you think.”

This spring, Brattleboro boasted a six-screen multiplex playing mainstream movies, plus the historic Latchis Theatre specializing in art, foreign and independent films. Then the multiplex, seeing more patrons saving their money on DVDs, closed just before the summer blockbuster season.

Many people figured the nonprofit that owns and operates the Latchis — the Brattleboro Arts Initiative — would benefit from presenting hits in its 750-seat auditorium and three adjacent 100-seat projection rooms. But while the switch has drawn more customers, it also has delivered unwelcome complications.

Take the summer’s biggest moneymaker, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.” It played not only in the big auditorium but also on the complex’s sole 3-D screen. That left the Latchis with only two other projectors to appease film distributors who, in exchange for scheduling popular pictures, demand showings of their lesser releases.

As a result, Latchis benefactors accustomed to the latest foreign film in French, Russian or Mandarin Chinese were left with a multiweek engagement of the talking-animal comedy “Zookeeper,” sparking a round of howling letters to the local paper.

“There are a lot of movies that have to play somewhere, and we are it,” says managing director Gail Nunziata. “The summer is just a crazy time. There’s a lot of product. It’s like a freight train down the track.”

(The tractor-trailer that ran into the Latchis’ Art Deco marquee last month is another story — one that operators hope to fix with help from the Preservation Trust of Vermont.)

Vermont cities with more screens aren’t immune to projection problems. Rutland’s nine-screen Flagship Cinemas is open only after its former owner, plagued by tax and eviction notices, closed it twice. Montpelier’s small, sophisticated Savoy — one of two Capital City movie houses — had to raise $12,000 from supporters after a May flood destroyed the seats, carpet, audio equipment and concession area in its smaller screening room downstairs.

The movie business is struggling nationwide, with high-profit refreshment counters sustaining low-margin ticket booths. But it’s increasingly challenging for rural venues.

“The theater audience is dwindling because of Netflix, on-demand and pay-per-view, but the big cities have more people to draw from,” says Shelly Gibson, owner of Manchester’s Village Picture Shows.

With two screens, Gibson’s theater aims to attract everyone from teenagers to tourists. Last month it paired Harry Potter with the horse whisperer documentary “Buck” (just in time for the local Vermont Summer Festival Horse Shows). This weekend it’s playing the comic caper “Captain America” and Cannes Film Festival winner “The Tree of Life.”

“I would love nothing more than to run just an indie film house,” Gibson says, “but because of economics I can’t.”

Waitsfield’s two-screen Big Picture Theater & Café is celebrating its fifth anniversary in part because, as the name attests, it’s not just a cinema. The venue is known as much for its breakfast huevos rancheros and dinner bacon bourbon burgers as its annual MountainTop Human Rights Film Festival each Martin Luther King weekend.

“We’ve had to diversify — food, concerts, rentals for events and private functions like wedding rehearsal dinners and after parties — in order to stay afloat,” says Dottie Greene, event and marketing manager. “There’s a lot of different moving parts here. It’s like a mini circus.”

Independently owned theaters now total only about 10 percent of all cinemas in the country, in part because chain operators have more screens to cater to distributors that dictate which movies play for how many weeks.

Studios, for their part, are phasing out pricey 35mm film reels and turning to digital technology; the new projectors cost about $70,000, with a 3-D option for an extra $30,000. They’re also experimenting with ways to sell more electronic entertainment directly to consumers.

“I really feel Hollywood is trying to get rid of us,” Gibson says. “If people who love the movie-going experience want to keep theaters in their communities, they have to get out and support them.”

Saving a hometown film house also helps surrounding businesses, says Morlock.

“We became involved because the town as a whole wanted this,” he says at his Springfield Housing Authority office. “Everyone said it was a focal point to bring more life to downtown.”

Small cinemas, in turn, are working to broaden their audience base. The Manchester theater will present the silent movie “The Mark of Zorro” with nationally acclaimed piano accompanist Ben Model on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Brattleboro’s Latchis has inaugurated a weekend matinee “Theatre Manager’s Pick” (“Buck” plays today at 4 p.m.) and joined Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater and St. Johnsbury’s Catamount Arts in showing live high-definition transmissions of New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

“Kids and families buy more popcorn than people who come to see the opera live in HD,” Nunziata says. “But we want all people to keep loving us.”