"Never Say Never" - Exhibition's Excess Capacity, Justin Bieber,and #ManohlaDargisProblems

Tonight I set out to test Manohla Dargis essay in today’s New York Times – Flooding Theaters Isn’t Good for Filmmakers or Filmgoers, by attending a screening of Justin Beiber’s Believe. The latest adventure sadly only hints that Bieber on the verge of cracking, as the closing credits disclaim the movie was intended for "entertainment purposes". This is acceptable once you consider the picture was more a "branded experience" than a film. Believe, for it's distributor's owners, represents a suburban answer to Dargis’ urban problem. 

I agree, New York City has flood of pictures, as qualified by the New York Times, which has an admirable policy of reviewing every film released theatrically in Manhattan. This totaled over 900 in calendar year 2013. I saw roughly a little more than 1/3^rd that amount between in-theatre screenings (304 on record), plus VOD and press screeners (those I'm not so good about keeping track of). That number is partly made possible by traveling to festivals and to New York City – had I been restricted only to Buffalo, NY or worse Erie, PA that number would be significantly less.

I truly believe the problem, and this will sound sickeningly like a closed Western New York idea when I complete this sentence – is New York City and eco-system that has spawned VOD and contractual theatrical runs. I also believe another problem is the unwillingness of distributors and exhibitors to build theatrical audiences and outside of the hermetically sealed screening rooms of the Quad, Cinema Village and IFC – New York's prime offenders. And I mean prime offenders in the nicest way possible, these aren't bad films we're talking about - normally they are like slightly bruised apples. Indiewire's Sam Adams, in response to Dargis blamed contractual obligations, along with good ol’ Four Walling – the process of which a distributor or filmmaker buys out the house for the week. As Indiewire unpacks – the Quad Cinema had made a business of Four Walling (and showing second run films after they depart from multiplexes and the A-list Houston Street art houses). In LA, Laemmle Theaters also offers "qualification" services - providing the Four Walling required to ensure your film is eligible for award season.

A two-tier indie system exists in New York and the Quad Cinema along with Cinema Village survive on the scraps of the A-listers. Both tiny art houses sit in heavily competitive zones with several multiplexes that do not split bookings. The AMC Village 7, City Cinemas Village East 7, and Regal’s always-packed Union Square 14 – will never show the same picture. In essence you have 35 first run screens causing a bottleneck just in Union Square. Given those odds, the tiny Quad Cinema is never going to show Lone Survivor on “break”. Add in art houses on Houston Street art houses – The Angelika, Film Forum, Landmark Sunshine and for good measure we’ll count IFC – all of which most certainly have exclusive rights below 14^th Street for each title they screen, and you’re looking at 54 screens to program.

In defense of the Quad and Cinema Village they depend on a certain type of title, often simultaneously showing on VOD to survive, otherwise they would be forced to become purely second run houses, a prospect that may become more limited. At this time, I do not believe these theaters have fully converted the studio standard Digital Cinema as they frequently show BluRay and other digital formats.

Taken from the back row of Theater #5 at the IFC Center (I wish I was joking) prior to a screening of Claire Denis' Bastards.

IFC is equally complicit as an exhibitor and distributor (operating as IFC Films and Sundance Selects). The IFC Center went so far as to build two auditoriums that I consider to be “houses of contractual obligation”. Often these are the only theaters in the US to play certain films that IFC has picked up for VOD – theatre #5, above, seats 33, with a tiny screen and still charges a cool $13.50 a ticket.

These 54 screens plus others showing exclusive theatrical runs including Lincoln Center’s venues and the Anthology Film Archives along with micro cinemas in Brooklyn have created a large supply for a decent demand. The picture elsewhere outside of first world film cities like New York (the leader), Toronto, Los Angelas and Austin is for exhibitors to get into the content game. Open Road, the distributors of tonight’s narcissistic entertainment Justin Beiber’s Believe was founded by equity partners Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Theaters (the two largest theatrical exhibitors in the US) as a “straight content play”.

A smaller exhibitor, Digiplex Destinations founded its own micro distribution label, Diginext – releasing primarily documentaries and they have recently moved towards narrative films. Diginext films are screened throughout the US via a partnership with advertiser Screenvision (although I’m sorry to report I couldn’t locate box office data Diginext's widest release, the recent A Miracle in Spanish Harlem).

Alternative content is nothing new and perhaps it’s a more common sense approach to this New York problem, but I’ll tell you – the problem of too much to see is a nice one if you have it. This is why I don’t subscribe to a big cable package. For film lovers in markets like Erie, PA where the local 17-plex Cinemark is the only game in town, why not apply more flexibility? Some major indie titles like Anna Karernina (from Focus Features) have even bypassed that 17-plex, screening at a weekly curiated gathering called Film at the Erie Art Museum usually a few weeks before the film's DVD release.

New York is of course the number one market – my kind of city – a town where a carefully crafted Turkish art house picture can sell out on a Tuesday night at 9:30 at Film Forum. Supply and demand at its finest - with audiences hungry for great cinema. A few months back I had two hours to kill while waiting around for a friend and wondered into Cinema Village after looking for a movie to see playing within a few minutes. This isn’t a bad approach; in fact I’ve seen many a great film on a whim at festivals – something you can only replicate each and every day in New York City.

I wondered into Free Samples, a spirited little indie released by the Starz network, and screened on a small screen in BluRay. The theater was shockingly not too dead – I think 10 others joined me, not bad for a weekday afternoon for a film without much in the way of marketing. By comparison the Dipson's Market Arcade Film & Arts Center in Buffalo, NY has frequently hosted unintentional private screenings for me on Saturday nights, often for films leading that weekend's box office.

Independent cinema is a funny thing – the right moves can make the difference between a picture released at the Angelika by Sony Pictures Classics and one that despite having stars finds itself with a VOD deal and a small token release at the Cinema Village. It’s a game of chances – from having the right talent agency to package the film the right way, getting on the right festival programmer’s radar to finding the right distributor. Indie films are like salmon swimming upstream, bloody and bruised.

The eco-system as inconvenient as it is for the New York Times represents largely a problem of qualification. 900 films is an awful lot to qualify for year-end – and who knows what hidden indie gems is buried amongst them? AO Scott might discover a small gem and spread the word including amongst his twitter followers - while a less known New York Times critic's positive review will undoubtably have less of an impact.

Computer Chess – one of my top films of last year was cited amongst those that unfairly had to compete amongst lesser films. I’m not sure if this is correct – would Andrew Bujalski’s film been more successful had it opened at Regal Union Square? With no stars, Bujalski is the brand behind the film, again adding another layer of qualification. The indie film world can be hermetically sealed – a complaint I have about filmmakers like Joe Swanberg and Ti West who continue to churn out films with (often not very funny) inside jokes about the ecosystem of film festivals like Toronto, Sundance and South by Southwest.

Therefore do films that open directly at the Quad Cinema or Cinema Village have a kind of kind stigma? The Quad was for years the only game in town LGBT cinema from distributors like Strand Releasing, playing an important role for work that now seems to go right to VOD without a contractual release. The Quad Cinema has become a hybrid second run complex (currently showing Captain Phillips and 20 Feet from Stardom) with documentaries and small indie titles (such as Alice Eve in Cold Comes the Night - which for all purposes appears to be a project intended for a direct to video release).

Crowd sourced, on demand models including Tugg exist and have found some success – individual  audience members to commit to one screening at a certain time and place. Like Kickstarter if enough commit the screening, filling the theater, the screening happens. Tugg has partnered with exhibitors like AMC, Cinemark, and the Alamo Drafthouse – in fact the Cinemark 17 in Erie, PA has hosted successful Tugg screenings on behalf of certain groups who have opted-in and committed.

Exhibitors operate on a simple model – butts in the seats and popcorn sold. Is it unreasonable to propose a distributed model by which indie films find and build a more regional audience? This exists in large part for faith-based cinema, but could it work for a delightful modest indie like Free Samples?  

The qualification problem exists when the gates are lowered or as Janet Pierson of South by Southwest Film put it - made into a hobby by those that can afford it. Yes, those films that lack good intentions don't get find audiences - even if they have significant advertising dollars (see my worst film of 2013...or better yet - don't!). More content, to paraphrase the great Biggy Smalls equals Mo Problems. The films we never get to see too haunt me; perhaps a kid in Iowa has shot a masterpiece that the gatekeepers of South by Southwest, Sundance and Tribeca have kept from us. Qualification is a problem that must be addressed publication by publication, as distribution models become more fluid. The New York Times in taking an open approach by including reviews of what have been dismissed as “vanity films” – those made by folks of means renting the Quad Cinema for a week. The Quad is advertising access to critics as a selling point of their services.

As a critic I serve as a gatekeeper – my rules were simple for my top and bottom lists – and yet would have qualified every film that has ever played at any festival anywhere in the world in 2013 plus those 900 theatrical releases in New York City. While not always the case, the good ones tend to rise to the top – 12 Years a Slave, I have a hunch will do very well at both the Oscars and the Independent Spirit Awards (which closely mirror the Oscars for reason that are frankly annoying and worth exploring in a future post).

In closing the irony of VOD and contractual theatrical distribution is that it creates a bottleneck for mostly pretty good films in a very concentrated hub, a 10-block radius of Washington Square Park. Films that might otherwise have a chance to break out, even difficult ones are starved from the chance via VOD at exactly the time when digital distribution has drastically cut costs and reduced risk to exhibitors and distributors. Social models like Tugg are a solution but ought to be a regular fixture. Imagine having one night a week where a loyal audience voted on a new high quality indie (vetted of course by a major festival screening) and then that picture was shown – weeks before it bowed on VOD.

While New York may be flooded, cinephiles in other parts of the country are disenfranchised by the lack of good content and choice in theaters. They can see anything on VOD, but that's no fun. Exhibitors are clearly interested in diversifying content especially on low capacity nights – so why not shift some of that contractual obligation somewhere else? If the value of a New York theatrical release isn’t what it used to be unless you open at the Angelika, Sunshine, Film Forum, Regal Union Square, or AMC Village 7 - why not four wall it in another major city to measure its potential?