ASK EDDIE

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EP Millstone
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ASK EDDIE

Post by EP Millstone »

For those folks on Facebook, the Q&A session ASK EDDIE (Muller) happens tomorrow, December 29, 2022.

Here's a clip of the December 15, 2022 session. San Francisco Bay Area locals might be interested in hearing Eddie Muller's "call to arms" regarding the "battle" over The Castro Theatre, former Bay Area home of Noir City.

"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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ziggy6708a
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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was "mr6666" @ TCM
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ziggy6708a
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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was "mr6666" @ TCM
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EP Millstone
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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This Thursday, March 16: Another episode of ASK EDDIE (Muller).
"In this episode, we discuss the 2022 film Pearl, Neil Jordan's Marlowe, British screenwriter Janet Green (1908 – 1993), the original Danish version of The Guilty, Jeopardy (1953), old-time radio dramas that were film noir, George Carroll Sims as screenwriter Peter Ruric and novelist Paul Cain, and the 1971 film Joe starring Peter Boyle. We wind things up with a discussion of our sets; specifically, the rooms that we shoot from. On the cat front, you can play "Where's Emily?"

ASK EDDIE premieres on Facebook this Thursday and becomes available on Friday, March 17, on our YouTube channel. If you enjoy what you see, we encourage you to like and subscribe.

Do you have a question for a future episode? Send it to [email protected].

Note: Eddie will not be able to answer questions posted during the ASK EDDIE program nor ones left on our social media accounts. So, make sure to send your questions to the ASK EDDIE email listed above."

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"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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EP Millstone
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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This Thursday, April 6, 7:00 p.m., PDT: Another episode of ASK EDDIE (Muller):
"In this episode, we discuss the selection process for the Academy Awards 'In Memoriam' presentation, season two of HBO's Perry Mason, Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave (2022), the impact of the Hollywood studio system's treatment of talent on noir films, 'transitional' film noir, and more. We wind things up answering two possibly divisive questions: who is the toughest male protagonist in noir and what is the best film noir."
Do you have a question for a future episode? Send it to [email protected].

Note: Eddie will not be able to answer questions posted during the program nor ones left on our social media accounts. So, make sure to send your questions to the ASK EDDIE email listed above.
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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EP Millstone
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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During the first eleven minutes of the March 16 edition of ASK EDDIE, Muller had me in stitches while he was relating his experience of going to see Infinity Pool at a multiplex theatre. He remarked how the recent Noir City festival that he hosted packed the theatre house while current movie releases were playing to practically empty theatres.

Muller's attitude about reserved seating in movie theatres precisely matches my own. In a theatre big enough to accommodate 200 people, only five people were in attendance for Infinity Pool -- and all of Muller's fellow attendees were sitting near him . . . because of reserved seating. A guy came into Muller's row and actually climbed over Muller to get to his seat.

"There are no other people in the movie theatre!" exclaimed Muller, "And I actually said to him, 'Like seriously, Man?' "

"Well, that's the seat I bought," responded the intruder.

"Are we . . . are we lemmings?" Muller asks, "Like, we can't just sit wherever the hell we want to sit?" My sentiments exactly!

Then three more people come in . . .

"They sit right next to me!" reported Muller.

"Is everybody lonely?" asked Muller's co-host Film Noir Foundation's Director of Communications Anne Hockens.

Personal rant: Needy extroverts who crave the "communal experience" of movie-going really tee me off. What! Do you want me to hold your hand or give you a hug during the scary parts, 'Nookums?

Muller's rant (reserved seating, TV news playing in the theatre lobby, groping one's way in the dark because the lights in the theatre auditorium are not on, being subjected to ads) perfectly encapsulated why Going to the Movies is no longer a pleasurable experience -- and indeed a drag -- for some folks.
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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txfilmfan
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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Reserved seating for movies is relatively recent here in the US, but the first movie I ever saw in the UK, in the London suburb of Richmond, had reserved seating back in 1995. I was quite surprised when they asked me where I wanted to sit when I got to the box office. I soon learned that seat reservation was hit or miss back then - some theatres still had open seating, but not this one.

Of course, the Brits also buy sugared popcorn at the movies, so there's that!

Ads are nothing new to me. I can remember theatres in my hometown running ads before a feature back in the 1960s. Of course, they were nothing like the ads you see today. They were little more than glorified slide shows with ads for local businesses.
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EP Millstone
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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kingrat wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:03 pm . . . Why, Millstone, the last current movie I saw in the theater (last October) had only thirty minutes of "pre-show" ads and other junk! They even told us (the six people in the theater) to "enjoy the pre-show"!
I cannot help but wonder about the "logic" behind the decisions made by movie theatre owners.

Besides the, IMO, overall crap that Hollywood excretes, the movie-going experience today, to me, compounds and intensifies the problem of decreasing movie theatre attendance. I want to go to the movies. I prefer seeing movies on The Big Screen. But very little of what plays at my local Bijou appeals to me. When I do go to the movies, modern theatre practices and policies are diminishing my enjoyment. Movie theatres -- arguably the last bastion of egalitarian entertainment -- are becoming distressingly classist, gentrified, and segregationist.

"I lost it at the movies!" -- "it" being joy and freedom (to sit wherever I want to sit) -- is no longer an exultation. It is a lament.

AMC is about to make paying for theater seats more like booking an airline ticket
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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Swithin
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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EP Millstone wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:37 pm
kingrat wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:03 pm . . . Why, Millstone, the last current movie I saw in the theater (last October) had only thirty minutes of "pre-show" ads and other junk! They even told us (the six people in the theater) to "enjoy the pre-show"!
"I lost it at the movies!" -- "it" being joy and freedom (to sit wherever I want to sit) -- is no longer an exultation. It is a lament.

AMC is about to make paying for theater seats more like booking an airline ticket
I used to eschew the seat reservation policy, but I got to like it, because it meant that you can reserve a seat you like, and that it would be there for you even if you arrived as the "pre-show" was ending.

But I don't think I approve of what one of my local theaters is doing. Except that they closed, and it will enable them to reopen.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a- ... hen-022223
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EP Millstone
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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Swithin wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:53 pm I used to eschew the seat reservation policy, but I got to like it, because it meant that you can reserve a seat you like, and that it would be there for you even if you arrived as the "pre-show" was ending.

But I don't think I approve of what one of my local theaters is doing. Except that they closed, and it will enable them to reopen.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a- ... hen-022223
Swithin,

I always reserve seats when I go to the movies. I don't want to wait in line or have to "climb over" people to get to a seat . . . or have people climb over me to get to their seats. The drawback, as Eddie points out in his diatribe, is that I can be stuck in my seat surrounded by people with whom I'd prefer to not be in close proximity. I would much more prefer to skip reservations and sit anywhere I damn well want to -- which is away from others -- and impulsively change my seat!

Regarding Look Dine-in Cinemas, there is a dine-in cinema within my city limits. I rarely go to it. Atop all the other distractions -- cell phones; crunchy, slurpy snacks; yakking patrons ("What did he say, Henry?" He said, "Yippee Ki-yay, Motherf****er," Mildred."), now full-course meals and alcoholic beverages are thrown into the mix. My local dine-in theatre has seats with menus and a button to summon a waiter/waitress to take orders before the movie. Solipsistic cretins who lay on the button during the movie ("Where is that waiter? I want more Chablis!") are worms -- the kind who need to be jumped on with heavy boots hard and often.
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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txfilmfan
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Re: ASK EDDIE

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Swithin wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:53 pm
EP Millstone wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:37 pm
kingrat wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 8:03 pm . . . Why, Millstone, the last current movie I saw in the theater (last October) had only thirty minutes of "pre-show" ads and other junk! They even told us (the six people in the theater) to "enjoy the pre-show"!
"I lost it at the movies!" -- "it" being joy and freedom (to sit wherever I want to sit) -- is no longer an exultation. It is a lament.

AMC is about to make paying for theater seats more like booking an airline ticket
I used to eschew the seat reservation policy, but I got to like it, because it meant that you can reserve a seat you like, and that it would be there for you even if you arrived as the "pre-show" was ending.

But I don't think I approve of what one of my local theaters is doing. Except that they closed, and it will enable them to reopen.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a- ... hen-022223
I guess dine-in theatres aren't too common in NYC? Never been to a movie there.

They've been around here since the 90s, but were still rather rare until about 2010. The first one around here was Studio Movie Grill, which converted smaller, older multiplexes (4 to 8 screens) once the big mega-multiplexes started opening (with 20-24 screens) and the smaller venues closed. Now they have multiple locations in the area (they're based here in the area - in Dallas).

But now, within a 10-15 minute drive, I have iPic, Cinepolis (a Mexican chain), CUT! (a Cinemark property), Alamo Drafthouse, Flix Brewhouse, LOOK, a local dine-in place that shows almost exclusively Bollywood films, and an AMC Dine-in theater.

I've never been to one of these. I don't even like the reclining seats that everyone has installed now. About the only theatre that doesn't have them these days around here is the Angelika.
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