- Askarben Cinema is becoming less like a theater and more like a family member to all Omahans…like that cool aunt or uncle who is secretly (or not so secretly) your favorite. Proof? They’re holding Free Family Flicks, where every Wednesday and Thursday morning at 11 am from June 12-Aug 1 you can show up and watch a movie with the fam, yo! For free! The films this year include Chimpanzee, Escape from Planet Earth, Parental Guidance, African Cats, Hotel Transylvania, Oceans, Rio and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. As if it wasn’t enough to give parents and kids a place to chill during the dog days of summer, they’re also collecting canned food items for Together. The theater is such a great family member, I’m considering naming my firstborn Aksarben Cinema.
- Well, we had a good run, humanity: Tardar Sauce (aka “Grumpy Cat”) is getting a movie. According to Broken Road’s Todd Garner, the studio thinks they can turn the sometimes-amusing meme of a frowning feline into “a big family comedy” in the spirit of Garfield. Because if there’s a pinnacle of modern cultural achievement to aspire to in life, it’s Garfield: The Motion Picture. I look forward to the next film in this inevitable franchise, I Can Haz Sequel.
- In this corner: The National Association of Theater Owners. In the opposing corner: The Motion Picture Association of America. The battle: how long your trailers can be. That’s right! The heated negotiations at hand are not about the increasingly arbitrary ratings assigned by the MPAA, which limits box office options for NATO (the theater owners, not the international conflict organization, in case you got confused). No, the issue is that NATO thinks trailers should be shorter, and right now the MPAA dictates allowable lengths. Customers are complaining about the length of time they have to wait before their movie actually starts, and NATO thinks the solution is to cut the previews down! Just so we’re all clear, if they cut down trailers, all we’ll get is more Coca-Cola commercials before showtime. (thetelegramnews.com) So whoever wins, we lose!
Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly half-hour movie podcast (movieha.libsyn.com/rss), catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 (cd1059.com) on Fridays at around 7:30 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 (KVNO.org) at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/thereaderfilm).