Multiplex Penny-Pinching?
A curious bit of information appeared on a screen at Pacific Place recently, in one of those advertising slides that precedes feature films. The slide announced that, due to the prohibitive cost, film showtimes would no longer be listed in The Seattle Times and P-I; filmgoers should now consult other papers, like the Everett Herald, or dial a toll-free number to get showtime information.
In Arts News wondered about this development: Was this advertising budget reduction another sign of the impending collapse of the downtown megaplex complex? "Not really," says Brian Callaghan, director of communications and film marketing for General Cinemas. "It's just that for the past couple of years, we've been looking at the cost of advertising versus the amount of business on certain days--Monday through Thursday, mainly--and found that... we were barely breaking even. So we're experimenting with cutting back a little bit." General Cinemas still runs ads in the Times and P-I every day for Pacific Place and Cinerama, but waits until the weekend for its Everett and Renton screens. Callaghan says that since the papers run the showtimes for free, anyway, running the ads became redundant.
Though General Cinemas is one of eight major film exhibition companies to have filed for Chapter 11 recently (others include Loews, which runs Cineplex Odeon, and Silver, which runs Landmark), Callaghan remains optimistic. "Industry-wide, it's very competitive, but Pacific Place does do very well for us," he says. "When we get some of the bigger films, it's common for it to be in the top 100 nationwide. Especially compared to the Meridian, people really enjoy going there." SEAN NELSON
As Handsome Does
We don't know what the Cambridge Art Association is, but we highly approve of the Outstanding Painting Prize it'll present to Seattle artist Richard Hutter next month. The prize-winning work, chosen from among nearly 1,500 entries, is Simul, a handsome example of his painting-on-found-wood style. What raises this award above the usual art-world riffraff is that Hutter's painting was selected by the esteemed and elegant Maxwell Anderson, the director of the Whitney Museum in New York (and, incidentally, the handsome, scholarly reason that this particular In Arts News writer got interested in art all those years ago). Congratulations are certainly due to Hutter (who will show new work locally at the Lisa Harris Gallery in September); we hear Boston is lovely this time of year. EMILY HALL
Bye-Bye Belltown
Annex Theatre's space in Belltown has long been poised on the chopping block of development. Now, after months of uncertainty, the ax has fallen: The 1900 block of Fourth Avenue will be demolished for retail and condos.
Annex, however, is using its displacement as a catalyst for ambitious change. Director Bret Fetzer (theater editor here at The Stranger) says the next step is to put together a coalition of theater companies who will buy a space together. The funding and energy are there, he says; it's just a matter of finding the physical space. In the meantime, offices will move to Capitol Hill, and production equipment goes into storage. Upcoming productions will take place at rental spaces. There will be a two-day goodbye party at the Belltown space on June 30 and July 1. TRACI VOGEL
R.I.P. Morris Graves
Morris Graves, born in 1910, died on Saturday at his home near Loleta, California. Graves was one of the "Northwest Mystic" school of artists, which also included Mark Tobey, Guy Anderson, and Kenneth Callahan. All four Northwest painters achieved national fame when they were featured in a 1953 Life magazine piece.
The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti described Morris Grave's paintings as "a wild white nest in the true mad north of introspection." Graves was outrageously talented and endearingly eccentric: One of the most-told stories about him is the time he pulled up to a Seattle restaurant in his car, unrolled a red carpet, and ordered a bread and lettuce sandwich. TRACI VOGEL
