Not Coming To A Theater Near You

I'm not Mr. Buffalo Booster or anything, but I could not disagree with this more - Buffalo is an amazing city for cinephiles.

If you count the Market Arcade, which you should, that makes 14 Dipson-owned screens in the area showing independent movies, plus the Screening Room, plus the film events they do at the Palace Theater and the Riviera. Not to mention Movieland, which isn't strictly an indie, but still shows a ton of indies - right now they're playing the new Soderbergh and the new Woody Allen. Plus things like the Buffalo Film Seminars, and the Midnight Beacon series, plus screening events at Squeaky Wheel, Sugar City, the Burchfield and Albright Knox, Shea's, the Historical Society... It's a complete embarassment of riches in Buffalo which puts a lot of cities 4 times its size to shame. (When I lived in D.C. 5 years ago there were exactly 8 screens in the metro area showing art films. Right now in Charlotte NC there are only 7 screens -- both of those have populations way, way larger than Buffalo.) Not to mention one of the few actual functioning drive-ins remaining in America, which even started doing repertory showings this summer.

And almost all of these are within a 20-25 minute drive of each other. When you say that there's only 7 indie screens "within about a 50-mile radius", you're exagerrating a fair bit -- 50 miles is 3/4 the way to Rochester. Even if you went all the way from the Market Arcade downtown to the Transit Drive-In in Lockport, that's at most a little over 20 miles. You could see a 4:00 show at one and a 7:00 show at the other and not even have to rush.

To say that Buffalo is getting the shaft because we didn't get Moonrise Kingdom or Beasts of the Southern Wild until 3 weeks after they opened in NYC & LA, or because the seats don't recline like they do in corporate mega-multiplexes, is really missing the forest for the trees and not appreciating how much better movie fans in Buffalo have it compared to a TON of other cities -- you could go see a different new indie or rarely-seen classic every single night of the week here and still not catch everything. It's super rare that I have enough free time to see every movie that I wanna see on the big screen in Buffalo each week -- it's really, really far from bleak.

When I was an undergrad at UB back in the early 80s, we had a filmfest every day of the week. Bill Hooley was the programmer, and every night was a different film. Moreover, there was a definate theme each semester, and within each semester, a different twist each weekday. You might have a certain director featured on Mondays, Czech films on Tuesdays, film noir on Wednesdays, the Evolving Portrayal of Blacks in Film on Thursdays, and more popular fare for the weekends.

You could easily become a master of film analysis and history just be reading the blurbs and program guide and attending the films.

I don't think that exists anymore, but I sure wish we had something like that for all the city to partake, but such a program doesn't exist anywhere in American that I am aware of. I guess the economics are just too difficult. The AFI in Silver Spring comes closest, and they are struggling.

But I agree -- Buffalo may not be the cinephile's paradise, but it has nothing to be ashamed of either.

And are there movies that play Toronto & NYC that don't make it to Buffalo? Of course there are, but the vast majority of those aren't going to be found playing ANYWHERE else aside from Toronto, NYC, and LA. Saying Buffalo's filmgoing scene isn't as good as Toronto's is like saying our canyon scene isn't as good as Arizona's, or our cracked-bell scene isn't as good as Philadelphia's. Like, obviously it's not, but we're still doing waaaay better than your average American city.

Sure, the lag between release in larger cities and ours can be annoying, but we don't have the market I'm guessing. Would be nice if the Regal chain would devote at least one screen to independent film, but at least we have Dipson. Yes, their seats are old and uncomfy, but they aren't making the money to afford an upgrade I'm guessing. At least their popcorn kicks ass! My only problem with Dipson is that they often play great stuff at Eastern Hills that would probably to better at Market Arcade or North Park. They should move them around more (if that's allowed). North Park should do two week runs instead of two month runs as well..

Jordan, it took me a while to weigh in, but I agree with you completely -- and it's a sad state of affairs, especially given Buffalo's much more glorious past history with the movie business. In addition to being the home to what is believed to be the first purpose-built movie theater in America (in basement of Ellicott Square building), Buffalo was also a center for film provisioning. The recent article about Dinosaur BBQ's Buffalo location indicated that the building used to be a film exchange -- where films were shipped in from the studios and then distributed to theaters in cities within a radius of Buffalo. And that wasn't the only facility -- on Franklin and Pearl there were once IIRC a couple dozen such facilities in close proximity. Many of those buildings are still there, used for other purposes.

When I lived in Rochester, I lived just off East Ave. between the George Eastman House, which shows classic film 6 nights a week in a beautiful purpose-built neoclassical theater on the grounds, and the Little Theater, which has 6 screens and shows mostly indy/art house films but also the smaller-distribution documentaries you mention. Rochester doesn't have a first-run theater within city limits, but I could grab the East Ave bus out to Pittsford to a medium-sized plaza multiplex that shows most first-run films but also many indy/art house pictures as well. In other words, as a film buff I was pretty much covered, and I took full advantage of it to learn a lot about film.

In Buffalo, it's a bigger challenge. There's the Market Arcade, North Park, and Amherst, yes. But many indy/art house pictures and smaller-distribution documentaries that do make it here are in many cases only shown at the Dipson theater at Eastern Hills Mall. Getting there and back by transit, especially in the evenings when schedules thin out, is a logistical nightmare. Places like the Screening Room, out in the 'burbs, present similar challenges.

All these factors hinder Buffalo's film culture, which otherwise has great potential. If Buffalo developed its film culture and market, more of these smaller-distribution pictures would be shown here, and we'd get them sooner.

What would it take to turn things around--? Having more downtown first-run screens would help, especially in the theater district to add to the critical mass there. Screens downtown are especially accessible to college students from the various campuses along the MetroRail spine. Finding a public/private model to operate more neighborhood theaters would also help (a challenge, I know). Places like the Screening Room could take over rehabbed historic theaters in the city, instead of operating in the 'burbs. One of the screens in the Market Arcade (or at a rehabbed neighborhood theater somewhere in the city) could install projectors capable of handling archival film, and perhaps set up a partnership with the George Eastman House in Rochester, so that classic film could be shown nightly, year round. Also, it would be kinda fun to install a screen on the side of one of the grain elevators and have a real drive-in (and bike-in) theater in the city.

All of that would take resources, but even more important vision, leadership, and organization. Historic preservation folks could be a valuable partner, as having uses for old theaters and grain elevators helps keep them standing. It would also require an economic case: if more films are shown in the city, people will spend other money in the city before and after the films. And other spinoff effects.

Could any or all of that happen--? Vision, then leadership, then organization, then resources.

Is it honestly a "logistical nightmare" to get to the Screening Room?