Hi, I'm filmmaker and movie crypt host, Joe Lynch. And I'm Becca Howard, a writer, editor, and person. And thank God it's... Tuesday? No, I mean, technically, I know it's Tuesday, but this is for a couple of old fashions. Oh, so you want me to lie and pretend it's Friday? Well, cinema is lies at 24 frames per second. Going for Goddard.
Quotes already. Really going to be lining them up for that one. There's no need to. Thank God it's. As it were. Hi. Well, no matter what day you're listening to this, we're here to talk to you about a couple of old fashions. a new limited series subsidiary of the Movie Crypt Podcast. As you may or may not know, at our first date, Joe and mine, we each brought a surprise movie that neither of us had prior warning of. I brought my man, Godfrey, a 1930s...
screwball classic. And I brought Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper. And true love was born. And now, a few years later, we're married. And more importantly, we're co-hosting this new series together. Every Friday at midnight, a new episode featuring yours truly will drop via the movie. Patreon account. Each episode has a unique theme for that week's movie marathon. We both bring a surprise title that neither of us know about and we watch them together. Off screen. Well...
Yeah, no one wants to just watch us watch movies for hours on end. I mean, that's what Slumber Party Massacre is. Anyway, we then discuss the movies together with a couple of old fashioned cocktails, having a couple of old fashioned conversations with our old fashioned dog, Rocco. What we liked or didn't like about each other's pics. Whether they work together.
or didn't work together. The movies, right? Not us? Yes. This isn't a litmus test that just never ends. Anyway, we would love to invite you guys all to join us on our double-feature date nights at the movies. And let us know! What do you think of our picks and what you guys would have brought to the marathon? Our first episode's theme is One Night Only. Which may also be how long the whole show lasts. And that one is already up on our podcast and available to listen to or watch. Or both.
at the same time. For free. If you like what you see and hear, going forward, the episodes will drop every Friday at midnight and will be only three bucks an episode to access. Three bucks? Jeez, I can get three Taco Tuesday tacos for that. Well, that's the lowest amount you can set a price at on Patreon. Surely you have to be worth at least three bucks. Nah, I'm a ten cents a dance kinda girl. Not anymore, right? Yep.
Okay. Well, we hope to see you here every Friday for a couple of old-fashioned movies, a couple of old-fashioned conversations, a couple of old-fashioned cocktails, and a couple of old-fashioned people. Now back to Taco Tuesday. No, remember, it's Friday. Oh, yeah. Lying. I mean, cinema is lies at 24 frames. Thank God it's Friday. As it were. So be sure to tune into A Couple of Old Fashions with Becca and Joe. right here on the Movie Crypt Network. And now, on to the show.
The Movie Crypt. And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. My name is Joe Lynch and it's just me again. for another week while Adam is away on assignment in Malta, making his amazing shark movie. That's a joke. It's not really a shark movie called Ascent in Malta. And he's having a great time kicking ass, taking names, chewing bubblegum and kicking ass.
While he's gone, I've been solo, as you can kind of tell at the last couple of weeks have been just me, but I've been having a great time talking to a bunch of people, people that we've been.
wanting on the show and haven't had a chance to and this next guest is someone that we've wanted on the show for years and he's just so goddamn busy that he just would keep rebuffing us all the time saying like sorry guys i'm flying to the can film festival i'm going to south by southwest or you know i'm making deals living up the high life because here's someone who
is not just one of the biggest movie fans I know. He doesn't just own his own theater and runs one of the greatest movie theaters in America. I'm putting it down there right now. Alamo, who? Drafthouse, what? it's all about the screenlyn armor and is one of the masterminds behind one of the greatest film festivals in the last 10 years i'd say uh panic fest a festival that has been very kind to adam and myself and now myself and my lovely wife, Becca, who we've been to many times and actually...
was kind of the genesis of our relationship, thanks to Panic Fest. But he is one of our closest friends and one of the biggest supporters of the movie crypt and our movies, and just a great all-around guy. Please welcome to the Movie Crypt, Adam Roberts. Yay!
I finally made it. It's here. I've made it to the Movie Crypt podcast. Although one time, the first time you guys came out and did Movie Crypt live, I guess technically Tim and I were on it briefly. That's true. We had like, I think you guys had like three or four guests on and we just kept pulling people.
So I think I was briefly on, but that doesn't count. No, the live shows don't count because there's just so much going on. And truth be told, I think that was, was it 2020, right? It was the 2021. And you were, I mean, like everyone was, whenever you guys are doing something like that, like promotion in the middle of the festival, you can already see that your brain is 17 to other different places. Anytime that we hang out at.
panic fest, usually you, you have so many things going on so many moving parts, which is part of not only owning your, you know, and running your own company, but also running a very, very busy schedule. Like it, let's just say that you earn. panic in panic fest but so this is where it's like we're now we are recording this on march 16th it's a few weeks before panic fest which starts on the 27th and you just got back from south by southwest
So a little bit of downtime, which is good. A little bit of rest and relaxation before the madness begins. How are you feeling post-South by pre-panic? Um, so usually like my, my busiest time of year is like, I think what most people consider their slowest time of year, like most industries, at least the most like, I mean, including the film industry, which is, uh, like our submissions really, we really get.
you know, start digging our heels in around like Christmas time and then submissions, uh, everyone was notified like right around Valentine's day. So we have to watch. you know, hundreds and hundreds of submissions from basically January 1st to the 14th of, well, really before like the first couple of days of February. So we have like 45 days where we're really like going like,
full throttle to get through the submission so i do that and then i and then like the first couple weeks after announcements you're like confirming people are coming you know you're trying to make other arrangements you're people are asking for you know what's the schedule like so you're like
The two weeks after is like my second busiest time where I'm trying to load all the stuff in and confirm all the stuff, get ready to make our announcement, Fangoria. And then this year we – you know, every year we're kind of like – End of March, early April. There was a couple of years where we were in early February. But now that we're like right there, we're like 15 to 20 days after South by depends on their year.
and uh and this year we're the closest so you know i go to south by to just for the theater mostly we usually don't program anything from south by since we're so close to each other But it's more like seeing what's going to come for the next year and meeting a lot of industry people that I converse with throughout the year, but I've never seen face to face. So it's kind of go nonstop from like.
December to like kind of right now, like when, once we prep everything for the fest, the actual getting to the fest is, is kind of the, the, the finish line in a way, especially now that we've. The last last two or three years, we keep opening more and more volunteer opportunities. And, you know, the volunteers really do make my life significantly easier to function through the fest. I think probably the time I did do movie crypt for a brief moment on.
you didn't have any volunteers at that point i think we had like it was mostly like we would just bring in a lot more theater staff and then we're like oh it turns out people really like to volunteer And then especially, you know, our badges are expensive. So, you know, I get it like volunteering, you know, a couple hours to be able to come to the festival yourself is kind of a great opportunity. But yeah, I mean, I'm this is my rehab week where I'm just like.
I'm going to go to the gym every day. I'm going to eat as clean as I can. I'm not going to drink anything. I'm going to just chill for 10 days between South by and panic fest and try to get myself in good working order. But yeah, it is kind of weird because everyone, all my other friends in different industries are like, there's just nothing happening right now. My job's so boring or what have you. And I'm like, I am.
literally underwater watching you know five or six movies a day which would be great if if like they were all movies you wanted to see but a lot of these are movies that i don't even you know know nothing about like these are just so you know it's hard to be excited about something that you don't
know anything about. Um, so, and you have to do five of them a day and it's like, you have to do them. It comes a little bit like homework, but, but I'm here, I'm doing good. South by was great. You know, it's nice to be in the 80 degree Austin when it's, you know, 15 Kansas city. Oh, my God. Jesus. Now, there's so much to talk about, both for Screenling Armor, which is your theater in Kansas City, but also Panic Fest itself. But I want to go back. I want to go all the way back.
to that cute, young, vibrant, innocent Adam Roberts back in the day, watching movies, starting to absorb movies because like... One of the things that I remember the first year that I came out with Adam, I believe it was 2018. It was when we played Mayhem and Frozen and did a movie crip live there. it was fantastic i mean i like i remember both of us leaving going like that was one of the best like a lot because that was right when we started doing movie crip lives
And it was such a great way to kick it off. But in such a great theater with such a great crowd, which you don't get in every city, you know, sometimes it's just there are certain cities that are just not very movie friendly. But this Greenland armor was. Even at the time when it was still like, you know, being kind of built up from the ground up, it was still it had such a wonderful fan friendly vibe, the kind of vibe that I hadn't felt since maybe the South Lamar.
at austin for the like before the alamo draft house started to really expand and and to be honest dilute a little bit um but just meeting you and going this guy fucking knows his shit like he's a he's truly a fan which again You don't get all the time when you have theater owners and managers of theaters. Sometimes they're just not big movie fans. They're out to make a buck and capitalize on the industry.
Not every one of them seems to know about old, obscure Italian giallo or, you know, or Japanese films or, you know, 80s trash the way that you do. So I want to I want to ask. what what are some of the movies or maybe even just one but what's what's that one or maybe few films that you remember seeing as a kid that made you want to get involved in movies in any capacity because there's there's a difference between being a passive fan and being one that like ardently
you know, tells you that you want to be part of the scene, whether it's making movies or exhibiting movies and sharing movies, what was it for you? Well, so I have. two older brothers um and i was the the the young middle so growing up in a house like that my dad was a huge like music and movie fan so we had like i don't i would guess a thousand maybe more vhs tapes and a lot of them were like ripped from uh hbo so they were like and you know they do slp speed
Yeah, so you'd get like three or four films on a tape that were in like the shittiest quality. So having the access to that, like when I grew up, my... biggest hole probably my film vocabulary is i didn't watch a lot of like animated films after like i was like six or seven i have younger sisters i watched a little bit with her but when it comes like movies it was like well my dad wasn't watching kids movies and
My brothers were, you know, one brother was five years old and older than me. Their one's 10. So by the time I was like five or six, they were, you know, 10 and 15. They didn't want to watch cartoons. So they were like, oh, we're going to go watch, you know, they were like digging their heels. into like Aliens and Jurassic Park and like you know kind of the big like late 80s early 90s genre films so
Aliens specifically was like one that I watched over and over and over and over and over again because it was just like it kind of I mean it was kind of like playing with my action figures honestly it was like the close-up like G.I. Joe and Aliens you know like you're you're just kind of you know,
I guess like doing a mashup or like playing. Did you have any of those action figures that actually came out? Because in like the late 80s, early 90s, they for some reason out of the blue, like KB and Toys R Us, they just started running. I think it was Kenner had. Alien action figures. I'm like, where the fuck did these come from? Because I was the same way where we didn't have any Marines. So I had to use my GI Joes and like make alien action figures so that it can be on LB426.
myself you know like i i was the same exact way i want to ask really quick sidebar on that did you see aliens before alien yeah so many people from our generation many years before i would say
I don't even know if I knew... I don't think I even knew Aliens was a sequel for a year. I know so many friends that... it wasn't fango it wasn't star log but like the like the the same creation or whatever the company that put out star log and fangoria they would make um movie tie-in magazines and i remember when they had one for aliens and i brought it to school and so many people like so many of my friends were like aliens oh and when i tell them it was a sequel they're like sequel to what
It was, you know, was there an aliens one? I'm like, no, no, there was the, you know, the original movie alien. And they're like, oh, I didn't even know they were tied together. I think like just the fact that it wasn't called alien to. it stood its own as, I mean, it really does stand on its own as it's like a standalone film in a way, but obviously it does tie itself into that fantastic first film. So yeah, I'm the same way. Like I, there's a weird movie though.
when you think about it because you could watch it and unlike even alien three or or any of them after well i guess to like prometheus like it obviously if you see the first one, you get a little, you are enriched in a lot of different ways that you would be if you hadn't seen it, but you can watch aliens totally as a standalone movie. And maybe that was like,
Their plan from inception was like, we're just taking Ripley over and like the events don't really necessarily matter what happened the first one. But they do. But even even in that boardroom, they do give you enough information where it could have just been one of those. Like,
Noir movies that kind of fills in the gaps as they go. You're right. Like you don't need to see the first one. And I think that's the reason why the cult of aliens was so great in the eighties, because you had a lot of kids that didn't have access to HBO. or even on VHS, or they couldn't rent those movies. But Aliens was such a huge summer blockbuster that it could just kind of...
be its own beast. And then you have the reward of going, wait a second, there's a first one and she's in it too. Holy shit. And look at her panties. Holy crap.
When you watch them in reverse, I think by the time I watched Alien, I was like, I was probably like 9 or 10 maybe, I'm guessing. And then I was like, this is like... so fucking different it's like it's like it's it's the same but like nothing the same at all and i never experienced that with like a sequel type of thing yeah and i was like this is like and i and i would see like other films that that had sequels like obviously i think
Having loved Aliens so much and seeing those credits, I was like, oh, James Cameron also made Terminator 2, which I watch all the time as well. And I think that was the first time I was like, oh, this guy made this movie and this movie. But then when I went to watch Alien, I was like, this movie is not a James Cameron joint at all. Like, this is totally different. Maybe I'm a James Cameron guy. And then I think I watched The Abyss Special Edition came out.
um and my friend had a laser disc and that was i was gonna say that laser disc was fucking great i remember that too yeah and i watched that and i was like damn i am a james cameron guy and i think like uh that was just like the first filmmaker that connected it. But I never like, I just knew that he made those movies. I didn't know like regular people could make those movies like that. I could ever like make a movie or, or figure that out. I don't think until.
i don't think that was like revealed as like a possibility until i was like 11 and i uh and i opened my the real door to horror films for me and probably a lot of people my age was scream before that i'd
stuff for my brothers you know my brothers i remember them watching evil dead and we had like a split level house and you if you were upstairs in the kitchen you could look down into the living room and i remember they're like you can't watch this one and they watched evil dead and i was watching through like the the you know the the railing uh you know with like blocking my vision a little bit and just like holy shit what is this movie and then they have like
dead alive and they had like all these VHS movies and I was just like looking at the box art like holy shit what is this movie but I never really like I was kind of scared so watching it from afar was nice but then I remember Scream was also like my parents were into that and they were like
This involves like kids, you know, killing each other. And it's realistic. You can't watch this. And I remember I was like, unfortunately for you guys, we rented it. So I think that came out in Christmas of 2096. And this was December 16th, 1996. yeah so then like six seven months later it was end of summer um when it finally came to the video store yep
And I remember they rented it. And I was like, unfortunately for you, parents, you're out of the house now and I'm going to watch this movie. And it was just like, oh, this is like watching my older brother's friends hanging out, talking about movies and culture. And then I was like, damn, this is a movie made.
that i can like relate to the characters in a way that aren't just like kids yeah that are like i see upstairs hanging out and the you know drinking and doing things they shouldn't do and i think that's watching And watching movies. And like it was one of those first movies that like in a long time where it was self-referential, but it didn't wear it on its sleeve. You had characters like Randy who could like recommend.
like watching Halloween. And he obviously was knowledgeable about it because he worked at a blockbuster video. But not only that, but he had like a copy of Wayne Wang smoke on VHS on his VCR box. And I'm like mad respect for that.
because i fucking love that movie but but even like it's funny because i just talked to becca about this too because she was talking about how scream was formidable for her as well Because it was a movie that introduced her to all of those slasher movies because like, you know, it's.
Now, I think we live in a world where you can click on a title on whether it's Amazon or Diabolic DVD or even Criterion or whatever, and you'll see the description of the movie. And then it'll be like, if you like this movie. You'll watch, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. All we had at the time were video store clerks or our nerdy older brothers or older sisters who would recommend the movies. We didn't really have anyone who was curating those movies and scream.
was reaching out to a whole generation of people almost like the like the film version of a randy and saying like look if you liked the movies that this movie is referencing you know we even have a character that will tell you about those movies and what Nightmare on Elm Street was for people or what Friday the 13th or the Halloween movies were for people. So it's almost like a gift.
to have a movie like this open up a whole world of slasher movies and horror films from back in the you know in the 80s even looking back like with aliens Like the fact that you can see aliens and go, wait, there's a movie before this. Holy shit. You know? And that's one of the things that I think is so wonderful about your DNA, Adam, is that like, you've been.
Even in our discussion about these movies and how these movies celebrate cinema, celebrate genre, and profess out into the world other movies that you could... be exposed to, you know, like watching scream, I'm sure made you go back and watch all these other slasher movies, which made you go, huh? Who's this Wes Craven guy or who's Sean Cunningham or, you know, like all these filmmakers who have a breath and a body of.
that you start to deep dive down into. And it just makes it so exciting. And then years later, you have your own theater. And again, we'll get to that in a second. But you have your own theater that's not only running first run films.
which is always good for the business, but you're playing repertory films and you're playing films that like your programming. And then when, you know, when you get, when we eventually get to panic fest, it's like, these are films that you and Tim or whoever else is on the. the curation committee and the, the you know, the, the committee that's picking these movies, like you're using your tastes and, you know, hopefully knowing the tastes of what an audience in Kansas city or what an audience.
in like the genre sphere who's going to come to this festival that they're going to want to see or want to discover like you're essentially doing you know what randy did for you Back in 96 when you or maybe 97 when the movie came out on video and stuff. But that's what's so exciting about like talking to you about this and talking like and I think we. The movies that we love.
are part of our DNA. They're part of our makeup. They are who kind of define us. They define our tastes. They define our points of view a lot of times. And that was one of the first things that I remember us bonding over was just how. much you knew about horror films and loved horror films and how we can sit there and just
talk away. And I always like marveled over the fact that like, you could be running a business, running a film festival, and then take time to talk about cannibal Holocaust for 20 minutes, like, like around the corner. Like those are the things that I love about it. You know, like I love about panic fest and. And of course of you, which is great. Well, probably I could say the same about you though. In a similar way, a lot of people-
In our industry, no matter where you're at, whether you're like a programmer at a festival or you own a theater or you just work at a theater or you, you know, maybe shoot or you're, you know, gaffer for commercials or you make movies, whatever the case is. A lot of those.
people like people who work you know in whatever job you know selling staplers or whatever the case is they aren't in love with movies or they fall out of it and they become jaded or it's very easy to just have this become a job and the amount of filmmakers i'm using quotes here um that i know and maybe for no fault of their own but they don't
they don't care about film history they don't care about watching movies they don't care about anything that's culturally happening other than their projects and what they're trying to do but for me i'm like how can do you even like movies even like i i if i didn't watch movies
wouldn't know how like to develop what I like and what I don't like because even like the worst movies I watch or worst experiences I've had at a theater I still like it helps like me cultivate a better version of what what my preferences is what I would do different in that movie what I would do different in my theater
my festival or whatever because i still love it after you know working in i guess in the film industry like making movies and commercials and shorts and things like that for over 20 years and then now you know doing this for 13 years you know it's it's easy to get you know kicked around and lose your kind of jaded and cynical oh yeah yeah but but like for me i'm like
I still am finding old movies as much as I'm finding new movies to reignite my passion. Because when I see something, like we all do, like we've always done, which is like, oh, man, Joe would love this movie.
or whoever my friends are that like a similar type of thing where I'm like, man, this movie needs to be seen on the big screen. I'm bummed I didn't watch it, but I can give that gift to somebody else. And I really hope that people come discover this for the first time because I still get as excited.
Like I'm not just beaten down. I'm not just looking for like maximizing my profits because for a long time, you know, it was a struggle in the home of Kansas City is the home of, you know, the big box chain theater and not in the sense that we were the first one, but in the sense that.
We've given, you know, AMC Theaters is here. B&B Theaters is here. Dickinson Theaters used to be here. Now they're part of B&B. Like there's a lot of big chain theaters here. And we're just, we're the only like art house and independent. um theater here so it's it's kind of different than a lot of other bigger markets we have another just straight up art house classic art house film but but for me it's like it's it is like
There's been a lot of times, including COVID, where it would have been easy to just throw the towel in and just be like, screw this. I'm just going to get a meaningless job. But I still love... what i do i still love watching movies and sharing them i still love talking about movies i still love meeting filmmakers i still love even even if it's not you know always the most fruitful
It's better than anything else I could ever imagine myself having to do. And in COVID, there was like, you know, a splash of cold water on my face for a minute where I was like, what?
job would i even get you know what i mean like dude tell me about it when when when the pandemic hit and they were like we don't know if we're going to be able to shoot movies anymore you know it's or or tv shows or even if we do it's not going to be the same you're not going to have people kissing or you got to shoot it completely different and i'm like james cameron somewhere like yes get rid of actors He doesn't need them anymore anyway. That's something that I think is really important.
you know, you've been able to share your love for movies in very unique ways. Some people, you know, start a podcast. Some people text their friends and start a group text. I mean, the amount of texts that we've had back and forth. Do you see this movie? Do you see that movie? Do you see this movie? And I love that. And then some people, you know, kind of either start or take over a movie theater and really make it their own. So when it comes to the Screenland armor years later.
How did you get involved with the Screenland Armor from the jet, from the get-go? So that was like, I was 25. by return 26 so i was very young i realized so you have to be young and dumb to do this in a similar way like i think it's important to put a note that when i was young so i'm 38 turning 39 um when i was
basically 10, we were at the peak of like independent cinema. So we, I was, my brothers were watching, you know, Clerks and all the Tarantino stuff. And I was seeing that stuff because it wasn't scary to watch. It was more exciting to watch it. And I got really into download. and printing off too many essays about what was coming out of Sundance or interviews from Steven Soderbergh and all these filmmakers at the peak of DIY.
you know throw it on your credit card cinema and i got really invested into like anybody can do this and that that came to like an apex in the summer of 99 when i saw the blair witch project and i was like holy shit i actually have that exact same camera in my dad's closet i can make this movie and i and it was like
also like early internet days so i was like on the internet until i got kicked off when i got a phone call but i was on the internet and i was like obsessed with the marketing campaign like everybody was and then i was like this is a movie that's sweeping the nation that is shot on the same camera that exists in my house i can make movies
so growing up very poor uh and having like you know most my education was like stolen tapes on hbo my dad curated and then like we had you know we had all these access to different things to make a movie but it was just hard as hell that i remember getting my first summer job and having a a dual vcr that was for dubbing and that was how i like shot
movies and was editing on like, you know, record play, record play to edit on a VCR just to try to learn the basics of it. But I learned all this DIY abilities. So when I kept getting older and older and older and I was making a lot of movies and shorts.
it was like do i go to film school or do i not and this was like 2004 or five and i was like it i've already like interned all these places i've worked on movie sets big movie sets small movie sets i've done commercials i've done all this stuff like what am i going to go to the
festival or a film school before like full sale not that that was wrong but at this point i've been working on sets for five or six years i was like screw it i'm just gonna spend the same money i would spend in a year and take out a 30 grand loan on my credit cards and just buy equipment and yeah i weigh everything myself and i was like
Like, oh shit, I actually hate working for somebody and making commercials and bullshit. But what I really learned is I really purely love movies. I love the DIY attitude. I was inspired by all these people to eventually take out those loans. And I was able to pay those loans off working two jobs, delivering pizzas and working menial other jobs.
And I was like, if I can do that, I can kind of do anything. And I was working corporate jobs at H&R Block here, which is where they're headquartered, doing tax prep software work. My job actually had TPS reports. Oh, no way. Holy shit. It was just soul crushing work. And I was, you know, just sitting there all day just thinking, you know, I was still writing and stuff and I was still trying to make movies.
and my friend was managing this theater which had been rehabbed in 2008 um and it was still single screen at that time in 2012 they added a second uh 65 seat theater but at that time it was a single screen theater and i'd come here for events and i was like man this theater looks so cool has a great vibe but the program was just like for me not what i wanted in a movie theater it was just kind of like old school a lot of foreign a lot of independent like
a classic what i call is like an old person art house like that yeah what you know all the regular ones that everyone would you know be cycling through i didn't i thought it was just a first run theater i didn't realize it was a I mean, in the early days, it was mostly first round. Like the first movie that played here was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Like that was day one opening. So that was the first movie. And so they mostly just did single screen.
whatever the biggest movie was. And then when they added the second screen, it kind of became big movie in our house film, whatever that would be. But they didn't really, they would do a little bit of repertory, but it was like.
repertory work just takes a lot of like somebody has to be here to really give a shit about the program and really balance it and like learn the politics of running a theater which unfortunately just like making movies there's a lot of dumb really dumb ass things that you have to and hoops you have to jump through to please studios um but uh but yeah it was it was running and just not doing very well but the guy who owned the building had started the the screenland brand
which is now just our theater, and we own it now. But at the time, it was like, oh, well, let's just see if we can take this over because it's kind of falling apart. It doesn't really have... heartbeat to it and i was a dumb 25 year old kid that didn't go to business school ever but i had done business deals i'd worked in movies i'd worked in the service industry i'd worked at video stores i never worked at a movie theater because amc wouldn't hire me when i was a kid for some reason
Um, but you looked creepy. You, to be honest, you have a, you have a creepy AMC stubs vibe. Here's what it, here's what it was. My friend was a projectionist there. Cause they would hire like high school kids. build and run Prince and they would do QC Prince after midnight. So I'd go over there like 12 or one. We'd always wanted a friend who was like, would be able to do that. I, I even tried to make friends with like the local Brookhaven multiplex.
projectionist that was like, maybe he'll like, cause he was a high school guy. He's like, maybe he'll invite me to those Thursday night screenings when they show movies early. Never did. Never. Never did. I was watching like because he didn't it was just didn't matter. He didn't pick what movie. He just had to build a couple up and watch. We usually have one or two like Wednesdays and Thursdays.
And so I would just watch whatever movie. He was like, hey, you want to watch this movie? I don't know what it is. Sure. And we'd see some cool stuff. We'd see some not so cool stuff. Nothing like us. But he had to watch it from start to finish. It was getting paid. But I think the manager didn't like the idea of me being. like one of his good friends also working there, like that. We just get in trouble. But, uh,
But cut to me like a depressed like corporate worker at 25, which I shouldn't have been because I was only 25 making pretty good money with benefits. But I was just like, man, all I want to do is make movies and stuff. And then this opportunity to basically. I was hosting trivia here once a week doing like movie trivia at the theater. And then he's like, you should just talk to him and see if you can take over the theater operations and whatever. And I'm like, sure, whatever, I'll do it.
And I'm like, but I need to get money because I don't have any money. I'm working like, you know, I'm making $32,000 or whatever it is. I don't have any money. So I was like, I'll just make a business plan and then I'll go to banks and I'll get money and then I'll have this money and I'll make this theater. I'll be rich. You know, that's, that's, is that all it takes? Fuck man. Yeah. It's a force.
four easy steps to success. And, uh, and then I went, I made this business plan, which looked good. And then I went to my, I remember my bank and I had purchased my own car. Like I had done a lot, you know, I got my loan for my film equipment. So I was, I kind of knew the process of borrowing.
money and like what they were looking for and uh and i remember going to my bank and they were like wow this looks great this is a great presentation they're asking me questions about my numbers and i was like i don't know i kind of just made this shit up uh and they're like this looks good but you're
You know, restaurants are already high risk or bars and a movie theater. No offense, but you're 25. Like, I don't think this is a good idea for the bank to give you money. And I went to like four or five other banks and they also the same thing like, ha.
This is a dumbass idea, but it does look pretty nice, the presentation. So I had to borrow some money for my I did the same presentation of my grandfather. And he was like, who I also when I was 13 asked to produce a movie for me. And he said no. So I was like, but I'm now 25.
I still have the same passion. I pitched it to him like it was the banks. He said, no, but you know, on paper, on paper, like a movie, like running a movie theater, as opposed to throwing caution to the wind and making a movie that could never get distributed.
Couldn't, you know, never even like maybe even get made like running a movie theater is a much more sound investment. So props to your grandfather. He made the wiser choice, I'd say. Well, he did turn me down the first time. And I was like, but why? And he's like, well. And I was only asking to borrow 50 grand, which I know is a lot of money. But I was like, well, the business has already been open at this point for like four years. I was like, so it's not a brand new business. The risk of like.
The early, you know, a lot of failures the first year I was like, it's not doing great, but I think I can make it better. And then like, I basically went back and tweaked my business plan, tweaked my numbers and made it work. I think actually I was asking for a hundred grand the first time. And I was like, all right, here's.
50 grand and I'm going to do like a, based on what the banks were trying to give me or at the time, like APR and stuff. I was like, here's the loan I'm basically offering. He's like, sure. Nobody's ever paid me back. And I'm like, I'm going to pay you back because I did my shitty, my high interest film equipment loans. If this fails, I'll just continue to work my second job and pay you back. And he's like, sure, whatever. I'll give you this. But I, you know, whatever.
And basically, at the time, it was me and my business partner who I bullied in, who is my brother-in-law now. And he likes movies. He doesn't love movies. He liked the idea of owning a bar. And he is a year younger than me. So he was 24. So I bullied him. I was like, you just work your full-time construction job and I'll work all the shifts and then you get off work and then you'll join me and then we'll close.
every day so we didn't have any employees for like three years probably we just worked every every day like i'd do all the business stuff in the morning and then we'd work shifts and run this time we were at we were running film so we were running projection so we'd run up to the booth and we'd have it already uh threaded up and we'd have to turn it on run back down and you know cook food or something
So we're really doing DIY at this time. Like we were running every position because we couldn't afford anything. And then, you know, we just kind of kept doing that. And I was just like, I don't these there's all these rules like.
for running first run stuff with studios like some of them you know everyone basically has like a two-week minimum where you have to run what's called a clean schedule which means like nothing else can show you have to have like if you have three shows a day they have to have all three shows even if
you know the movie fails or even if it's a kid's movie and nobody comes for it at 9 30 or even if it's a hard r-rated you know horror film nobody comes for it at 3 p.m like they they just have these silly mandates even though it doesn't really it's not advantageous for businesses like they don't really consider you know, like those, those nuances and those factors. But a lot of indie theaters are kind of just like wheel and deal and like, like slide in.
retro programming and where it doesn't affect the best shows of whatever movie they're showing and so i got really good at like kind of playing this like very careful game of programming at the fest and and honestly after like
maybe five years we opened another location that was also an arcade and restaurant and we just kind of kept growing and learning and like changing and we were growing this theater too we went from a two screen to a four screen and you know built the cool basement bar but that
took a lot of like if we didn't do those first four or five years correct we you know if we were just hired people and not want to work every day and wanted to count our twenty dollars whatever in our bank account we had uh you know it wouldn't exist today basically like being as thin on our margins as we were and as like frugal and you could even say poor by choice because we're dumb mid-20s people. It allowed us to learn how to operate the business.
to the to an organic way to to sustain with a small audience that was continuing to grow but it also really taught us how to navigate the pandemic because we knew how to do everything on a tight budget because we didn't ever make a lot of money in those days and um and honestly it was just like this slow dedication to what kind of program we were doing that really took about a decade for it to really connect with kansas city
um part of that was also like our alamo draft i was closed and left and they were the closest theater to us opened months after i took over this theater the first alamo came here and i was like christ i am because you guys were you guys also programmed like like were you doing the food and drink thing as well at like like at the time yeah yeah like we were we'd always done food and drinks yeah um
And it was just like, oh, no, you know, like the quote unquote cool theater is now here and they're the closest theater. They're going to take all their business. And it was hard. And they closed. you know, technically like at the pandemic, but like they were having issues before. And then, um, and you know, that was kind of like the biggest blessing in the skies for us. Um, when they closed, because there'll never be another.
quote-unquote cool theater i don't think that comes in certainly not a chain um but yeah i mean it was just like i don't know i never thought i'd own a business never thought i'd own a movie theater i wasn't allowed to work on work at one in a high school But I just loved movies. And I also liked good drinks and food. And I was like, well, let's just make the theater I want to go to. I don't want to see fucking commercials before it for 20 minutes. I don't want to see 40 minutes of trailers.
I've never liked reserved seating because I think it creates a bad movie going habit where people reserve the best seats and then they come in late as hell and they ruin everybody's experience because they reserved them. And it was like those kind of basics. And then, you know, we had like... The theaters I grew up in always had like arcades and kind of a cool like 90s sheen, kind of dirty 90s sheen to them. I was like, let's have that kind of nostalgia feel.
But with modern amenities, then we're not charging an arm and a leg. And it was just like, let's just do that for as long as we can. And hopefully we build an audience. And really like post-pandemic is when we had, I mean, we went like 200% our best year.
in 2022 i remember even getting that text where you were going like holy shit like we're we're we're blowing up and that really like since the pandemic like we haven't had great years like we always see this everyone who follows movies knows like
The end is nigh. The end is nigh. Well, the end is nigh when we took the theater over and digital was going digital. When we were filmed, then we had the first thing we do is raise much money to go digital projection. And that closed on the indie like mom pop theaters because it was very expensive.
And then it was like, well, shit, you know, the end is not again with streaming. And I'm like, I remember showing Snowpiercer, which was a Weinstein company film that went day and date on VOD. That was a TWC radius. Remember that shit? UWC Radius. And I remember AMC. sent us a shitty email saying i can't believe that you're showing a movie that's vod the same day and this was that was 2013 i think maybe 2014 yeah and i was like well this movie is great i love the director
and i think there's an audience for it and i don't give a what you're saying uh and we did good business on it and we always did that i didn't give a if a movie was streaming because i didn't if i didn't want to watch at home these people didn't want to watch at home right that was my thinking and now you know flash forward we've survived a pandemic
we survived the streaming wars and now things are kind of going full circle and for the first time running this theater in the last two or three years we're seeing 18 to 26 year olds that notoriously don't go out and do and spend money
come to the theater and not only come to theater to watch like weird ass old movies and not not ones that are tick tock blown up but just like you know and some of them are like deep cuts some of them are like michael man's heat you know like it doesn't really matter but people a younger crowd are coming to our theater to watch these really cool classics. You know, we just sold out Harold Amad a few weeks ago. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Really? Yeah.
And there's the audience that you expect that's in there. But there's also this big sect of younger people that are seeing that movie for the very first time in the theater. And I think that that's just like. That almost reinvigorates my excitement to run a theater, seeing a younger audience come in because I didn't have a cool theater here. My theater was an AMC theater. There was no indie cool theaters here. I watched I was a video store boy because that's where I found everything.
we didn't have a cool theater, you know, unfortunately like people don't know how good they have it. Like the last 15, 20 years growing up with like, you know, a new Beverly or a screen land or Nighthawk cinema or something like that, you know, like they don't realize the hell.
good they have it have these cool theaters programming and stuff because we didn't have a lot of that you know we'd get occasional like re-releases and stuff but that was few and far between we're all movie store kids and tv boys and girls and uh and yeah so i mean honestly that's like the the directory is just like and we made panic fest six months after i took over the theater like it was the first wait that early yeah the first one we did was april 2013.
um well there goes my segue jesus christ like like just wait wait to take that take the wind out of my sails because i was like oh this is gonna be a really good setup for panic fest but wait before we get to panic fest though because i like i i feel the same way like i'm so You know, like, I'm so hopeful for the way that the cinematic trajectory is going in the last couple of years because.
you know, since the pandemic hit and, you know, or like actually when it started to subside a little bit and people started to go to the movies again, there was a celebration of just getting the fuck out of the house. Right. And like when Becca and I got out, you know, for that, that first month.
where, you know, AMC is throwing up that, that promo. It's like, welcome back to the movies. And we saw fucking everything from, you know, nobody to remember the, what was it? The unholy, like a movie. Oh yeah.
yeah mortal combat like even even like the day and date movies that warner brothers were putting out we just went to everything because we wanted to go to the movies and then when the new bev opened up you couldn't get a seat anywhere it was just sold out but it was less for the movies and even you know at the time
you know, Phil and those guys were programming like greatest hits, you know, like they wanted to get people to come back, not with the deeper dive stuff, not with the grindhouse and like the old noir, the Chinese Kung Fu shit, but all the greats and it was packed. Couldn't, couldn't get us. seat and then they started to kind of relax into their more you know deeper cut stuff and it never went away like the audience i i'm so
Dude, they just did a Fulci night of The Black Cat and The Psychic. And these are not like Fulci classics. Deep cut Fulci. Deep cut, deep cut Fulci sold out. And it was not. old dudes it was young kids and i was so fucking happy that these you know these kids are not just trying to find it on youtube or on a streaming service if you're lucky or screen box or shutter or any of those places they're coming out to the theater
When you said Harold and Maude, like last year, I had never seen Harold and Maude on the big screen. And it was a two o'clock matinee, sold out. And like, it just makes me so happy that people are. reminding themselves of the power of an audience experience. And that's another thing that I think is so important, you know, that like with what you're doing, not just with Panic Fest, but just with Screenland 365 is that you're.
Presenting an opportunity for an audience to see a movie in a way that for the last two generations was not necessarily the first run experience. For us, when we were growing up, or maybe myself even more than you, the movies were, that was the first destination stop. Then it was the ancillary.
video and then hbo or whatever you know now it's like it's for at least for a long time it's been reversed where people are seeing them like at home first or maybe they're stealing it because they got like one of those crypto sites and then and then now it feels like people are not just going out for the first run, but they're going out for those older films and celebrating them and seeing them the way that many of those filmmakers back then intended on. You know, like looking at all those.
classic Westerns and musicals, you know, where they're, you know, these filmmakers are shooting these films for a big theater, not for a fucking iPhone, not for a TV screen, whether it's four by three or 16 by nine or what have you, they're shooting it so that you're going to experience these movies in the biggest, loudest. you know, way possible. And when you have a theater like Screenland Armor that is striving for that theatrical experience and, you know, at the same time.
luring them in the same way that in the 90s when like the Magic Johnson theaters were like, we have chicken fingers. There's you can get pizza. And there would be like when I was in New York at the time. There was this big article about how families are changing up their Saturday nights where it used to be dinner and a movie or even dates.
You know, it would be dinner and a movie. Now, you know, these exhibitors, it's not I wouldn't say maybe starting with the Magic Johnson. But, you know, obviously, Tim Lee was seeing that trend and kind of capitalizing it on it as well by going.
it's all one destination. Now you can go and you can get a good meal and you can watch a movie at the same time. And you're not sitting there, you know, just going like, Oh God, I wish I just didn't eat popcorn for dinner. That goes far. And, you know, the screen in armor, you know, full bar. the you know the food is is really good like the pizza your grilled cheese sandwiches are still second to none just saying you know just putting that out there
So the origin of the grilled cheese. So when we took over, I didn't know what the kitchen was going to be. And it was a much smaller kitchen at the time. And I went to this bar. Don't know the bar. I couldn't tell you, but it was in New York. And it was just like this really cool, like small, like kind of.
nice little like craft cocktail bar but behind the bar was these two little griddles and they served grilled cheese sandwiches and i got one because i was a little drunk and i was like oh my gosh this is a life saver dude nothing nothing there's nothing better than a grilled cheese sandwich the bartender made it and they had like all these cool little options and stuff and i was like That's what we should be doing at the theater.
It's very easy. It's kind of like making a deli, but you limit the options. We have a great bakery here that does mostly sourdough stuff, and I love their sourdough. We've always done sourdough grilled cheese sandwiches. But the genesis came from me just being in Brooklyn in 2012 and this little bar that I hope still exists, eating a grilled cheese sandwich that the bartender made after they made my cocktail. And I was like, this is the best. This is obviously what we should do.
But yeah, I mean, you're right. Our generation had a lot more different. I mean, I remember there was no options. You had popcorn and candy, and that was fine. That was it. But as a poor kid, I was like, fuck, I guess I'm sneaking in this.
burrito from taco bell or something because like you were starving and you didn't want to eat popcorn and now like you don't have to sneak anything in not saying that people still don't but like you didn't really you had to at that point unless when you have the options when they're when the options are there People are going to play off of that. That's part of the reason why Alamo for a while was doing so well with the food side was because.
The food was good and, you know, you didn't have to worry about sneaking shit in because get a good fucking burger. Can't do that anymore. But that's another story. Yeah, thanks, Tony. But no, I mean, like that, like I think.
I hope... the same thing is going to happen like my generation i remember when i was in my like late teens early 20s we were the ones to really bring back in a big way and it's maintained obviously it's not going to ever be like the heydays but we brought back the success of purchasing vinyl records
and you know that was like early 2000s mid-2000s and now like there's more record stores in there or it was when i was a kid um more people are buying new vinyl and it's kind of has a sustained okay we figured it out it kind of balanced itself out accordingly and i think the pandemic accelerated a lot of things but for movies it really made it so we were all tired of the couch netflix kind of and all those people the movie types of movies they were producing
Especially in 2025, like 2020 was kind of like the end of the peak of their spending and giving like auteurs like, you know, Martin Scorsese and David Fincher, like kind of. Joe Lynch. Sorry. Oh, yeah. I forgot that guy got a they gave him a blank check kind of. Well, they gave a blank check to not to me, but to fucking Grillo and Carnahan, but never got any notes from Netflix. So, you know, there's there's that. But now I bet that movie wouldn't be made.
today from them. No. definitely not there's anything wrong with the movie or the process or anything they've just changed and they're using so it's even more like robotic feeling like you're gonna get you know five or six of the lindsay lohan like hallmark like movies a year because they know they're gonna be top watches
not even like acquiring stuff really out of festivals like they were like in 2018 to 2022 maybe 2021 well the last the last one that they the last one they did that i felt like was a significant purchase was um what is it it's what's inside which was a $17 million purchase, which. I mean, I love that movie, but they dropped it on fucking Netflix and it was gone from my purview within 24 hours. Like it just disappeared. They didn't promote it at all. It just went. That's it. Such a shame.
With movies like that, and this is what's been great to see, like a company like they used to be segmented apart from each other. I have seen Shudder and RLJ. Now they work in conjunction with each other and they are finally figured out you can do theatrical and Blu-rays and stream. mean and you can kind of control the process and give the movie a real lifeline because what was happening i think netflix will eventually realize or maybe they i don't know if they even care but
But I would like to think that they do. But I think for the audiences, when a movie has, you know, a little bit of runway to... get some ex anticipation to see it like a teaser trailer a trailer maybe an article in vangoria or online like you build a little bit of anticipation more than like three weeks you know like you get 30
used to be like six months you get the teaser trailer and you're like what the i gotta see cloverfield based on this 20 second teaser that blows my mind and uh and now you get like 20 days but i think when you get something a real poster still, you know, you're going to have a theatrical release. And even if it's only for 30 days or 20 days or something, you give that movie like a sense that it's bigger than just content. And I think when I think the younger audiences are really seeing that.
and their understanding that... Well, this looks like a real movie. This just looks like some bullshit. They're dropping on streaming and not that the gorge isn't a good movie or it doesn't have its place in the world, but that movie 10 years ago, maybe might not have been made, but if it was, it would have been a theatrical release. I agree. We would still talk about it. But now that movie is 30 days old or so.
And I watched it when it came out and I enjoyed it, but like, because I watched it at home because it had no lifeline for like growth and excitement and discussion. And there was no like opening night movies, even if I didn't see it in the theater. it's out of my, it's gone. It's out of my world. And I honestly,
And because there's not going to probably be a physical release of it, we'll never be reminded that that movie exists. And I think that you're starting to see some companies like, oh, we need to actually maybe sell cool Blu-rays. And there's some fantastic companies and more actually are growing, which makes...
makes me have a little bit of hope but you're seeing like you know even more so now maybe than ever like oh this movie didn't do well and and now it's gone it came out in theaters for three days uh you know look at companion
The companion is a good one. So anything that's universal, their whole thing is 21 days, it'll be on streaming, unless they decide otherwise. And occasionally they will, like Focus Features, Nosferatu was their biggest film, and they pushed that a little bit. But then it became free on Peacock. And I'm like...
Guys, I don't know if you know this, but that huge movie would continue to play in theaters if you just didn't put it on 30 days later. Put it in six months. It's still going to be in the library forever. But then whatever happened to the – the people are just missing incomes. I'm like, you know why you're – making less money well it's because you used to run a movie for 45 days or 60 days and then it'd be they don't have a VOD
you know, 60 days and then have a Blu-ray rental period. And then six to 12 months later, you get on streaming for free or whatever the case is. And they just broke their own model. I'm like, you're cutting out all this middle. you know, physical media or income where you'd get like, you know, the lifeline used to be a teaser trailer and a poster.
And then maybe a month or two later, a real full trailer. And then if you're like Marvel, you're going to put seven trailers out. But then the movie would build anticipation. And then you'd get a theatrical release. It'd sit there for whatever, a few months. Then you'd get a premium VOD for... you know 20 to 25 bucks and then you'd get a few months later you get these like pulses
And giving that movie a lifeline, oh, now it's available in VOD. Oh, shit, look at this Blu-ray collector from Scream Factory or whatever it is. And then, oh, I can rent it now at Redbox. And because they kept getting rid of that, now there's no Redbox. Now there's no video stores. Now there's none of this.
And now they're like, where'd all of our money go? Oh, we were making all these expensive movies and dropping them for free. And now and no one remembers them after 30 days. So they become dust in the wind because they're not tangible. You know, it'd be like if a sports season had one game to start and then they went to the Super Bowl, you're not giving a shit about what happens. Exactly. The whole season of watching and investment to give a shit. I think that's the best analogy I can use. But.
The thing is with that, there are executives now that are so afraid of taking the risk or not showing a... profit like a profitable end of quarter report that that's part of the reason why because of the pandemic and because like there was the easy out of having algorithms being able to spit out because, you know, they don't talk about it in public, but they do talk about them in the conference rooms and they can say like, well, you know.
Maybe companion didn't do so well in theaters, but immediately on VOD look, you know, look, it got an upswell. But the problem is, is that there's so much turnaround on the executive level that if they wait between. Q1, you know, with companion coming out in theaters and then it doesn't come out into, you know, like at least on VOD until the end of Q2. Well, now they look like shit.
Now those executives look like they have failure. They at least have a buffer that they can say, well, it came out 20 days later and we really got an uptick on sales on VOD and SVOD and all that shit. It's because it's just too easy. And I've missed those days where you would not forget about a movie, but you would hear.
about the like the buzz i remember when batman you know when when batman came out and it came out in theaters and it was huge the first one and then you know when it finally came out on like VHS it didn't come out on VHS for like six months and the The groundswell of anticipation was so great for it that people were willing to pay a top dollar premium for that VHS because they knew this was an event. They made an event out of it.
Like by just not giving it out so fast, you know, I miss those days. I miss like giving a little bit of life before it gets like.
thrown out there to the wolves like you're right with nosferatu i was shocked to see that it's already on peacock i mean they're they're professing like oh we have the extended cut and everything yeah but remember not too long ago not just a couple years ago we would get um a director's cut or a different you know like parasite and black and white would get re-released like later and you'd be like they're giving it life i want to see that version and now they're like you know how many people
Not every theater, but theaters like ours, like the Alamo Draft House, theaters that have cinephiles that go there that love movies, even if they saw Nosferatu once or two times already in theaters, if you're like, oh, there's a director's cut with 15 more minutes in it, you're going to make maybe... maybe it's only a million more dollars but you're gonna make more money for for product you already finished and is already completed and maybe that that you know
we may be in the weeds talking about that specific example where they're like, well, we didn't have a, it's gotta be a new deal made with Eggers and all this stuff because it's a different version of the movie and we don't have theatrical, whatever the case is. But like, you just have some foresight in some of that stuff. It's like, that you would just give that movie life make a little bit more money and like people want to watch that movie and movies like that
in the theater they did similar like i think a lot of this started the the downfall and we're not like breaking any new grounds here but like i one of the shows i grew up loving was lost it was week to week and that show was also like in the middle of the writer's strike and they didn't make new episodes
and they had like these shortened seasons and like season two or three and it was all fragmented for like five seasons there was always some bullshit happening that season but it went week to week similar to Game of Thrones where you would It became the water cooler show. You stopped what you were doing. It was appointment TV. You would watch parties. You would get on forums. You would talk to it about this tangible thing.
Because it was week to week and season to season. And now you just get these dumps of shows. And there's a couple of people that are still doing it. Like real HBO shows will still usually go week to week. Like White Lotus right now. Everybody's talking about it. But like. A lot of streamers don't care and they just drop it and you're like, you know what? I'll never remember.
I can't even give you an example of a show because most of Netflix shows, it's not that they're not good. It's that I spent so little time thinking and knowing it existed and then watching it that it's in and out like it truly is like an advertisement for content because it's. gone it's out of my but i think about lost and i'll get in a lost conversation at any time and like i think it's the same type of thing that happened to movies and i and i've
I have a good feeling about where movies are going because of like what I see with boots on the ground. Like I, and I, we have good things happening like a Nora winning awards and we have, you know, neon, but we're still missing. And you know, this, uh, because you, You were all actively always trying to make movies. There's post really like post the wine scene company.
And really post like their Miramax days and even Radius. Nobody, there's not many companies really doing that eight to $20 million movie that we need infinitely more of. To hear the rest of this episode, go to patreon.com slash themoviecrit. For only $1 a month, you'll get every new episode, every Monday, downloaded right to your podcast app of choice.