Movie Stuff

[la_samtyr]

Here are a few links for "my" theatre that I am supporting w/my dollar vote for TDK:

http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/703.html
(No interior shots of the main screen, which is a pity -- it's very cool.)

Yes, I did find a pic of the interior! It's an old b/w one, and you'll have to scroll down the page to see it.
http://www.knchautauqua.org/Community/iconic_images_hastings.html

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/16233/

And one more:
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/09/10/news/nebraska/5a4334e19ea28f67862573520010d22e.txt
(full article under the cut)


Theater manager wants patrons to get their money's worth

HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) -- Anyone who has seen a movie at the Rivoli Theatre in downtown Hastings in the past eight years has probably seen Justin Jacobsmeier.

The theater manager makes a point of making himself visible.

"I make myself just as visible then (to exiting theater patrons) as I do when they come to enjoy a picture," he said. "People around here are not very hard to please, but I do want them to feel like they got their money's worth."

Jacobsmeier, 64, started in the business 50 years ago as an usher at a theater in Fort Madison, Iowa. In 1961, he got an offer to be an assistant manager in Sioux City, Iowa, in what was then Iowa's largest theater. He remembers it having 11 screens.

He worked there until 1989, when Bob Fridley, whom Jacobsmeier has known since 1970, purchased the theater company.

"He was in an expansion period at that time, and he needed somebody to go from town to town to town, and I was free to do that," he said.

Jacobsmeier came to Hastings for a stint in 1997, briefly returning to Iowa in 1998 to manage a couple of theaters.

Jacobsmeier returned to Hastings in 1999 and has been here since.

Terry Dotson, vice president and general manager of Fridley Theatres, has known Jacobsmeier for 20 years. "He's had the opportunity to move a couple of times, so far he's stayed," Dotson said. "I think he really likes the area."

Fridley Theatres owns 35 cinemas, but Hastings and McCook are the only non-Iowa locations for the Des Moines-based business.

Jacobsmeier, senior manager in Nebraska, takes care of the two theaters in the state.

"Justin is an old-time showman who has been around for a while who can operate a theater and hire and train employees," Dotson said.

When picking a movie, Jacobsmeier balances its quality with its commercial potential. "That's pretty dangerous, because you can have all the quality in the world, but there might not be anybody to go see it," he said. "To get where a picture is commercial and quality is tough to come by nowadays.

"You need a big population to make an art film work unless it has that commercial slide to it."

The art film that had maybe the largest commercial slide is "Brokeback Mountain," which opened at the Rivoli on Jan. 27, 2006. "We were the only theater that played the movie in the entire middle section of Nebraska," he said. "There were those who thought the world was going to end and those who were really happy we did it and those who had no clue what to expect."

The movie played for four weeks, and Jacobsmeier said it could've played longer. "That's because nobody else wanted to play the picture, and I'm not sure what in the world they were afraid of," he said. "It's celluloid; it's not going to burn the place down."

Where the megaplexes have become necessary, Jacobsmeier laments their increasing popularity. "The reason I enjoy working at the Rivoli is that it still has the flavor of being a theater and not an amusement park," he said. "There aren't too many of these left."

The Rivoli's three theaters have capacities of 600, 350 and 250 people.

The theater has shown movies since 1926. "Everybody who comes back to town seems to want to go to the Rivoli because that's where they grew up," he said. Often it's a stop during class reunions.

Jacobsmeier has developed an appreciation for older films, especially musicals like "Showboat," "Brigadoon" and "Oklahoma."

"I like to be entertained, like anyone else," he said.

There is one genre Jacobsmeier can't stand. "I'm sick and tired of horror," he said, "They've redefined it to massacre.