COMING UP WITH GREAT PROGRAMS FOR YOUR HOME THEATER (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

I wish my audiences (and viewing space) could be bigger, but I am starting to have great fun planning interesting double-features for the few who attend. For many years I have thought it would be amazing to be a programmer for, say, TCM -- those people must feel they're stealing their salaries! But, on a tiny scale, scheduling these programs can be awesome. I like to pair movies of sometimes disparate subject matter and mood, while showcasing a thematic element.

Two Romantic Comedies: THE GOODBYE GIRL / WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

Two Animated Films: YELLOW SUBMARINE / WATERSHIP DOWN

Two Haunted House Classics (Pending release of the second): THE HAUNTING (1963) / THE CHANGELING

Two 3D Films: GRAVITY / IMAX HUBBLE

Saturday Matinee Memories: THE TIME MACHINE (1960) / 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD (Indicator release)

A Night In Venice: SUMMER TIME / DON'T LOOK NOW (I know, strange bedfellows).

Is anyone else out there cavorting with this sort of playful showmanship?

 

[RichMurphy]

My favorite double feature to program is EL CID and WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

If I do double-features, I tend to stick to the classic scheduling with an "A" feature and a "B" feature and try not to use films that are too similar in genre or tone. REAR WINDOW paired with THE NARROW MARGIN for example. Unless it's monsters and such, then it's kiddie matinee time

My dream repertory theater double feature to see on a marquee is still FRANCES (Jessica Lange) paired with FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (Mickey Rooney and the talking mule).

 

[Dick]

If I do double-features, I tend to stick to the classic scheduling with an "A" feature and a "B" feature and try not to use films that are too similar in genre or tone. REAR WINDOW paired with THE NARROW MARGIN for example. Unless it's monsters and such, then it's kiddie matinee time

My dream repertory theater double feature to see on a marquee is still FRANCES (Jessica Lange) paired with FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (Mickey Rooney and the talking mule).

Neither on Blu-ray, yet, more's the pity.

 

[MatthewA]

Finding co-stars of a movie or TV show in separate things and finding a common thread between them is always an entertaining exercise. Ricky Schroder movies are a guilty pleasure of mine for reasons you can probably decipher from my posting history. The magic of YouTube enabled me to discover a TV movie he was in in 1990 with Kate Jackson and Chris Sarandon, called The Stranger Within and co-produced by his mother. I also managed to find a TV movie from 1994 which paired the ying to his yang*, Jason Bateman**, with Katharine Hepburn*** (along with Anthony Quinn and Jami Gertz) in one of her last roles, This Can't Be Love.

Another time not too long ago, I paired two movies by the same actress: Drop Dead Gorgeous and I, Tonya. Both can claim Allison Janney among their cast lists, but she plays two different women of different backgrounds. But while her fictional Loretta of Mount Rose, Minnesota is funny and endearing, her real-life Mama Harding of Portland, Oregon is cynical, calculating, and horrifying.

I've also discovered the joys of not binge-watching shows and savoring them one at a time again: lately it's Maude on DVD and The Golden Girls on Hulu. Much has been written about Bea Arthur's comic talents, but Rue McClanahan deserves credit for being able to create two distinctly different yet richly layered characters as Vivian Cavender Harmon and Blanche Devereaux. It's also why Bea's instincts about having her and Betty White trade roles on the latter show proved as fortunate for them as it did for Ray Bolger and Jack Haley in The Wizard of Oz.

*Or, as Kelly Bundy referred to the concepts, ding and dong. Before she played that role, Christina Applegate was one of Ricky's girlfriends on Silver Spoons, a controlling young woman who was a student at Eastland Academy, the school from Facts of Life from the same production company (and fictional universe, as established by Gary Coleman playing Diff'rent Strokes's Arnold once on that show), yet she never appeared on either of those shows.
**Yeah, of the two, I, too, was surprised Bateman was the one who had to backtrack from something said on social media. And that's all I have to say about that. I already feel guilty enough for starting the Roseanne thread.
***Joel Higgins made a movie with her in 1988 called Laura Lansing Slept Here, through which I managed to remained awake although Higgins seemed as if he came in from another film. Both were productions of Merrill Karpf, who also produced Stone Pillow, Lucille Ball's final TV movie.

 

[bgart13]

Nah, none of my friends would come. I don’t think they trust my oddball tastes, haha. Plus they all have kids now and don’t have time to hang out.

 

[John Dirk]

I'm jealous. I can barely get my wife and friends to sit through a single feature. How do you do that?

 

[Dick]

I'm jealous. I can barely get my wife and friends to sit through a single feature. How do you do that?

Dunno. I'm lucky enough to have a small handful of good friends who enjoy these affairs. Programming interesting screenings even for just a few is fun, but takes some work: I design email invitations that include an essay, posters and photos. Often I provide written guides which the audiences can read before the movie and discuss after.

Here are a few more double features I might offer -- you're all welcome to attend!:

Dog & Cat-lovers program: KEDI / HACHI (or BEST IN SHOW)

Cultish Stuff: GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL / UNDER THE SKIN (which I saw on the same day, or any number of other combinations).

More Relevant Now Than When Released: THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE / SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

So Bad They're Good: FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE / THE GIANT CLAW (Why did I buy these?)

Foreign Classics: RASHOMON / THE VIRGIN SPRING (choices for such programs are endless)

Some of these combinations probably seem bizarre, but they do have a thematic tie-in.

 

[John Dirk]

Dunno. I'm lucky enough to have a small handful of good friends who enjoy these affairs. Programming interesting screenings even for just a few is fun, but takes some work: I design email invitations that include an essay, posters and photos. Often I provide written guides which the audiences can read before the movie and discuss after.

Here are a few more double features I might offer -- you're all welcome to attend!:

Dog & Cat-lovers program: KEDI / HACHI (or BEST IN SHOW)

Cultish Stuff: GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL / UNDER THE SKIN (which I saw on the same day, or any number of other combinations).

More Relevant Now Than When Released: THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE / SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

So Bad They're Good: FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE / THE GIANT CLAW (Why did I buy these?)

Foreign Classics: RASHOMON / THE VIRGIN SPRING (choices for such programs are endless)

Some of these combinations probably seem bizarre, but they do have a thematic tie-in.

Awesome!!! Sounds to me like you put in the work and so you are [deservedly] receiving the reward. That's the way things are SUPPOSED to be. I'm not doing that level of work so no wonder I don't have similar stories.

 

[MatthewA]

Why stop at a double feature when you could make it a triple feature? Thanks to the Fathom Events screening of The Producers* I found the perfect excuse to pair that with It's a Mad Mad Mad World and Grease. The late Dick Shawn was in that Mel Brooks classic after working with Brooks' mentor, Sid Caesar, in Stanley Kramer's comic extravaganza five years earlier. Caesar's Coach Calhoun ensured name recognition among generations too young to remember Your Show of Shows.

*Sadly stripped of the original Avco Embassy logo, although the film's release date was two months before the Avco deal, thus it is still referred to as "Embassy Pictures" in the credits.

 

[atfree]

I have a slight (sometimes not so slight) case of social anxiety disorder and, frankly, don't like being around people that much. My bliss is the infrequent days I have the house to myself to watch whatever I want, as loud as I want, with no one wandering through asking "What's that? Why isn't it in color?".

 

[Dick]

Why stop at a double feature when you could make it a triple feature? Thanks to the Fathom Events screening of The Producers* I found the perfect excuse to pair that with It's a Mad Mad Mad World and Grease. The late Dick Shawn was in that Mel Brooks classic after working with Brooks' mentor, Sid Caesar, in Stanley Kramer's comic extravaganza five years earlier. Caesar's Coach Calhoun ensured name recognition among generations too young to remember Your Show of Shows.

*Sadly stripped of the original Avco Embassy logo, although the film's release date was two months before the Avco deal, thus it is still referred to as "Embassy Pictures" in the credits.

Much too much (too long) for anyone I know. I have a very comfortable couch, but at this point double even double features is kind of an experiment, to find out how long a program can be before people are physically fatigued. I won't go over four hours, and the programs have to be incredibly interersting.

 

[Keith Cobby]

We usually have dinner first then show a film to our friends. Most contemporary films (Dunkirk honourable exception!) too long for me. Might try a film, dinner, film but would probably be asleep half way through the second. It's quite an art selecting a film for your audience.

 

[Dick]

We usually have dinner first then show a film to our friends. Most contemporary films (Dunkirk honourable exception!) too long for me. Might try a film, dinner, film but would probably be asleep half way through the second. It's quite an art selecting a film for your audience.

And it takes forever, if you have an extensive collection of great movies on Blu-ray, almost any of which you would love to share with others rather than leaving them on a shelf collecting dust. I try to keep it varied and balanced: Contemporary color film one month, then a black and white classic, then an 80's comedy, then a foreign film, then an animated film, then a 3D film, then....etc. Just not enough time left in my life to even scratch the surface, with 3,000 Blu-rays, all of which I bought because I really, really like them. I go through my endless choices for the following month long before the current month's program. In fact, I have rough drafts for about a half-dozen potential programs in progress. It's fun, and it's work I love to do, but it is work.