Cool Or Not Cool: Canceling Potentially Upsetting Movie Screenings in the Wake of Tragedy?

For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that everyone is aware of the recent, incredibly horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, and just get right down to the nitty gritty of this thing.

We recently received an email from an irate BAM member, who was upset that the organization cancelled recent screenings of John Waters' Female Trouble and Silent Night Bloody Night out of respect for the victims of Newtown, Connecticut. When this particular BAM member asked why the screenings were cancelled during a film series meant to depict “dark visions of the holiday season,” this was the reply that he received:

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Who Gives a Shit: What's Your Holiday Movie Tradition?

The first time I discovered the 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story on TNT, I was really into the experience. Over the span of its entirety, I probably watched the movie in full 6 or 7 times, which is as many as my parents could take before shutting off the TV and making me go to church. For me, Christmas began on the evening of December 24 when the first Christmas Story started, and it ended when the end credits rolled for the last time on the night of December 25.

And now, years later, though I often find it hard to sit through the entire movie more than once, I like to keep the marathon on for as long as possible in those 24 hours as sort of background ambiance while I'm wrapping presents, baking cookies, or moving my dog into another room because she keeps farting near my face. Surely like many others who long ago discovered the marathon, it's become my own little tradition.

Do you guys have any holiday movie traditions? 

We're Getting a New, Bad-ass Movie Theater!

Photo via www.pitch.com

Moviegoers, rejoice!

Famed movie theater Alamo has announced a third location in the New York area, which’ll be situated right here in the city’s finest borough. The Brooklyn location, to open in 2015, joins previously announced Upper West Side and Yonkers projects. Located within the City Point complex which’ll anchor the Flatbush Avenue end of the Fulton Mall, the Drafthouse will be nestled cozily between such retailers as Armani Exchange and Century 21. (Movies AND discount designer fashion? It’s too much!)

What’s so great about this Texan export? Oh, so many things, but here’s the most important: no talking. This theater actually kicks you out if you’re caught talking during the movie. Seriously, it says so on their website.

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Bored to Death: The Movie?!

When television's finest shows are cancelled long before they've jumped the shark (see: Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, Party Down), its most loyal fans live through several emotionally draining stages:

1. Denial ("Who announced it? E! News Network? I'll believe that shit when Mitchell Hurwitz says it himself.")

2. Anger ("And yet Two and a Half Men is still on TV?!") 

3. Sadness (Weepily crooning Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation").

4. Drinking and reminiscing with friends about the best episodes, and the ones that could have been (see: HERE).

5. Undying hope for a feature-length film ("How can they not make one? I bet every cast member would be on board!")

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Did The Pavilion Oversell Tickets To The Hunger Games?

As expected, the film that pairs a Battle Royale-esque notion of kids hunting each other for survival with the sexy teen faces of a Twilight movie has made bank. The Hunger Games will gross an estimated $155M this weekend alone.

Hot damn.

No doubt this initial success means that the film will linger in theaters for the next few months, and maybe into the summer. Why then, knowing that people are going to scramble for tickets from now until forever, would a theater oversell tickets to shows on opening weekend? It appears that Park Slope's own Pavilion theater -- most recently in the news not for its bedbugs, but for its inability to treat an American flag properly  -- has done just that. On Saturday we received this angry email from an anon FiPS reader:

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