movie

Goodbye to the 'flick': Small Michigan movie theaters facing deadline

Steve Carmody — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:32:00 +0000

This is a big weekend for film fans, but the movies honored this weekend at the Oscars may be the last ones to be in theaters as actual "films."

And that’s bad news for many small neighborhood and drive-in theaters in Michigan.

A night at the neighborhood theater

The Friday night crowd is gathering in the lobby of the Sun Theater in Williamston.

Everybody seems to know everybody else at this small, one screen, neighborhood movie house. From the low ticket prices and very affordable concessions, the Sun Theater is a throwback, and that’s especially true for what’s at the top of the stairs at the rear of the theater.

35 millimeter film is flickering through a projector, which shines that night’s movie on to the silver screen.

It’s basically the way films have been shone for a hundred years, but that’s about to end.

'Answer This!' director Christopher Farah puts Ann Arbor in the spotlight

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 18:32:54 +0000

Answer This!, a film by University of Michigan alum Christopher Farah, takes you out to the bars of Ann Arbor, where diehard trivia teams—like the Ice Tigers —face off for a glory far greater than a round on the house.

The movie follows Paul Tarson, a U of M graduate student played by Christopher Gorham. Afraid to make any decisions about his post-academic life, Tarson redirects his intellectual energy toward a citywide pub trivia tournament, much to the disappointment of his professor father, played by real life U of M Professor Ralph Williams.

Funded in part by the now suspended Michigan Film Office incentives program, Answer This! was filmed almost entirely on the U of M campus and around Ann Arbor. It is the first movie to receive official sanction from the university.Farah said it was important for him to locate the film in his hometown. He and his brother Mike Farah, who produced the film, tried several bigger, broader scripts before settling on Answer This!.

“None of those stories really resonated with us,” said Farah. “We wanted to do something that would kind of take us back to something we could really connect with.”

Farah uses the locations in the film to create that same hometown feeling for moviegoers.

“What we did,” said Farah, “was try to take a lot of those places that go beyond the really famous Ann Arbor spots...no matter what town or what city it’s in, people can relate to those kind of places, whether it’s a great corner bar or a pond or rope swing that only they knew about back where they were growing up.”

For audiences from Ann Arbor, this has the effect of making the familiar seem epic.

“A sidewalk outside Ashley’s feels so big in the movie...When you walk by it, it just kind of feels like a sidewalk. But in a movie, it feels like A SIDEWALK,” said Farah. “It’s taking that Ann Arbor that we know, and is somehow blowing it up to cinematic proportions.”

Answer This! opens this weekend in Ann Arbor, Novi and Grand Rapids.

-Meg Cramer, Michigan Radio Newsroom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uykl2z_7N_0&feature=player_embedded

GOP lawmaker says film tax credits have merit

Rina Miller — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:11:13 +0000

Republican state senator Rick Jones says Michigan’s film tax credit might need to be trimmed, but he doesn’t think it should be eliminated.

Governor Rick Snyder has said he’s going to put Michigan’s generous film tax credit policy under the microscope.

Movie companies can get up to a 42 percent tax credit if they film here.

But State Sen. Rick Jones says movies made in Michigan can be good for the state, because a hit can bring residual money into a community:

A good example would be "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve." We still have people traveling to Mackinac Island to see where that movie was made. There are still souvenirs sold, and it increases tourism.

Jones says his position has nothing to do with the possibility that the next Batman movie may be shot in his hometown of Grand Ledge.

Another movie, “Red Dawn,” was also filmed in Grand Ledge and is awaiting release.

Utah's Sundance Film Festival comes to Michigan

Jennifer Guerra — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:54:24 +0000

Michigan film buffs won’t have to fly to Utah to experience this month’s Sundance Film Festival. That’s because Sundance is bringing part of the festival to Ann Arbor.

This is the second year in a row that the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor has been tapped to premiere a Sundance Film during the actual festival in Utah.

Last year, the Michigan Theater premiered Cyrus, a movie by the Duplass brothers. This year, filmmaker Tom McCarthy will fly to Ann Arbor to premiere his movie Win Win on January 27.