Oscar movies 'maybe' coming to Gallup

Large movie posters decorate the lobby of the Red Rock Six Theater in Gallup on Friday afternoon. Local theater owners say Oscar-nominated films often receive a luke-warm response in Gallup. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — It's Oscar season and Gallupians are wondering if the Oscar films will make it to Gallup.

After talking to the man with the answers, Larry Allen, one of the owners of the Allen Theater chain and the one that decides which movies are going to pay at its various theaters, -the quick answer is "maybe."

Gallup is a strange movie town. If it doesn't have a lot of blood, Robin Williams playing some off-the-wall cartoon character or the latest teen idol, the movie plays to small segments of the movie-going audience.

Allen said he would like to see all of the Oscar-nominated movies come to Gallup, but the reality is that some have better chances than others.

Take "Babel" for example.

It has Brad Pitt as the lead actor and some violence but much of the movie is sub-titled and that usually doesn't well here, unless it's from Mel Gibson.

"It also hasn't done well anywhere it has played," said Allen, adding that it didn't do very well when it played on the chain's screens in Las Cruces either.

But it just won the Golden Globe for Best Picture in the drama category and is up for Best Picture at the Oscars, so producers of the movie hope that it picks up a little buzz. If it wins the Best picture Oscar, it will probably play here. Otherwise, area movie-goers may have to go elsewhere to see it or wait until it comes out on DVD.

"Departed" and "Little Miss Sunshine," two other Best Picture nominees, have already played here and did quite well, said Allen, especially "Departed."

"Dreamgirls," which was expected by many people to be a certainty to get a Best Picture nomination didn't. But it did wind up with the most nominations eight and has been playing to pretty good crowds here for the past two weeks.

"Flags of Our Fathers," Clint Eastwood's first movie about the Iwo Jima battle also did quite well here and Eastwood's other take on the battle, "Letters from Iwo Jima," is expected to play here although it's in Japanese and subtitled.

Right now, said Allen, the film is still in limited release so prints are hard to get but as soon as a print is available, he plans on scheduling it for Gallup.

He said he also expects that "The Queen," the fifth nominated movie will eventually make it to Gallup, although it's very British in tone ("a lot of talking"), but it does center around the death of Princess Diana so there may be some interest among movie-goers here to see what was going on in England and with the Queen Mother in the days after Diana's death.

Small, independent-made and foreign-made films usually don't come to Gallup there's not enough filmgoers here interested in those kinds of films to make it worthwhile but Allen said that he would rather try to get a "niche" film here rather than having a big-hit film stay over for the fifth or sixth week.

By that time attendance is usually pretty small and usually not much better than the number that would come for some of these lesser-known films.

In other movie news, Allen said the chain is looking at ways to make it easier for people to go to the theaters here.

A couple of years ago, the chain began selling advance tickets albeit only for that day which made it easier getting tickets for the major releases. A few months ago, the theater began accepting credit cards for the first time and Allen said that about 6 to 7 percent of the movie-going population makes use of this service.

The next major change will probably allow people to buy tickets up to a week in advance.

Allen Theaters has begun selling tickets a week in advance for a couple of the really big hits like "Star Wars III" but Allen said that doing it on a regular basis is not going to be easy and will require some thought and preparation. It's going to happen but probably not anytime soon.

That's the same for buying tickets online, he said.

Big chains in big cities do it but it requires a ticket system that is line with the on-line ticket system to prevent a situation where more tickets are sold than there are seats.

This will require some changes in the chain's ticketing system and while that's on the way, no time line has been set on when that will occur.