Best pictures tough to come by at campus theater

With the Oscars fast approaching, some students are still unfamiliar with the Best Picture nominees -- possibly because more than half of them were not shown at the Bridge.

The Bridge: Cinema de Lux theater showed only two films out of the five that ended up being nominated for Best Picture Oscars.

The Aviator and Ray, both of which have been nominated for Best Picture, were shown at the theater on Walnut Street -- which is operated by National Amusements -- but the less mainstream Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby and Sideways were not.

"For whatever reason, [National Amusements] seems to think that movies like Million Dollar Baby won't have much appeal in this community," said Marketing professor Jehoshua Eliashberg, who went on to explain that large businesses sometimes utilize "centralized decision-making," in which corporate offices decide which films are shown in what theater.

"Mistakes are often made," Eliashberg said. "I think part of the problem is that these decisions are made by a central office that doesn't really know much about the preferences of the local community."

Brian Callaghan, a spokesman for National Amusements, said that the booking process is complicated, competitive and secretive, and involves a fair amount of luck.

"All bookings are done out of the booking office in Boston," Callaghan said, "but we don't really discuss it. It's a process that varies by location."

The Ritz theaters in Old City showed four of the five films nominated for Best Picture, screening Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways and Ray in Philadelphia. The Aviator was shown in New Jersey.

Jay Ayrton, director of operations for the Ritz Theatre Group, acknowledged that no one knows which films will end up being nominated.

"There's no crystal ball out there that says anything," Ayrton said. "If someone could tell you which movies are going to succeed and which are going to fail, he would be the richest man on earth."

Ayrton said that the Ritz Theatre Group decides which films to show after screening movies to determine their quality.

Once the group decides on a movie it would like to show, it acquires the lease on the film by agreeing to pay a certain percentage of box office ticket sales for that film -- an amount they would not disclose.

Ayrton also acknowledged the effect of the Best Picture nominations on ticket sales.

"When the nominations come out, people always come out," Ayrton said. "There is always an uptick in the box office from people who don't want to miss [the films] and even those who want to see them for a second or third time."

College senior Skee Yagi, who saw Sideways twice at the Ritz Five in Old City, said he enjoys the Bridge because of its proximity to campus, but he thinks that the theater should have played the other films that were nominated.

"I think they should show the best movies out there regardless of whether they are mainstream or not," Yagi said. "I think the Bridge really missed out on some great opportunities by skipping them."

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