Let’s face it, late January and February can feel like the armpit of the year.
Even with a February birthday, I recall my dismal bitter-cold childhood in Edmonton during these months: the holidays over, the half-hour walk to school with only the eyes exposed and those clad-in-icicle eyelashes, the snow now solid and soiled brown and still two months left before any sign of new life.
This seems to be the viewpoint of Hollywood as well.
Quality new release movies during these months are few. Summer blockbusters begin in May, sophisticated independent productions on the hunt for awards generally release in late fall/early winter and of course you have your epic Christmas films like the recently concluded Hobbit.
I no longer hold this opinion.
With Nelson finally under the cover of fresh fallen snow and with The Civic’s unique programming strategy firmly in play, January and February might as well be a second round of Christmas.
The wait for the limited release schedule of the independent Oscar-nominated films to broaden has finally come to an end.
The Civic is now faced with the happy problem of how to fit all these great titles in. Let’s just say that Thursday has spilled over into the weekend. All you fans of The Civic’s Thursday film series will know what I am talking about.
With Theory of Everything just ending its run, the Civic looks forward to Foxcatcher on January 22, Wild opening on January 23, Citizenfour on January 29, Imitation Game on the 30th and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice and Selma over the following weeks.
It’s all leading up to Birds of a Feather, the Civic’s annual Oscar Gala fundraiser on February 14, when we will open Birdman for a two-day run.
And if you missed the chance to see Best Picture nominees Boyhood and Whiplash the first time they came round, there will be another opportunity to catch them on the big screen for one-off screenings prior to the Academy Awards.
For the kids, Oscar nominated Best Animated Features, Tale of Princess Kaguya and Song of the Sea screen over the February 20-21 weekend. And of course, all are welcome to a free big screen live feed of the Oscars on February 22. Check civictheatre.ca for confirmations and to pre-purchase tickets.
The Oscars are great, but in a challenge to see what more diversity we can cram onto our single screen, I am pleased to announce that for the week following the Oscars, we will celebrate four titles from TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival.
And I am even more pleased to announce that our maiden crowd-source programming experiment has paid off and will pave the way for more community-initiated niche programs.
In an attempt to bring in more diverse programming and mitigate financial risk, The Civic is experimenting with a crowd sourced model based on GATHR, currently available only in the US where a screening of one of its titles can be scheduled but not confirmed until a minimum pre-sale limit has been met to ensure cost recovery.
Awake: The Life of Yogananda, an unconventional biography of Paramahansa Yogananda (the Hindu Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s) has more than met its commitment and is confirmed to screen March 11.
The Civic… much more than movies and so much more from movies.
— Jason Asbell is the theatre manager and programmer for the Civic Theatre.