What he said!
P.S. Although, I think SLEEP DEALER is pretty memorable. Quite a decent indie. Not a "premiere" of course as it had several theatrical runs across the country prior to both Boston and Ohio "premiere" engagements.......
IamJacksUserID wrote:
Again, another silly semantic argument. For the purposes of the marathon, premiere is defined as "official public theatrical screening." This has been previously discussed numerous times. Although theatrical premieres are a long standing marathon tradition, they simply are not as meaningful as they once were and they never will be again.
Twenty years ago, there was no internet or "on demand" or 3 month DVD release windows. That's just the way it is now. Though the semantics are different, it is still special to be parked in a room with a bunch of people who enjoy the same things you do and watch movies for 24 hours straight.
The other problem with so-called premieres nowadays is simply the overwhelming amount of content has saturated the market. It used to be things were good or bad, there wasn't a whole lot of mediocrity. Mediocre independent movies become forgettable quickly. As an example, I recently had to look up in the archives to remember anything about Ink and Sleep Dealer, both of which "premiered" at the marathon last year. Having already seen Lunopolis, I expect that one will draw the same kind of unmemorable reaction for a lot of folks this year.
Granted, a lot of this debate could be solved with the booking of one or two more classic heavy hitters like War of the Worlds. When half the lineup is an unknown commodity, and on top of that most likely digitally projected, it is cause for a whole lot of skepticism.