Jan. 09, 2000

By JOHN BECK
Staff Writer

Ian Price and Ky Boyd are the new owners of the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside, where theyt plan to showcase independent and foreign films on their five screens
After decades of random sightings and surprise visits, independent and foreign films have finally found a home in Sonoma County.

Sure, they've always been around, slipped into theater lineups like a dark horse filling out a race ticket, buried in a midweek film series or dredged up for a university weekend tribute.

But, starting Friday, the new Rialto Cinemas Lakeside will devote five screens to "specialty" films. Call them what you will … art flicks, low-budget films, sleepers … finally an art house has arrived to showcase all their glorious idiosyncrasies and quirky obsessions.

With the recent blockbuster success of indies like "The Blair Witch Project" and foreign films like "Life is Beautiful," such a venture seems like a no-brainer.

Offbeat films
The venue: Rialto Cinemas Lakeside
Location: 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa
Admission: $7
Information: 539-9771 or http://www.rialtocinemas.com/

But it took the ingenuity and daring of two outsiders to pull it off.

Relocating from San Francisco and Denver, new owners Ky Boyd and Ian Price are basically two film buffs with a business plan, years of theater industry experience and, most of all, a love of films that tell stories that would otherwise never be told.

"I love story films … films that are driven by characters and by narrative," said Boyd, who cites Jean-Jacques Beineix's "Diva" as the first "art" film to turn him on. "Ian says they're about life, and that's really true. They're not vehicles to showcase some star. They're not made to fit a marketing demographic. They're films that are very personal for the filmmakers. There's passion in them."

It's an obsession they're banking on, convinced their celluloid product will appeal not only to fellow film junkies, but simply other "moviegoers" in the community.

At the same time, they're well aware that the sudden transition from zero local screens devoted solely to independent film to five screens is an astronomical leap in Sonoma County.

In fact, based on the sheer number of screens and potential movie options available at the new Rialto, it will rank as one of the largest Bay Area theaters devoted purely to art films. The Rafael Theater in San Rafael has three screens. In Berkeley, the U.C. Theater has one screen and Fine Arts Cinema has two. In San Francisco, the Roxie has one screen, the 4 Star has four screens and Landmark's Lumiere and Embarcadero Center Cinema each have three screens.

Can Sonoma County sustain such a specialized enterprise?

"It's a huge leap," Boyd admits. "A quantum leap. But we really think it's a leap that's ready to be made. We've done an awful lot of research on Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Part of that research was looking at how the types of movies that we want to play did at the box office when they played at the UA6 or the UA5 or the Lakeside."

Sifting through local theater nightly grosses compiled by A.C. Neilsen company Entertainment Data, Boyd and Price could gauge how indies and foreign films fared in Sonoma County.

"What we noticed was that some of those movies would be hole-fillers in the schedule … if something opened and didn't do well, well let's bring in a little independent movie here for a couple of weeks to fill this gap and then we'll take it off screen when the next big thing comes," he said.

"We found that the movies were still grossing a decent amount, but because the exhibitors are so dependent on the distributors, and the distributors need the theaters and they're really pressing them to get their new product on screens, the independent films suffer.

"We realized that people are going to these movies, but they're running all over the county to do it. There's no centralized location."

Boyd and Price are so committed to the project, they signed a 10-year lease with building owner David Codding.

Other Sonoma County theater owners and film buyers applaud the bold move, but they're also skeptical.

"We don't have the (audience) base for it," said Beth Feintech, who books the midweek Independent Film Series at Sebastopol Cinemas and, starting Friday, at Cloverdale Cinemas. "You do have upscale people who will go to an art film. Are they going to go to more than one a week? No.

"If you look at the quality of film that's out there, some of the things I get for Sebastopol are very obscure, and part of the reason is because that is the best film I can get at the time. So, do I think they can get five good art films or foreign or independent films a week? No."

Boyd and Price, who have never owned a business before, both acknowledge the risk, even if it's a "calculated risk."

"We're going to have to experiment a little," Boyd said. "Because I can't honestly tell you that Santa Rosa moviegoers are going to like this. You have to figure out what the pulses are and what the niches are."

They plan to launch a film discussion forum on their Web site at www.rialtocinemas.com. In remodeling the lobby of the former Lakeside Theater, they're doing away with the teal interior and video games and putting in tables and chairs for a small cafe. Dolby digital sound systems will be installed in the two largest theaters and Dolby stereo added to the others to replace the "glorious mono" of Lakeside, Boyd said.

And, for the popcorn crowd … the former Lakeside may have been the only theater in the region still popping corn in coconut oil, but the Rialto will use canola oil and "real" butter.

"We have to develop a loyal audience so that the question is not 'what's playing at the movies,' but 'what's playing at the Rialto?' " Boyd said.

For the past five years, the two partners, who met while studying at the University of Montana, have been searching for the ideal venue for their dream art house.

After pooling together investors comprised mostly of friends, family or "people we've worked with or known for a long time," they began scouting Colorado and Bay Area locales. At one point, they considered building a four-plex in a 12,000-square-foot vacant space near Barnes and Noble in downtown Santa Rosa, but scrapped the idea when Airport Cinemas owner Dan Tocchini announced plans to build the 14-screen Roxy on Santa Rosa Avenue. They also considered taking over the former site of Coddingtown Cinemas, but decided on the former Lakeside Theater instead.

"Of all the businesses to start out in, we picked a capital-intensive one," Boyd said. "In the age of dot-com and Internet start-ups, we're starting up a movie theater. People kind of look at us and say,'What's wrong with you two?' "

A veteran of Landmark Theatre's Embarcadero Center Cinema, Boyd has also worked for the Cincinnati Playhouse and Indiana Repertory Theater. In college, he was a film programmer at the University of Montana where he promoted "Dive-In" movie nights, which amounted to giant pool parties with films like "Jaws" as the backdrop.

"When you work at a non-profit you sort of a develop a can-do mentality and you learn to make the most of limited resources," he said.

One bonus will be the "limitless" amount of films available, said Price, who is moving to Santa Rosa from Denver, where he managed a theater and later worked for an electronics company.

Unlike most theaters, which are at the mercy of the latest teen-slasher flick or Schwarzenegger vehicle shuttled down the distributor pipeline, the Rialto can pick and choose from the entire history of filmmaking.

"I had a great time picking out the films for the calendar," Boyd said. "I started with a two-page list of films that I wanted, and then we started deleting ones we can't get, ones that played the Independent Film Series in Sebastopol or opened somewhere nearby recently."

Although the Rialto will the largest indie film hub in the region, it will still face stiff competition from local theaters for genre films.

"I would love to be able to play 'Sweet and Lowdown,' but we lost it to United Artists," Boyd said. "There's nothing we can do about that. You just go on to the next movie. There are enough out there."

Likewise, Boyd and Price will have to wait their turn for the Swedish film "Show Me Love," which they wanted to screen in January, but settled for a shot in March because Strand Releasing is only circulating seven prints nationwide.

To their advantage, they've struck up a relationship with Los Angeles film booking firm Exhibitor Support Partnership, which already books about 100 screens across the country.

"Now that we're here and available we're going to have to convince the distributors that they're going to want to open in Santa Rosa with the rest of their little push," said Price. "Instead of waiting until that little push is well over before granting us a print, and that will just take some time."

In addition to the rotation of independent, classics and foreign films, the Rialto will also go after what Boyd calls "Hollywood story movies."

"It's a line I stole from Norman Jewison who said it at the Oscars a few years ago."

Thanks to film companies like Miramax and Lion's Gate, and the latest crop of polished film festival fare like "Happy, Texas" the line between Hollywood product and independently produced films has never been so blurred.

Boyd points to films like "Shakespeare in Love" or "Tea With Mussolini" or even current titles like "The Talented Mr. Ripley" or David Lynch's G-rated "The Straight Story" as examples of the kind of Hollywood films that might play the Rialto.

Ultimately, it all comes down to feeding audience tastes. And that's something they're committed to researching and experimenting until they get it right, Boyd said.

"It's costing us about the same to open this theater as it would be to produce a small, off-Broadway play," he said. "But I'd say our odds are a lot better. The play's not going to be around in 10 years, but God, we hope to be


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