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I know EXACTLY how you feel. However we have yet another challenge for our customers. Our 11-screen theater is split into a 3-screen and an 8 screen building. And you can't access one from the other from inside (people love that part in Minnesota). This causes all sorts of problems.

The most common is showing up to the wrong building when we have two or more prints split between the two buildings. And as most anyone knows, people don't generally read signs...let alone 6'x10' marquees. The conversation between our box office personell and lost customers usually goes like this:

C: "Is ShrEEEEEK! playing here?"
BO: "No, I'm sorry, Shrek it's in the other building down the sidewalk"
C: "It says you're playing it in this building"
BO: "It's playing on two screens, the showtime you are looking for is in the other building"
C: "I have to go outside? Can't I get there from inside?"
BO: "Sorry, no."
C: "Well, what's the next showtime in this building"
BO: "An hour from now."
C: "Well what else is starting now?"
BO: "Moulin Rouge starts in 5 minutes."
C: "Well give me a ticket for that"
BO: "That's playing down the sidewalk too"

This is usually when the customer's head explodes. We have mop crews standing by. I do feel sorry tho when I have to explain an old lady with an oxygen tank that just spent half an hour walking 10 feet from her car to the door that she has to walk another 40 feet to the other building.

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Having three simultaneous long-running hits has meant that there have been many wonderful smaller films that have not yet made it onto our screens. Every week more and more films are released and our backlog of un-played films keeps growing. Five screens aren’t enough…we really need eight. Who knew? Since adding three screens isn’t a simple, quick or easy thing, we’ve had to get creative.

Beginning Friday, April 12th, we are pleased to announce a new programming initiative here at the Rialto. We call it MOVIES IN THE MORNING. Movies in the Morning is a four times a week program dedicated to bringing in many of the smaller films that we haven’t had a chance to play. It also gives us the opportunity to holdover certain titles a little while longer without creating such a logjam on our five screens. Here’s how it works: Every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, we will open at 10:15am for a set of shows starting between 10:30 and 11:15am. Typically, three of the films will be a combination of new films and holdovers. The other two films will be selected from our regular daytime slate of films. All morning shows will be at our bargain price of $5.50.

Movies in the Morning will be featured in our regular ads in the PD and the Bohemian as well as on our web site, weekly e-mail and recording. There are several theatres in LA that have a similar program that works very well for them. However, to our knowledge, no one in Northern California has attempted such a program, so it is a bit of an experiment. We’ll see how it goes. Our hope is that you, our audience, have the opportunity to see some films that otherwise probably wouldn’t have made it to Sonoma County.

Let's how much this confuses our customers.