Just a note, Boardman could have kept the cinema open and shown something else instead. It would have cost a lot less money than Jackass to bring back some classic film that everyone in the community might enjoy. He’s certainly welcome to stand up for his beliefs and not show certain films - but closing down business and putting all his part time employees out of work for two weeks with little notice is not necessarily the best way to go about it.

Of course the publicity generated from this may increase attendance.

But I said “giving up some money rather than sell something he dislikes” doesn’t make him a schmuck. You said “not showing movies he doesn’t like [makes him a schmuck because it’s a moneymaking business].” Difference there. I.E. he’s calculated what he’s likely to lose and is fine with it. He may have miscalculated, but it’s his risk to take. He’s a movie store owner who decided, when those two movies came up in the rotation, that his store doesn’t sell those movies. Would a magazine store owner who sells a goodly line of products but refused to stock US because it’s a tawdry celebrity gossip rag that probably prints an outright lie every now and then come under the same fire from you?

All of that said, I will grant one of your points: The article said Greg is trying to sell the Lorraine. At this point it probably is more of a hobby than a business for him and he’s getting so disgusted with what he has to do to keep it running that he wants out.

See-Dub, your point about porno is taken, but not for the reason you seem to think. Ordinary cinemas do not show porno movies, ever, and would lose big on their reputations if they tried. If this guy wanted to run a “family friendly” cinema that drew the line at R instead of X/NC, that would be different. His theater runs Rs all the time; just not the ones that he personally disdains. Screw him.

Uphill. Both ways. And we liked it.

/Grumpy old man, but serious about the state thing

I got the impression that Boardman was presented by some contractual difficulty from showing alternative fare–he had to run what the distributors sent him, or nothing.

XRLQ, he could probably have packed the theater had he shown the Screech porno film instead, but that doesn’t mean it would have been the right thing to do with his theater even though it was economically the most rational.

Good judgment: It’s not just for studios any more.

That’s probably the only sentence of this post I can agree with. Where I come from, good business judgment means giving the public what they want, not what you want them to want. “The customer is always right” - unless the business happens to be run by a puffed up twerp who’s convinced himself that he’s always right. Let him buy a cinema in Fresno and try the same stunt there, or anywhere else where consumers have a real choice where to go to the movies. Then he’d find out the hard way that shutting down for two weeks to avoid showing “drivel” is not just an insult to those customers who wanted to see those movies, but to every other customer who likes to make decisions for himself. I would never patronize a place like that, even if the owner’s definition of “drivel” coincided perfectly with my own.