Brian from General cinema Theaters checks in with news about this summer's
films that will be audio described for the blind as well as captioned for
the deaf.  It is available in theaters equipped with the access technology
in selected cities, including Chicago, boston, New York, and Philadelphia
where there are vicugs.  The full list is in Brian's message.  Brian
suggests people e-mail him and subscribe to receive his mailings to learn
when a movie comes to their town.

Kelly



From: "Callaghan, Brian" <[log in to unmask]>


It's been a little quiet on the DVS Descriptive Narration and Rear Window
Captioning front for the past several weeks, but I wanted to let you know
some of the summer's BIGGEST movies will be available for our moviegoers who
are deaf, HOH and blind.

While not every theatre gets every movie -- sometimes movies, even though
they're captioned or described go to a local competing theatre -- we should
had several titles to offer you in the months ahead.

Before I proceed, if you are not already on our Email Address list, just
send an email with the name of one of the above cities in the Subject Box,
ie, "ATLANTA", "PHILLY", etc. to "[log in to unmask]" and we'll add you to
our notification list.  If you would like to be taken off -- just send me an
email with your city name and the word "Delete", ie., "NYC DELETE"  "BOSTON
DELETE", etc.

As you know, some movies are not available in the equipped auditorium on
opening day.  The reason for this is that by installing the technology in a
medium-sized auditorium, movies tend to have a longer total run with
captions and descriptions.  If the technology was in the largest auditorium,
a movie might only be there for a single week.  If you were on vacation that
week, you'd miss the chance to see it.  By having the equipment in a smaller
auditorium, we can generally offer you an opportunity of two to six weeks to
see the movie with captions and descriptions -- making it more convenient
with your schedules.

These systems are still a fairly new technology, and glitches sometimes do
happen.  We appreciate your patience and understanding.  Usually any
problems are not the fault of our theatre managers or their staffs.  For
that reason, if you have a question, complaint or concern, I would ask that
you address them to me, not our theatre managers.  If you have a compliment,
I'm sure they'd love to hear it, or you can email it to me and I'll make
sure it gets passed on to our managers.  Our managers work very hard and are
supportive of this program, but with more than a million patrons a year at
some locations, and upwards of 20,000 guests on a weekend, most do not have
the ability to address the specific concerns of each of our patrons as
closely as they might like.

We're thrilled to announce the next three films will be as follows.  (All
are conditional on the movie playing at that location, and not at a
competing theatre):

A KNIGHT'S TALE (PG13) -- an action-packed adventure film about an aspiring
knight and the numerous jousting matches he must participate in with his
horse in order to woo the lady of his dreams.  I loved this movie from SONY
and think it will be one of the surprise hits of the summer.  A KNIGHT'S
TALE will be available with BOTH Rear Window Captions for the HOH and Deaf
AND DVS Descriptive Narration for the Blind.  The movie opens nationally on
May 11th.  We'll let you know however, when it is available with captions
and descriptions.

SHREK (PG) -- with captions for the Deaf and HOH only.  SHREK is the
animated film from DreamWorks that's sure to be a big hit with kids AND
adults.  Shrek is a green ogre who lives in a fairy tale forest.  Along with
his donkey sidekick, Shrek must rescue a princess who's being held captive
by a dragon.  The movie is hip, irreverent and very very funny.  SHREK opens
on May 18th.  We'll let you know when it will be available with captions.

PEARL HARBOR (PG13) -- with DVS descriptions for the blind AND RWC captions
for the deaf and HOH.  Starring Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kate
Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett, PEARL HARBOR will likely be the movie of the
summer.  It has action, romance and tells the story of one of the most
dramatic events in American history.  This movie from Buena Vista Pictures
opens on May 25th.  We'll notify you when it's available in our equipped
auditoriums.

Other movies in the pipeline include Disney's ATLANTIS, JURASSIC PARK 3,
AMERICAN PIE 2 and others.

One final reminder:  just because a movie is playing in the equipped
auditorium does NOT mean it is described or captioned.  Only those
specially-formatted can do so.  Also, because email allows us to get the
word out in as timely a manner as possible, we'll continue to use this as
our primary form of notification for our patrons.   Often our film schedules
are not determined until the last minute, so the emails give us more
flexibility than newspaper ads -- although directory listings are run in the
newspapers where we are able.

I try to be very good about getting the news out whenever there IS a
captioned or described film, so if you don't get an email from me in a given
week, you can assume there is no captioned or described film playing that
week.

As a reminder, our equipped theatres are:

ATLANTA:  Parkway Pointe 15
BALTIMORE:  Owings Mills 17
BOSTON:  Framingham 16 and Fenway 13
CHICAGO:  Yorktown 18 and City North 14
LOS ANGELES:  Sherman Oaks 1&2
MILWAUKEE:  Mayfair Mall 18
NEW JERSEY:  Clifton Commons 16, Clifton, NJ
NEW YORK:  Bay Plaza 13 in the Bronx
PHILADELPHIA:  Plymouth Meeting 12
SEATTLE:  Pacific Place 11 and CINERAMA
WASHINGTON, DC:  Springfield Mall 10 in Springfield, VA


Thanks to all of your for your support of this program in the past three
years.  I think you will all enjoy a terific summer at the movies this year!
The more you patronize the captioned and described movies, the easier it is
for our good friends at WGBH's Mopix Project to convince the studios to make
more films available.

Have a great summer!

Brian Callaghan
General Cinema Theatres


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