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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Kansan
Sunday: It April witho
KS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PO BOX 3585
TOPEKA, KS 6601-3585
HIG 61
Friday
April 3, 1998
Section:
TU
weekend Edition
A
Vol. 108 • No. 130 Saturday & Sunday
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
WWW.KANSAN.COM
RISKY BUSINESS
（USPS650-640）
ART HOUSES:LIBERTY HALL
Story by Jeremy M. Doberty · Photos by Geoff Krieger
The 125-seat Little Theatre at Liberty Hall can be quite a change for moviegoers spoiled by stadium seating. THX sound and
Rocket-back chassis. There aren't even cupholders.
But the theater's patrons don't miss the conveniences.
At 7 p.m., Scott Bliss, the 25-year-old manager of Liberty Hall Cinema, trudges up the 25 stairs to the projection booth and launches the final Lawrence showing of the Oscar-nominated film. The Sweet Hereafter.
its five-week run is ending to make way for the much-anticipated comedy, The Big Lebowski, a film expected to be one of the top art house draws in 1998.
But times can be lean in the art house business. Case in point — only four patrons showed up to give The Sweet Hereafter a send-off.
Bliss and Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St., barely survived a rough fall and winter. The season's biggest art movies, such as Good Will Hunting and The Full Monkey, bypassed his operation and played at the multiplexes across town.
The loss of such high-profile films is hitting Bliss where it hurts. He has to fight harder to book the biggest independent hits. As super-sized multiplexes continue to spruce, independently owned art houses like Liberty Hall struggle to compete with the larger chains.
"It's definitely happening more with the bigger crossover stuff, which is vital for us," Bliss says, leaning back in an orange swivel chair in his office. On the wall behind him hangs a poster for A Close Shave, the 1995 Oscar-winning animated short movie.
"We need five or six pictures a year to do well. Then, we can break even or even lose a little money on the others. When you don't have those titles, that's when it starts to hurt you."
"We need five or six pictures a year to break even ... When you don't have those titles, that's when it starts to hurt you."
Scott Bliss Liberty Hall Cinema manager
For every week a big independent movie plays at the megaplexes. Bliss estimates that he loses $2,000, especially when a critically-acclaimed drama like *The Sweet Wheater* flops, even by the more lenient terms of independent cinema.
"Business did pick up in the last couple days," Bliss says. "But it still hasn't done very well overall."
Liberty Hall, which does have a 600seat auditorium in addition to the Little Theatre, has shut off its projectors before. Movies were a fixture until the 1950s when the Granada, 1050 Massachusetts St., began to cut into the clientele.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the hall was a stopover for rock acts like Fleetwood Mac and Devo. Attempts at dinner theatre and less youthful entertainment had no staying power, and the building fell into disrepair. In 1986, the owners renovated it back into a movie house and music venue.
In the lobby, twin crystal chandeliers hang above a 1940s-style tiled floor, dotted in red, green and white patterns. A large popcorn and soft drink costs only $3.75. Boulevard and Free State beer are available. If a movie goes out of focus, the employees readjust it by hand.
Liberty Hall didn't develop its current reputation as a haven for independent and foreign-language movies until the last decade.
In 1989, sex, lies, and videotape, an edgy, voyeuristic hit from the Cannes Film Festival and ushered in the new era of independent films. It opened locally at Liberty Hall and ended up with a national box-office take of $25 million.
Until then, Liberty Hall specialized in film festivals and revivals, showing Woody Allen movies and foreign hits like Akira Kurosawa's *Ran*. Independent movies had yet to catch on.
"I think sex, lies was the first one that was really an independent, but it really produced and did good business." Bliss says.
At that point, distributors and theater owners realized that a market existed for unconventional movies.
"That's how it got started, and it's gotten better and better since," Bliss savs.
John Tibbetts, assistant professor of film, credits the late 1980s movies with jumpstarting the current wave of popularity and Liberty Hall's business.
"Movies like (sex, lies, and videotape) certainly did spell out a new light for alternative movie houses," he says.
It also spelled out new audiences for the growing number of multiplexes.
Later titles such as *The Crying Game* and *Pulp Fiction* broke free of their art house constraints and received wider distribution. In suburban shopping malls, both movies enjoyed box office grosses well into the double digits. *Pulp Fiction* became a phenomenon, eventually raking in $107.9 million nationwide, an impressive hit even by the more rigid standards of mainstream Hollywood.
But they still were art movies, and
in showbiz art movies take months to gross what a Mel Gibson flick can make in one weekend. In the 1990s, outlets like Liberty Hall still had first dabs on the product.
"We showed Pulp Fiction for 26 weeks," Bliss recalls. "If you get a movie like that, you can play them as long as you can. Two or three thousand dollars a week for us is not too bad, but two or three thousand for another movie theater sucks."
Liberty Hall also houses a video store and showcases touring musical acts, but those operate separately from the movie exhibition. If Bliss's movies — and he rarely shows more than three titles at any time — do not pull in that $2,000 each week, it becomes a challenge to afford the rent and advertising.
By 1997, only one movie from a big Hollywood studio, Jerry Maguire, had made the final cut of Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards. That year Bliss had first pick of most of the other top Oscar contenders.
"Last year was the turning point." Bliss says. "We got lucky. We had English Patient, Secrets & Lies, Shine, Sling Blade. We had them all. The distributors let me have them."
Liberty Hall held onto the Best Picture winner, The English Patient, for more than four months, taking in $25,000 off that title alone. Shine and Sling Blade took in an average of $12,000 each, playing for two-month stretches. In contrast, most of the 25 to 30 movies Bliss plays each year rarely stay open longer than a couple of weeks.
Bliss and Liberty Hall's problem attracting top independent films arose when the big studios bought out many of the independent distributors, Tibbetts says.
See LIBERTY on page 6A
Eyewitness accounts and police reports differ
By Ronnie Wachter
wachter@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The two University of Kansas students who were with Lisa Rosel in the 1400 block of Tennessee Street on Tuesday night said she did not fall down in the street before being fatally injured by a vehicle.
Rosel was hit at 11:55 p.m. by a 1997 Mitsubishi Montero driven by Matthew Vestal. Englewood, Colo.. freshman.
Angie Boley, Eden Prairie, Minn., freshman, and Billy Hogan, Minnetonka, Minn., freshman, said yesterday that other details Lawrence police released about the accident were incorrect as well.
"She did not fall down in the street."
"I was four feet away." Boley said. "I know she didn't fall. I see it in my head every time I close my eyes."
Hogan said. "I was five feet away from her, and I reached out to grab her, but she was too far away."
Boley said she also was close to Rosel before Rosel was struck by the car.
Lawrence Police Sgt. George Wheeler said police officers were reviewing witnesses' accounts of the accident and re-examining some of the information released on Wednesday. The re-examination includes whether Rosel had fallen down in the street before she was hit.
"That's going to be a point of contention," he said. "We're getting conflicting information about that."
Hogan also said the vehicle the three students were walking toward, which he owns, was a Ford Bronco II. Lawrence police said Wednesday the car was a Ford Explorer.
Boley said she and Hogan were not on the sidewalk when the accident occurred, as police had reported, but were in Tennessee
Roset: Witnesses provide a different account than police.
Street. The students were not in the crosswalk.
"We were crossing in the street south of
Sgt. Wheeler said Rosel and Vestal's blood-alcohol levels had been tested but could not be released.
14th Street." she said.
"We did the autopsy on her yesterday, and we examined the driver as well, but we won't know the exact results of those soon." Wheeler said.
Wheeler said police officers also analyzed skid marks at the scene.
Boley said although they had been in Bull Winkles, 1344 Tennessee St., before the accident occurred, they were not drunk.
"I think that they've completed their analysis, but I don't know when it will be ready for release." Wheeler said.
Christine Tonkovich, Douglas County
Lindsay Wacholz and Lindsey McClean,
Quincy, Ill., freshmen who were in the Montero when the accident occurred, had no comment about the incident. Vestal could not be reached for comment.
"The investigation has not been given to us, and we will not make any facts in the case public," she said.
More information
District Attorney, said she did not know if any criminal charges would pressed
A friend of Lisa Rosel's comments about the fatal accident in a letter to the editor.
Mysteries, tragedies of life questioned in column.
Tunnel vision
About three miles of tunnels link nearly 90 building on the main campus.Follow the twists,turns history and mystery of the underground system in Hilltopics.
See page 10A
...
Lawrence legend Hometown band Paw is back after a two-year break.
See page 10B
Seeeya!
Paul Pierce gave a final salute to his college career yesterday when he announced that he would enter the NBA Draft.
See page 1B
Let the lines begin
Enrollment starts today. Get those dean stamps and specialpermission cards ready. If you enroll today, you won't need a closed-class opener, but if not... best of luck
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