I’m coming into this a bit late, but I find this to be incredibly amusing.

HOOPESTON, Ill. — A small-town theater owner says he wasn’t trying to send Hollywood a message when he shut down for two weeks rather than show box-office leader”Jackass 2″or other new releases that he calls”drivel.”

But even if not purposeful, Greg Boardman’s blank-screened protest is getting a thumbs up from moviegoers who long for family fare and jeers from others who say his theaters are one of the few diversions _ especially for children _ in this farming town of about 6,000 people.

I support this decision 100%. My first thought was that if I’d been in Mr. Boardman’s place, I probably would’ve looked into showing another movie in place of these, but further reading shows that he may have done so (or simply known it wasn’t worth looking into) it appears that contractual obligations kept him from simply opting to show other current releases instead (the article says that it has something to do with guarantees on first week receipts).

Mr. Boardman has no obligation to the public to show every movie that comes down the pike, and if his contractual obligations to the distributor forces him to show Jackass 2 or nothing, and he can afford it, I see no reason to hold it against him that he chose to show nothing. Of course, this is assuming that he hadn’t been advertising that the movie would be shown there; if he had advertised it with posters and whatnot and then simply chose not to show it at the last minute, I’d be less supportive of the decision. (I’m not just saying that to avoid accusations of hypocrisy over my complaints about the local movie theater not showing Night Watch despite all the posters they’d had up, I swear.)

( þ Anwyn’s Notes in the Margin )