There’s a pretty decent little movie that opened in Boston on Friday — or was supposed to, until somebody blinked. And thereby hangs a tale of changing technologies and audience habits and of how one of the nation’s most established markets for independent films is getting cut out of the loop.
The movie is called “Mississippi Grind,” and it’s a poker drama and road film set in the American heartland. It stars Ryan Reynolds in one of his more soulful turns and the great Australian character actor Ben Mendelsohn (“Animal Kingdom,” “The Place Beyond the Pines”) in a rare co-lead; they’re two gambling addicts getting in and out of scrapes on the way to a possibly mythical high-stakes game in New Orleans.
The movie owes a lot to the cinema of the 1970s in general and Robert Altman’s 1974 “California Split” in particular — some might say to the point of plagiarism. But it’s genial and observant, the performances run deep, and the soundtrack is excellent. All in all, not a half-bad night at the movies.
So why is “Mississippi Grind” no longer coming to a theater near you? Co-director Anna Boden has local roots — she was raised in Newton — and earlier films she has made with Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson,” “Sugar”) have played strongly. The difference this time is the shift to digital movie watching and how film distributors and exhibitors are reacting to it.
More and more movies are going to digital — iTunes and video on demand (VOD) platforms like your cable company — closer and closer to their theatrical release dates. Theater owners are unhappy about that shrinking gap, and they’re especially cheesed about the practice known as “day and date,” meaning movies that show up on digital the same day they appear in theaters. They believe that such practices will cannibalize their customers, although there has been little research on the subject.
Anyway, day and date isn’t an option for major studio fare. Anything less than a 90-day break between theatrical and digital will get pushback, up to and including threats of boycotts, from the national theater chains. But on the indie art-house front, window shrinkage is becoming the norm and digital day and date can become a lifeline, broadening a small movie’s audience far beyond those who can see it in theaters while concentrating the costs and impact of promotion. More often than not, such films now open theatrically in New York and LA (for exposure and contractual reasons) and go to VOD the same day or within the month, rolling out to theaters in other parts of the country if the reviews and word of mouth are strong.
Still, “Mississippi Grind,” which hits all digital platforms on Oct. 13, is slated to play cities and towns like Boise, Idaho; Portland, Maine; Hartford; and Bonita Springs, Fla. Why not Boston? That has to do with the peculiar configuration of our local theatrical market. Once upon a time — 40 years ago — the Hub was packed with cinemas large and small, palaces and art houses. Today there are two humungo-plexes within city limits, the AMC Common and the Regal Fenway; various “deluxe” multiscreen houses in the suburbs; and a smattering of independently owned theaters treasured by their constituencies: the Coolidge Corner (Brookline), the West Newton, the Dedham Community farther out, the Brattle and the Somerville closer in.
But the dominant force in the Boston area is the Kendall Square in Cambridge, which looks like an art house but often acts like a chain. In fact, it is part of a chain, Landmark Theaters, a 53-theater, 253-screen mini-behemoth owned by businessmen Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner. (Landmark also owns the Embassy in Waltham.) With 11 screens and the clout of a national corporation behind it, the Kendall is the make-or-break house for independent films in the Boston area. And it avoids playing day and date movies — but among the few exceptions are those that happen to be distributed by Magnolia Pictures, a company owned by (wait for it) Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner.
Because of its size, the Kendall often gets first crack at movies on this level. By the time a digital release date is announced, though, it may be too late for a film to hop over to the Coolidge or the Somerville or the West Newton, which have fewer screens than the Kendall and are thus less free to switch their schedules around. And those other theaters aren’t too wild, either, about showing a movie that their customers can dial up at home.
So “Mississippi Grind” gets relegated to the “Now in Theaters” subsection of your cable On Demand menu, a baffling dumpster dive in which excellent movies and acceptable time-wasters are mixed in with genre schlock and outright embarrassments, and no consumer guide yet exists to separate filmic wheat from brain-rotting chaff. For now, those who want something more offbeat or challenging may want to investigate “Time Out of Mind,” “7 Chinese Brothers,” “People Places Things,” “Misunderstood,” “10,000 Saints,” or “Queen of Earth,” none of which have played theatrically in Boston and all of which are currently available on the Comcast menu and doubtless other places. It makes you wonder what on earth the theater owners will do when all movies become available everywhere at once. Because that day is surely coming.
(Some housecleaning: Last week’s column, in which I railed against the death of proper grammar, received a welcome response from word wonks and constant readers of all ages and persuasions. And, as expected, I was ruthlessly schooled in my own lapses. Yes, I confess it: “giveth” and “taketh” should be used only in the third person singular, not third person plural. It’s “Alfred, Lord Tennyson,” not “Alfred Lord Tennyson.” However, despite being knuckle-rapped by a few readers, I insist that the correct usage is “didn’t use to” and not “didn’t used to.” Two past tenses is just too tense.)
Ty Burr can be reached at ty.burr@globe.com.