By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

Movie fans of all ages should find something to like this year at the Waco Hippodrome Theatre, with its family and classic film series and several minifestivals offering a total of more than 30 films.

The theater’s lineup of movies, to be announced at Saturday’s “Mamma Mia! Sing-Along” fundraiser, aims to reach new audiences for the Hippodrome and provide a revenue stream during the summer and nights without theatrical programming, said Waco Performing Arts Company Executive Director Scott Baker.

Saturday’s sing-along and the scheduled films’ screenings will use the theater’s recently acquired digital projector, one capable of showing high-definition video from Blu-ray discs. Film admission will be $5 for adults, $3 for senior adults, students, children, military and WPAC members. Season passes will be available later, but their costs haven’t been determined yet, Baker said.

Jim Kendrick, a Baylor University assistant professor of film and digital media and WPAC board member, headed the film selection group, which drew input from the entire board.

“For our family series, we wanted movies the whole family could enjoy but which had universal appeal and popularity. They’re films you want to see over and over again,” he explained. That series ranges from classics, such as Mary Poppins and E.T., to more contemporary favorites, such as Finding Nemo and WALL-E.

For the fall season, popular classics were in order. “We wanted films that show cinema at its finest, movies that were entertaining and popular but with a real sense of greatness about them,” Kendrick said. Leading off that schedule: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, newly released in a high-definition Blu-ray format.

The Hippodrome also will screen films in conjunction with upcoming stage musicals (Footloose on March 28 before the April 3 musical performance), emphases (October Sky on April 30, for One Book, One Waco; all five Harry Potter films before the debut of the sixth in July) and holidays (Finding Nemo for Father’s Day, An American Tail for the Fourth of July, Halloween for its namesake).

Various minifestivals of three films shown on two consecutive nights are on the screening calendar, too, highlighting actors (John Cusack) and directors (John Hughes, Mel Brooks).

Kendrick said the selection group’s challenge wasn’t finding movies as much as whittling down their lists to fit available dates. “It was easy to think of so many movies but hard in that we only had so many weeks.”

choover@wacotrib.com

757-5749

Scott Baker, executive director of the Waco Performing Arts Company, checks a test screening of The Polar Express using the Hippodrome's new digital projector. (Rod Aydelotte photo)

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