EASTWOOD LIGHTS UP THE DECADE

Clint Eastwood painted a very funny picture while accepting his award Saturday as the National Assn. of Theater Owners’ “Star of the Decade.”

The 54-year-old actor and director, whose films have reportedly brought $1 billion worth of business to theaters, recalled that it had been 14 years since he won the group’s “Star of the Decade” award for “Dirty Harry.”

“I’m thinking about doing ‘Dirty Harry’ 14 years from now,” Eastwood said. “Harry will be about 68 then, chasing some guy down an alley and stopping every 10 feet to catch his breath.

“He’ll pull out his dentures, gum a hot dog and say, ‘Do you feel lucky?’ ”

The nearly 2,000 people gathered for the closing night banquet of the theater owners’ convention roared with laughter, but secretly, each one of them must have been hoping he meant it.

Dirty Harry fighting with a cane would have more box-office appeal than most of the movies Hollywood supplied them with this year.

At least, that was the dominant theme during the three-day convention, held at New Orleans’ Hyatt Regency Hotel.

There was plenty of talk about the boom in videocassette sales, pay cable and other home-delivery entertainment systems. But everyone agreed that there were simply too few good movies released this year.

The owners didn’t get a chance to tell too many distributors about it either. Not many were here.

The National Assn. of Theater Owners convention has been eclipsed in importance to the studios by ShoWest, the Western states version of the convention that is held each February in Las Vegas.

Columbia and Tri-Star had a major presence here, with current clips from their upcoming movies. Most of the other major studios had either token representation or were absent altogether.

Twentieth Century Fox showed up for the closing banquet because several of the honorees were associated with Fox films.

Kathleen Turner was named “Star of the Year” for “Prizzi’s Honor.” Ron Howard was named “Director of the Year” for “Cocoon” and David Brown and Richard and Lili Zanuck shared the “Producer of the Year” award for “Cocoon.” The others honored by the organization were Michael J. Fox (“Most Exciting New Star” for “Back to the Future” and “Teen Wolf”) and Danny DeVito (“Special Award of Merit”).

You have to give the theater owners credit for honesty. They call a good movie one that makes money, and they give awards to the stars who are responsible.

Eastwood, telling the audience that they “made my decade,” exuded more star power from the stage here Saturday than the Oscar show has put out in the last three years.

Despite the poor box-office returns so far this year, the mood among exhibitors was one of optimism. Most of them have seen most of the Christmas movies, and there was general agreement that four of them--”Rocky IV,” “A Chorus Line,” “Spies Like Us” and “Santa Claus: The Movie”--will make money.

The greatest fear: That “Rocky IV,” like “Beverly Hills Cop” last year, will dominate the box office so completely that the others will never get started.

Other notes and observations from the three-day convention:

SOUND ADVICE: Brian McCarty, a Hollywood sound technician, ruffled some feathers when he stood during one of the general business sessions and accused theater owners of destroying his work.

McCarty, who has done the sound for such films as “Footloose” and “Sweet Dreams,” told the exhibitors that they were playing into the hands of the videocassette and pay-cable industries by not installing and maintaining good sound systems.

“Moviegoing is no longer the ultimate experience,” he said. “The state of the art in home entertainment is way past what you have in theaters. Why should people go out when they can get better quality watching movies at home?”

After the session, several exhibitors and sound engineers gathered around to debate the issue with McCarty. Some blamed projectionists, some blamed overhead costs, some blamed bad sound signals on the films themselves.

But they all agreed sound isn’t good enough in theaters. As one said: “Most people hear better sound in their cars on the way to the theater.”

AND THE SUN WILL COME UP TOMORROW: The Opinion Research Corp. reported on a survey of 2,007 moviegoers that revealed cleanliness to be the most important factor in selecting a favorite theater.

DON’T TELL MICHAEL CIMINO: Another opinion poll reveals that 83% of moviegoers who read movie ads in newspapers say starting time is the most important information in the ad. Nineteen percent said they wanted to know the director’s name.

BEST BET: Columbia Pictures had the most popular hospitality suite during the convention, thanks largely to the California lottery tickets being handed out at the door.

Columbia’s Al Nathan said he brought 2,000 of the tickets with him and paid out about $400 to winners (none higher than $5).

POPCORN NEWS: Flavored popcorn is out. The theaters never did go for it, and hardly anyone is trying anymore.

Even cheese-flavored popcorn, which is outselling regular popcorn in stores, doesn’t sell in theaters.

Said Charles Cretors, whose great-grandfather invented the popcorn machine: “People have too many decisions to make at the concession stand without having to pick a flavor of popcorn.’

Meanwhile, more theaters are popping their own corn and fewer are buying bags of pre-popped.

“People like to smell it and see it being made,” Cretors said. “It’s part of the moviegoing experience.”

CANNON RANGE: Weirdest juxtaposition of films on a product reel award goes to Cannon Films for running promos back to back of Jean-Luc Godard’s “King Lear” and a coming monster movie titled “It Ate Cleveland.”

LOW CONCEPT: Coming soon from New World Pictures is “Grunt, a Wrestling Movie,” about a wrestler who disappears after decapitating an opponent. Sounds like “Eddie and the Cruisers.”

ALIVE AND KICKING: A 1977 Wall Street Journal article said movie theaters faced obsolescence by 1985, but despite evolution of tape, cable and satellite dishes, there are actually 4,000 more theaters now.