You Think Your Local Theater is Bad? See What I Have to Deal With (1 Viewer)

[Jason_Els]

Yes I despise going to the movie theater and it's things like this that are why. It's too bad as Destinta has the best theaters in the county. I won't go near the others, I like heat, chairs with cushions, and my car to be one piece when I get out. A trek to the other theaters is still at least 7 miles and Destinta is 28 miles.

New Windsor Supervisor George Meyers says the same kids who have been throwing bottles at cars and buses in Newburgh are getting out of hand at the Destinta Theaters on Route 94 in New Windsor.... About a dozen cops are deployed in the movie theater on weekends to keep the peace. Even with the cops, the kids are causing, "large-scale riots" and steering business away from the theater, he said.

-- Times-Herald Record, February 11, 2003

The Supervisor then goes on to say some of these kids are as young as 7 years old!

I can't completely blame the movie theater but they compound the problem by not having adequate security or ushers (dare I say they need bouncers?) in the theater itself.

For security reasons I have stopped going to the theater entirely unless it's a special trip to NYC or elsewhere. I'll wait for the DVD from now on. :frowning:

 

[Rob Lutter]

Too bad you don't live in a place like Orlando... in about a 7 mile radius I probably have 10+ theatres I can go to

 

[Vickie_M]

For security reasons I have stopped going to the theater entirely unless it's a special trip to NYC or elsewhere. I'll wait for the DVD from now on.

Too bad for you. I'll quit going to the theater when they put me in the ground (and if there's an afterlife, I'll be haunting-very quietly-as many movie theaters as I can.

 

[Chris Moe]

You need to move to Berkeley. I have four theaters within walking distance from my house and many more within driving distance.

 

[Craig S]

Jason, that's horrible. I've never heard of anything like that in the Houston area.

OTOH, I never go to movies on Friday or Saturday nights, because the theaters are overrun with teens whose reason for being there is not necessarily the movie. Like most of the older moviegoers around here, I haunt the Fri/Sat/Sun early to midafternoon matinees.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Nah, move to Virginia Beach/Norfolk. I live 2 minutes walking from a 4 screen Cinema Cafe (2nd run), less than 2 miles from two theaters (8 and 12 screens, respectively), 3 miles from a Navy Base .99 cent theater (month old movies), and 5 miles from an 18 screen Cinemark (my favorite.) If I push to 10 miles, I get a second Cinema Cafe, another 12 screen, another 8 screen, a very nice 10 screen and a couple of 4 and 5 screens. In all, within 30 minutes of my house, I have something like 100 screens to see first and second run movies. Hampton Roads is pretty saturated with theaters!

 

[Francois Caron]

I miss the days fifteen years ago when Montreal still had plenty of affordable repertoire theaters showing plenty of decent first and second run flicks from all over the world. I still remember being in a packed theater one night watching Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily" and being amazed that 1: the theater was packed with people, and 2: the print was in excellent condition. Even the staff was amazed at how incredibly well the night went.

Today, I find the moviegoing experience to be painful at best. The patrons are rude, the theater equipment is usually badly calibrated and poorly maintained (the repertoire theaters were consistently well maintained), and there's way too many commercials and previews before the main feature.

We've yet to experience riots at or around our theaters, but it may not be long before we inherit that as well.

 

[Seth_S]

I've given up on going to the major chains to watch films. Most people treat it as watching a football game in their living room - talking loudly, getting up for food or the toilet, and then of course there are the ringing cell phones and the people who take the calls!

Thankfully in downtown Philadelphia we have a chain of theaters (The Ritz) that show primarily non-Hollywood, independent and foreign films (About Schmidt, Wonder Boys and Best In Show are about as mainstream as they get). They also show all the "Classic" films which are rereleased no matter how limited their run is, such as Chinatown, The Godfather, Rear Window, Vertigo and Blade Runner. Anyway, the audiences the theater attracts are very tame.

There's also a privately owned theater near my house (basically a small building with 2 screening rooms) that gets everything from the ultra art house type films, to the latest Hollywood trash. The audience is also great there. Best part is that they rarely sell out of seats, so I can leave my house (walking) at 7:50pm for an 8:00pm showtime.

 

[Brian W.]

OTOH, I never go to movies on Friday or Saturday nights, because the theaters are overrun with teens whose reason for being there is not necessarily the movie.

Jeez, no kidding.

But lately I've been going to the Arclight on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a fairly new complex attached to the refurbished Cinerma Dome. It's very upscale with state-of-the-art everything, stadium seating with cushy high-back chairs, ushers that actually seat you and introduce the movie, a small cinema bookstore, espresso stand, a COCKTAIL LOUNGE with a patio (you heard me)... and, of course, ticket prices THROUGH THE ROOF! $11 on weeknights, $14 dollars on weekends! However, they do have 4 hours free validated parking.

I intitially balked at the ticket prices, but you know what I've found? The "talkers" tend not to go to this theater. Almost every movie I've seen there, people are quiet as mice. (The one exception is the ever-problematic Two Towers, which people insist on bringing friends to who haven't seen the first film.)