Brandywine Town Center 16

From delawareonline.com 01/05/2009:

Sold-out movie thwarts Bidens

OK, if it wasn't them, then who were those Secret Service guys?

By ANGIE BASIOUNY
The News Journal

He's a heartbeat away from the presidency, but that apparently didn't help Joe Biden get a movie ticket Saturday night.

Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect and his wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were told the movie was sold out.

There's been no confirmation from the Biden camp, but the theater employees say they are sure it was him.

Inshirah Muhamut, an associate manager, said she closed her box-office line when she saw what appeared to be a Secret Service agent coming her way.

The man asked her about tickets for the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, then left.

A few minutes later, she said, the Bidens came into the lobby.

Jill Biden walked up to speak with Muhamut while Joe stood nearby.

"She was asking me about other shows, but they really wanted to see 'Benjamin Button,' " Muhamut said. "He was maybe five feet away, looking at her. He was standing with his other Secret Service men."

Remarkably, none of the other moviegoers appeared to notice. Employees said nobody mobbed Biden or called his name or asked for an autograph.

"It didn't seem many people recognized him," said employee Becky Gingrich, 21. "Honestly, I think people were just too wrapped up in themselves to notice."

The brush with Biden did give the employees a thrill, though.

"I was a little excited -- I'm not gonna lie," said Muhamut, a 21-year-old senior at West Chester University. "The Secret Service guy told me to calm down."

Muhamut plans to go to the Jan. 20 inauguration, so seeing the Bidens up close was a kick.

"I recognized him as soon as he came up," she said. "He had a black jacket and jeans on. He looked real casual. His wife had on a very stylish jacket."

Gingrich and Muhamut said the Bidens didn't ask for special treatment. They simply mulled over their movie options and left.

"We're just so crazy in here tonight [with patrons] that we would have had to go into the theater and move people around," Gingrich said.

Nice to hear people in Delaware are still attending the movies, however limited their options are. When i was growing up in Wilmington in the '70s we had several places to catch 1st-run films, theaters that started out as single huge houses seating at least 1500 to 2000 patrons, but were then multiplexed as the decade wore on. Anyone out there recall Concord Mall Cinema, Branmar Cinema, the Eric Concordville on Rte.1, Tri-State Mall twin cinemas, the West Goshen twin cinemas, the old Warner downtown, Cinemart, the theaters in Price's Corners, the Edgemoor? Further afield were the State in Newark, the old Warner in West Chester, and a few drive-ins like the 202 in West Chester, Price's Corners, and Newark. Most of my movie-going was confined to the Concord Mall cinema, Branmar Plaza cinema, and Tri-State Mall twins. I watched THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE on 10 successive Saturday afternoons at the Branmar Cinema when I was 10 years old. I would sit through back-to-back showings of films like THE GREAT GATSBY, THE DEEP, KING KONG ('76 version), and BLACK SUNDAY at the Concord Mall cinema. Hey, I was kid with not much to do in the suburbs of Wilmington, DE.

I heard Brandywine Town Center opened in spring 1999, but other sources say 1991 (which makes most sense to me).

Can anyone give me info on the Cinemart on Gov Prinz? I can't find any info anywhere, but, I stop to look at it every time I'm in the area. What a mystery. The only thing I can tell is that I was built in the 60's due to the chandelier and font on the front sign.