Comments from muviebuf

Showing 176 - 200 of 207 comments

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Senator goal raised - donate now! on Feb 17, 2007 at 9:14 pm

In mortgage foreclosure situations, in order to stop a foreclosure proceeding once a court complaint has been filed, the debtor must not only bring the mortgage current, but also pay the bank’s “court costs”. These “court costs” include not only the court filing and the sale advertising fees, but almost always also include the bank’s attorney fees as well.

Although the modern trend is to state that the debtor has to pay “reasonable attorney fees”, many older mortgages used to provide (and some still contain the provision today) that the debtor had (has) to pay a fixed percentage of the total amount of the entire mortgage as “attorney fees”. The minimum percentage was (is) at least 5% of the total outstanding mortgage (regardless of the amount actually past due).

All ‘attorney fee" mortgage provisions are a windfall for the bank’s attorneys who get paid what amounts to hundreds of dollars per hour for doing very little work – and most of that work consists of fill-in the blank standard word processing complaint and mortgage foreclosure forms.

I would guess the additional 20K being sought here is for the ubiquitous “court costs”.

Sadly letting any mortgage go into to foreclosure to the point where a complaint is filed in court and a sale is scheduled and the halting the sale is an expensive way of financing.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about AMC aims for $750M in public offering on Dec 14, 2006 at 2:01 pm

You gotta love it! When the current owners took the company “private” just a few years ago, they forced out many small shareholders (including employees who held the former AMC stock in their retirement holdings)and who did not want to sell. Now these same owners want to go back in and re-line their pockets all over again. To quote Gordon Gecko: “Greed is Good”.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Field Trip to tour Hershey Theatre on Nov 17, 2006 at 8:13 pm

The sad thing about the Hershey Theatre is that they have all but given up running film. They are down to about four or five features a year – with each title shown one night only on a Saturday night in the fall and spring. Movies are clearly filler only and not well promoted. With its huge CinemaScope screen this is truly a shame.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Galaxy Theatres closes Kendig Square 6 on Jan 17, 2006 at 9:07 am

Central Pennsylvania has never been a big movie going area. The religious pennsylvania dutch influence has been an oft cited reason. Somewhat ironically the Kending managed to flourish in the late 1990’s as a discount operation because the pennsylvania dutch are notoriously frugal as well.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about AMC Colonial Commons 9 on Oct 23, 2005 at 6:59 pm

Norelco – Your comment is about the Colonial Park 4 (which opened in 1986) and not the AMC Colonial Commons 9 which is a standard AMC plex which opened in 1991.

The Colonial Commons 9 was originally designed as an 8 Plex with 4 large and 4 small auditoriums. At the last minute as construction began they decided to split one of the large auditoriums so the theatre eneded with nine screens.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Marietta Theatre Purchased By Non-Profit on Aug 16, 2005 at 5:38 am

Does anybody have an address, phone number or email contact for these people?

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Arcadia Theatre on Jul 10, 2005 at 7:18 pm

They really did a hatchet job when they cut this wonderful theatre into four screens. Typical of what happened to many theatres int eh 1970’s. One of the auditoriums doesn’t even have fixed seats so they can move the seats for stage presentations and some sort of dinner theatre and I am not even sure why they bother with movies in that auditorium.

Well at least they preseved the exterior and the marguee.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Embassy Theatre on Feb 26, 2005 at 11:47 pm

The last operator of the Embassy Theatre (with his partner and former Reading mayor Paul Angstadt) was Cinema Treausres favorite Richard Wolfe who currently runs the Roxy in Northampton PA.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Sky-Vu Drive-In on Feb 22, 2005 at 11:51 am

The back row of the Sky-Vu is often used by the local Amish who come with their horse and buggies and listen to the sound on portable radios.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Washington D.C. Cinema to Close on Jan 12, 2005 at 12:01 pm

One has to wonder just how long the Uptown will continue to survive. Loews Cineplex recently announced that it was converting the Uptown’s two projector changeover booth to a platter system.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about 1800 Irwin Theater Seats For Sale on Dec 23, 2004 at 6:07 pm

It would certainly be helpful in future posts like this if it would contain the location of where the item(s)for sale are located.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Boyd Theatre on Dec 11, 2004 at 7:51 pm

The last operator of the Boyd in Easton PA was Angstadt and Wolfe Theatres. Richard Wolfe now runs the Cinema Treasures favorite (featured in the new book)the Roxy Theatre in Northampton Pennsylvania.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Glen Theatre on Nov 28, 2004 at 10:07 pm

The Glen Theatre actually has a small stream flowing under the building which aids in heating and cooling.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Eric Twin Colonial Park Theatres on Nov 26, 2004 at 3:53 pm

Sadly the Trans-Lux lasted as single screen for only about nine (9) years before being twinned up with a wall up the middle in what was a typical of the hatchet jobs of that era. In an attempt to soundproof they made the center wall of extra thickness resulting in two long bowling alleys with screens near the top of the ceiling. (It did seem to help sound bleed however). The Trans Lux name for the twin operations was the Blue and Gold theatres (each was done in seperate matching colors). While still in Trans Lux hands at least the theatre was maintened with some degree of quality.

The Trans Lux was sold the twin in the late in the late 70’s to Sam Shapiro’s Eric Corporation of Philadelphia. Sameric Theatres (as they were known) had a “zero maintence” philosophy for all of their locations and the theatre soon fell into disrepair.

In 1986 the Colonial Park Mall wished to expand the mall space out into the parking lot where the then free-standing theatre stood. Thus Sameric got to open a 4 plex inside the mall itself (which is still operating today by FunTimeCinemas as a discount house) in exchange for giving up its lease and letting the mall tearing down the old Trans Lux.

Soon after acquistion by Sameric the Trans-Lux’s 70MM Victoria Projectors were taken a few miles down the road and installed in the Eric East Park Center. The East Park’s set of Century 70MM JJ were in turn installed somewhere in Philadelphia (I believe it may have even been the Boyd).

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Salina Drive-In on Nov 24, 2004 at 4:20 pm

The Salina Drive In was owned and operated by National Amusements.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Colonial Theatre Most Likely To Be Demolished on Nov 21, 2004 at 9:51 pm

According to what I have heard the city awarded the demolition contract on Friday November 19th. I understand they are anxious to get it torn down before it falls down.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Colonial Theatre Most Likely To Be Demolished on Nov 14, 2004 at 10:20 pm

The former Eric in downtown Allentown became some sort of church I believe. It was gutted a few years ago. In the 1970’s it had been cut up into five screens. It was sad to see its projection equipment – including its matched set of Norelco 70MM heads – being sold as bulk lot on Ebay about 4 years ago.

The 1000 seat Plaza near Whitehall was cut into two in the 70’s and closed about 1997. I got some of the speakers from the Plaza when it closed. The more recently closed former GCC 8 plex inside the Whitehall Mall itself was just demolished within the past couple of months.

The older classic theatres that I know of which remain in the Lehigh Valley are: The Roxy Northampton (featured in the Cinema Trearures book),the Franklin (which was known for many years as the Jeannette) the Emmaus in Emmaus, the Boyd in downtown Bethlehem ,the 19th Street and the State in Easton. The former AMC 4 plex in Easton just reopened as a discount house by Nelson Page. Someone is also tying to re-open the former Eric in Easton (most recently called Cinema Paradiso).

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Colonial Theatre Most Likely To Be Demolished on Nov 14, 2004 at 4:32 pm

Actually the exterior four walls still do not look that bad. However I would not get too close. Much of the roof is gone and one of these days the whole thing will collapse.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Colonial Theatre Most Likely To Be Demolished on Nov 12, 2004 at 11:34 pm

Save your gas. The building is falling down. The interior was gutted in the late 80’s before Al Moffa sold the place. The seats from the Colonial ended up (and are still today) in the Roxy Northampton (run by Cinema Treasures favorite Richard Wolfe). I got some of the boxoffice signs and projection equipment.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Goldman Theatre on Nov 11, 2004 at 9:17 pm

Goldman’s inability to get product for this theatre upon its opening led to his filing of an anti-trust suit – which in 1948 led the courts to craft what became known as the Paramount decrees – the forced divesture of studio control of their theatre chains.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Lakeshore Drive-In on Oct 28, 2004 at 10:49 pm

The Lakeshore was one of three (3) drive-ins in the Syracuse NY area owned and operated by the Slotnick family. The other two drive-ins were the DeWitt and the North. The Slotnicks started building hamburger stands under the Carrolls banner and subsequently became Carrolls Development Corp.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Regency I & II on Aug 12, 2004 at 12:51 pm

The Regency was twinned badly into two long bowling alleys. The last picture that I saw at the Regency (and the only one after it was twineed) was a 70MM version of Altered States which was billed as being in Megasound (bass boom version of 70MM. I remember that the screen wasn’t any bigger than a standard screen in similar badly done twins and the sound wasn’t anything that special.

I have to wonder if they had to turn down the subwoofers because of bleed through. There are still several older multiplexs today where I know the subs are turned down because of this problem.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Oldest Continuously Operating Movie Theater? on Aug 10, 2004 at 11:50 am

Also operating continuously from 1916 is the Strand Theatre in Kutztown Pennsylvania which is now a twin.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Oldest Continuously Operating Movie Theater? on Aug 9, 2004 at 8:34 am

There are several theatres that have been continuously operating for a longer period of time. The oldest that I am aware of is the Elks Theatre in Middletown Pennsylvania which opened on October 24, 1911 and (with the exception of a couple of months for upgrades in late 1940 through early 1941) has continuually operated as a movie theatre from the date of its opening. The website and history may be found at www.elkstheatremiddletown.com

The next oldest continually operating theatre that I am aware of is the State Theatre in Boyertown Pennsylvania which opened sometime in 1913.

muviebuf
muviebuf commented about Theatre Chains Square Off In St. Charles County, Mo. on Jul 9, 2004 at 1:28 pm

Everybody speaks about multiplexes in terms of “more choices”. The reality today is that does not mean more choice of titles but merely more choice of starting times. Anytime you have competing plexes all you have is the same movies on that many more multiple screens.