This policy would be illegal here in California. When I worked for Century about 5 years ago, we were instructed to let outside food and drink in, as long as it didn’t pose a hazard (e.g. glass containers, etc.). We would actually give people courtesy cups to put their glass-contained drinks in. This is because someone sued one of the chains (AMC if I’m not mistaken) and contested their policy of not allowing outside food or drink on anti-trust basis. The plaintiffs won. I guess the court saw movie theatres as places that show movies and sold food on the side, rather than the reality today of restaurants that show movies.
The trick for the movie theatres is to pretend they give a rip and entice people to buy their products. We were told to pop fresh popcorn during every set, whether or not we needed to. It increased our waste slightly, but our percaps always went up because the smell of freshly-popped popcorn was irresistible. And if they didn’t have anything to drink with them, well that was something we could suggest-sell.
I’ve never been terribly impressed with AMC and it’s presentation or customer service. Regal is not a big player where I am, so I haven’t had the (dis?)pleasure. But I will never buy anything from an AMC concession stand again. They have the uncanny knack of taking neat venues and ruining them. I can only assume they treat their employees like crap because their employees treat customers like crap.
CWalczak is so right! The thing that really gets me about the whole digital transition is how the studios seem to see it as a panacea. But they overlook the most obvious pitfall of digital cinema. It will become EASIER to pirate first-run movies.
For instance, you can’t put a print of a movie in your pocket and walk out of the theatre with it. But you can do that with a hard drive. One of the distribution mediums I’ve read about is for studios to send hard drives with the movie on them. Even if they transmit the movie via some data stream, it’s easy enough to take a hard drive from a movie server and still make a copy of the movie. It is also conceivable that, if studios want access to theatre systems at any time (something else I’ve read in the specs), that same mechanism can be used to steal the movies.
And encryption? Access keys? Forget it! In time, hackers will be able to circumvent those measures. Studios and equipment makers will wind up spending significant time and money countering the hackers. As someone who also has significant experience with computers, the cycle of intellectual property owners trying to create better copy protection schemes is a losing battle. Be it software or a audio/video stream, it’s no different.
I really honestly think that, in time, Hollywood will rue the day they heard the term “Digital Projection”, and they’ll beg the theatres to go back to film. Well, maybe not, but this is going to be a much bigger headache for the studios than they think.
I’m SO glad! I was afraid they were going to tear that place down. It would have been a real shame.
As for turning it back into a single-screen theatre, it just isn’t going to happen, unfortunately. The way the movie business works nowadays, it’s impossible for single-screen movie theatres to survive on their own. The only reason the Century 21 survives is because they book it together with the 22 through 24. It’s even difficult for twins to survive nowadays, with the advent of these 20-screen monstrosities. That’s why once-great movie palaces like the Cinema 150 and the Town & Country Theatre are long gone now. What a shame.
Well, the issues with the modern movie theatre isn’t all their fault. The studios insist on taking outrageous shares of the admission price. In fact, for many of the big blockbusters, they even want a share of the concession for the first week or two.
That’s why movie theatres today are really more like restaurants that play movies. The managers often run the movies, and they’re worried about getting back down stairs to help move the concession line. If they’re busy (or just careless), they make mistakes in threading the film which cause damage that ruins the presentation. Also, they sometimes don’t stick around to make sure the feature is in focus.
It’s extremely unusual to have a full-time projectionist work at movie theatres nowadays, which means most of the people don’t know how to change the bulbs when they develop a flicker (and it’s not like changing a household bulb; it’s much more complicated and much more hazardous). In fact, in many of the larger chains, they have one projection booth technician per district, which can have as many as 60 screens. All because theatres need to save money.
There’s no artistry in movie presentation anymore. IMAX is little more than a gimmick, especially when AMC tries to pass off conventional movie screens as a proper IMAX presentation (which it isn’t!). The whole digital movie transition happening now is to suit the studios and reduce their costs. The current 3-D thing is just a fad because it’s been 50 years since the last time it was a big deal. You still need special glasses to see the 3-D, which I find annoying and gives me a headache.
Movies nowadays are too much about the business than the art. It’s too bad, really, because I feel much is being lost between the sub-par plots in much of the junk that passes for movies nowadays, and the sub-par presentation that currently exists in movie theatres (and will continue with the digital transition); all to turn a buck. I think Hollywood is being very short-sighted, and everything is suffering because of it. It’s really too bad.
This policy would be illegal here in California. When I worked for Century about 5 years ago, we were instructed to let outside food and drink in, as long as it didn’t pose a hazard (e.g. glass containers, etc.). We would actually give people courtesy cups to put their glass-contained drinks in. This is because someone sued one of the chains (AMC if I’m not mistaken) and contested their policy of not allowing outside food or drink on anti-trust basis. The plaintiffs won. I guess the court saw movie theatres as places that show movies and sold food on the side, rather than the reality today of restaurants that show movies.
The trick for the movie theatres is to pretend they give a rip and entice people to buy their products. We were told to pop fresh popcorn during every set, whether or not we needed to. It increased our waste slightly, but our percaps always went up because the smell of freshly-popped popcorn was irresistible. And if they didn’t have anything to drink with them, well that was something we could suggest-sell.
I’ve never been terribly impressed with AMC and it’s presentation or customer service. Regal is not a big player where I am, so I haven’t had the (dis?)pleasure. But I will never buy anything from an AMC concession stand again. They have the uncanny knack of taking neat venues and ruining them. I can only assume they treat their employees like crap because their employees treat customers like crap.
CWalczak is so right! The thing that really gets me about the whole digital transition is how the studios seem to see it as a panacea. But they overlook the most obvious pitfall of digital cinema. It will become EASIER to pirate first-run movies.
For instance, you can’t put a print of a movie in your pocket and walk out of the theatre with it. But you can do that with a hard drive. One of the distribution mediums I’ve read about is for studios to send hard drives with the movie on them. Even if they transmit the movie via some data stream, it’s easy enough to take a hard drive from a movie server and still make a copy of the movie. It is also conceivable that, if studios want access to theatre systems at any time (something else I’ve read in the specs), that same mechanism can be used to steal the movies.
And encryption? Access keys? Forget it! In time, hackers will be able to circumvent those measures. Studios and equipment makers will wind up spending significant time and money countering the hackers. As someone who also has significant experience with computers, the cycle of intellectual property owners trying to create better copy protection schemes is a losing battle. Be it software or a audio/video stream, it’s no different.
I really honestly think that, in time, Hollywood will rue the day they heard the term “Digital Projection”, and they’ll beg the theatres to go back to film. Well, maybe not, but this is going to be a much bigger headache for the studios than they think.
I’m SO glad! I was afraid they were going to tear that place down. It would have been a real shame.
As for turning it back into a single-screen theatre, it just isn’t going to happen, unfortunately. The way the movie business works nowadays, it’s impossible for single-screen movie theatres to survive on their own. The only reason the Century 21 survives is because they book it together with the 22 through 24. It’s even difficult for twins to survive nowadays, with the advent of these 20-screen monstrosities. That’s why once-great movie palaces like the Cinema 150 and the Town & Country Theatre are long gone now. What a shame.
Well, the issues with the modern movie theatre isn’t all their fault. The studios insist on taking outrageous shares of the admission price. In fact, for many of the big blockbusters, they even want a share of the concession for the first week or two.
That’s why movie theatres today are really more like restaurants that play movies. The managers often run the movies, and they’re worried about getting back down stairs to help move the concession line. If they’re busy (or just careless), they make mistakes in threading the film which cause damage that ruins the presentation. Also, they sometimes don’t stick around to make sure the feature is in focus.
It’s extremely unusual to have a full-time projectionist work at movie theatres nowadays, which means most of the people don’t know how to change the bulbs when they develop a flicker (and it’s not like changing a household bulb; it’s much more complicated and much more hazardous). In fact, in many of the larger chains, they have one projection booth technician per district, which can have as many as 60 screens. All because theatres need to save money.
There’s no artistry in movie presentation anymore. IMAX is little more than a gimmick, especially when AMC tries to pass off conventional movie screens as a proper IMAX presentation (which it isn’t!). The whole digital movie transition happening now is to suit the studios and reduce their costs. The current 3-D thing is just a fad because it’s been 50 years since the last time it was a big deal. You still need special glasses to see the 3-D, which I find annoying and gives me a headache.
Movies nowadays are too much about the business than the art. It’s too bad, really, because I feel much is being lost between the sub-par plots in much of the junk that passes for movies nowadays, and the sub-par presentation that currently exists in movie theatres (and will continue with the digital transition); all to turn a buck. I think Hollywood is being very short-sighted, and everything is suffering because of it. It’s really too bad.