an open letter to the manager of the fox tower 10 downtown
dear mr/mrs manager:
i love movies. i go to a lot of movies, mainstream, indy, good, bad, good-bad, bad-bad, whatever. hell, i am a member of the regal crown club. and yet i do not spend my money at your theater often, even though you are basically, due to the near throttlehold regal has on the first-run cinema business here in portland, the only provider of (mainstream) indy movies in town. and all you hear about nowadays are how moviegoers are staying home, are leaving theaters to suffer and die a slow death while they watch movies on their new plasma-screen home theater. well, you’re theater isn’t helping.
every time i go to a movie at your theater, something goes awry– for a while (see broken flowers and you, me and everyone you know), there seemed to be a problem with the audio and a possible lack of focus. when i came to see layer cake, again, it was a focus issue, and even bringing it to your employees’ attention didn’t help the matter. this past weekend, after gritting my teeth and paying to see district b13 (nothing like a crazy French action movie to get my ass in a seat) at your establishment after a nearly year-long boycott, i crossed my fingers and hoped for the best…
…and nearly got it. the picture was in focus, the print wasn’t scratched, the soundtrack was crystal-clear– and, by the way, you have lovely, lovely employees who seemed generally happy to be at their minimum wage job serving popcorn– until the switchover to the last reel.
a small aside– as anyone who’s seen fight club knows, films come in reels. unlike in fight club, most modern theaters splice these reels together into one big reel which sits on a platter as the movie unspools. this prevents the need for actual trained projectionists to sit and monitor five reel changes in the average movie. end aside.
so the next-to-last reel ends and we the audience are treated to about 10 seconds (okay, maybe only five seconds) of blackness before the first frame of the last reel starts, very jarring. this black area is typical at the end of a film reel to let whoever’s doing the splicing know when the reel is over, but should not be seen by an audience. i don’t know how much the rest of the audience was affected by this, but you could feel the “wha huh?” ripple in the theater. and i just shook my head and again vowed never to return…
at least until the next must-see movie arrives.
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Same thing happened to me. That theatre has issues.
I go to the cinema about once a week and often times end up at Fox Tower. Pioneer Place, Bridgeport Village, and Cedar Hills Century Theatres are also places that I go. All pretty nice theatres.
I think Fox does a nice job and have never had an ill experience regarding picture quality, sound, or reel changes. Thankfully, appears as though I’ve been lucky. Hopefully Fox Tower can make good.
On another film going issue…
I am often surprised about some of the fellow film goers lack of manners. Some of my biggest annoyances are…
The Precog… The person who likes to impress whomever they’re with with their abiltiy to read the outcome seconds before its revealed, it’s not even the climatic outcome but all the little revelations throughout the film.
The Sicko… This one is perhaps the worst of all, the hacking, coughing, and sneezing person who should have really stayed home.
The Laughter Weirdo… I am all for side splitting laughter but when someone comes into a film with the preconcieved notion of wanting to laugh and the film is say more subtle than that, it usually takes this person about the first quarter of the film to realize this and their strange outbursts can distract.
The Late Comer… Needs no explanation.
The Idiot Talker… This person seems to think they are in their living room and like to comment on everything that pops into their little idiot mind, Two words for this person, hush now.
The Baby Toter… Leave the baby at home and understand that for these first few years you are going to have to make sacrifices and going to the cinema is one of them. I didn’t come to the film to hear your baby crying, then you trying to comfort your crying baby, and lastly you getting up to (thankfully) leave the theatre. Stay home or tranqulize the child
The above mentioned are people who fail to recognize that those around them are people who have paid for an experience that does not include thier personality.
well said Atlas. well said!
Yay for Netflix.
netflix and my much-lusted over hdtv that i want would make me never go to the movies again… except the three-buck theaters with pizza and beer.
I couldn’t agree with Atlas more.
Don’t get me started on the Regal Crown Club