MovieTheatre Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Week after week, I focus on the good and/or bad concerning moviegoing and the movie theatre industry. But as passionate as I am about the subjects of this column, I've never really felt strongly enough to label any one person either a hero or a villain to moviegoers. Perhaps the closest I've come to calling someone a hero was when I finally had my first experience with an Alamo Drafthouse cinema. On the other hand, I've certainly wanted to call a lot of people villains, including whoever was responsible for my worst moviegoing experience in years and whoever came up with the awful idea to produce scented pre-show ads.

So, it was by some sort of coincidence that last week actually brought news of both a remarkably heroic moviegoer and a terribly villainous theatre owner. Of course, you're welcome to disagree with me as I celebrate the former and castigate the latter. The interesting thing about these two individuals is that some of you may see my hero as a villain, and vice versa. In fact the law has deemed the former a criminal, and meanwhile tons of moviegoers in the UK are championing the actions of the latter. No wonder film exhibition is in such dire straits when there's such disagreement about how to improve the moviegoing experience.

While people around the world are protesting and boycotting and continuing attempts to ban the controversial film The Da Vinci Code, it turns out that all they need in order to cancel its exhibition is a stick of chewing gum. That is what shut down screenings at a theater in Princeton, Kentucky last weekend, anyway. A piece of gum somehow -- presumably thrown -- got onto the take-up platter (a giant disc where the film goes after being projected) of a projector running the film and caused a big, sticky mess, halting the film's run from Saturday afternoon through Monday. Only the print of the film was damaged, and the theater was able to (and had to) run RV until they received a new print of The Da Vinci Code on Tuesday.

Although the theater is not looking to investigate the supposed act of vandalism, its owner says that if the guilty party anonymously sends a couple hundred dollars, that all will be forgiven. And he announced that from now on, the projection booth will be locked.