Last night my wife and I, and another couple, decided to go to Pawcatuck to the corporate owned Regal Cinema Stonington 10 Cinemas to see Atonement. Yes, that’s right, there are 10 theatres. If we assume, conservatively, that each can hold 200 people, that means that at any given time there could be quite a few people queuing up to buy tickets, which in fact there were. When we got there the line was out the door, all waiting to buy $10.00 tickets from the single ticket seller. We shivered in the cold and rain until we finally got to the front of the line. The theatre has a huge lobby, which was practically empty. It apparently never occurred to anyone working there that the line to the ticket counter could snake around indoors. Better, apparently, to let people freeze in the rain. Eventually we arrived at the ticket window, at which point we were told that we were free to lay out $10.00 for the tickets, but there was no heat in the theatre where Atonement was playing, or the adjacent one, which was playing the only other movie we would consider watching. I can deal with cold if I’m moving, but sitting and shivering is not my cup of tea.
No effort, of course, had been made to let people know this salient fact before they committed their time to waiting in line. Nor, did management do what any reasonable person would have done under the circumstances: offer a steep reduction in price. No doubt there was no one around who could make such a momentous, though obvious decision. Per usual, it’s not even worth trying to complain about this sort of contemptuous treatment; the people who set policy are invisible, and you’d be lucky to get more than blank, uncomprehending stares from the front line, underpaid minions.
Luckily another patron had a blackberry or some other flavor of internet fruit, and found that the Old Mystick Art Theatre, now an Independent, was playing There Will Be Blood, so we decided to go there. There are four Theatres there, with about the same total level of staffing as the 10 Theatres in Pawcatuck. The folks were friendly, and they had heat. As an added bonus, the lack of corporate affiliation deprived us of the pre-movie commercials that are now so common, as well as the pre-movie trivia tests, etc., that also appear to be inescapable.
The movie, by the way, was excellent. How can you complain about a movie that condemns both Big Oil and whack-job religion? The acting was great, and the music, in my opinion, was perhaps the best suited to the on-screen action than in any movie I’ve ever seen.
One Comment