Opinion | If Hollywood wants a scapegoat for poor ticket sales, blame movie theaters
He writes:
On top of screen-by-screen mistakes, you have run-of-the-mill problems that every major chain seems to have decided are acceptable. Exhibitors have apparently given up on properly masking screens — that is, changing the shape of the screen to fit the aspect ratio being projected so as to avoid a letterbox effect one gets from a TV. Which brings me to: story the third. I saw “Dunkirk” in 70-millimeter film on the Thursday it opened and, while I appreciate the theater for projecting actual film for once and director Christopher Nolan making the effort to shoot on actual film, one has to wonder why they bothered when no one at the theater could be bothered to mask the screen correctly. Little bits of distracting gray-white space hung about around the image.
It has gotten to the point that, were I not literally writing about movies for money, I would never go to theaters anymore.
Can’t say I disagree with him, which is why when we go to the movies we tend to go to Arclight or iPic.
What he doesn’t talk about is how miserable the experience is at the average AMC: 25 minutes or more of annoying commercials that you have to watch, because seats aren’t reserved. Adults who think it’s totally fine to bring small children into R-rated films. That guy who is smacking fistfuls of popcorn right behind you. And, always, the texting.
Theatres should be magical and beautiful places, literal movie palaces, where we go to be swallowed up by the screen. They once were, and they can be that again.
Opinion | If Hollywood wants a scapegoat for poor ticket sales, blame movie theaters