Comments from zoetmb

Showing 51 - 57 of 57 comments

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Illinois Poltician Sues To Force Theaters To Stop Ads on Apr 3, 2005 at 8:03 pm

Every theatre that I attend posts the time that the trailers start, not the time that the ads start. Maybe this isn’t true everywhere. I hate the ads also, but poster Barry Lee has it right: in the opening weeks of a film, the theatre gets only 10-20% of the take. Movie theaters are concession stands that show movies, not movies that happen to have concession stands. That’s why the junk food they sell costs so much.

If we fight to eliminate the ads, we’ll probably win, but four things will happen as a result:
1. Many more theaters will close, especially those in large cities and expensive suburbs where land values are high.
2. Ticket prices will rise.
3. Theaters will be even more reluctant to invest in better facilities, projection, sound, etc.
4. Incompetent popcorn kids will be running the projectors instead of trained projectionists (this is happening already.)

So my vote is to live with the ads. In the theaters I attend, the house lights are up during the ads and you can talk to your friends during the ads. This really isn’t a big deal. The fact that a lawsuit was actually brought against this goes to prove that Americans are the most stupidly litigious people on the fact of the planet. Get a life.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Ziegfeld Theatre on Mar 10, 2004 at 11:15 pm

It’s unfair to compare the Ziegfeld, built in the 1960s, with the movie palaces built in the 1920s and 30s. The fact is, plaster ornamentation, fancy carpeting, hidden basketball courts and cloud ceilings aside, those old theaters would be terrible places to see modern films with digital 5.1 channel soundtracks today, in spite of the fact that many of them played 70mm 6-track films.

Those old theaters were built with long reverberation times because amplifiers were very low powered in those days. Today, you want just the opposite: very short reverberation times to increase dialogue intelligibility and perceived channel separation within a broad sound field.

The Ziegfeld remains (IMHO) the best place to see a movie in NYC. My understanding is that it’s not profitable, but it is used for many premiers and it’s great that Clearview elects to keep it open as a single-screener. The single-screen Astor Plaza is closing soon and that is also a big loss.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Ziegfeld Theatre on Nov 5, 2003 at 10:20 pm

The Ziegfeld is NOT underground. The lobby is at ground level and the theater is one level up.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about UA Forest Hills Twin Theatre on Nov 5, 2003 at 10:09 pm

You can’t really consider this “open”. The entire old theater was completely demolished. The only thing preserved was the front facade.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Drake Theatre on Nov 5, 2003 at 10:08 pm

This theater is now part of a restaurant.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Baronet and Coronet Theatre on Nov 5, 2003 at 10:07 pm

It’s been demolished.

zoetmb
zoetmb commented about Big Cinemas Manhattan on Nov 5, 2003 at 10:00 pm

The theater is closed and the building is for lease. I’m not sure when (or if) it was the Cine Malibu, but in any case it was also the Pacific East at one time.