Paul — we’ve been over this a bunch of times. This isn’t the place for you, or others, to be discussing your reputation. Please take this discussion offline.
Here are a few of mine to get this thread started…
I usually have a Coke, though I’m giving up soda for the new year.
Normally, I don’t buy popcorn. (I ate enough popcorn for a lifetime when I worked at a movie theater in college.)
I prefer to sit in the lower middle of the theater. Aisle seats (especially those on the right) are nice. In stadium theaters, I often sit in the very back row of the lower level — people assume non-stadium seats are bad, but that’s often not true.
Here are a few of my favorite “midnight” experiences…
Watching five dollar midnight movies all through college at a Carmike multiplex
Screening of “Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn” at the Sunshine Cinema
Another screening of “Wrath of Kahn” at La Jolla Village Cinemas. Before the show, they had a trivia contest with cool give-aways. (Part of their awesome MIDNIGHT MADNESS series.)
Midnight screening of “Wet Hot American Summer” at the AMC Empire 25 with Michael Showalter, Ian Black, David Wain, and Janeane Garofalo providing live, pre-show entertainment.
Watching a live stage of the Tour de France, which began at 5am here on the West Coast. (The concession stand was closed, but the manager had coffee and donuts on hand.)
Pacific Theatres runs an awesome megaplex on 5th Avenue in downtown San Diego, but it does horrible business — empty all week, even Friday shows aren’t very busy — because there’s no place to park.
By comparison, the aging, mid 80s multiplex at nearby Horton Plaza does way more box office. Why? Two reasons: (1) it’s adjacent to a shopping mall and (2) parking is ample (and validated with a ticket purchase).
Hey…. it wasn’t my idea to save nine seats, guys. But I do have to defend my girlfriend. ;)
The screening was for a film her aunt produced
We bought nine tickets in advance for the seats we were saving
We sat in a ground-level row in a stadium-style theater (leaving better seats for others)
The movie was much more popular than we anticipated
Most people were okay with it.
Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I do this for a normal movie? Definitely not. Do I think it’s pushing it to save so many seats? Sure, but it was a special occasion.
Let’s take this discussion offline, everyone. I don’t want to see this theater page became yet another flame war.
If the Ritz is being restored, that’s a good thing. We can disagree about what makes a good “restoration”, but CCPATCH should get some credit for trying to do the right thing.
With our current technology platform, paginating comments would be difficult, Jim. We do have ideas for how we might deal with this issue in the next major site upgrade… but, for now, we need to work with what we have.
But there is some good news. We’re now compressing long pages as they’re sent to your browser. So pages with lots of comments are loading quite a bit faster than before, even on dialup.
We’re still testing it… but, for now, search is back up!
Also… we’ve made a lot of progress improving our “category” pages… like browsing theaters by architect, firm, etc. Those pages are loading almost instantly now (vs 20 – 30 seconds before).
We probably won’t make an official announcement until Monday, but I thought you guys might like to know. :)
Category pages (like architects or states) share a lot of code with the search page.
But it’s easier to disable search, so that’s why it’s not working. We never made specific “city” pages… so those pages are just searches, and that’s why they’re disabled.
States, on the other hand, are distinct pages, even though you wind up with similar results.
…
Ultimately, though, any page that shows a list of theaters — whether a search or not — will need to be optimized. These types of pages put a tremendous load on the server.
Maybe you misread my post, Dave… but discussing movies is completely fine.
Again, if it gets out of hand (dozens of comments about a movie on a theater page), we might have a problem. But the occassional movie discussion is completely okay, even welcome.
We’re working hard to improve the community here on Cinema Treasures, so I hope you don’t give up on the site just yet.
While Cinema Treasures main focus is moving theaters, it’s okay to discuss movies… after all, that’s why we go to theaters in the first place.
Use your discretion, of course. This probably isn’t the place to have an in-depth discussion about movies (as Jim points out), but a comment or two is okay.
Warren, it’s not your job to worry about whether an image has copyright issues. Leave that to the people who run this website.
As you can see, attacking the contribution of another user is pretty counter-productive. And, personally, I’m pretty tired of dealing with the same argument, over and over, on multiple theater pages.
Your contributions are welcome. But, if you can’t get along with other users on this site, or at least stop baiting people with negative comments, we may be forced to suspend your posting privileges for a while.
Ed… I like your idea, but how do we determine what is and is not tangential? How do we tell a member their posts were removed because they were “tangential”? What if they disagree with our analysis?
Frankly, this is a giant can of worms that we have no intention of opening. While it seems simple to do this for a single theater, we’ll never have enough volunteers to manage 15,000 theaters that way.
That said, your main point stands. We definitely need a forum for this project, so that these sorts of discussions don’t distract from the main purpose of the site.
…
Warren… sadly, we don’t have any magic powers to figure out if someone has multiple user accounts. And next time I personally remove a comment on your behalf, perhaps you can be a little more appreciative? :)
Tonino… I removed a comment made by Al Alvarez where he suggested that two of our users have sex with each other.
Warren… Mike Zoldessy is responsible for updating our theater news blog (the news and updates on our homepage). We announced this recently… look in the ‘Site News’ category for the actual announcement.
We’re also working on adding another volunteer who just focuses on user comments. (I fixed the wrapping on this page for now, though.)
Knock it off, Warren and pmullins. This isn’t the place for this sort of discussion.
Let’s please try to stay focused on the purpose of this website.
Thanks,
Patrick
Knock it off, guys. You’ve gotten pretty far off-topic here.
This isn’t a dumping ground for off-topic posts, Tonino. Let’s try to keep the conversation productive, everyone.
Wow, that’s awesome news.
A round of applause to everyone who made a donation. You really helped save one of the true cinema treasures.
Paul — we’ve been over this a bunch of times. This isn’t the place for you, or others, to be discussing your reputation. Please take this discussion offline.
Here are a few of mine to get this thread started…
I usually have a Coke, though I’m giving up soda for the new year.
Normally, I don’t buy popcorn. (I ate enough popcorn for a lifetime when I worked at a movie theater in college.)
I prefer to sit in the lower middle of the theater. Aisle seats (especially those on the right) are nice. In stadium theaters, I often sit in the very back row of the lower level — people assume non-stadium seats are bad, but that’s often not true.
Here are a few of my favorite “midnight” experiences…
Watching five dollar midnight movies all through college at a Carmike multiplex
Screening of “Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn” at the Sunshine Cinema
Another screening of “Wrath of Kahn” at La Jolla Village Cinemas. Before the show, they had a trivia contest with cool give-aways. (Part of their awesome MIDNIGHT MADNESS series.)
Midnight screening of “Wet Hot American Summer” at the AMC Empire 25 with Michael Showalter, Ian Black, David Wain, and Janeane Garofalo providing live, pre-show entertainment.
Watching a live stage of the Tour de France, which began at 5am here on the West Coast. (The concession stand was closed, but the manager had coffee and donuts on hand.)
Here’s a perfect example of this trend.
Pacific Theatres runs an awesome megaplex on 5th Avenue in downtown San Diego, but it does horrible business — empty all week, even Friday shows aren’t very busy — because there’s no place to park.
By comparison, the aging, mid 80s multiplex at nearby Horton Plaza does way more box office. Why? Two reasons: (1) it’s adjacent to a shopping mall and (2) parking is ample (and validated with a ticket purchase).
Hey…. it wasn’t my idea to save nine seats, guys. But I do have to defend my girlfriend. ;)
Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I do this for a normal movie? Definitely not. Do I think it’s pushing it to save so many seats? Sure, but it was a special occasion.
Let’s take this discussion offline, everyone. I don’t want to see this theater page became yet another flame war.
If the Ritz is being restored, that’s a good thing. We can disagree about what makes a good “restoration”, but CCPATCH should get some credit for trying to do the right thing.
My girlfriend tried to save nine seats at a packed opening-night show. She pulled it off, but man, people were pissed! (And rightly so.)
With our current technology platform, paginating comments would be difficult, Jim. We do have ideas for how we might deal with this issue in the next major site upgrade… but, for now, we need to work with what we have.
But there is some good news. We’re now compressing long pages as they’re sent to your browser. So pages with lots of comments are loading quite a bit faster than before, even on dialup.
We’re still testing it… but, for now, search is back up!
Also… we’ve made a lot of progress improving our “category” pages… like browsing theaters by architect, firm, etc. Those pages are loading almost instantly now (vs 20 – 30 seconds before).
We probably won’t make an official announcement until Monday, but I thought you guys might like to know. :)
Category pages (like architects or states) share a lot of code with the search page.
But it’s easier to disable search, so that’s why it’s not working. We never made specific “city” pages… so those pages are just searches, and that’s why they’re disabled.
States, on the other hand, are distinct pages, even though you wind up with similar results.
…
Ultimately, though, any page that shows a list of theaters — whether a search or not — will need to be optimized. These types of pages put a tremendous load on the server.
Thank you, Roger. We’ve met with the CinemaTour guys also, so there might be other ways we can work together down the road.
Lost — most duplicates happen when the site is overloaded, but this sounds different. I’ll look into it.
Maybe you misread my post, Dave… but discussing movies is completely fine.
Again, if it gets out of hand (dozens of comments about a movie on a theater page), we might have a problem. But the occassional movie discussion is completely okay, even welcome.
We’re working hard to improve the community here on Cinema Treasures, so I hope you don’t give up on the site just yet.
While Cinema Treasures main focus is moving theaters, it’s okay to discuss movies… after all, that’s why we go to theaters in the first place.
Use your discretion, of course. This probably isn’t the place to have an in-depth discussion about movies (as Jim points out), but a comment or two is okay.
Warren, it’s not your job to worry about whether an image has copyright issues. Leave that to the people who run this website.
As you can see, attacking the contribution of another user is pretty counter-productive. And, personally, I’m pretty tired of dealing with the same argument, over and over, on multiple theater pages.
Your contributions are welcome. But, if you can’t get along with other users on this site, or at least stop baiting people with negative comments, we may be forced to suspend your posting privileges for a while.
Sorry about that, Mark. I’ve removed the links, per your request.
Ed… I like your idea, but how do we determine what is and is not tangential? How do we tell a member their posts were removed because they were “tangential”? What if they disagree with our analysis?
Frankly, this is a giant can of worms that we have no intention of opening. While it seems simple to do this for a single theater, we’ll never have enough volunteers to manage 15,000 theaters that way.
That said, your main point stands. We definitely need a forum for this project, so that these sorts of discussions don’t distract from the main purpose of the site.
…
Warren… sadly, we don’t have any magic powers to figure out if someone has multiple user accounts. And next time I personally remove a comment on your behalf, perhaps you can be a little more appreciative? :)
Tonino… I removed a comment made by Al Alvarez where he suggested that two of our users have sex with each other.
Warren… Mike Zoldessy is responsible for updating our theater news blog (the news and updates on our homepage). We announced this recently… look in the ‘Site News’ category for the actual announcement.
We’re also working on adding another volunteer who just focuses on user comments. (I fixed the wrapping on this page for now, though.)
Al Alavrez — please keep your posts on-topic. Attacking other users doesn’t help save movie theaters, and it can get you banned from this website.
I just stopped in Raton on my way back from Denver.
The town is very small, but quite charming. I briefly drove past the theater… it was cool to finally see it in person.
Santa Clarita doubles for the fictional city of Agrestic, where the Showtime television show Weeds takes place.
There’s also a crazy long list of other film and tv credits.
Bway is right, guys.
If you can’t stay on-topic and be friendly with each other, we may be forced to take action. So please keep things civil, ok?