Landmark Harbour 9
2474 Solomons Island Road,
Annapolis,
MD
21401
2474 Solomons Island Road,
Annapolis,
MD
21401
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 36 comments
I finally stopped by for a movie under Landmark’s new ownership of the place just shortly after the Oscars. This is the first year I have not seen any of the nominated pictures due to work and not Covid issues. The movies booked are almost carbon copy of that booked at the mall. One would think counter programming would be best to maximize patronage.
The place seems less inviting with the elimination of a live manned box office. You buy your ticket electronically at the kiosk or go upstairs and deal with the person at the concession stand. The 2 people at the stand were friendly enough but offerings weren’t that many. I’m thinking whatever happened to the upgrades BowTie made to expanding the food menu? The equipment must’ve been left behind to make fries, wings and
air fried/convection oven pizza. The upstairs has little tables resembling a cafe area. There is alcohol available. Need a good espresso bar and similar offerings.
The auditorium exteriors have some nice cosmetic upgrades. However, the signage confused me to the point where I went into the wrong auditorium for my movie. I ended up seeing Creed III with a bunch of high school kids. It seems further seating reductions were made to space out this particular auditorium and the comfy cushy BowTie recliners are still there. Screen size and placement look the same and the sound was decent although I didn’t inquire as to format.
The mens restroom was finally modernized to have flushless urinals and decent sinks with hand dryers.
I was in the area one weekday and drove by the place in the afternoon. They had only 2 showings at the time. 5 pm ish and 7 pm ish. Didn’t bother going in but there were cars in the lot. With all the money Bow Tie put in over the years including the hot food equipment, I doubt Landmark did much except dust off the place and unlock the doors :) Now, if they put in a good espresso and/or smoothie machine, I’ll mosey on up to the place.
Looking at the online movie listings, they are in competition with the mall theater booking similar films. Am I to assume film clearance is now in the past? Or, are exhibitors playing nice in the movie showing business now?
Reopened June 5 with free Back to the Future screenings.
Opening weekend was May 24, 1991
Thank you, Jodar. What have they added to the concession menu? I’ll always miss the French Fries we had during the K|B/Apex days (Crown got rid of the frier in ‘97.
I saw the movie Incredibles 2 in #8 last week. The place looks a little more updated with the newer doors and concession upgrades. The recliner seats appear to be similar to the mall ones. If only they had upgraded the sound and installed larger screens. Sound levels for the movie were okay. I think if it played in the mall, it would be louder. Surrounds were ok and ] whatever attendance there was were mostly kids and their parents. Hope to visit the other auditoriums and sample some of the newer concessions on a future visit.
Pics of recliner conversion of theaters 1-4 added. They’re beautiful but drop capacity to 1/3.
New pics of theater’s 6, 8 and 9 with recliners, 5 mid renovation and 1 old school.
If you can make it to Harbor IX please get more pics of the theaters pre-renovation. Or mid-renovation if those theaters are open!
Could be. At the Mall, they just shut down one side while working on the other auditoriums. Not sure how the remodel here is progressing. I may have to visit next week to see, but it depends on the movie line up. :)
The Mall’s new faux leather recliners are very comfortable, maybe too comfortable. I could easily find myself snoozing if I’m seeing a movie that isn’t particularly engaging. And like the Mall venue, prices will probably go up, too.
I don’t like the idea of reserved seating unless the movie is anticipated to open big and you buy in advance.
Could the matinee shut down have to do with the renovation? Like if it’s too loud in the theaters they’re redoing, they can’t show movies in the others, so they just open at night?
For the first time I can remember, the venue no longer has daily matinees during the week. Just evening shows.
I suspect business is very s-l-o-w, but hopefully not to the point where they’ll close this place.
They need to get creative..maybe have lower $3/Tuesdays, book more classics at lower admission rates, offer cheaper concession combos like say buy one popcorn, get soda for free. Those are high gross items anyway, but at least you’re moving product and earning some $.
Odd, when I visited sound was phenomenal in 5 and 6. Maybe a blown out speaker or bad DCP.
I forgot to post I saw ‘La La Land’ back in Jan or Feb. It was not as good as I had hoped. The sound was underwhelming in #4 as if it were muffle. Disappointing. Story was not engaginig but Gosling and Emma Stone make a pretty couple.
Upgrades like seats are nice, but they do need to do something with the sound…larger curved screens? :) I suspect prices will go up, too.
The conversion to recliners is already halfway underway. Theaters 6-9 are closed. 1-5 remain old school… For now. Anyone in Annapolis planning a visit before it goes all modern?
Added photos of my visit
I worked at Harbor 9 from 1994-1997 when it was Apex and later Crown. Visiting the theater after 20 years, I am very impressed with how Bow Tie has up kept and improved the theater.
It seems like all theaters have digital surround sound now, at least through 5 and 6. Before i was only 1-3 that had surround, and only 1-2 went digital in the late ‘90s. New seats have also altered the layout of some theaters. 5 got rid of the aisles, while 2 added an aisle down the center. There must be some new screens too because they’ve certainly fixed 5’s aperture plate issues (if digital even still uses aperture plates). The new Jack & Harry’s popcorn is way better than what we used to pop too.
Thank you, Bow-Tie, for keeping the Harbor 9 theater such a great place to see movies. I still feel the spirit of Annapolis summer blockbusters, winter snow respites and Friday night openings there.
My old stomping grounds, where I worked in high school. It was a much celebrated improvement over the then-4 screen Annapolis mall theater. I remember each of the screens intimately, including the problematic #5. Seems it’s been fixed with the switch to digital in 2010?
They never went to stadium seating, did that? If it’s still sloped auditorium style I’ll have to go back and visit.
Like the other multiplex in Annapolis, the Harbour 9 was designed by architect James Thomas Martino.
I saw ‘The Heat’ with Sandra Bullock..no, not WITH Sandra..she was IN the movie. #6 was practically sold out on this matinee Friday. Surrounds were good especially with me sitting all the way in the back. The ticket person, after swiping my BowTie frequent moviegoer card, didn’t even tell me how many points I had..bad bad bad.
I saw ‘The Life of Pi’ in 3D in #7 with a decent crowd, today. I missed the large screen presentations when the movie first came out but thoroughly enjoyed this moving fantasy tale. The CGI effects are well done, as is the whole look of the movie. I can see Oscar nominations for this movie. The bottom part of the screen looked as if it was fluttering or not properly affixed to the wall, but it was not a constant detraction.
I saw ‘The Master’ here during the first week in DP. For whatever reason, staff were handwriting numbers of our club cards and swiping them.
Given the much ballyhooed celebration of this movie being in 70mm, I wanted to see it first in a different format to compare it to 70mm. After watching it, I didn’t feel compelled to want to see it, again. Sure, the acting by Phillip Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix are great. They are shoo-ins for award nominations for sure, but the subject matter questions why would one bother to go to the expense of filming in 65mm.
All I gathered from the film is Joaquin Phoenix character has this bent up anger/rage sexual repression in him where he tries to deal with it with the help of a Ron Hubbard-like figure played by Phillip Hoffman. He doesn’t get his answers until he sleeps with a bar pick up at the end of the movie. The end.
To be honest, as a general rule, I prefer the projection here to the mall location. Tends to be brighter, crisper, etc. The sound is another story, though not -bad-. It is, I admit, a bit of a groaner if the movie you’re seeing is in auditoriums number seven, eight, or nine. Particularly if it’s an action-science-fiction-spectacle type film (such as The Avengers or Prometheus), and you’re catching up with it a month or so later.
My friend and I saw ‘Lockout’ in #7. A motorized curtain cropped the smallish screen even smaller, for scope, which drew an outburst from a guy in the audience.
Even with the 7.1 upgrade, the lack of subwoofer depth demanded by trailers of upcoming blockbuster films, should require another look at further upgrades. When they played the trailer for ‘Battleship,’ it sounded very tinny compared to the booom booom boooom experience in the THX cert auditorium 1 at the Annapolis Mall.
I have been to several movies at the Harbour 9 in recent weeks and have seen ‘Iron Lady’ in #5, ‘Albert Nobbs’ in #7, ‘Hugo’ and ‘Immortals’ both in 3D. Other then the 3D films, the others seem to be projected with brighter light then at the mall theaters.
With the large number of elderly that frequent the afternoon shows, staff should be more attentive to their needs. An elderly couple came in during previews and could not see where they were going. An usher would have been welcome, but all they do are collect tickets at the top of the escalator. Curiously enough, there are no carpet/runway type lights either to illuminate the floor, at least in #5.
On a concession note, the large soft drink size seems to have been downsized. What a bummer, to get ‘less’ for that $4.75 :P