During this interview, the main subject was the history of the local theatres. We did talk about the rating system and some of the positives and negatives about the current theatres. Chris was also interested in how my site got started, and about the kinds of things I learned while doing the research.

One thing Chris asked me was if I could actually enjoy a movie if there was any kind of presentation defect. I showed him the review of a movie that had 24 points worth of deductions and he said "I'll bet you were miserable in that one" and I told him that the number of points deducted was related to how much a problem detracted from the enjoyment of a movie. The "scope at 1.85:1" problem was discussed, so I hope something about that gets into the article, since it might be the push that Regal needs to prioritize the fixing of that problem in Huntsville.

I took copies of grand opening ads for all the old drive-ins to the interview and left the copies with Chris. He might use them, as well as any old pictures that can be dug up of the old theatres.

As with the interview I had with the Decatur Daily about 6 weeks ago, I really don't know what will be printed. It's amazing to me that my site has been out there since February 1998 and suddenly I've had two interviews with newspapers in a 6-week period. When the article runs, I'll post it here like I did with the Decatur Daily article from a month ago.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Congratulations on the interview. If there is a site where it will be posted, let us know. And PS -- GREAT site! A few years ago my girlfriend, who hated to go to the movies with me because I would complain for two days about all the bad presentation values I was subjected to, told me, instead of complaining, why don't you write a book and rate the theatres in NYC. Well, I never got around to doing that, but I see you did the next best thing. Very cool, man. Maybe someday I will get around to doing something along the same lines.

Here's one suggestion that I would make -- you need to have some vices that are so bad....so unforgivable, that no matter how good the other aspects of the operation are, theatres that have these "statutory failure" items would immediately get an F and must be given a "not recommended under any circumstances" rating. For example, I would give an immediate F to any theatre that did not have stereo sound. In this day and age EVERYTHING is stereo --even a $99 VCR will play movies in stereo. A patron who is denied that essential ingredient in presentation should demand his money back. And I think that just as most other industries must have truth in advertising, I think a theatre that isn't playing a stereo film in stereo, should at the very least indicate that in their ads and at the BO window BEFORE the patron plunks down his $8 - $10. How a theatre can still be running movies in mono sound is beyond the pale. And how it can charge the same ticket price as a theatre that has gone ahead and installed a $15,000 6 channel stereo system is just plain deceptive and dishonest.
Oh, and here's another one -- theatres that play scope and flat all in the same 2:1 ar should also get statutory Fs.

The second suggestion is, I would be a lot more sever for any theatre that reduces image height to show scope. The whole reason for any wide screen system was to make the existing Academy aspect ratio WIDEN....the mask is supposed to OPEN, not shrink down. The image should get WIDER, not shorter! Moving the horizontal masks inward simply defeats the whole concept of wide screen. I suppose if everything else is PERFECT, I might still recommend a theatre that had "letterboxed" scope, but under most circumstances I would have to give a "not recommended" to that kind of terrible compromise. After all, if the patron wanted to see a letterboxed image, he could wait to see it on DVD.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents, and again, congrats on a great site.

"I WOULD RATHER WATCH A MOVIE IN A WELL ADJUSTED GOOD SOUNDING MONO HOUSE, THAN WATCH IT IN A BAD SOUNDING DIGITAL ONE"

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Here's one suggestion that I would make -- you need to have some vices that are so bad....so unforgivable, that no matter how good the other aspects of the operation are, theatres that have these "statutory failure" items would immediately get an F and must be given a "not recommended under any circumstances" rating. For example, I would give an immediate F to any theatre that did not have stereo sound. In this day and age EVERYTHING is stereo

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One such vice that everyone here is sick of hearing about that currently guarantees a maximum "C" rating if everything else is perfect is showing scope at 1.85:1 in many auditoriums. Since few theatres can achieve much better than a "-2.5" rating (A-), these theatres end up with a "D" or "F" rating. As I said earlier, I hope this gets mentioned in the article. When asked, "What are your feelings about the current theatres", I replied "It is sad that Huntsville has only one theatre, the Carmike 10, that can show the entire movie image for all movies in all its auditoriums." I also told the interviewer that I wished the Times would investigate the problem and publicize it more, since it may be the push that Regal needs to fix it. I don't think Regal would ever fix the problem just because of my WWW site unless more people noticed the problem and complained. A posting from months ago indicated to me that my complaints caused Regal to probably "resent everything I say". Well, I'm not planning on stopping complaints on this matter, but I'll be the first to praise Regal when the problem is fixed. I'll stop complaining if (1) I get notification that the problem will be fixed, or (2) I notice that the problem is being fixed or has been fixed, especially after this October 17, 1999 clip in the Huntsville Times referencing the fixing of the problem, that never happened:

Theatre companies seem to tell the press very little nowadays. When the Decatur Daily tried to get information out of Carmike concerning the dilapidated condition of Decatur's Carmike 8, the reporter got very little. Basically, the answer was "We don't comment on ...". Channel 48 got the same thing when they questioned Regal about the many car break-ins at Hollywood 18 in Huntsville. The media needs to turn up the heat a bit and do more stories on theatre problems. The whole "We won't give you any information or talk to you" attitude is going to drive the theatre industry farther into trouble. Let's just wait and see what happens when the press get fed up and print and air more negative stories about problems and more customers opt to wait for the DVD as many are already doing (unfortunately).

I don't do facility deductions for lack of digital sound or lack of stereo sound, since I've heard some mono presentations that sounded better than some stereo presentations. Some auditoriums in my area have such severe problems with their stereo sound systems that they are basically just distorted mono. It is common for analog stereo movies to play with no surround output or with a mono-ish mix which seems to come from all auditorium speakers equally. The second case is much worse and I do deduct harshly for it sometimes.

Out of the friends I have, I'm one of the few who enjoys going to theatres, and I'm saddened by the current state of things. I mentioned the general lack of showmanship in the interview, and mentioned that there is only one theatre, the Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur, that really puts the proper effort into keeping the presentation quality top notch, with Carmike 10 coming in close behind it. All others have unacceptable problems from either sloppy projection, unadjustable screens, or both.

I've still not received any information about when the story would run. With the Decatur Daily article, there was about a week delay. Such a story is not time-sensitive, so it will get bumped until there is space for it. The text of the last article, from the Decatur Daily, which I was interviewed for, can be read under the thread "Newspaper article about problematic theatre" under the Film Handler's forum (from December 6, 2001).

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

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When the Decatur Daily tried to get information out of Carmike concerning the dilapidated condition of Decatur's Carmike 8, the reporter got very little. Basically, the answer was "We don't comment on ...".

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You are incorrect. The UA Barcode system can be adapted to not show on the screen. It is on this site somewhere (I cant remember right now) but involves a very simple operation of turning the reader sideways and trimmimg the barcode stickers. Very Simple.

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Mike, to be fair, some newspapers have reporters that will twist words all out of context either through ineptitude or by intent.

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That's true. Many things in the Decatur Daily article were taken out of context. For example:

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But Carmike's smaller crowds are indicative of the theatre's shortcomings. according to a computer scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville

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I never said that the attendance numbers were an indication of the theatre's problems.

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"I think a lot of people would rather drive to Huntsville to see movies shown properly," he said.

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This was part of something I said when we were talking about the Decatur theatres only, and when we were comparing the run down Carmike 8 with the excellent Regal River Oaks Cinema 8. I said that if a movie was not playing at Regal River Oaks, then they'd rather go to Huntsville. That's quite a different meaning that the way the newspaper quoted me. From the article, it looked like I was bashing both Decatur theatres, which is not the case. The Regal River Oaks 8 is the one that I rate the highest out of both Huntsville and Decatur. When I read this, I called the manager of Regal River Oaks and explained how the interview went in comparison to what was printed, so he would know that I said nothing but positive things about his theatre which did not come through well in the article.

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Criswell puts much of the blame for Carmike's problems on what he says is the company's policy of moving its managers from theatre to theatre.

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I mentioned the movement of managers, but I did not say that it was the main cause of the problems.

It is easy to see that articles can change the meanings of things said in many ways. I hope the Huntsville Times article will be a more accurate representation of what I said in the interview with them.

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Evans, those are good examples of the type of problems that happen when consenting to be interviewed. Until the web, journalists pretty much had free rein over how the news was presented, and attempting to get a misquote corrected often resulted in a spiral of negative publicity. The problem still exists, but a well worded correction on a website sometimes might limit the damage.

Could you write your own articles, and send them out as press releases?

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One thing about my WWW site is if I feel that I am misquoted or misrepresented, all I have to do is clarify it with a "news" item on my site. Although I felt slightly misrepresented by the Decatur Daily article, I did not mention it on my site since any user of my site would see the ratings and data, which would clarify things, since the data would speak for itself.

I've thought about writing my own editorials or articles to place on my site, but before I do so, I feel that I need to have information in there above and beyond what is in the rest of my site. For example, writing about the "scope at 1.85:1" problems seems pointless since I already have it mentioned in the ratings table, the description files for the two theatres affected, and have a whole page just for showing how much image is lost in that case. My site already makes that point, so the only purpose of an editorial would be to attempt to persuade people to write letters or refuse to attend afftected movies here locally.

I've tried to be very careful to just present facts and not let too many opinions creep into the site. I try to just "let the data speak for itself", since all the data alkready speaks my opinions. I can't think of a single instance where the data I've collected does not represent my opinion of a theatre. I decided back in 1997 when I started the ratings, to let the data drive my opinions rather than my opinions driving the data.

I just wonder what kinds of twists will be on my words in the Huntsville Times article. And just think, if these types of distortions occur in little articles about theatres, just think of what happens to all the other articles printed! It shows how much "filtering" takes place on the news before we ever hear it. I believe it is possible to put a postive or negative spin on nearly anything, and massage text to prove nearly any point one wants to make.