Over a year ago, back in the Spring of 2001 two different storms blew out sections of this street sign's faces. What has Wallace Theaters done about it? They just arranged what face sections they had left over to the east elevation of the sign for west bound traffic to view. Some fix! When the photo is posted you'll see the "Cache 8" face section in the header area is popping out of its retainer. One good storm and that thing will go flying. I just hope it doesn't hit a car or a pedestrian when it sets sail.

Technically, Lawton's city sign ordinance requires the sign to be completely repaired and in proper working order. But Wallace is able to slide since the city doesn't bother to enforce the sign ordinance. Being in the sign business, that pisses me off since it lets our competitors do really poor quality work and not even bother to get the permits to do the installs. My group does everything by the letter and even build UL Listed stuff --basically out of selfish pride I guess.

When I look at this theater I wonder what ever happened to company pride or just making sure the front end of one's business doesn't look like crap. If Wallace is willing to let the outside of this theater look this bad, one certainly couldn't count on "film done right" in this place either.

More on the jerry-rig fix with the sign. Even though west bound Cache Road traffic can "see" the sign (but barely read it because of distance problems) the traffic cannot turn left into the theater parking lot. US-62 and Cache Road split apart in a freeway type interchange so only east bound traffic can enter the theater. But arranging those face sections for east bound traffic wouldn't work either since the main entry is too far west for one to read the copy. If you drive far enough to read the Pronto letters you've missed your turn and have to go through a big pain just to get back around to the theater entry. Overall, it is just a bad location because of the access problems.

This theater has been losing money ever since Dickinson Theaters opened the Central Mall 12 in downtown Lawton. The new theater is far enough away that it doesn't get pinned down in an allocation arrangement. If a film is playing at the Cache 8, you can see the same thing downtown. Check out the photo of the Cache 8 parking lot, taken Saturday, July 6. One would think there would be a lot more cars with "Men In Black 2" running in its opening weekend. Well, the mall theater has big crowds for their MIB-2 shows.

And this is not to say the mall theater is great by any measure. Stadium seating? Try more like bleacher seating. 12 auditoriums, most of them tiny and only 2 equipped for DTS --this is a theater that opened in 2001 and has only 2 DTS screens! On top of that, it is widely known the theater management is too lazy to even put the DTS discs in the players for any show!

My hope is for Wallace Theaters to come to their senses and just close down the Cache 8. If they would have done this already, they might have been able to get Loews, Home Depot or Target to buy the property. But those companies are already planning their new locations elsewhere.

With the Cache 8 gone, the one good theater in the area (the Carmike 8 with its 8 DTS screens and two built to THX standards) will get many of the same films as the mall theater and not lose out big titles like MIB-2 to a dump of a complex. The Carmike theater does well in direct show to show competition with the new mall theater for the basic reasons of having better picture and sound, not to mention a more professionally displayed theater environment. The Carmike 8 was built in 1994 but still looks pretty new. Jack Connor, the manager there, has done an excellent job on maintaining his theater. It is time for the Cache 8 to just get out of the way.

Six months later, the theater was still not using the marquee ... to the point that the electric to the sign was turned off. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, both faces were replaced and the electric turned back on.

Adam, it sounds like the Carmike theater in Muskogee had a really bad structural design on their sign. Inadequate sized retainers and other items like poorly joined face sections are big invitations to sign face blow outs.

The Cache 8 sign had some past incidents, but previous tenants like United Artists and Litchfield didn't waste time getting the sign fixed. Wallace could be doing like you say and just waiting out their lease.

National Amusements built the All-Jersey Multiplex on the site of an old drive-in, wedged between the New Jersey Turnpike western spur and Routes 1-9. Two large signs ID the theater. The sign along the Turnpike is in excellent shape. The sign along Routes 1-9 got major storm damage in recent months and now looks horrible -- there are outlines where actual letters should be. Since the city of Newark is too poor to enforce its sign ordinances it isn't leaning on National Amusements to repair the sign).

To make matters worse, the All-Jersey Multiplex is in a poor location -- an industrial park near the foot of the Pulaski Skyway with no direct access from most of Newark. Even with such a location and bad access National Amusements is somehow able to keep it open. The competition is a 6-screen indie (ex-Loews) in central Newark, a 7-screen Regal in Jersey City and the 20-screen Loews Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth.

Bobby: Unfaithful is the latest Richard Gere movie and Undercover Brother is a homage to 70's blaxploitation pictures.

Similarly, at the Carmike 8 in Decatur (a near "twin" of the one pictured above) a tree grew up on the east side of the sign. Solution -- put no lettering on the east side of the sign and leave the tree.

Since i work for wallace theaters, i can openly say that Wallace is NOT in the game for presentation. Wallace cuts corners to the MAXIMUM to gain every penny he can get out of his theaters.One the District managers, "Rants Bland" has alot to do with the shape of most of the wallace theaters now in operation. The Cache 8 is also under Rantz's belt as well as my theater. Rantz's boss however is slightly more reasonable. They come in and complain why things are in bad shape and make it look like the theater staff's fault. Our only back up are our work orders forms that we keep on file. These guys come in and nick-pic at alot of stuff and then nothing gets done about it.

The Spotlight 14 in Norman has little competition nearby so I guess Wallace can get away with letting things slide on that location. But it is pretty disgusting that they do so. A lot of Regal locations are not well run, but I would be willing to bet the one just to the north on I-35 at Crossroads Mall is probably in noticeably better shape.

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Wallace bought out Hollywood Theaters right before they went bust back in Early May of 99 right before or right after the May 3rd tornado ( which i witnessed ). That summer i heard of all the big theater circuit's going bankrupt. Hollywood Theaters was in such dept that it looked like nobody could bring the theaters back to financial well being. Wallace survived that summer and finally got us out of dept. He closed alot of theaters in the process to help pay of all the creditors. Now these days Wallace is clean and free of dept but the downside is that all the monay the theaters make goes to the bigwigs and little or no money gets put back in for reapairs or remodeling or upgrades to the theaters.

Justin, BE EMENSLY CAREFULL TALKING IN A NEGATIVE MANNOR TWORD YOUR THEATER AND THEN TRYING TO CONVINCE FELLOW EMPLOYEES TO LOG ON.

I got into a lot of hot water a few months back for doing that. I posted a negative comment (only one negative coment in a sea of possitive ones) that a fellow employee found, printed and distributed to other employees and managers.

If you want to help presentation at your theater, the last thing you want to have happen, is to loose the trust of fellow employees.

If i feel i have to make a negative remark, i use something to the effect of " At a theater i know of..... " , that way, people have a hard time proving I was talking about my theater.