100 mile drive

[Frank Cox]

A family (parents and four kids) drove just over 100 miles (each way) to come to the show on Thursday night.

I guess that's what happens when I'm one of the last theatres still operating around here.

EDIT: I should add that they were the only ones here that night and they arrived about one minute before I was going to lock the door and turn off the lights for the night. So it's a good thing they didn't drive all that way and arrive a couple of minutes later....

[Harold Hallikainen]

I hope you were showing the movie they wanted to see!

[Frank Cox]

Raya and the Last Dragon. The last night, in fact.

They spent $80 on popcorn and candy and drinks. Which is a lot of popcorn, candy and drinks since (by theatre standards) my stuff is pretty cheap.

I guess it was the big day out for them.

I was happy enough to see them. There was nobody at all for the shows on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

[Mike Blakesley]

One of the few good things about the pandemic is we've managed to keep quite a decent "walk-in" trade with to-go popcorn. A lot of folks just didn't realize you could walk in for popcorn. So we've had a few nights where we had no movie watchers, but enough popcorn buyers came in to make it worthwhile. This past Tuesday we had zero people but we actually had to pop more popcorn thanks to a couple of "jumbo" buyers.

[David Ferguson]

I can beat a 100 mile drive - I've gone down a couple of times now to The Prince Charles Cinema in London, which is over 450 miles from me! They're a small repertory cinema that have the best programming of any cinema I know of - there's not a week that doesn't have many good films I'd want to see. They also regularly show 35mm and 70mm which is nice. The first time I went down was to see my favourite film, and the second was to see 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm, which was my first (and so far only) 70mm experience. At that screening there were people from all over the UK, which I guess shows that if you have a good programme, people will travel to see the films - although I should say that I did visit other attractions in London too!

[Bobby Henderson]

I think it's pretty impressive for a family to drive 100 miles each way to watch a movie in a commercial theater. Kudos for them for making the effort.

Back in the 1990's I drove around 200 miles each way to see certain movies down in Dallas. But I was making the drive for specific reasons, such as a movie being shown in 70mm and/or being shown in a great quality venue unlike anything here in Lawton. That was certainly the case with the GCC Northpark 1-2 theater back then. That was a world premiere class venue. I drove down there for other events, such as some theater openings or even a couple of Film-Tech get-togethers. I rarely drive as far as Dallas now. I've gone down there to see a couple Christopher Nolan 15/70mm and 5/70mm shows. These days the farthest I usually drive is Oklahoma City, but I'm usually doing more than just watching a movie while there. OKC's Bricktown and Uptown districts have some nice attractions.

[Allan Young]

5,400 miles one way. Do I win?

Back in the day I flew from London to Los Angeles twice - once for This Is Cinerama and once for It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World at the Dome.

Also Dayton twice to catch Seven Wonders of the World and Cinerama Holiday. And Seattle twice for How The West Was Won, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Search for Paradise.

(Not that I'm rich or anything. At the time I was working for a major airline on their inflight entertainment systems, so ultra-cheap business class fares).

[Marcel Birgelen]

"100 mile drive" sounds like the name of a pretty desolate road, somewhere in Saskatchewan, or like a road movie... where a family is desperately trying to get to the last remaining cinema on Earth.

[Jay Glaus]

Before Covid when Avengers End Game came out, I had a couple order tickets online and come all the way from Arizona. I also had one from New York. I’m in PA, mind you.

[Leo Enticknap]

"100 mile drive" sounds like the name of a pretty desolate road, somewhere in Saskatchewan, or like a road movie... where a family is desperately trying to get to the last remaining cinema on Earth.

There is a Zyzzx Road just off the freeway linking Los Angeles with Las Vegas, a few miles west of Baker, CA. On seeing the exit sign, a co-worker with whom I was driving asked me if there was an Aamco (a chain of auto repair shops that invented its name in order to be the first entry in the phone book) along it.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Our local camera store refused to pay for his business to be listed alphabetically with his competitors.

[Jim Cassedy]

Allan Young said: "At the time I was working for a major airline on their inflight entertainment systems.."
Nowadays, 'inflight entertainment" consists mainly of watching the antics of drunk and/or unruly passengers

[Jim Cassedy]

I once acquired one of those highly modified 16mm proj's used by INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES. I wound up cannibalizing it for parts to fix another machine. I still have a couple of the large 16mm reels for it. They have a large, non-standard size spindle hole, abt 3 or 4 in in diameter, so you can't use them on a regular projector, although I have seen pictures of someone who modified several of them to fit on any 16mm that could hold normal large reels.

[Leo Enticknap]

The inflight entertainment starts even before takeoff, watching those who didn't pay extra for priority boarding scramble for the last remaining square inches of overhead bin space.

I was about to opine that a 16mm projector and 6,000ft reels of film must have imposed a significant weight penalty on the airlines, but 350 7" seat-back screens and a server box under one of the seats in each row likely adds even more weight. One of these systems even caused a major disaster.

The airlines now seem to be moving in the direction of BYOD: there is a web (or app) server and wifi access point on the plane, and you get to watch whatever on your phone or tablet. But again, once you add the infrastructure needed to provide Internet access in the air as well, it likely adds as much weight as 16mm projection on planes did, if not more.

[Frank Cox]

The same family came again tonight for the last night of Spirit Untamed. This time they even brought two other families with them.

Sure is a long drive to come and see a movie, but I guess this is the closest theatre to where-ever they're from.

Those three families were the only ones to come to the show tonight, though.