A new low, even for AMC

[William Kucharski]

1. Purchased an advance ticket on Monday for Die Hard in their Dolby theater, Friday December 8 at 10:30 PM. Selected a seat and paid for the ticket.
2. Checked the listings for some reason today, saw there was no longer a 10:30 PM Dolby showing.
3. Contacted the theater, was told there was no 10:30 PM Dolby showing. They said my ticket was automatically refunded; it was not.
4. Refreshed the ticket, the ticket continued to say it was for the Friday, December 8 10:30 PM showing… which no longer existed.

I wonder how many people will be traveling through a minor snow storm here to arrive at the theater for the showing with their advance purchase tickets only to be told there is no such showing…

As a side note, I saw the 20th Anniversary Love Actually at the same theater last night, and the presentation was horrible - they left the 3D lenses in place so any text in the lower half of the screen was ghosted, and they apparently cranked the light output to make up for the fact the 3D lenses cut brightness so not only were whites washed out, anything black was about 9% grey, and I swear their fader was no louder than 4.5.

This shouldn't surprise me, this is the same AMC (Westminster, CO 24) that destroyed their 70mm print of Oppenheimer about a month into the run and continued to advertise it as 70mm despite the fact it was showing from DCP, and has had all channels off by one in one of their small side houses for about four years now (center channel comes out the left speaker so all dialog comes from the left side of the screen, the left channel comes out the left side surrounds, right channel comes out the center, etc.)

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I can say similar things about the AMC that's a few miles from me as well, although the sound systems work ok, the EQ is no where near correct. I''ve pretty much quit going there any longer. I generally only visit the local Art House, and they have generally gotten the films I've wanted to see. It's about a 10 mile drive, but they do a top job at presentation...

[Martin McCaffery]

William. If you keep going there, they'll continue to give the same crappy presentations. Not going there isn't going to change anything, but it will be less frustrating and you won't be giving them your money.

And since I know which Art House Mark is referring to, yes, they are a great theatre of which I am truly envious.

[Geoff Jones]

Not going there isn't going to change anything

Are you sure? It sorta sounds like he goes there a lot.

[Mark Ogden]

This is why I don't go into AMC anymore. Between the rodents that live under the screens, the careless projection, the overcharge for things like Dolby Cinema when they aren't playing Dolby Vision encoded titles and everything else they putz up, I give the whole chain a wide berth. Plus I'm still trying to recover financially from my last small popcorn combo.

At the Garden State 15 (which used to be the Garden State 16, they converted one of their biggest screens into some giant immersive gaming room that died within a few months of its opening) the IMAX screen has had horrible miss-aligned sound for years, the right rear channel is eardrum shattering loud, the center dialog channels are very low. If you complain about it, the assistant managers roll their eyes and say things like "well . . . . nobody else is complaining . . . ".

[Mike Blakesley]

Threads like this are ones I wish the people at NATO would read. Then maybe they could buttonhole the person at the head of AMC (who is on the NATO board of directors, I believe) and say "Look, we are over here crowing about the superiority of the theatrical experience, so why is stuff like this happening in your theaters?"

If they wonder why attendance is down they should maybe look in the figurative mirror. Fixing things like the above won't bring crowds back overnight, but it might slow the bleeding, and eventually lead to an upturn when people realize they actually can get a better experience by going out.

[Geoff Jones]

INT. PLUSH BOARDROOM - DAY

NATO REP

Look, we are over here crowing about the superiority of the
theatrical experience, so why is stuff like this happening in
your theaters?

AMC HEAD

Don't be silly. Most people can't tell the difference. Besides,
its much easier for us to focus all of our efforts on getting the
studios to increase the release windows. That way, we'll have
a content monopoly again and we won't need to fix anything.


BLACK SCREEN

"One Year Later."


INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT
In a typical suburban dining room, a couple wraps up dinner.

CHRIS

Hey, there's a new movie out with that actor you love. Want to
see it?

ALEX

Sure. You go queue it up. I'll finish the dishes.

CHRIS

No, it's only in theaters.

ALEX

(Laughs) Why would we pay money for someone to screw up
the movie for us? We can wait a year.

CHRIS

They're saying this one won't be available to stream for two
years.

ALEX

Well, it's a good thing we've got at least three year's worth of
shows we've been meaning to catch up on first!


Alex and Chris finish the dishes and live happily ever after.

[Randy Stankey]

It's not about the quality of watching a movie in a theater versus watching it somewhere else.

It's because there has been a cultural shift. People don't want to watch movies in theaters anymore. Going to theaters is something that old people do.

People don't use CB radios anymore. Talking by radio is something that people used to do in the 70s. Now, people talk to each other on cell phones. It's not simply that there has been a change in technology. People just don't value talking to each other via radio.

You will, no sooner, get people to go back to watching movies in theaters than you would get them to start buying 8-track tapes again.

AMC doesn't have crappy presentation simply because they don't care. They are simply staying in a market until they have sucked out every last cent's worth of profit that they can. When they do, they'll shut their theaters down, leaving behind giant, concrete bunkers to molder in the weather. They aren't going to spend money improving things.

By that time, they will have moved on to some other business and they'll hold on to that until they have sucked it dry... Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

[William Kucharski]

Are you sure? It sorta sounds like he goes there a lot.

They are my closest "normal" theater, so they get the nod when I don't have a good reason to go elsewhere, and frankly they keep up their IMAX and Dolby screens, they just ignore the rest of the complex. Might as well call themselves the Westminster Promenade 4.

For something like the Love Actually 20th, even competent presentation would have been great; sadly they couldn't even pull that off. But Oppenheimer a month ago during its first revival in laser IMAX was flawless.

I did make a 50 minute drive each way each of the eight times I went to see Oppenheimer in 5/70 (Regal Colorado Mills), and I used to go see anything showing at the Regal Continental if it was showing in their RPX theater; sadly they closed in Spring.

For the balance of my viewing, for anything not being shown at Alamo Drafthouse, Cinemark (Century Boulder) and a Regal in Longmont are my other choices, and I wouldn't say any of them regularly do any better and often worse. For Century, quite often 9% grey blacks are much darker than what they can pull off.

(I've mentioned before Century Boulder holds the record for number of showings I went to that they canceled and issued readmits to because they "didn't get the keys.")

[William Kucharski]

It's because there has been a cultural shift. People don't want to watch movies in theaters anymore. Going to theaters is something that old people do.

When's the last time you were out and about?

At the time of the Love Actually showing I mention above, I was pretty much the only one there over thirty.

Or are you referring just to twenty year-olds?

As far as "talking by radio," isn't that what a cell phone is?

[Frank Cox]

Nope, that's talking by teleprinter.

[Mike Blakesley]

It's because there has been a cultural shift. People don't want to watch movies in theaters anymore. Going to theaters is something that old people do.

People don't use CB radios anymore. Talking by radio is something that people used to do in the 70s. Now, people talk to each other on cell phones.

Oh I dunno. We had several full houses for Super Mario Bros, with lots of kiddos. We had several full houses of all ages over 15 for Sound of Freedom last summer. We WOULD HAVE had good crowds for Fast X, Hunger Games, and several others we had to skip this year had we been able to play them. We had many teenagers for Barbie and quite a few for Taylor Swift (would've been more but for their stupid booking policy making us wait for the movie). At least half of our crowd for Wish three weeks ago was under 15, and almost 100% of the crowd was under 40.

In short, we sell a lot of "senior" tickets but I don't think the percentage of seniors has really changed much over the years. That'd be an interesting thing to look up.

If there is a movie people want to see they will go see it. It just has to be something people see as an event, a 'night out.' Theaters should be presenting EVENTS that people need to see because of FOMO. Maybe we'll go back to the age of showmanship again.

Also, as has been noted, talking on a cell phone IS talking via radio, it's just not a broadcast for all to hear (well, unless you're in an airport, where people seem to want the world to know their business). But I digress, nobody talks on phones anymore, they're all texting, and even that is getting to be passe now among the kids because of SnapChat and the like.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Even back in the late 70's, my friends and I always referred to AMC as "American Monkey Crap" as they seemed to have monkeys in charge of projection. The ONLY times we ever saw a movie at AMC was if we were broke and could only afford the bargain matinees. I actually saw Star Wars Ep.4 (before it was called Ep. 4) at the La Habra 4 in an auditorium with (I am not making this up) 6x9" CAR STEREO SPEAKERS for the surrounds!

As I often blasted on this forum, places that did shitty projection on film will continue to do shitty projection with digital. The prophecy is fulfilled.

EDIT: And this is my 330th post.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Threads like this are ones I wish the people at NATO would read. Then maybe they could buttonhole the person at the head of AMC (who is on the NATO board of directors, I believe) and say "Look, we are over here crowing about the superiority of the theatrical experience, so why is stuff like this happening in your theaters?"

If they wonder why attendance is down they should maybe look in the figurative mirror. Fixing things like the above won't bring crowds back overnight, but it might slow the bleeding, and eventually lead to an upturn when people realize they actually can get a better experience by going out.

Oh but Mike... They sure couldn't select the film dude of the year at Cinemacon from the AMC list. As Phony as those awards are, they seem to be important at moving people who know absolutely nothing about the business to even higher and more important statures.

[Mike Blakesley]

Well with NATO, money talks, for the most part. They got AMC to pay dues, so they need to get something for their money.