response 233 of 348:

Aug 21 22:50 UTC 1999

The Thomas Crown Affair - C+ - It is cute, which might make up for the fact
that the plot is not credible, but it is *entirely* predictable. The only
think I did not predict was how lame the ending was going to be. They do
an amazing job with some of the sets, however, such as the museum sets (no
part of the film was shot inside a real museum).

response 235 of 348:

Aug 23 03:09 UTC 1999

Universal Soldier: The Return (B-) is a sequel to the original. The
computer running the unisols (reanimated dead supersoldier) goes FUBAR,
moves into a human body, and directs the unisols to wreak havok in the
military base in which they are situated. It's Jean Claude van Damme's job
to stop them. The storyline doesn't go smoothly (Damme's sweethart seemed
to be stuck into the story, and there wasn't a good transition from the
original), although there was a bit of humor in there (people getting
bashed in some funny ways), and the sound (Heavy rock music for all the
fight scenes) and graphics were pretty good. Basically, if you have a DVD,
50" projection screen, and a really good sound system, you won't care for
one minute that the story's bad. Though this movie has one scene which
made half the theatre yuck out, you can take your teenagers with you
(exept for the fact that there's around five minutes of off-and-on (mostly
on) frontal nudity (strip club), so that's a great time for the teen to
get a refill on popcorn). Anyway, unless you go to a theatre with really
good DTS Surround sound, wait for the DVD.

response 237 of 348:

Aug 23 13:08 UTC 1999

We saw "The Blair Witch Project" at the new theater on Jackson Rd.
on Saturday.  I was not impressed at all; it seemed to me like 2 hours 
of a home movie, with very little plot and not much of interest from the 
characters.  My wife liked it pretty well; she called it "post-modern".

Interestingly, we read an article in the AA News on Saturday, saying 
that people over 35 don't like it as much as those under 35.  I'm over 
that age, and she's under.

We weren't too impressed by the new theater, either.  Andrea didn't like 
the smaller theater; she said she just prefers larger ones.  I thought 
it was okay.  Smaller theaters ought to mean a smaller chance of 
someone behind you using his popcorn to compete with the audio level of 
the movie.  (Though perhaps less likely, we were treated to this 
experience on Saturday.)  

I liked one thing: at 8:00 pm on a Saturday, there were *no lines* at 
the concession stand, and the line for getting a ticket moved very 
quickly.

Neither of us liked the tiny parking lot.

response 239 of 348:

Aug 23 17:28 UTC 1999

However, a larger theatre will have a larger clientele.... therefore, the
proportions for filled-seats-to-empty-seats and
jackass-filled-seats-to-normalpeople-filled-seats will be the same. Ergo, you
have the same chance of someone screwing around with the popcorn behind you.

response 241 of 348:

Aug 24 04:17 UTC 1999

  In any case it hasn't been my experience that theater patronage is
  generally proportional to theater size..  

response 243 of 348:

Aug 24 23:43 UTC 1999

My experience is that at theatres with different-sized screens, a bigger
screen meant a more popular movie, ergo more patronage, ergo proportionality.

response 245 of 348:

Aug 25 03:09 UTC 1999

Even in the bigger theaters, they have a set number of theaters of various
sizes.  It costs more to build large theaters.  It may cost moderately more
to operate them, due to cleaning costs, but I'm guessing that part isn't too
significant in the grand scheme of things.  Therefore, once they've built the
capacity, much of the expense directly related to capacity has been taken care
of, and they then need to start bringing in money to pay their construction
and operations costs.

To maximize income, they need capacity to hold as many people as want to see
the most popular movies during peak hours.  There may be a lot of people
wanting to see the popular movies, and there may be several popular movies
out at once.  It is therefore to the megaplex's advantage to build a number
of very large theaters.  They also build some small theaters, not because off
peak crowds are small, but because there will always be some movies that don't
draw big crowds even during peak times.  

Now, let's say it's an off-peak time, or a time of year when the studios 
aren't releasing many really popular movies.  The theater has all these 
large theaters sitting there, but crowds that aren't big enough to fill them. 
The theater has a choice: leave the large theaters sitting empty and make no 
money from them, or show movies in them anyway, and make some money.  Which 
are they going to choose?

response 247 of 348:

Aug 25 11:25 UTC 1999

I liked "Sixth Sense" quite a bit and agree that the less you know about
the plot going in, the better. I'll say a little bit about the style,
though. The movie takes chances that Hollywood films don't often take -
very leisurely pace, many quiet moments. "Sixth Sense" is a big hit
(number one at the box office for two weeks in a row), so the approach
seems to be working with audiences. We saw it in a fairly crowded
theater, and during the quiet moments, the audience was absolutely
silent; you could've heard a pin drop.

response 249 of 348:

Aug 25 13:45 UTC 1999

I take it you're a connoisseur of movies like Dumb & Dumber and Romy &
Michelle's High School Reunion?

response 251 of 348:

Aug 25 19:09 UTC 1999

Re #245: The Cinema 5 in Houghton seems to have a different strategy.  All
their theaters are quite small (it's crammed into one end of the Copper
Country Mall.)  Really big films, they show in more than one theater for a
while.

The same company owns the Lode, which was a classic "huge" theater until
they divided it up into three smaller ones.  They also own the Pic, which is
still huge, probably because they didn't want to put that kind of money into
it.

response 253 of 348:

Aug 27 03:48 UTC 1999

I finally saw American Pie, which was hillarious.  Lots of mentions of Ann
Arbor too (talked about in terms of future plans -- it didn't actually take
place here).

This was also my first trip to the Quality 16 theater out on Jackson Road.
Compared to the grandeur of the other new multiplexes I've been in, it was
extremely pretty small and very understated.  The theater we were in was tiny,
although I'm assuming they probably have some bigger theaters somewhere.  I
haven't made up my mind about the theater yet.

response 255 of 348:

Aug 30 14:07 UTC 1999

In spite of bad reviews, we all found The 13th Warrior to be an excellent
movie.

Thats four thimbs up.

I am begining to think the reviewers in this country are full of something
other than gray matter.  The historical setting is accurate, teh equipment
and clothing set well with the times.  One of us had a quibble with one of
the pieces of armor, but it was a very rough version of what would have been
seen in a later period.  My only quibble is that there were too many of the
enemy for what they were supposed to be at that time.

The comeraderie between the warrior, th way they worked as a group, the combat
techniques, and the encampments were all very well done and as you would
expect them to be in early midevil times.  (post mohhamed)

Go.  Enjoy!