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Iron Crowned posted:Dollar theaters were nice for an afternoon of cheap entertainment in my early-mid 20's. Plus they had the cult movie nights on weekends, I saw Star Trek 2 on one of those. I stopped going a lot when they closed the one down the street near me, and I had to go across town to the other one. One of my friends and I went to one of those the summer we graduated high school and showed up right as it opened. We slapped twenty bucks down on the counter and told them we’d be there the whole day and by god we did it. It ruled, I still maintain seeing Silent Hill in a run down dollar theater is the way to do it.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 13:45 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 10:49 |
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Ugly In The Morning posted:One of my friends and I went to one of those the summer we graduated high school and showed up right as it opened. We slapped twenty bucks down on the counter and told them we’d be there the whole day and by god we did it. It ruled, I still maintain seeing Silent Hill in a run down dollar theater is the way to do it. It definitely helped my enjoyment of Land of the Dead. Where I was living the dollar theater was the only place I could see some movies, because we had exactly one "chain" in Wichita, Warren theaters, who owned all three good theaters and both dollar theaters, so there were occasional first runs there.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 13:59 |
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I miss cheap theaters that are mostly empty*. Cheapest I ever saw was one in the 1990's that cost a quarter. Everything was crap including the movie, but it only cost a quarter. Stadium seating screwed over a lot of those old cheap theaters. Everyone wanted the raised seats even for dollar films. * NOT empty because of a pandemic, loving monkey's paw.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 14:49 |
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Iron Crowned posted:Where I was living the dollar theater was the only place I could see some movies, because we had exactly one "chain" in Wichita, Warren theaters, who owned all three good theaters and both dollar theaters, so there were occasional first runs there.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 15:13 |
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We have a fairly decent cheap movie theater here where I live. The most expensive tickets are $3 for evening showings. They definitely do make their money off concessions, but I've taken myself and my son, and bought us both snacks, and it came out to about the cost of just tickets at the only other theater in the city (a Regal). They show a mix of "Has been out in the big theaters for like a month" stuff, and older films. They occasionally do theme runs of things, especially during the summer. Like one time they did a month of Ghibli films, one summer a run of classics (I can only remember Wizard of Oz, but they were all about that age), the entire series of Harry Potter films each running for a week, etc.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 16:00 |
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8one6 posted:At this point there are three kinds of movie theaters in the US (and by the US I mean in my personal experience, so a medium sized city in the middle of the country): Yeah, this is fairly accurate for heavily popular South Florida as well. To go into more detail for the UK goon who asked, a lot of them can be split up based on their age. Basically, there are almost zero single-screen theaters left, almost everything is a multiplex of varying size. The oldest theaters tended to have 3 or 4 screens and would be tucked into all sorts of little shopping centers, sometimes next to large malls or retail centers, but you'll also find these tucked into random corner plazas next to supermarkets and whatnot. The seats in these tend to be small, the floor being almost flat or only slightly elevated toward the back. The screens will be smaller, and the rooms were narrow rectangles. Your snack options were basically just typical popcorn, soda, and basic boxes of candy. Most of these were built by the late 1970's, might have gotten some renovations over the years, but most of them disappeared within the last 15 years as larger, more modern venues were built in better locations with better concessions and seating and so on. There used to be three or four of these within 5 miles of me, and the last of them closed about 8 years ago. Note that these were not cheaper theaters, they were still showing first run movies the same as any other location and they typically had average pricing most of the time. They simply were the oldest and closest theaters to people for a while. I definitely had a soft spot for a few of them, as they were the 'local' place we went to see movies for years, but it's not a surprise most of them went away when they did. Next you'd get the mid-sized multiplex, which might have 6 to 10 screens, and were usually built down here around the early-to-mid 1980's. The screens here were slightly larger, and the seating areas were much wider to hold about double the people of the smaller places, but still not have much elevation to the seating, so you'd still potentially be hosed if a tall person sat in front of you. Back in the day, these might have had slightly more food options than the smaller places, also offering nachos, hot dogs, pretzels, or whatnot, basically, more than just popcorn and candy. These types of theaters basically have had a few different fates. Starting about 20 years ago, as still newer and larger multiplexes opened (More on these in a moment), about half of them in the area would close and be torn down. Those that remained have generally gone in two directions. The ones that always tried to have first run movies have largely converted to have more food and seating options. They added things like custom full size pizza and food you normally wouldn't think of for a movie theater (Really, restaurant fare), craft beers and other alcohol, as well as stuff like reclining seats and more amenities than normal. Those that didn't try to do first run movies have largely remained as low cost options, although since the time a movie remains in theaters has gone down considerably over the last few decades, the difference between them and others is a lot less than it used to be. There's a number of them down here, usually located in close proximity to senior communities, and at least before COVID, they largely made do by having discounts a lot (Seniors once or twice a week, students another day, family specials, dollar days, and so on). After that you'd get the massive, stadium seating megaplexes with 20 or more screens. These would have much larger screens, massive auditoriums with seating for several hundred people. These started popping up in the mid-1990s, usually connected to or in very close proximity to large outlet malls. Aside from their size, these tended to be the first theaters to make the seating area less flat than the older ones, with a slightly better slope, so the views would be slightly better if you were in the middle half of it (If you were off at the edges, the view was terrible). These continued with the food and beverage options of the mid-sized places (Popcorn, nachos, hot dogs, candy, etc), but also tended to add things like a wide selection of ice cream and Icee's, maybe little personal pizzas, all sorts of stuff you'd expect at a sporting event other than booze. These became instantly popular when they opened, as the seating and amenities were a huge step up when they initially opened, and that drove off a lot of the smaller and mid-sized places. Some of these would later on add a few IMAX screens as well. However, over the last 10-15 years, that popularity has gone down for some of them, usually due to them simply being too big and crowded, the seating generally not being improved at all since they opened (And it was only a marginal improvement over what came before it), and usually located in very busy or crowded locations making parking a pain in the rear end. The final main type are the newest multiplexes that opened within the last 15 or so years. These tend to have 10-20 theaters, so between the old mid-size places and the massive megaplexes, but the biggest changes is how the seating is arranged. The seating areas in these are much steeper than any of the older ones, with seating much more spaced out and well cushioned. Every seat will clearly have their own cupholders, and usually have a headrest, rather than the old, cheap folding stuff. Reclining seats of varying degrees are common, with some going almost completely horizontal, but still allowing enough space for people to pass around you. Unless the person in the seat ahead of you is like 6'11" or a child jumping on their seat, your view probably isn't going to get blocked. The screens themselves are also larger and you'll be a bit closer to them. These are almost all chains like Regal, so you're almost never gonna get like $1 tickets or steep discounts, but they aren't hugely expensive outside peak hours (poo poo like Friday or Saturday night for a movie in its first week or two). When I was going to movies semi-regularly, or there was something I really wanted to see in a theater, I usually checked places like this first. Like, I saw Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 at a Regal with the RPX surround sound and both were amazing for that. fartknocker has a new favorite as of 16:21 on Mar 4, 2021 |
# ? Mar 4, 2021 16:19 |
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I loved the dollar theater that was down the street from me. I would watch on my lunch hour, because it didn't matter because it was $1. 45 minutes was just long enough to realize We Bought a Zoo was so-bad-it's-hilarious and I still think about how bad it was for the half-hour I was able to sit there and laugh. The part I saw was when the zoo was going to be inspected so they run around papering over all this neglect and then the zoo inspector was literally a mustache-twirling guy who was supposed to be evil for the heinous crime of <checks notes> preventing animal abuse. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1389137/reviews?sort=helpfulnessScore&dir=desc&ratingFilter=1
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 17:15 |
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I loved working at those old 4 screen multiplexes. We had first run movies squeezing out their last bit of full price admission or art house films. So we had no customers. It was fun. It's since been bulldozed. One weird thing that doesn't really exist anymore are the marquee boards. Nothing like climbing on the roof and changing out letters every Thursday. "Oh, I ran out of E's, here's a backwards 3." Getting a fresh box of letters was a great feeling.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 17:40 |
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Krispy Wafer posted:I loved working at those old 4 screen multiplexes. We had first run movies squeezing out their last bit of full price admission or art house films. So we had no customers. It was fun. It's since been bulldozed. The theater I worked at had a marquee on the front of the building, and occasionally some rapscallion would climb up there and change the names of the movies.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 17:53 |
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I worked at various movie theatres for most of my teen years and early twenties, mostly running the projection booth which came along with building new movies as they arrived, tearing down old ones as they departed, and changing the building & road signs for changes in what we were showing. AMA. fun stuff off the top of my head from my time in theatres:
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 20:26 |
I'm curious if theaters in other countries get hosed by the movie companies on ticket sales. Around here in the US, theaters are lucky to get some small percentage of sales after something like a month, if it's not a huge movie.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 20:56 |
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That's all in the booking side of the business (read: controlled by corporate HQ, nothing to do with the individual theatres themselves), so that's the part I know the least about, but I'm fairly certain the answer is yes, just to varying degrees depending on the companies involved. For some of the bigger films like anything Marvel, the theater may actually end up paying over 100% of the box office take for the opening weekend, because gently caress you we're disney that's why Theatres make most of their operating money at concessions, which is why they give out free tickets like candy when something goes wrong, but free concession items are locked in fort knox The real money, though, is in advertising, which is why all modern theatres have TVs plastered all over the walls playing ads nonstop and movie preshows keep getting longer and longer kumba has a new favorite as of 21:52 on Mar 4, 2021 |
# ? Mar 4, 2021 21:49 |
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kumba posted:That's all in the booking side of the business (read: controlled by corporate HQ, nothing to do with the individual theatres themselves), so that's the part I know the least about, but I'm fairly certain the answer is yes, just to varying degrees depending on the companies involved. I worked at one in the 90's so advertising wasn't a factor, but the tickets/concession bits haven't changed. I worked there for about 9 months, and we'd cycle count drink cups and popcorn buckets every few weeks, because that's how we measured how much was sold. You never threw out a bucket or cup, if one was hosed up, it got put aside as damaged. At least when I started working there we threw out the popcorn and hot dogs at the end of the night (which were either eaten or taken home by the employees), then we got bought out by Regal Cinemas, and we were required to save that poo poo for the next day.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:00 |
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I used to go to matinees at the Regal near here pretty regularly but it sure wasn't for the popcorn.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:27 |
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Stuff like this is one of the reasons I’ve been on these forums for so long, thank you.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:45 |
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Are there any first run theaters still on film anymore? And if not do second run theaters still have old film projectors? Do they make film just for discount places?
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 23:04 |
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kumba posted:The real money, though, is in advertising, which is why all modern theatres have TVs plastered all over the walls playing ads nonstop and movie preshows keep getting longer and longer I'm not sure how true it is (I can't find my original source) but Thursday night became the biggest night for television because of ads for features coming out the next day. Networks stacked that night with their most popular shows so they could charge premiums for the commercial spots. Everything in modern society comes back to advertising.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 23:20 |
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Zero One posted:Are there any first run theaters still on film anymore? I got out of the business in 2012 but I worked for both AMC & Regal between 2003 & 2012 and all the theatres I worked at or were familiar with were at least beginning their full digital conversion. In late 2011 we converted 4 of our 14 film projectors to digital ones so I got to work with both at once for a little while, but the writing was on the wall at that point. That was one of the primary reasons I switched careers - no more film means no more projectionists, as film nowadays arrives on hard drives that get uploaded into the projectors and then everything is just automated on a schedule, so I got replaced by technology. Progress! Indie theatres & film festivals definitely still use a lot of film though, because IIRC a film print is still much cheaper than one of those hard drives, or at least it was 10 years ago - things may have changed by now
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 23:35 |
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i grew up near one of the last multi-screen drive-ins on earth and it kicked so much rear end in my teens disclaimer: i also like grungy cheap old theaters so ymmv
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 23:42 |
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imo theaters would do well to divide first-run movies with screenings of older movies. i also really liked during game of thrones when some theaters bought a license to show the new episode each week. popular tv shows would be awesome to see more commonly in theaters, especially since with the growth in size and width of home tvs, the cinematography of television has become much more film-like e: also with digital projection, you can literally just pop in a dvd. it doesn't look quite as good as film, but it still looks better than you'd expect, especially if its a 4k native remaster. i saw The Terminator in theaters a few years ago when regal was doing their classics series and it was deffo a bluray and i deffo didnt care Cactus Ghost has a new favorite as of 23:48 on Mar 4, 2021 |
# ? Mar 4, 2021 23:44 |
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I’m very lucky to have a small indie theater in my area. 90 seats. I’ve seen all sorts of movies at it. My first time there was for Predator, never seen it before due to known issues w its home releases. I’ve probably seen more movies there in the 2 years prior to COVID than I had in the decade prior of theater going. Just a wonderful experience and awesome pop corn. Reasonable candy prices relatively, but I can’t help but sneak some of my off menu favorites from time to time. Also attached to a coffee shop which helps with those 10P showings! I’m grateful because it’s held on OK throughout the last year, and I cannot wait to return to normalcy and be all vaxed up in there.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 00:19 |
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kumba posted:14 different screens. However, we only got 4 copies of the film! I’ve seen a really good demonstration of this online in photos, on a very large number of screens, but now I can’t find it.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 00:35 |
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I thought of a few other things
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 00:36 |
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kumba posted:Also if the floor is carpeted, good luck sweeping up popcorn that has been trampled by an entire herd of 6-year-olds: we actually had a leaf blower for this and would just blast everything to the sides and front on these special occasions Sounds like a good way to get popcorn lung. I can hear the lawyer commercials now.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 00:43 |
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kumba posted:I thought of a few other things Ugh, Quest for Camelot and Mulan. I don't recall Mulan being that bad, but no one gave a poo poo about Quest for Camelot. I remember going into that one and after the credits there were still parents and kids just not giving a gently caress, and I'm forced to clean all that poo poo. These were the days before stadium seating, so we had a leaf blower to move everything down to the bottom. I didn't encounter a diaper, but I knew someone who did. See also: Long movies, Titanic played for most of my tenure, and every time it was a leaf blower. I will say that all the male ushers did at least know exactly when Kate Winslett was topless, as a matter of fact that was when I was taught how to do a theater check on my first night.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 00:44 |
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I watched The Parent Trap about 10 times, but not all at once. So 10 times in 5 to 15 minute chunks over a span of 2 months. Much like a Christopher Nolan film in IMAX with the bass turned to max, it's the way the director meant for us to best experience the movie. Only good story I had was the kid who started throwing up and wouldn't stop. His mom leads him out of the theater, just a steady stream of puke all the way to the bathroom. He did stop once he got to the toilet. You know that door gap between the carpeted lobby and the tile bathroom? Do you know much puke you can get into that crevasse? A lot. My co-worker looked at it and started acting like he was sick. I told him to cut it out. But no...he was really getting sick.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 01:28 |
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When I was a child/teen any time someone puked or make sounds like puking or the smell of puke it instantly got me sick too (I'm sure most people are the same). In college I worked at an amusement park on the roller coasters. Within the first month I had cleaned up so much puke that I became (and still am) completely immune from getting sick from other people's puke.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 01:48 |
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Krispy Wafer posted:Only good story I had was the kid who started throwing up and wouldn't stop. His mom leads him out of the theater, just a steady stream of puke all the way to the bathroom. He did stop once he got to the toilet. An extremely relatable parent and hangover experience.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 15:49 |
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I've worked at Regal theaters a couple times in my life and they count every single popcorn bucket and bag and every soda cup and every drink and all the candy every single day to make sure none of it went missing. If more than $20 worth of containers went missing on your shift you'd get written up. Considering that at their prices that's like 3 bags, it definitely happened.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 18:55 |
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I worked at a theater for one week so I could let all my friends into the pre-screening of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. We took a garbage bag of popcorn home with us at the end since I knew I wasn't coming back.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:04 |
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SacrificialGoat posted:I've worked at Regal theaters a couple times in my life and they count every single popcorn bucket and bag and every soda cup and every drink and all the candy every single day to make sure none of it went missing. If more than $20 worth of containers went missing on your shift you'd get written up. Considering that at their prices that's like 3 bags, it definitely happened. Before mine became a Regal, some girl pissed off another girl and forgot to lock her till, so the pissee mashed a ton of buttons and then closed the till. Technically there was no money missing, but she got shitcanned for being really short. Then there was this guy I knew from church, who figured out that if you printed out passes instead of tickets, no one looked for the cash, so whenever there were groups of 4 or more, he'd just print passes, and add to the adding machine, in the box, and then just pocket whatever the total was at the end of the night. He got caught when someone tried to get a refund on some passes, they couldn't exactly prove that he was stealing, so they just did the passive aggressive stop scheduling thing.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:13 |
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My brain still has trouble looking a 1 cent paper cup and realizing it's valued at $4. In food service the value is in the food, not the packaging, but theater chain accountants can't even pretend popcorn kernels and syrup are worth anywhere near what they're charging. So yeah, if you want to see an AMC manager freak the gently caress out steal a sleeve of cups. Best perk were taking the old movie posters home. A deep recess of my subconscious thinks it remembers managers taking home the trailers reels, but that sounds...weird.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:46 |
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I at one point had over 100 posters but my collection has shrunk after giving away stuff over the years. Still have a Star Wars Episode 3 and a Return of the King poster both framed and a cool Scott Pilgrim holographic thing, and I do have a copy of the trailer for The Fellowship of the Ring somewhere
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:59 |
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When I moved almost 10 years ago I shed my posters unfortunatly. I do still have a trailer reel for Lethal Weapon 4. The thing back then for me was to snag trailers that were being tossed and use them as bookmarks
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:11 |
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When I worked for AMC we never ever reused popcorn from the night before, but Regal absolutely did Which reminds me of another weird one: we had a lady that would come in for an early afternoon show once a week or so and always order the same thing: small diet coke, small popcorn. Nothing strange there, except when we filled the popcorn she had a very specific request: the bottom 1/4 and top 1/4 was to be your standard popcorn from the popper. The middle bit, however, was to be filled with what she called the "old maids" instead. See, a popcorn popper has a ton of small holes in the grate the popcorn sits on, so small broken bits and unpopped kernels would fall through. She would have us pull out the tray and just dump that poo poo into her bag, and then absolutely drench it in butter to the point where I'm pretty sure she had to have been eating it with a spoon. I'm convinced her teeth were made of iron.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:23 |
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In high school my one friend had a big truck with a huge bed that he never used. My other friend worked at a movie theater. He saved up like a week's worth of popcorn and one night we filled the truck bed with popcorn as a joke.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:25 |
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Oh wow, so that wasn't a fever dream. People really did collect trailers. The best thing I ever snagged was the large vinyl banner for Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett in a sea of red staring into your very soul, but that's since been lost to time. kumba posted:When I worked for AMC we never ever reused popcorn from the night before, but Regal absolutely did At General Cinema we popped the popcorn a week in advance. I'd draw little cartoon characters on the huge garbage bags because why not. One time I brought down a bag with POPPY still doing his happy dance. I hadn't popped popcorn at that location for 2 weeks. And somehow our popcorn still tasted better than AMC's.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:31 |
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Krispy Wafer posted:Oh wow, so that wasn't a fever dream. People really did collect trailers. The best thing I ever snagged was the large vinyl banner for Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett in a sea of red staring into your very soul, but that's since been lost to time. I worked there when there was really nothing good, so Lethal Weapon 4 was the best I could do. I tell you what though, I still have all of the buttons that ever graced my uniform. The Red and White Free Truman and the lenticular Species 2 were particularly sought after.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:38 |
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I mixed up all this fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. And I never felt so bad in my entire life!
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# ? Mar 6, 2021 00:02 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 10:49 |
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I haven't found any links to support it, but I thought I had heard that one of the Star Wars prequels, maybe Episode I, the theaters had to pay 110% of the box office the first weekend or something like that.
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# ? Mar 6, 2021 00:05 |