Kerasotes fixed the speaker problem in Block E's theater 1(?). But will I return?

Robert Strong, general manager at the Minneapolis Block E theater sent me this email on Monday.

Hi Kyle;

Thank you for your comments on our recent film presentation in Auditorium No.1. I'm sorry to hear that your film experience didn't meet your expectations. Our service technician is currently looking into this, to find out what the issue is. I will contact you back as soon as he gets to the bottom of this situation.

Thanks again,

Auditorium No. 1? Let's hope Bob made a silly typo.

Anyway, today I received a follow-up email.

Hello again;

I do apologize for the problems you recently experienced here. You will be pleased to note that our projection technician has replaced the high frequency driver in the front right channel speaker, which was causing the difficulty.

Once again, I apologize, and I hope your next visit will be more enjoyable than the last.

Thanks,

- Bob Strong

 I'm glad the problem is fixed, but it shouldn't have taken this long. I doubt I'll return to Block E to watch a film anytime in the near future, even considering I work just a few blocks away and it's the only theater within walking distance.

Kerasotes doesn't care about film artistry or its customers.

I've never visited a movie theater, sat down to see a film, and left before the credits rolled, until tonight. I waited 99 minutes for something funny to happen in Jack Black and Ben Stiller's Envy, searched for excitement in seeing indistinguishable pieces of metal duke it out(?) in Transformers 2, and politely remained quiet as dozens of searing paint-by-numbers romcoms bombarded my palette with insulting predictability, but I couldn't remain seated through Shutter Island. And it's no fault of the film's. I still plan on seeing it sometime in the near future. I left because "independent theatre chain" Kerasotes doesn't care about film artistry.

No sound emanates  from the front-right speaker in theater 15 at Minneapolis, Minnesota's downtown Block E.  Left-center seems fine, and the center channel's more than present, but the front-right's noticeably absent, cutting the soundtrack volume in half and possibly withholding positional sound effects. This is a problem.

When I first told management of the situation on June 19 during my viewing of Transformers 2, I began our conversation with a brief description of my background in audio engineering, production and mixing. After I revealed from which theater I left, guilt filled their faces in milliseconds. It wasn't the response I expected, and I briefly wondered if I had instead spoken some sort of code, revealing to each individual a long-buried secret from his or her past.

After communicating my problem, they immediately apologetically replied with "Yeah....we're sorry about that." I waited for a follow-up response but didn't receive one. I guess it was my turn to talk, so I preached a beautiful sermon on the art of films and the role audio plays, but the congregation didn't care for my gospel. They offered no refund, and I returned to the movie. Normally I would've left, but Ebert's informed opinion, one with which I usually agree, led me to believe making a special trip to another theater would give the film and its provider too much money and attention. Two hours later I agreed with Ebert. Bad sound or good sound, that's a terrible movie.

I battled management a second time in late July when I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the same theater.

During the film's previews, I noticed the front-right speaker still emanated no audio. I stormed out of the theater and demanded a refund from the same people I spoke to a month earlier. They offered an alternative, and suggested viewing the film in another theater. Since my girlfriend and I were excited to watch the latest shenanigans of Mr. Potter and friends, and had made a day of going out and seeing a movie, I accepted. What happened next insulted my love for cinema and indicated management's attitude towards this obvious problem: manager lady asked me if I wanted to see the last half hour in an adjacent theater and then watch the rest during the next showing.

I won't explain why this is fundamentally wrong. A cuttlefish could grasp the importance of seeing a film from start to finish.

I didn't accept this solution and demanded another. For the next hour my girlfriend and I sat in the theater lobby waiting for the next showing. When it was time, we walked in, saw the movie, and walked out - the way it should be.

Tonight I visited Block E, sat in theater 15, and left fifteen minutes later. The front-right speaker still didn't work. I would've left immediately, but my brother, his girlfriend, and my girlfriend were with me. I weighed viewing the movie under these conditions with my friends and family versus my respect for Mr. Scorcese, Mr. Dicaprio, and everyone else involved in Shutter Island. Mr. Scorcese and company obviously won the battle.

This time I got my money back, all nine dollars and fifty cents, but I will never have the experience of seeing this film with these people for the first time, and that's why I go to the theater with other people. It's all about the communal experience. 

Management's actions speak for the company and the people who run it. They don't care for films beyond pieces of throwaway entertainment, and they really don't care about the viewing experiences of customers a.k.a. job providers a.k.a. the people you fucking take care of. At Kerasotes Block E theater, I didn't feel taken care of, and I definitely don't believe they give a damn about film artistry. If they did, this problem wouldn't have persisted eight months later.

If you've visited this theater between June 2009 and February 2010, please keep in mind that Kerasotes either didn't think you'd notice or didn't think you'd notice enough to complain. You were ripped off, and paid full price for a broken theater. How's that feel? Even more, if you're running a film company or making films, how does it feel to have your work shown in a theater like this one?

Goodbye, Kerasotes. I hope AMC buys you out ASAP.

Edit: I didn't look for it, but oh how I would've loved to see a THX logo outside the theater wall...

Despite Dreadful Filmmaking, The Twilight Saga: New Moon Breaks Records. Weep for the Future.

By the time you read this, New Moon, the latest film based on Stephenie Myer’s dreadfully morose Twilight saga, will have officially scratched and clawed its way to the third highest spot in the all-time weekend box-office debuts (early Sunday night estimates put New Moon’s take at $140 million, which places it right at the heels of Spider-Man 3’s $151.1 million and Dark Knight’s $158.4 million). On its way to almost breaking the three-day record, two others were decimated. The film’s opening at midnight earned an estimated $26.3 million, surpassing former reigning king Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s $22.2 million, and Friday totals hit $72.7 million, once again besting the Dark Knight, which raked in $67 million over one year ago.

Non-summer releases aren’t supposed to make this much money, right? Late last year, Warner Bros. Pictures, fearful of not wringing every possible box office dollar from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, delayed the basically-finished film until summer of the following year. Regarding the decision, Warner Bros. President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said “Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment.” Their “for the summer for the family” reasoning makes sense…until decades worth of box office data are also considered. With the exception of Titanic, the highest grossing films domestically all received late-spring to mid-summer releases. Okay. Sure. If you want to maximize domestic revenue, you release in that time frame. But the Harry Potter films don’t hold any kind of a presence in the all-time domestic top ten records. The film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s books make far more money worldwide, and, as of writing, even hold three of the top ten worldwide box office records (Sorcerer’s Stone at fifth with $974 million, Order of the Pheonix at seven with $938 million, and Half-Blood Prince at eight with $929.9 million). Also, four out of the ten highest-grossing films worldwide debuted during the fall, two of which are number one and two (Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Warner Bros. didn’t switch the release from fall to summer to make sure all families find the time to see the latest Potter entry, the company made the move to create another Dark Knight. Warner Bros. failed, but laughing at them here is like laughing at Bill Gates in the 90s for not quite having enough money to buy the moon.

Twilight’s record-breaking presence at the box office isn’t a fall fluke. And its seating amongst the highly-publicized commercially elite isn’t due to some forgotten demographic suddenly appearing out of the woodwork. Tween females, the consumer group most closely associated with the series, helped drive films like High School Musical (1, 2, and 3), Hannah Montana, and even Transformers 2 to massive financial success. Twenty and thirty-something women like Twighlight, so do moms, and, to my constant surprise, guys of all ages (in legions they gather on message boards. Some even have beards!). At a Saturday afternoon showing in Minneapolis’s Block E theater, all of the aforementioned made some kind of an appearance.

Before we arrived, I joked with my girlfriend that I should hang my head low, sulk, and drag my feet as if attending this movie will rid me of some unrecoverable manhood. I wasn’t attempting to hide some pre-existing shame with light commentary on the presumed behavior of males attending, I was making fun of them. And, in a way, I pitied them. I possessed enough creativity and positive energy to turn an unfortunate situation into one much more fruitful. Seeing this film meant I could comment on it afterwards! These poor saps had nothing. I fear if given the opportunity to instead get their nose hairs plucked out by a drunken Irish barber with bad breath they would’ve immediately switched.

We arrived early to the showing. With 30 minutes to spare until 10-20 minutes of trailers already available online flooded our senses, I relished observing attendees make their way to the shockingly comfortable burgundy-colored theater seats. We sat in the center of the front row of elevated seating (our favorite spot). To our left...

Read more at IPR's Multimedia Blog.

“Nein Nein Nein!” The Inglorious Heil Honey I’m Home

 

In honor of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and its sometimes wacky depiction of Adolf Hitler, I present to you one of the greatest blunders in TV history: British Satellite Broadcasting’s Heil Honey I’m Home.

Credible information’s hard to find on this turd from 1990, so let’s put our faith in the show’s, modifiable by anyone, Wikipedia entry:

“Heil Honey I’m Home! was a controversial Britishtelevisionsitcom, produced in 1990, and canceled after one episode aired.

The show centred on fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, who live together in suburban bliss, until they are faced with new neighbours, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein, who are Jewish. The show’s plot is centered on Hitler’s inability to get along with his neighbours. A caption at the beginning of the episode presented the series as a ‘lost’ sitcom from the 50s, recently re-discovered. The show spoofed elements of 1950s and 1960s American sitcoms such as Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy, including the corny title, light (even vacuous) plots and dialogue, and unwarranted applause whenever a character appeared on screen.” 

Way back in 1990 this was (apparently) a good idea. Television producers have learned, right?

Read more at IPR's Multimedia blog.