The $8 Movie Theater

Suddenly, I go to the movies again.

You would think that anybody who likes going to the movies would go all the time, living in Manhattan.  But the only time I ever went to the movies on a regular basis, during my last decade of living in NYC, was during the summers when I would be in a tiny Adirondack town whose restored Art Deco theater had one show a night at 8:00 p.m., and the movie changed every Friday.  What was so great about that theater?  Well - it was charming.  It looked like the movies looked when I was a kid.  And the movie started on time.  And people shut up during the movie and actually watched the movie.  And - the icing on the cake - they only charged $7.00 per ticket.

That was one of the problems with New York movies.  Sure - we got everything first, and we got the little oddball indie films that didn't open everywhere, and that was nice.  But it was ten dollars more to go to the movies in Manhattan than it was to go to the movies upstate. If I was going to pay $17 a ticket, I had to know for a fact that I was going to love that movie.  I was not about to take a chance on something that might prove mediocre.  I didn't want to walk out feeling ripped off.  And, far too often, the movie was over and I walked out of the big AMC near Lincoln Center wishing I'd saved my money.

Oh, there were some films that were good.  Almost good enough to be worth $17.  But would I have enjoyed seeing Daniel Radcliffe play Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings a lot more if the ticket had cost ten bucks instead of seventeen?  You betcha.

So it was an unexpected bonus when I moved to Rockland County and found there is a small indie cinema chain, Bow Tie Cinemas, that is run on the order of the art movie house a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center AMC behemoth, and that Bow Tie Cinemas charges only $8 for an adult ticket - in fact, it's $7 if you're in before 6:00 p.m., and $6 all day long on Tuesdays.

And I started going to the movies.  Because at these prices, I wasn't worried about making a mistake.  And, to my joy, the features are a mix. There are some blockbuster commercial pictures (my son and I sat through Dawn of the Planet of the Apes rolling our eyes and muttering "I can't believe how bad this is"), some indie offerings (Belle, which I'd seen and liked at the small Lincoln Square theater before we moved showed up here, and I wished I had waited and saved myself nine dollars), a couple of things for kids, a drama or two - there are six screens, so there is generally at least one thing I'll take a chance on seeing every week.

So far, I have seen and enjoyed Chef, The Last of Robin Hood, The Hundred-Foot Journey, St. Vincent, and that Woody Allen thing with the seances and the scenery and Colin Firth playing Woody.  I walked out of The Trip to Italy because I found it excruciatingly dull and talky.  And you know what?  It felt wonderful not to have to sit there through the whole thing, gritting my teeth and inwardly bemoaning the fact that I had just thrown seventeen dollars out the window.  No hard feelings.  No regrets.  It just wasn't my thing. So I left, feeling good about leaving.

The movie industry wonders why people don't go to the movies anymore, and frets over how to get us out of our comfy home theaters and into the movie houses.  Well - I can tell them.  Lower the ticket prices, and we'll go a lot more.

One more thing.  No matter where you are, the popcorn is a rip-off.  Bring a bag from home.