There's a drafthouse of sorts near me, i've never been there but my parents said it was nice enough. Not all chain theaters are bad however, the Marcus Cinema and Tinseltown theaters near me have always delivered top quality experiences, they have crystal clear picture and sound, projector problems are rare and quickly dealt with when they do happen, excellent stadium seating, the theaters are always kept nice and clean, they show several films that most other chain theaters won't show(they were one of the few theaters in my area to carry Dylan Dog:Dead Of Night) they almost always have 2-D showings of 3-D films, there's never any real problem with obnoxious moviegoers, as the employees are very strict about enforcing the rules(before you enter the theater, the employees warn you that you WILL be thrown out if you don't turn off your cell phones) and out of all the showings i've been to, not one person dared to do anything stupid, so they're getting the message loud and clear.

A cinematic experience is partially created by being drawn into the movie
Size does matter

My set up is calibrated and produces a picture that drops the jaw of all but the most expert of cineasts
But black is not perfect - but it's very good

Here's the strange thing

Combine 120" of screen with great audio and within 30 seconds you forget that instantly

If you're in the Bay Area, drop by and find out!
Rob

PS - Newer PJs than mine get it pretty close to perfect!

It sounds amazing....

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/7 ... eater.html

You know what's crazy? I actually have a movie theater in my home. Blacked out walls, theater seats, twelve-foot screen, audiophile sound. And I never use it unless I'm hosting an event. I don't have the patience to focus solely on a movie. Almost without exception, I'd rather relegate it to one of my computer monitors while I multitask and play on the internet on the other.

A couple of other trends in my own viewing:

- There's rarely any urgency to see any particular film. The last one I saw in theaters was Avatar for the 3D experience. Save for Cameron's latest mega-blockbuster, the hype cycle is irrelevant to me; if a movie (or TV show) was good in 2008, it's probably still good now, and available on Blu-ray. There's just so much old content to consume or create that I'm rarely excited enough to bother with whatever's new on arrival.

- 3D is an unlikely upgrade for me. Too few movies do it well and there's no display mechanism that'll let me keep my existing screen and doesn't require a sizeable investment in shutter glasses. The technology is immature in theaters. At home, it's even worse, and I can't see bothering to dump a successful 2D setup.

I guess what I'm getting at is that with so many other diversions available, the notion of movie magic, a passive medium inhaled from a giant screen, is starting to feel anachronistic. It's just not magic enough.

I have no use for a theater. I dislike going to them, its why I don't see new movies as often as before. I don't care for the drive, nor the experience. Movie theaters can go away for all I care. I'll pay movie ticket price to watch a new release at home.

We should watch 'Iron Man' on your giant telly

I bought a pair of Bose cans for £120 and the sound is as good as I've ever heard in a theatre and better than being at a gig. I know it's causes a solitary experience but then who likes going to the movies with 'people'?

The drafthouse got a lot of press this last week after posting a video of someone who called to complain about being kicked out for texting in the theater:

CNN article:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/10/alamo.drafthouse.league/index.html

The actual viral video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1L3eeC2lJZs

Terrible Movie Theater Customer Service story!

My friends and I went to a special event showing of The Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition) last Tuesday, and 30 minutes after the movie was supposed to start, management informed us the projector was broken and they moved us into a different theater. They also gave us Re-admission tickets. The only problem? These can only be used for "normal" movies ($9.00), not a "special event" like this one ($12.50). We waited another 20 minutes for THIS theater before bailing out.

The theater in question is in Bowie, MD. Out of all the multiplexes I've been to, it's the only one that experiences technical difficulties (like the movie cutting off in the middle). This experience was enough to swear off this particular multiplex forever.

And Mark Cuban does own a championship basketball team, so perhaps he knows what he's talking about

My biggest issue is the increasingly high number of ads they play before a movie start. I recently went to a movie where at the time the movie was supposed to start, we had to watch a whole swath of cell phone, pop and car ads before general movie theatre previews began. I look at my watch and by the time the movie had started from when it was supposed to, a full 25 minutes had passed. For a minute I had to ask myself if I was watching a new free ad-only movie watching model.

At my university the students have got brilliant by hooking up their laptops to the sound and projectors of big lecture halls. They then play movies they've downloaded on over the internet in these classrooms late at night. No joke, the quality of these setups is starting to rival what many multi-plex theatres are offering.

I recently saw an ad for a multiplex, boasting that they didn't show any commercials after the beginning of the previews.

1. A preview is a commercial.

2. Even so, it's a dubious accomplishment, considering the commercials shown before the previews.

The theaters near me play ads as well, but they only play them before the film is scheduled to start, and then they play the previews, so the start time is usually only off by 10 minutes, which is fair enough.

I lived in Los Angeles for a few years, and during that time I realized how meager an experience it was to go to the movies anywhere else in the country. There, movies, for obvious reasons, matter. I've since moved back to the east coast (Boston) and to say that the theaters here are lacking is a major understatement. Everything you've written in this blog entry is correct. Truth be told, I am going to be moving back to the west coast, and though it may sound silly, one of the reasons is so that I don't have to suffer this travesty any longer. I love the movies. I grew up loving them, and I lived in LA for a time to work in the industry. I know it may sound blasphemous, and I'm not very religious by any stretch of the imagination, but I've always seen going to a theater as very near akin to going to a church. It's in the darkness of a movie theater that I found solace and the sense that dreams are an important aspect of the human experience--if not the most important. To me, a poorly run movie theater is damn near sacrilege.