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Comment by softwaredoug | Hacker News Reader

I’m cautiously bullish on movie theaters actually.

With WFH I’m pretty burned out on streaming but love getting out of the house for the movie theater. Part of it is being stuck at home. The other part is the ridiculous paradox of choice, never being able to pick anything out of a million choices. Not to mention distractions, kids screaming, bad lighting, etc... Everything feels like eating junk food. I like having a handful of movie choices and a place, ceremony, lack of distraction, good AV, etc around watching them.

Lately I have enjoyed movie theaters doing rereleases. The Alamo near us has been rereleasing Kubrick and Christopher Nolan movies. The recent showings of Tenet and Dune I saw were nearly full. I may actually go watch this too even if I’m not the worlds biggest Talking Heads fan.

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If you live near an Alamo you're cinematically blessed :)

For the rest of us in (those in the US anyways) if you don't have a local Alamo equivalent look into Fathom Events: https://www.fathomevents.com/

They show classic or themed movies contracted out to local "standard" theaters.

On Oct 21 taking the fam to see Back To The Future. How many times do you get the opportunity to see that on the big screen?

I wish more theatres in and around Sydney Australia would do this sort of thing. The Hayden Orpheum does, but it is kind of out of the way. For a brief period when I was growing up though my local cinema had a period where they'd put on some bit of fan favourite movie for a session or two (Jurassic Park, Alien, etc) and it was so fantastic to go see them on the big screen with cinema sound.

EDIT: Just wanted to add I'd absolutely go to the movies more if the ones near me played older movies more, rather than just new stuff

I am seeing a lot of similar theaters popping up with full service, dining and drinks, etc. I really enjoy going to these type of theaters because to me it is more of a dinner with a movie instead of a movie with a dinner. Even if movie sucks, at least, you had some good food.

And being married for 10+ years, there are not many topics we can to talk about on date nights. So these are perfect place for date nights for old couples.

In ~1991 a co-worker and I were talking about the rise of home theater systems. He thought they'd mean the end of movie theaters. I thought that there's something special about seeing a movie together with others - 'a place, ceremony, lack of distraction, good AV' - that would keep them in business. I still think that :)

I have a decent home theater system and I bought '2001: A Space Odyssey' near the first time it came out on DVD... but I still went down to our local Alamo last month and watched it and was delighted to spend the money and the time.

Near topic: I realized that the movie I really want to see again on the big screen is 'Lawrence of Arabia' I told the manager at our Alamo that, and I emailed them, but if anyone here knows how to get their attention, I'm all ears. I got to see it in 70mm on a big screen in its 1987 re-release and it's a highlight I'd hope to repeat.

It literally just played last week in NYC in 70mm!

A few years back Netflix bought out the "Paris Theater" which is the oldest single screen theater in the city.

It was meant to allow fans to watch their newest movie releases in a theater format along with giveaways to get people in the mood.

I saw the debut of "Kate" a few days before it actually hit Netflix. (wonderful movie if you like John Wick. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the female John Wick!)

They recently did some renovations and to celebrate they brought back a bunch of classics.

Oh I just checked: Funny enough its playing today! But unfortunately its sold out :/

[1]:https://www.paristheaternyc.com/films/showtimes/?filmId=HO00...

Good to know a place it might show up; we live in North Carolina, but, with a little awareness, persuasion, and planning, I could talk my wife into a trip coinciding with a showing. The Castro in SF would be a more difficult proposition but my wife does want to go back to 'House of Nanking' one day, so even that's a possibility!

Good Luck! Hope you get to see the film eventually! I'd recommend to start searching Fandango for local theaters that show classics or have a 70mm/35mm projector (as they will likely use them for classics) and then keep those places on your radar so you can catch some good classics. There has got to be somewhere in NC that values the classics and has the equipment to show them!

NYC is kind of a exception since there is so much competition: you end up seeing tons of classics played here all the time. If you are ever in NYC, another place that is wonderful is the roxy theater as well as BAM. I saw Terminator 1 & 2, Hackers, Resident Evil 1 all this year in 35mm at these theaters.

I think pjmorris is talking about the Raleigh Alamo which is great! They definitely are responsive to email feedback. They do have a 35mm projector but it seems rarely used, though I think they are trying to use it more recently.

I don’t know of any other places showing film in the area, but I do know the Carolina Theatre in Durham shows loads of classics.

If you live in SF the Castro theatre shows Lawrence of Arabia about once a year.

They used to; they're under new ownership now (Another Planet Entertainment) and no longer showing movies on a regular basis. Their schedule is sparse and mostly concerts.

Yeah it must be incredible on a big screen. One of a kind.

> lack of distraction

This, sadly, depends on your location and theater. One reason I don't go to the theater nearly as much as I used to is because of noisy, inconsiderate patrons.

At the time, however, the theater near me was very cheap. A "fancy" (read: expensive) one recently opened; I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't have this problem.

I have shared similar sentiments with friends, but I think that the answer isn't a chain like Alamo, it's the independent theater. Every repertory event I've been to at an indie in the last year has been packed to the brim. These theaters can also show new independent or international films that might not get a showing in major theaters. Plus, a theater with one or two screens can focus specifically on that niche while everyone else dukes it out with the major studio stuff.

Alamo is a chain, but it's privately-held. Doesn't that make it indie? Just a large "indie." Reminds me of the SubPop music label, which is considered "independent" despite being quite famous and large. If not, I guess I don't know what indie means. One location? If they open a second, is it a big boring corporation now?

>These theaters can also show new independent or international films that might not get a showing in major theaters

Alamo does this! I saw Teen Witch a few years ago at an Alamo Draft House, of all things. Not exactly something getting shown on major theaters nowadays :)

There are probably better examples but I'm far from a cinephile (I certainly wouldn't know about new international or independent releases regardless).

Might I suggest indie to be any theater that hasn't succumbed to "enshittification" yet? Theres pressure to do so though. Its a tough business. Alamo themselves declared bankruptcy in 2021 (they emerged successfully though)

+1 to Alamo Drafthouse, they have really good visuals, good sound, a strict no talking and no cell phone policy, and they show a lot of old films. They also serve beer and great milkshakes. Food is OK, could be better. But all around the best theatre experiences I've had.

Agreed. I wish I could buy their stock, but they're a private company :)

They declared bankruptcy in 2021....you sure you really wanna own that stock?

(they emerged from it successfully though)

Maybe a low $ amount of support, but they seem to have a solid product. But yeah I would want to look at financials :)

In the wake of the pandemic. They're not the only theater chain that declared bankruptcy.

They also illegally union-bust

[citation really really needed] especially considering how many locations Alamo has in Texas. Not a lot of union protection in Texas.

Why do you ask that when there are many results in the most simple Google search?

https://www.google.com/search?q=alamo+drafthouse+union+busti...

Interesting that you go to the movies for the quality.

My home cinema setup is literately just a high end OLED TV from 2019 configured to my tastes. But even with just that as my basis of comparison, I can barely stand how bad the sound and image quality of the best movie theater is around my place.

The blurryness of normal cinema is something I have a personal distaste for. I appreciated the Hobbit because they genuinely had an improvement there. But still, any action sequence in a movie is a blurry mess. Speed Racer also did something well in that regard. I play games at 170Hz, I dislike having my vision downgraded by 80 years of age just to enjoy a movie. Of course, this is largely not the fault of the movie theater. Movies also look blurry on my TV, just less so due to settings. I just have more choice of high quality content at home.

But by far the worst offender is sound. It seems the only thing movie theaters are trying to achieve when it comes to sound is booming bass registering on sismographs on the opposite side of the planet. There's instant distortion whenever the scene is not quiet. Highs are just horrible in general. And movie composers and sound designers seem to know this as they use highs sparingly, resulting in often jarringly unrealistic sound. And everything sounding bombastic even when it doesn't make sense thematically.

Maybe your theater is the exception? Are you in a city? Here in central NJ, im seeing the same business as pre-pandemic. I have AMC monthly pass and so I see a lot of movies. Apart from blockbusters like Barbie or most superhero movies, the theaters are practically empty. Yes there are weird exceptions such as The Sound of Freedom but that was essentially a scam because many viewers were given free tickets by conservative organizations just to boost their numbers. But normally any non big blockbuster has a small handful of people or almost nothing. AMC is also still closing theaters in places like Charlotte NC which I would normally assume is a growth area.

We gave up on AMC in particular because of the obscene amount of previews and ads (I measured it for a movie two months ago, it was forty minutes of them after the published start time!). Others haven't been so egregious at least. But it's no surprise to me if AMC goes bankrupt.

Thats kind of weird. How long ago was this? What specific AMC theater did you go to? In the AMC app it explicitly tells you if there are previews and typically they don't ever go past 20 mins. Typically they are 15 mins.

Yes you’re right for new movies. People are bored of the formulaic crap. Alamo replays a lot of popular movies, and those have been much busier. Kubrick and Christopher Nolan movies. The recent Dune. Rerelease of The Exorcist. Etc.

No its not just that. Any small time indie film is also practically empty. Most A24 films for example might have some interested people on day one but then its literally dead for the rest of their two+ week run. I cannot even count the amount of times I walked into a theater with literally no one watching. AMC plays the film regardless and its just sad seeing no one in the theater. I am tired of hearing this "formulaic crap" excuse when its the formulaic crap of superhero movies that bring in a lot of the big bucks.

Do you mean Sound of Freedom not The Sound of Music :) ?

Yes sorry. Clearly as you can tell I didn't get a free ticket to watch it. :P

You know, I just saw the new Hercule Poirot movie (hey, I'm a fan), and I had the same experience. I don't get out of the house much because I WFH, I have all these streaming services yet I spend most of my time just watching YouTube - I really enjoyed going to the theater and seeing a movie!

Having a discussion with my wife - why do we have all these streaming services? We should just drop them all and go out to the movies a couple times a month. It looks like that's what we're going to do. So yeah, you should be cautiously bullish.

The main problem with movies now is the price. For movie theaters to really do well, you need to make it possible for a group of suburban teenagers to buy tickets and snacks with whatever money they get from babysitting or lawn mowing or whatever suburban teenagers do for spending money.

AMC solves that with their 25$/month movie pass that lets you see essentially three films a week. Those roudy teens are literally keeping some locations from looking like a complete ghost town.

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