May 3, 2002 | Q
Dammitall! Shannon and I wanted to go see Spider-Man tonight, and in New York, it’s practically impossible to see a movie without buying your ticket ahead of time. So off I set this morning on my quest to get our tickets.
The largest chain of theaters in the city now uses Fandango for all their online purchases, and it’s impossible to get all the way through a purchase on their servers without getting either a “server too busy” or “could not process your request at this time” error. For phone purchases, the theater uses Tellme.com — but the phone system thinks that there are no theaters within 40 miles of New York City that are showing Spider-Man, thwarting that approach.
Looks like we won’t be seeing a movie tonight. Bummer.
You’ll enjoy Spider-Man, I think; we did. We so thoroughly loathed the moviegoing experience, however, that we may never see a big movie on opening night again. You may have been better off.
Aside from the horrendously distracting lack of quality in image and projection (and a shrug in response to my complaints from the high-school kids who claimed to be the “manager” and the “projectionist”), the crowd was loud, unruly, hollered at the screen and at each other, played with their cell phones during the movie and basically ruined it for anyone who really cares about the moviegoing experience.
From now on it’s weeknights and late shows, or any theater that has a sign that says “Neanderthals not welcome here.”
</rant>
• Posted by: Chuck Taggart on May 6, 2002, 7:04 PM