20 minutes of trailers and 10 minutes of AMC puff pieces including the Nicole Kidman OMG Cinema commercials.
Earlier today I went to an AMC IMAX theater to watch Dune Part 2 (spoiler free review, a great film), and instead of the film starting at the scheduled time we have to duck around for 30 min before the film starts (which even then isn’t true since we get two 30 second studio logos).
I’m so happy that most theaters I go to are smaller with usually only a preview or two.
But for AMC, fuck you.
Pretty much every theater does assigned/reserved seating nowadays. You choose your seat numbers when you buy the ticket. No need to show up early to try to scout the best seat or score 5 in a row or whatever. They’re just saying they go to their ticketed seat.
Huh. Do you have to pay more for some seats?
Did they at least start selling beer and having decent food?
No, all the seats are the same price, at least at my theater.
My theater also has a full bar and really good food. Actual handmade wood-fired pizzas, wraps, sandwiches, burgers, fries, pretzel bites, etc. All made fresh after you order; it’s not sitting under a heat lamp. I think they have reasonable prices.
Even better, you can carry just your popcorn and drink into the theater, and they’ll deliver the rest of your food to your seat when it’s ready. Pretty awesome, especially with kids, to not have to figure out how to transport all of it.
Do you eat while watching the movie? Isn’t that super disturbing to everyone else?
I assume you mean that you can eat before the movie right?
Good questions—
Yes, eat while watching. It’s no louder than eating popcorn. All the food is served in paper trays or cardboard, so the sound is still relatively quiet. In fact I think candy, especially the bagged kinds, are far louder from the bag crinkling. Lots of people around me have eaten food and it doesn’t disturb the movie. The movie itself is far louder.
There is seating in the bar area if you’d prefer to eat before or after the movie, but it’s not required.
I think I would also annoyed at the smells of different foods, but… I don’t know. It’s one of those things I would have to experience myself. :)
I would tend to agree, but none of the food is really offensive smelling (I guess that’s subjective) but the other thing is that you’re pretty far away, unless they’re sitting right next to you, which is rare these days in all but the most popular opening weekend shows. From row to row (front to back) you’re separated by roughly 5-6 feet horizontally and maybe 3 feet vertically. Enough that I can recline fully (another awesome feature of most modern theaters) and there’s still room for someone to walk through in front of me without turning aside for my feet. And then when standing in your row, your feet are just above the heads of those seated in front of you. It works really well.
Honestly, if you haven’t been In a while, it might be worth checking out. Of course each theater can vary in quality and guest experience — I once went to a theater where their “fresh cooked pizza” was a cheap frozen pizza put through a fancy pizza oven and never went back — but in my opinion theaters are, on average, drastically improved from the 80s/90s/00s era theaters of old. Even if they are more expensive now, a good theater makes a nice occasional outing if you can find a good one. I wouldn’t go back to the old style.
And make sure you find one with a good rewards program if you become a regular. It can really cut down on the cost of tickets and concessions.
Depends where you live, I guess. Before moving out of state, I used to occasionally go to a place in Wheaton, Illinois called Studio Movie Grill. It’s like a normal theater but each seat has a tray and you can order food like in a normal restaurant. Each row of seats is elevated over the rows in front so that the servers for rows in front of yours don’t block your view of the movie. I did find it a little distracting but I still enjoyed it.
As for beer, every chain movie house I’ve been to for years has sold beer and in many cases, mixed drinks too.