[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Ah, I recant my slander. My husband told me it was in “that one dinky rathole with bad sound” when he meant, “I don’t want to fight traffic, pay $10 per ticket plus $13 for parking and you probably won’t find out I lied. Soon enough it will open wider release and play at CineArts in Evanston where we see most things anyway.”
[/QUOTE]
Ha, ok. I thought, if you thought the River East 21 theater was small and uncomfortable, you have VERY high standards. Glad to know it was a fib. We don’t have a car and don’t have to worry about parking, but I can understand it being a problem cost. I’m sure the COM will open in Evanston.
I love the Century 12/CineArts 6 too. They show good movies, their matinees are still reasonable, and their employees are fantastic. We’re not close to it, but there’s a bus that goes from 1/2 block away from our apartment that lets us off right in front of the theater. The bus doesn’t run after 7:30pm, but if we see late movies we can take the L (Purple/Red) and another bus (Lawrence) so we’re not stuck. The seats are less comfortable than the RE21, but the Exit signs at CineArts are wonderful: red on quiet and discreet black instead of Chicago’s red on bright, shining, always-washes-out-the-screen white.
I hear Century is being taken over by CineMark. I hope nothing major changes. One advantage would be the ability to buy discount passes at Costco. Right now Costco sells passes for AMC and CineMark. That’s why we go to so many AMC theaters, because all the CineMark theaters are way out in the burbs, which might as well be Denver. Evanston’s easy to get to.
On topic, Chicago suburbs seems pretty good about playing interesting films, based on the Reader showtimes. City theaters are on the left, Suburb theaters are on the right. Some of the films playing in the city are not in wide release yet.
I hope I never have to move to a cinema-deprived community, but the coming trend of day and date theatrical/download/DVD releases, especially of indie/art house/foreign films, would go a long way to ease the pain if I was ever so afflicted. The coming trend of digital presentations could also help sustain art houses in smaller communities. Movies on film stock cost a bitchload of money to print and ship. Theaters that show actual film will never die, but they need to become scarce. Digital is the way to get these movies to places that are ill-served by studios.
