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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: What is the most ridiculous multi-plex in your area?
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Scott D. Neff
Theatre Dork
Posts: 919
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 04-11-2002 10:28 AM
I know this sort of thread gets brought up every so often, and usually doesn't do much good for any of us since few of us live near each other... BUT I'm going to be doing some travelling this summer in America, and when I'm out and about on my vacations, I like to look at ridiculously silly multi-plexes.The ones I'm talkin about are the 4-Plexes from the mid 70's that've since been carved into 12 plexes and have theatres jury rigged into existence. Like for instance, the UA Berkeley 7 in Berkeley, CA. It was one of the single screens UA built with the carvings on the front "Unity" and "Artistry". Anyway -- it was a SINGLE and now it's 7 screens. From what I'm told they twinned the balcony and they twinned the main floor with walls right down the middle. Then they discovered that the lobby and the mezzanine were SOOO large that they could build each of them into an auditorium. THEN they realized that back-stage was so large, that they could fit another auditorium back there. Needless to say there are amazingly intricate hallways and exit paths leading everywhere in that building, but it's a marvel of what theatre companies did to fit more screens in there. Now I'm not necessarily ONLY interested in the butchered old singles or the cheezy 70's-plex, but overall... the weirdest and the funkiest multi-plex.
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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 04-11-2002 03:10 PM
Rogers 5, Wasua, Wisonsin. Single now a fiver. Name might have changed because its owned my Marcus now. Its the theatre in the downtown area.Rogers 5, Stevens Point, Wisonsin. Old service station expanded into a theatre. I shit you not. Rogers 7, Marshfield, Wisconsin. Single screen turned into five, plus two screens added in the former music store next door. This theatre is actually very nice, was just remodeled. I didn't get a chance to judge projection quality though during my tour-aspect ratios and whatnot.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-11-2002 04:10 PM
There are many of these in the Boston area. Examples include:- NA Showcase, Woburn, MA. - originally a 4-plex built in the mid-1970s, now a 12-plex (the conversion involved some "hacking" and some "adding" and resulted in a really lousy venue)
- Loews Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. - originally a single, now a 5-plex (the big house is largely intact, but the balcony was split and two shoebox houses were added behind the stage)
- West Newton Cinema, Newton, MA. - originally a single, now a 5-plex (this one is kind of hard to describe)
An honorable mention would be the GCC (umm...AMC) Chestnut Hill Cinema - originally built as a twin, now a 5-plex (both houses were divided widthwise and the original #2 house was also divided lengthwise; the #1 house is relatively intact and still quite decent, however)
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-11-2002 07:43 PM
Chances are you would not come through Lawton, but if you did you would be amazed at how silly the Central Mall 12 theater is, especially for a newly built multiplex.All theaters have "stadium seating" but the small size of the auditoriums (most average between 85 and 100 seats) makes the seating more like bleacher seating at the little league baseball game. The screens, even in the two largest 200+ seat auditoriums, are tiny. That is because the ceiling is no more than 18 feet tall. That's a price you pay for building inside a mall. The auditoriums have a really weird layout. One entry comes to the front of the stadium riser near the screen, but the other way is a stairway running horizontally between some of the last upper rows. And that stair way is very noisy if someone klomps down it to go pee during the show. I don't know what kind of projectors this theater uses. They look like they were hammered together in someone's garage. I heard they were built in Czechoslovakia. Only 2 of the 12 screens have digital sound (DTS-6AD's hooked up to QSC amps). And the staff doesn't even bother to load the CDs to play any films in digital! I guess it is just too much trouble for them. This is a theater that started out great in the initial phases of design. But the Central Mall authority (run by some group of bean counters from Texarkana) paid to have the theater built and only hired Dickinson Theaters to manage it. So they cut corners. And more corners, and more and more. What they wound up with is a theater that wouldn't qualify as a good build for 1993 even with the 2 DTS screens.
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Tom Fermanian
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 101
From: Sainte Adele, Quebec, Canada
Registered: Dec 2001
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posted 04-11-2002 08:50 PM
Here is a howler!There is a single screener in a small Quebec town called Rivière au Renard Quebec, on my last visit there 2 years ago, they had taken this small single screen with about 300 seats, in which the original auditorium mesured about 75 feet deep by 38 feet wide.The owners decided to go into the video business, they then put a divider wall in the auditorium left to right in the middle, leaving half of the front seats & screen there,The divider wall was a 3/4 wall leaving the top open in order to let the projection beam go thru!Sooo! in the back part you had shelves with cassettes with a passage on each end permiting access to the video store that is now the back half then right thru into the auditorium, no doors in between the lobby/ video store/ and cinema auditorium!! By the way, nice bright fluorecent tubes where instaled on the Video store side ceiling shinning of course on the cassettes + the back part of the newly chopped theatre.The projection light beam goes into the video store part then to the screen, sound from the movie is of course heard in the video part, to be fair, video shoppers are heard in the auditorium too!  :bs  In was funny checking out cassettes in shelves from a slopped floor! A friend of mine from around there said that this place burned down and is no longer running, The Question: Did Irate Moviegoers burn it down? or Video afficionados???? ------------------
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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene
Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 04-11-2002 10:04 PM
Here in salt lake.. the worst of all multiplexes...CARMIKE 12 REDWOOD ROAD 9000 SOUTH Advertises stadium STYLE seating... meaning an ungodly 30 degree slope. DONT DROP ANYTHING, it will belong to the people in the front row. Also, they do not replace bulbs until they stop lighting. Most of thier bulbs are on hours as high as 7000 hours. Yes, this means VERY DIM SCREENS. Tickets go for 5 bucks. I think they are not lasting much longer. Dave
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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 04-12-2002 12:07 AM
You might want to check out the Academy 6 in Pasadena. The ONLIY thing in this theatre's favor is the heavy on the second-run arthouse product. Some truly bizarre double-features for good prices. This was once a Fox West Coast single screen that became wrapped inside what looks like medical office suites (even though they have different kinds of businesses, so the original marquee and entrance no longer resemble a theatre. The lobby is original, but the main floor was cut up into 4 theatres (the original 4 aisle doors leading to the 4 new theatres). Two theatres in the back half, two in the front half. The two front half screens project AR at somewhere between 1.37 and 1.66 for flat, and probably accurate for 2.35 scope. The two rear half auditoriums are probably about 1.66 for flat at maybe 2.1 or 2 for scope. All theatres have been outfitted recently for Dolby Stereo (or a derivitave) with mixed surround speakers (many of them being those tiny Aiwa units you see that come with personal stereo units). The two upstairs (former balcony) auditoriums have the BIGGEST screens with larger surrounds (that look like what you would use for a portable PA system) but the screens seem set at 1.85 (although the scope images are projected at about 2.0, falling into black masking I SUSPECT could open but are maybe broken...in any case, there is room in BOTH theatres for proper scope screens. Hard to focus, though. The original center booth is being used, and the projection is WAY angled. No seats in the last three (stepped) rows, probably because of the higher positioned screens, a ceiling height change in the balcony cuts off part of the view. The ONLY theatre Ive been in where people in the 10th row from the back can partially block off the bottom of the image when they stand.Still, Ive caught some great double-feature movies here at bargain prices! 
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