A Canadian exhibition guy named Robert Wales says the reason Match Point sounded so shitty at the Leows Lincoln Square on Wednesday night is because Woody Allen is an old fart when it comes to state-of-the-art sound recording. “Are you aware that Allen has never made a film in stereo?,” Wales begins. “There are going to be differences comparing a big film with a full 5-channel mix to one of Allen’s dialogue-driven pieces. I work for a major theatre chain, and every Allen film inevitably brings us customer complaints about presentation that are almost always related to the fact that they feel they are being cheated because the sound is coming from only one speaker, and therefore something must be wrong. The situation is even murkier when people see the film being presented in digital sound, which to the average person means multi-channel. The truth is that digital sound is able to convey as many (or as few ) channels as the filmmakers intended. I haven’t seen Match Point myself, but I have no reason to expect that Allen has suddenly decided to mix his films in stereo at this stage in his career. Of course, it’s also possible you saw a lousy presentation but given the prominence of Leows’ Lincoln Square I’d be surprised if their presentations were truly substandard.”