While Patricia Leigh Brown‘s 7.4 N.Y. Times piece about the revival of small-town movie theatres is an upper — a piece of agreeable, spirited reportage about people coming together — the photo shows precisely the kind of theatre that I can’t stand to watch a film in. Long and narrow, a cinematic bowling alley, a 13 foot wide screen that can’t present real 2.35 to 1 Scope and looks way too small from the rear of the house.
With viewing conditions this crappy, it just goes to show that movies aren’t the draw — communities just want to congregate and say “hiya” and feel the communal vibe.