More recently though, there have been things that continue to happen that make me so incredibly mad, because they are examples of lazy employees who do not check the films once they start. Last year, I had a terrible experience seeing THE GREEN MILE in my local movie theatre. First off, the film started and for the first ten minutes was without sound. Then, when we did get some sound, it was the pre-movie music they usually run before the film. As if that weren't enough, towards the last third of the film, the screen image was off center, with the top of the image projected off screen. So on the closeups of Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan as they talk about the sadness in the world and Coffey's ultimate fate, the tops of their heads were off screen. Now where were the employees while all of these things were happening? Why is there not a employee watching the film from inside the theatre to make sure the image stays like it is and the sound is functioning properly.
Just last week, seeing THE PERFECT STORM, the main sound continually shifted from the center speaker to the right rear speaker for the first twenty minutes of the film, causing sometimes the background noise of the bar to overwhelm what the main characters were saying, and other times to create the strange experience of watching the characters before you talk, while their voices were in your right ear. Why wasn't a theatre employee monitoring the film, at least every so often, and correcting the problem? What ends up happening is that someone in the audience finally gets up (and another thing, why does it take so long for someone in the crowd to stand up and get some help?), has to interrupt their movie-watching experience, and notify someone ... all I've ever asked is that an employee be assigned to continually monitor the films for good picture and sound to make sure that everything is okay. No one has ever answered me as to why this is not being done.
And another thing you notice about a lot of these theatre employees ... they are simply there thinking of this as another job. Shouldn't people with a passion for film be working in a place whose primary job it is to show films? Why do we have people who don't care enough to hurry with your food order when you're running late for a movie? Why do we have theatre employees who take your tickets and wave you by without the slightest interest in what they're doing? Even without that (I guess it's not critical to my movie-going experience to have a friendly face greeting me at every movie -- I remember what it was like to work in retail, my experience being at a fast-food restaurant of all places, and I know it's not always fun), the biggest problems for movie theatre staffs and management in my opinion is to make sure the film is projected perfectly, with great picture and great sound (and that includes making sure the lens is properly focused for a 35mm or 70mm film, that the sound synchs with the film so you don't have to lip read to see if the dialogue is matching, etc, etc) ...
