The Film Broke!

A strange thing happened last night at the movies.

The film broke.

I haven’t seen anything like it in so long that at first we all thought it was part of the movie – the pause of the film and then the burning of the frame until the screen was a pure white.
I kept having flashes of The Muppet Movie. But after a few moments we all realized that the film had gotten stuck and melted.

So we waited. About 2 minutes later the lights turned on.
No one came out to say anything and we just waited realizing that if the lights were on that someone knew what was happening and probably splicing the film.

We waited.

About 5 minutes later – the lights when ALL the way on and a manager (and a security guard) came in to tell us that they would not be able to repair the film and that if we would leave the theater he would be giving us replacement passes.

So we left and he handed us each a movie pass.

We were at most 5 minutes from the end of the film. I don’t know how it ends (well it was J Edgar so I do know how it ends) but I don’t care to sit through the entire film again to see the ending.

As a regular of the theater I told another manager that this wasn’t acceptable – it wasn’t enough. They ruined my evening – they didn’t get that – sure I got my ticket money back – but what about my time (or my popcorn) or my general disappointment. Was I going to blow this pass on a movie I had already seen most of and didn’t want to sit though again? She said that later in the week I could come back and just pop in to see the ending. This was nice and I might do that but what about everyone else? What about the fact that the free movie ticket was done to make them feel better – to scrape by with the least amount of effort.

No one left that theater happy.

And when the manager brought security with him to inform us we needed to leave – he knew it too.

He just didn’t care.

Shame on them.