Drama + Draft Beer and Pizza

By Ron Merk

I recently read an article about Alamo Draft House and their expansion plans. While food and cinema is not a new concept (we’ve had concessions for most of cinema’s history), I think this may be a sharp turn on the road to keeping the big screen viable economically, and certainly not my idea of a solution of how to keep the seats filled by keeping the bellies full.

Sure this is one way to keep movie theaters open and provide a shared social experience. HOWEVER (you noticed the caps!), it’s one thing to be sitting next to Chatty Kathy and Karl, talking through the film or adding their own narration, but what happens when you sit next to a slob, gobbling their dinner, burping (or worse), and then touching everything around you with their greasy hands after that extra large plate of Buffalo wings? Yes, that was a rhetorical question.

I remember dinner theater back in the 60s, and for the most part, the dinner was served BEFORE the “theater,” so that the clinking and clanking of china, glasses and silverware subsided before the first chorus of “Some Enchanted Evening.” It appears that that will not be the case with this new model. Food and Film or more precisely Hot Dogs and Digital. And then there’s a room filled with the smell of different foods, further distracting us from the film, unless they match up the menu to the movie in a new twist on “smell-o-vision.” I can deal with the smell of popcorn, but a full-service menu sounds like a recipe for total annoyance, and a bit much for my poor old nose. And then there’s all that chewing and the use of toothpicks after the meal.

It all sounds terribly unsanitary. Oh, wait, they’ve installed sprinklers with hand-sanitizer liquid on all the dinner trays, so we leave clean, refreshed, and smelling like pomegranate. While this may be one model, I hope that we can find another one without so many distractions, and without the need to pay for fast food at what I assume will be ballpark prices, just like the rest of the items at the concession stand.

Frankly, I’d prefer a buffet of other amenities: clean floors, ushers with flashlights, sharp focus on the screen, sound not so loud that it hurts our ears, especially during the trailers, and maybe even a curtain opening and closing at the beginning and end of each film. Call me old fashioned, or just plain opinionated. Give me “Adam’s Rib” but hold the baby backs.

Original article: http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/alamo-drafthouse-movie-theaters-us-cocktails-drinks-reserved-seating-luxury-amenities-expansion-94371

Published: May 30, 2013