Sunday, March 28, 2010

Lights! Camera! Action! Action???

When L and I went to the matinee yesterday, I experienced a first.  Probably 45 minutes into the movie, the screen went dark.  We could still hear the movie, but couldn't see it.  Then, we couldn't hear or see it.  Eventually, we discovered that the satellite that sends the movie to the projection booths had gone out--for the entire theater!  The line for refunds was long. 

Sad.  And I had no idea that movie theaters received their movies by satellite.  I always pictured the projection booth having reel to reels--probably a sure sign of how old I am!  I guess you learn something new every day.

My only other movie refund happened about 15 years ago when that same theater was in a tornado warning.  (Getting the feeling that I am a tornado magnet??)  They shut off the movie and herded us to the first few rows of the theater.  Or at least they tried to.  Some poor high school kid tried to get the Mr. and three other men to move that direction.  As I remember, the four of us couples ended up out front watching the storm. 

The 25 year old manager discovered us and got on the high school kid because we weren't in the theater like we were supposed to be.  The kid smirked at him and said, "Feel free to take on these four men and see if you can get them in there."  The manager took a look at the men who were 15 to 20 years older than he was and decided we were old enough to make our own decision.  We had a nice chat waiting for the storm to blow over.

That time, we got our money back and a free ticket for another time.  This time, we just got our money back.

I prefer to see the whole movie.  It felt like home where the Mr. was running the remote:  ten minutes of this, twenty minutes of that, and no show or movie in its entirety.  Good thing I love that guy!

4 comments:

Mary said...

We were stuck under some football bleachers during what we thought would be a "summer storm" and would just blow over. It wasn't too fun when the wind started swirling and it started hailing!

Heidi said...

Hmm. I pictured reel to reels too. My son, Pilgrim, keeps 10 out of 20 pictures rolling for a 20 screen theater in San Francisco. I'll have to ask him about this.

I am beginning to think you attract tornadoes. Do you have a metal hair pin sticking out of your bun or what? Oh wait, that would be a lightening attracter, not a tornado attracter. Well, it's getting late....let's just say that explains it. ;)

Have a wonderful week!

Steve Gravano said...

I'm in shock! No movie reels... progress. I guess then you'd have to hire a skilled projectionist and that would cause the price of movies and popcorn to skyrocket!

Katie (Can't Get There) said...

It's happened to me a few times, but never for a tornado! The most recent was about 10 years ago when Ali was out in theaters. 10 minutes from the end of the movie - TEN MINUTES - and there was a fire in the theater so we had to evac. It was a good movie, but there was no way I was sitting through all 3 hours of it again for the last 10 minutes.