"Go check out your Regal Cinemas. They installed stadium seating."

This is what a couple of friends told me. Wow, could it be? My local dump of a 20-plex theater revamped? Sounded like I needed to take a field trip. Images ran through my head of stadium-style seats. The style I saw at an AMC Theater in Tallahassee, Florida. The theater even had a somewhat decent sound system.

I was so excited that I began my field trip early. I wanted to get the center seat, just like at home. Although, at home I don’t have to leave early.

The arrival:

The moment of truth. "One ticket please." I entered the lobby. I thought, "Strange, looks the same so far". The ticket tearing person tore my ticket. I entered the hallway that lead towards my movieplex . The new and improved Regal Cinema had both big and small theater rooms. My movie was in the small (of courrse it was). I entered the room and was immediately challenged by a dark tunnel-like maze. I had to maneuver my way through that maze like a prowling laboratory rat. Where was that chunk of cheese, I mean theater room? Well, I found the cheese, though I’m not sure any faster than a rat.

My destination had arrived. Boy-o-boy, what a difference. I looked for the center seat in the middle of the room. I stood square in the middle. I realized I needed to go up a few more flights so I didn’t look like I was projected onto the image. Close was good. Close enough to be confused as a cast member was not good. I arrived and stood towards the center of the screen. That location was the best seat in the house. One problem. No seat!

Corporate decisions by non movie goers:

Some genius put the stairway right up the middle of the theater instead of along the sides. It became painfully obvious that whoever designed this theater probably thought sitting on lawn-chairs in the back of a pickup truck at a drive-in was the correct aesthetics for going to the movies. The theater did look pretty. I've seen pretty pick-up trucks too.

Whoever designed that theater must have walked into an AMC Theater and said, "Look, seats like a stadium". They never noticed any other features that made a movie experience enjoyable. In the case of Regal Cinemas, more bearable.

Questions and comments for Regal:

1) Can you please use a cheaper quality speaker, I thought you went overboard by spending the $7.95 on the ones that I heard?
2) Do you really think raising the volume at excruciating levels makes us think you have a better speaker?
3) Maybe you should raise the ceiling some more so that you could raise the speaker location even higher.
4) If your goning to leave a blurry vertical streak along the left third of the screen throughout the entire movie, please have the decency to do the same to the right side to balance it out.
5) Please soften the projected image a little more or see if a Super-8mm version is available.
6) When you show a Widescreen movie on a small screen, feel free to leave it squeezed. That way I won’t miss anything.
7) Thank you for not putting in the high-back seats. I know I don’t deserve them. Plus, I can also continue to keep up on the soap opera behind me... Sometimes in other languages too.

Parting thoughts:

I would like to thank Regal Cinemas. They were the inspiration for the creation of this website in 1999. Thanks again for reconfirming that I made the right decision.