That customer may have had a legitimate complaint. Perhaps the wrong aperture or lens was used, or the screen masking was set to the wrong format? Could have had a misframed picture, which they would interpret as the wrong aspect ratio. Perhaps they knew the film was shot in a certain aspect ratio (e.g., 1.66:1 or 1.37:1) and objected to the cropping from the commonly used 1.85:1 aspect ratio used in most US theatres.

Here is a link to my Kodak Cinema Notes article "Caring About Composition":

Caring About Composition

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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Evans, were you in Rosemount Minnesota watching movies lately?

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Nope. Sadly, I seem to be the only theatre-goer in my area that cares about the aspect ratio being correct. Note that I've been very quiet about it during the past few months. I have been sending some messages to movie studios about the aspect ratio problem in the local theatres and if just one would put their foot down and not allow their scope movies to be shown at 1.85:1, I believe that would be the push that Regal needs to fix the problem at Hollywood 18 and Madison Square 12 in two-thirds of the auditoriums. Of course, the movie studios themselves may not care that their scope movies are often being shown at 1.85:1. If the movie studios don't care, and the customers don't care, then should I care? I'll put a "news item" on my site occasionally telling people they should write Regal headquarters and complain about the practice, but I'll bet nobody does, because they either don't understand the problem, or understand it and just don't care.

Occasionally, my site gets hit by major companies in the movie industry. Yesterday, I got a hit from disney.com, but of course, that could be anyone from within the company. carmike.com hits the site occasionally, but regalcinemas.com never has.

August 31 was the last time I went to any movie theatre, which is quite odd for me. If nothing I want to see comes out this Friday, it will be more than a month between visits, which may not ever have happened before. (I'll have to write a routine in the software to sort all the visits chronologically, regardless of theatre. Analysing that trend for different times of the year would be interesting.

As for "crazy customer comments", oen manager and I had a good time last month talking about some of the strage and unusual comments he had received. Many had nothing to do with the movie presentation, but had to do with exit signs, concession items, etc. That particular theatre has nice EXIT signs that aren't bright enough to throw light onto the screens, and do not require electricity. Some customers say that the signs aren't working. When the auditoriums are dark, the signs are easily visible. One customer said she didn't like the roller coaster policy trailer because it made her dizzy.

In May 2000 the Regal Commerce Center (North Brunswick NJ) ran East is East with no trailers -- just the "rollercoaster" policy and the feature. No rolling stock advertising even! I sent in a comment card about the lack of trailers but Knoxville didn't seem to care.

That particular Regal had just started renting out screens for Bollywood product and thought East is East was a Bollywood picture. (It's actually a comedy/drama about a Pakistani family in England. Miramax released it in the US.)

Do you work at a Regal? I work at a really old one. It's a 10-plex, and 6 of our screens do not have moveable masking. I can't stad it!!! Every movie in those houses is shown on a flat screen. Uggghhhh!!!!

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Do you work at a Regal? I work at a really old one. It's a 10-plex, and 6 of our screens do not have movable masking. I can't stand it!!! Every movie in those houses is shown on a flat screen. Uggghhhh!!!!

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No, I don't work for Regal. Was this Regal you work for a Cobb theatre originally?

As far as the comment about the Pepsi Girl policy trailer being satanic, that's funny, but I admit that I put in my share of comment cards expressing my opinion about it, although I never went as far as to call it "satanic".

Theatre companies will never be able to please everyone with their policy trailer. I like the roller coaster trailer because it serves a useful purpose, namely being able to see if the image is framed correctly. Also, it's funny to see the age 12-16 group hold their arms up and act like they're riding on a roller coaster. However, I'll bet that Regal has gotten complaints about going back to the roller coaster instead of making a new one (but not from me).

People will complain about anything, and it seems that the lower the IQ of the person complaining, the funnier the complaints will be. Listening to a someone try to explain a problem not knowing a thing about movie projection can be a blast.

"The top is at the bottom and the bottom is at the top". (misframed two perfs)

"They need to adjust their tracking" (scope film misframed slightly with a strip of the adjacent frame showing).

"I loved Pepsi Girl. She was so cute." (this person would have to be either satanic, or an old lady ).

"There is this constant noise in the auditorium during many scenes in the movie." (it was submarine ambient noises coming through the surrounds in "Hunt for Red October" -- remember, old people typically don't like surround).

"The movie was too loud" and "The movie was not loud enough" from members of the same audience.

"The movie was played in DTS when it was supposed to be in THX."

"They need to do a better job cleaning up between shows. There are cups and popcorn everywhere" (from someone who left his cup in the cup-holder for the usher to clean up).

"They haven't been getting any good movies lately." (thinking that the local theatres actually have much control over this.)

"Their video games suck." (Generally, I go to a theatre to see movies, not to play video games).

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Bob H: No trailers with a feature is a mortal sin!

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Yes, my theatre used to be Cobb. Have you found the same problem with masking at similar theatres? The newer Cobb theatres I've been to all have moveable masking. I even used to work at one.

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Yes, my theatre used to be Cobb. Have you found the same problem with masking at similar theatres? The newer Cobb theatres I've been to all have moveable masking. I even used to work at one.

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By "newer", you must mean after 1994 and before mid 1997 when Regal bought them out. I say that because our Hollywood 18 (originally Cobb Hollywood 16) was built in 1994 and only had 4 screens with adjustable masking, with all others 1.85:1-only. I consider that to be a fairly new theatre.

I'd love it if customers would start complaining about that and writing letters to Regal and the movie studios about it. If I only had the names and addresses of the people that would care about this problem at, say, Fox, Universal, etc., the studios themselves might require that movies only be shown on appropriately-sized screens. I got a hit from disney.com the other day, and at that time, a snippet urging people to write letters to Regal about the problem was near the top. Maybe I should make note of every scope movie that is being shown in the smaller auditoriums each time I go to those and list them, along with the releasing studio, on my page somewhere. Having specific examples of which movies from which studios are being cropped might make whoever reads my letters at the studios read the letter a bit more carefully before throwing it away.

Back to the "crazy comments" topic:
Here is one comment I provided to the staff at one theatre before a movie: "The sound system in there sounds like a car ran over it." The music coming from it was so distorted that it hurt to listen to it. A guy came in and listened, ran upstairs, and did something and it improved drastically. (This was an aduitorium in which the auditorium lights used to blink every time a slide changed in the slide projector!)

Here is a link to Film Journal's International Distribution Guide, which lists the contacts at each major distributor:
FJ International Distribution Guide

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

This lady appearently has seen real ghosts of people who died at another theatre she used to work at.
This theatre was being biult onto a mall and one day part of the biulding collapsed while it was under construction and killed some joggers who were jogging around the mall (how they were able to get near the construction is beyond me).