I recall that Brad and a few others have found overhead lighting during the show to be distracting for those wearing eyeglasses, as you often get reflections of the overhead lights in the lenses.

Ebert wants the theater chains to hold on to "movie palaces and glorious single-screeners". The only way a 1,000-seat theater can survive today is to have an area exclusive. In NYC Monsoon Wedding is in the Paris Theatre but not the Loews Lincoln Square or AMC Empire. Reason: The Paris has an exclusive for Manhattan north of 34th Street on whatever picture it's playing. The Loews Lincoln Square and AMC Empire could not get Amelie until that film was out of the Paris.

Ebert wants theaters to bring back Saturday morning "kiddie shows". Sorry! Kids have too many planned activities these days and something like that will just not fly. OTOH a theater can do well with family fare if you court families yet not pander to them. The theater I usually go to, the Reading Cinemas in Manville NJ, is a 12-plex that goes all-out to get movies with kid appeal. I saw Big Fat Liar there in its 4th weekend on a Saturday matinee (4:30) in a medium-large hall that was 2/3 full.

Roeper wants all mutliplexes to set aside "a few auditoriums ... to art or specialty fare". I would love to see the Regal Commerce Center in North Brunswick NJ get more aggressive on upmarket/arthouse product. That way Regal can counterprogram the Loews New Brunswick and tap into the Rutgers University community. However, this particular Regal often four-walls at least 1 screen for Bollywood product. Any time that happens Regal loses out on pictures like Ghost World, Mulholland Drive, or Amelie. In fact, Regal will four-wall a screen for a Bollywood film again this weekend and thus will not get to open Harrison's Flowers.

A "no kids policy"? Ebert and Roeper have never been to an AMC.

I'm sure there are people who will disagree and I know there are many theaters that don't have side wall lighting, but hey, that's why I don't visit your theater! In an area where there is another theater not too far away that extinguishes the ceiling lights, you are probably losing a good amount of your business to them without even realizing it. Theaters go out of their way to install elevators and ramps and hearing impaired devices and other "handicap accessible" features in their complexes, but people who wear glasses (the most common of all "handicaps") are ok to forget about??? If your theater has ceiling lighting and wall lighting, your tech could remedy this in just a few minutes per screen. Something to think about.

Most theaters use a light that is very strong, bright, "in your face". Compare to halogens etc. It is very obtrusive. When I had my overheads, we used a very soft, frosted light, very low levels. The frosted incandescent light will not reflect at low levels onto glasses or the screen, and only points out that yes you do have a cieling.

I have been at theaters where the overheads were on very softly, but the light is a dimmed halogen, straight up. It hurts to have on even in the corner of your eyes. Notice that the wall lights are usually frosted incandescent lighting.

Too many theaters CUT corners on this by using the overheads as Cleaning lights as well as ambient lighting.

You should not be able to see the floor when ANY of the lights are on, but you should be able to see only SIHLOETTES (SIC) of seats, people, etc.

Aisle lighting. Use high hat fixtures directly over the aisles. Install "ER" (ellipsoidal reflector) or small 50 watt "spot" bulbs. Set the dimmers on low during the show. The light will pool on the aisle only without being a problem for glasses wearers even if they are near the aisles.

The "hat" on some fixtures is designed to have the front surface of the lamp at ceiling level. This is NOT what you want. The lamps in theatre ceiling lights must be recessed to eliminate glare.

Bullet fixtures are another solution. You do the web search.

Too many theatre managers and execs buy lamps that are wide dispersion "R" or "flood" lamps. Dumb, lazy, dumb. <grumble.>