Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: AMC sucks...the song.

This is topic AMC sucks...the song. in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mr. AMC on 05-30-1999, 03:39 AM:

Type in:
http://members.aol.com/amcsux/AMC.mp3
on your browser or click the link to download the AMC Sucks song! It
was generated on a computer but is still good. You should play it as a
non-sync sourse during your intermission---even if you work for AMC!

Here are the lyrics to the song:

AMC sucks
Don't go there
I can't think of why you should

Scratch that scratch that film
Scratch it up
If it ain't scratched it's no good

AMC sucks
They sure do
They are really cheap and it shows

AMC sucks
And whenever
You go there it really blows

It sounds like crap because
They run it in SDDS - SDDS it sucks
It's real bad

They have those Torus screens
With their big curve and lots of distortion hell yeah
You've been had

AMC sucks
Really bad
You really should stay away

But if you go down to
AMC
They'll f*ck it up anyway

AMC sucks!

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 03-30-2001, 06:55 PM:

What a rude song...

I've never been to AMC, but someone must hate it. I've only heard good things about AMC!

------------------
Andrew McCrea

"I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Drawn That Way!" - Jessica Rabbit

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 03-30-2001, 07:18 PM:

Unregistered - Should be locked out.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 03-30-2001, 07:31 PM:

This was dug up from The Land Before Rules!

It is part of the reason Brad imposed rules and poster's pictures. I can only imagine the amount of crap He had to endure before the rules and the disclaimer were set up.

In certain markets, AMC has a very bad reputation for film handling. Also, they have tried some experiments in auditorium design that have been less than successful. They should be lauded as pioneers of multiplexes and other ways of doing business. But in there zeal to cut costs, they have the most underpaid, poorly trained projection staffs we have encountered. They also have some of the most inovative theatres in the country. If they would just train their projectionists and pay them better, they would be the 800 pound gorilla.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-30-2001, 07:33 PM:

OK I thought you had to have a password and be registerd to post anything on here. Brad can you delete this post and let us know your thoughts in a seperate post. Thanks

Editing post I just realized that the thing was a dregg from the past.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-30-2001, 07:36 PM:

Yes, I have worked for and against AMC and have my own opinion about their operations. However, I agree that unregistered users should be locked out as it skews our signal-to-noise ratio. My two cents.

Oops. Me too. Someone's been digging up skeletons from 1999! Please lock the closet.

Posted by Betsie Beadling (Member # 591) on 03-30-2001, 08:26 PM:

Weird

------------------

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 03-30-2001, 10:33 PM:

I just tried to test the security checking by entering a made up name and password and the system did not let the post go through. It appears that the forum software is enforcing the proper security. Does the system remember users created before registration first started and allow postings from those specific usernames?

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Although there are occasional minor problems, this site has the best signal-to-noise ratio of any internet-based forum I've ever used.

Evans A Criswell

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-31-2001, 12:11 AM:

I think Andrew was looking thru some old posts and posted a reply to it that brung it back to the top. In other words he dove to the bottom of the barrel and pulled up a dregg.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-31-2001, 12:27 AM:

As has been noted a few times already in this thread, yes Andrew was just surfing the archives and decided to make a post. Just look at the date on the first post of this thread. This automatically brings the topic to the first page and places it on top. This post was made in the first few months of the Film-Tech Forums before the current program was installed and there were no rules set up as of that time. I could go through and delete these posts or lock them, but several other times in the last 6 months people have resurfaced an old thread and continued on with the discussion. In the end, I decided to not delete anything and to let all topics remain "active".

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-31-2001, 08:24 AM:

There are also some USEFUL posts from the beginning of Film-Tech.

I feel very old. I was reading this original post when it was very new.

I agree. Leave them available to all.

AMC must really stink to have a song written about it. They're aint none here in my town.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 03-31-2001, 01:33 PM:

Geez, it's not even written very well....

Posted by Dave Cutler (Member # 515) on 04-01-2001, 06:45 PM:

Yes, AMC has got it's fair share of problems, probably more. I personally won't go to any AMC here in Kansas City (AMC's headquarters by the way) because they are so bad. I used to be the booth manager at the AMC BarryWoods 24 (still have all my old business cards to prove it), and it has fallen to the level of the rest of the AMC's here since I left. Crapola.

The major problems have already been mentioned, they hire highschool kids and then don't pay them well. Under $7.00 an hour here in Kansas City. You just can't get people to care for that price. They also severly limit the payroll budget so you end up running a 24-plex with a maximum of 2 operators, that are under trained.

There is also a severe lack of leadership in the booth. I was actually what they call an Operations Coordinator when I was running BarryWoods 24. The Managing Director realized that there was a need for leadership in the booth so I was given the honorary title of Booth Coordinator, and oversaw all booth operations. For a mear $7.70 an hour I was required to make sure everything was done every week. Which is about a 80 hour a week job at a 24 plex. When you are required to work all thursday, friday, and saturday nights, do routine maintenance, trouble shoot when things go wrong, basically be on call (because they only employ one tech for the Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City region) 24/7 it wears you down.

Bottom line, they don't have a clue how to run a theatre complex. So I left when we butted heads about some SDDS coments I made here on Film-Tech and work mainly as a Large Format projectionist, but I work at a local theatre on thursday nights as well (not AMC).

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 07-16-2006, 07:29 PM:

It has been 1932 days since the last post.

Posted by Kevin Murphree (Member # 3895) on 07-16-2006, 07:29 PM:

I'm currently the active Presentations Manager (Projection Manager) for one of the Texas AMC's. I have nothing but great things to say about AMC because if you do your job well then you don't have a whole lot of problems. The only time I do any maintanance is on Sunday mornings for 2 1/2 hours and everything else the Film Crew basically does. I basically set an intense chore list that requires them to clean nearly EVERYTHING and pretty much everything goes the way it's supposed to go up stairs. (Minus a few problems ie. lamp changes, igniters going dead, re-focusing with the RP-40, and doing random syncs that require the positioning of new rollers). All of the booth crew does an excellent job and are always attentative to problems and they always write it down if something goes wrong or something needs to get fixed. I do have to agree that it is like being on call 24/7 I mean they all have my number and they call it at 3 a.m. But it's all based on personal opinion. I mean I love my job and love working up in booth for the company oh and by the way SDDS is used in a million other theatre chains, which I hardly ever have any problems with. Anyhow, so yeah... [Smile]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-16-2006, 08:26 PM:

When someone says "[insert name of large chain here] Sucks" it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Some chains are operating sub-par theatres they acquired through mergers or acquisitions so maybe they should get some slack in those specific cases. At better theatres, it comes down to the people who work there and their local & regional management. Some are good, some are not so good. There are bad Regals out there, but lucky for me I have a good one in this town. If a well-equipped theatre is doing a crappy job, blame it on bad management.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-16-2006, 08:36 PM:

David put this pretty well. Indeed you can have two identical multiplex buildings, and one can be very good with good people who care running it, and you can have the other identical one suck beyond belief if they have lazy retards running it.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-16-2006, 10:34 PM:

Since AMC took over the Loew's theater here the overall booth operation has gotten alot better and the booth is now spotless. Machines are also kept spotless. The employees also seem to be happier.

Mark

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 07-16-2006, 10:49 PM:

The tech who services my theatre is an ex-AMC tech (worked there for 20 or so years) and he knows what he is doing and is easy to get along with. I've worked with some other AMC people and had similiar results.

I'm from the Columbus, OH area and have always enjoyed going to the AMC Lennox 24 and Easton 30. I can't remember ever seeing a scratch or having other presentation problems there. These are the 2 busiest theatres in Central Ohio.

Posted by Donna Siegwart (Member # 3232) on 07-16-2006, 11:49 PM:

AMC, OC here, it truthfully depends on the 'theatre', not all AMCs are bad, I think my theatre needs to be more strict in booth. And hopefully we will get a new booth manager. I have seen some great presentations from AMCs if they keep up their booth well, it just seems some buildings skip out on that and focus on other, less important things.

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 07-17-2006, 06:00 AM:

One of my fellow projectionists made up a funny tune about Carmike that was set to the music of Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon On The Rise" when I worked there in 1995. The lyrics of the chorus went something like:

Don't work at Carmike
Cause it's bound to take your life
And you only make 4.25

Many of the employees at the time were jaded about only making minimum wage and not getting a raise after being there for several years. Not to mention they were still full of teenage anger and rebellion.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 07-17-2006, 03:52 PM:

quote: Matt Fields
I'm from the Columbus, OH area and have always enjoyed going to the AMC Lennox 24 and Easton 30.

I used to work with the GM from Lennox. From what he has told me, the tech for that area is pretty strict compared to most, so he makes sure his theaters always look good. The tech at the time, about 3 years ago, was Steve Smiley. Don't know about now.

The only problem with having a good projection operation at AMC is that you cannot overcome the terrible design flaws of the theater. You can do the best with what you are given, but sometimes that is not enough. I used to have this dickhead VP come in and always say that my presentation sucked because the sound wasn't as good as the brand new theater that just opened up . They had all JBL speackers, all dolby 650s and QSC DCA amps. I have all EV speakers, two dolby DA20a, two DTS units (one was broken) and the rest was sdds dfrps wahtever 2000 systems. So essentially we had 24 or so analog screens. The only control I had over the sound was to change the volume and keep the optics clean, but that didn't matter to this dickhead. Anything beyond that all I was allowed to do was call the tech. Of course when they overload the guy with 200 screens to take care of he spends most of his time doing emergency calls and not tuning sound and the like.

So yeah, AMC is alright,but some people make it kinda sucky. I've also found that the big dogs don't care how bad your film presentation is as long as your digital ads look great.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 07-17-2006, 04:16 PM:

Chris,
Was it Steve Smiley, or George Smiley? Maybe they are related?I have worked with George on a few different occasions.

Rick

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 07-17-2006, 04:34 PM:

actually, it may have been Chris Smiley. I actually can't remember the first name now. Please don't confuse him with that hate spewing racist turd tavis smiley.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 07-17-2006, 04:45 PM:

dont know Tavis

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-17-2006, 05:59 PM:

I can vouch for Chris' work at the AMC Mesquite 30. His film handling and onscreen presentation was the reason why I stole him from there. [evil]

When he was there, that theater had hands down the best AMC presentation I have ever seen by a very long shot, and was far above and beyond what that same theater was producing onscreen before he got there. I viewed a movie there some months later on opening night and it was scratched, the volume was waaaaaaay too low, the picture was shaking, etc. It sucked. Personnel is everything!

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-17-2006, 06:19 PM:

quote:
I viewed a movie there some months later on opening night and it was scratched, the volume was waaaaaaay too low, the picture was shaking, etc. It sucked. Personnel is everything!

Brad, you must be joking.

The ONLY thing that's important is how few people I can get to run my 56 screen Godzilla-plex and how little I can pay them to do it. [Wink]

'We seem to be paying some of our employees an AWFUL lot of money' - Mortimer Duke
'No getting past the old minimum wage, Mortimer' - Louis Winthorpe III
TRADING PLACES - 1983

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 07-17-2006, 10:16 PM:

Regarding the Columbus AMC Theatres...

Back in the Olden Days, AMC had some pretty bad things going on. But, with the construction of the Lennox and Easton, I have never seen a bad presentation at either location. Even the old Dublin 18 does a pretty good job with some non-stadium rooms.

Presentation is really quite good around here, with Marcus, Rave, AMC doing excellent work. The local independent Drexel also does a nice job. Only Cinemark/Starplex and Regal are lacking.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 07-17-2006, 11:21 PM:

Smiley helped install a couple of screens for me about five years ago. I think it is Chris Smiley. He's a nice guy. His former boss, Forrest Doan, is a freind of mine and still services my theatre.

As far as Columbus theatres go, I generally agree with Mark even though I haven't been to the Rave yet, but I used to work at the Drexel East in the late 90's, and just thought the presentation was okay, mainly because of the sound. The sound systems in the two smaller houses sucked. We did take pretty good care of the prints though. - Matt

Posted by Brian Hogan (Member # 940) on 07-18-2006, 01:44 AM:

holy crap, matt, you're a friend of forrest's? i havn't talked to him or chris for AGES! what a small world, eh? one of the last times i hung out with both of them was when the eastland 8 closed down years back. good 'ole multi's [Smile]

i agree that the way the buildings are designed these days seems to make for some problems. problems that are always unique to each site. thats why its always interesting to check out different complexes and see how things are done there [Smile]

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 07-18-2006, 07:29 AM:

Brian-

I don't really know Chris well, he just worked on the one project for me, but Forrest and I play on the same softball team. We also play some basketball occasionally. - Matt

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 07-18-2006, 11:34 AM:

I HATE AMC. HATE THEM. Long lines at concessions, if the counter is even open. Bad sound. Lights on during presentations. Dirty restrooms. I WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN ANTOHER AMC ever again!

And I will NEVER forgive them for that expriement with "The Final Cut". (Do a search on here.)

Posted by Alex Grueneberg (Member # 2652) on 07-18-2006, 01:18 PM:

Does any one know if AMC's theaters in Chicago are Union or just undertrained staff? I've never been all that impressed by their presestation.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 07-18-2006, 05:16 PM:

My first projection gig was with AMC. No real complaints about my experience with the company. I feel I got off to a great start there.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 07-18-2006, 10:21 PM:

Alex,
I think the union has been out of there for a while now.

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 07-19-2006, 06:55 PM:

Chris and Forrest worked on an install here too. At that time (1998), they were working with John Williamson at American Theatre Equipment Company. The work ethic was very professional.

Posted by Matt Whitney (Member # 2909) on 07-20-2006, 07:38 PM:

I run a theatre in Chicagoland that used to be an AMC location. From what I understand, they didn't do business in the state for a while in order to get out of their union contract. When they left, I believe, is when my company bought the location.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-21-2006, 06:03 AM:

Matt,
I think you must run a theater thats been Willisized!

I just got home from an all nighter at one of the AMC's here and all I can say is that their attention to detail and organization puts the rest of the chains in this country to shame.

Mark

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-21-2006, 10:52 AM:

Our local AMC was formerly a GCC outlet. It was built literally a small parking lot away from one of Tom Moyer's "Luxury" theatres (which eventually became part of the Regal chain).

When it was built there were two totally different approaches taken to projection at the theatres. Tom Moyer HATED unions. There was a story going around that he got snubbed by the Portland, OR local when he was an operator, and never got over it when he became an owner. On all acquisitions, the union op was the first to go.

At the GCC, the first thing they did was to have the theatre serviced by the Seattle local, and that says most of it right there.

The Moyer outlet had ushers in the booth from the start, and VIP30 machines, which shook from the start, and mono sound, which... well, you know.

The GCC had professionals from the start, and VIC-something or others on their 6 screens... well lit, rock solid. It had digital on all screens (now 8) long before any upgrades at the other house.

After AMC took over, the local's representation tapered off to the point that they only had a union guy build & break down... and maybe supervise the major shows on Friday and Saturday. That may also have changed by now, but the theatre still turns out a better show than its neighbor.

Posted by Brian D. Whitish (Member # 825) on 07-22-2006, 02:40 AM:

Thanks for the kind words Jack. The Seattle local now just has a maintenance contract with AMC. The only company that still has full time operators is Landmark. We used to have two really good operators at the Kitsap theatres. GCC was always one of our best employers.

Brian Whitish
Business Rep for Projection
IATSE Local 15