In my area these are THE WORST:
Regal Cinemas SOUTHSHORE MALL, Aberdeen, Wash

Regal Cinemas CINEMA 3, Centralia, Wash.

Those two are both reek from the filth.

 

United Artists:
Thornton Town Centre 10
Denver Pavillions 15 (yuck!)

Mann:
Green Mountain 6
Union Square 6
Cherry Creek 8
Festival 6
Tamarac Square 6
Southwest Plaza 5
 

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"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

 

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Colin Wiseley
Lyric Theatre
Blacksburg, VA
www.thelyric.com

The funny thing is...the GM came over to my theater, which is about 4-5 miles away and was bragging about how his new theater would steal most of our business. We don't have cushy stadium seating, we charge a dollar more the door and $.50 to $1.00 more at the concession stand, but we kick their *** every day of the week at the box office by thousands. By well over 10,000 on weekends.

I know, I rip on Regal alot. And I know there are Regals with projectionists (and even GMs) who care...I commend you. But after seeing this place and the fact one of their (almost) brand new theaters has already turned into one of the worst dumps in the area... That and news that they are builing a 20-screen plex and expecting an operator to run all 20 screens by his or herself per shift for a pathetic $7.50/hr. Sorry, but one bad apple spoiled the whole damn bunch, for me.

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"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"

Andrew D'Vrey
IATSE Local 219

 

So what am I doing about it? Good question. Until recently not very much. My partner in crime has been rather tight on the budget and has refused any payment to vendors and servicemen, so most of the work is done by myself. Good thing I know how to use a glimshafter and a rodthingamajigeroo. Otherwise i would be in real trouble!

Actually we are in the process of refurbishing the intire location. So far I have overhauled most of our projection equipment and replaced all of our reflectors and lamps, had the lenses reground, began using FILMGAURD, the god of all chemicals, installed one and soon a second DTS system, and soon two dolby cp500 units. We will be overhauling whats left of our 20 year old seats as there is no way in hell we can afford new ones.

Soon we paint over the grey and baby blue and PINK walls, using a cool midnight blue and stopsign red color combination. We are installing a new stage and begining live stage shows on the 17th (wish me luck). I admit the place still reeks, but it will take time and by summer we will install a full service kitchen as we are getting a restaraunt liqour liscence so we can serve ACTUAL FOOD WITH BEER AND OTHER DELICACIES. This will be the place to be.

I took before pictures six months ago, I should have brad post them so you can see what I have had to work with.

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"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
 

I would have to vote for those in Dallas.
 

Worst theater seats of all time? The medieval torture devices at the Loews Chisholm 5 in Plano.

 

I would HOPE that the presentation was considered to be slightly bettered during my time at the Prestonwood. To my knowledge no prints were scratched, and only 1 print was damaged, and that was due to a problem with a projector ( the state of the projectors was VERY poor).

I think Sony (Loews) owned stock in the company that manufactured those midevil torture devices they call seats, All of the older theatres have them... At least here in the D/FW area? Any word from the rest of the US?
 

Hoyts Cinema City in Hartford CT. A 4-plex off the Interstate at the end of a dead-end street, across from the local water treatment plant. Every auditorium is oversize with a 2:1 screen, no masking and mono sound. Yet this dump happens to be Hartford's key arthouse -- gets first crack on all arthouse fare going into Hartford. I walked out of Pi at this theater in '98 because of the crappy presentation.
 

But hmmm -- the WORST theatre I've ever seen? The Tan Foran 4 in San Bruno, CA.

The TanForan - sublet to many different people by United Artists, was built by UA in about 81-82?. It's on the 1st floor of a mall. You buy your tickets on the 2nd floor -- take escalators down into the lobby. The fun part is that from the 2nd floor of the mall, you can see into the lobby, it's completely open, so people can spit, throw sodas, throw food and I heard once (probably a lie) somebody threw a friend into the lobby.

The kicker is that the bathrooms are half a level up (stairs only) from the auditoriums. The bathrooms hang over three of the auditoriums, and since the theatre had never been kept up, the toilets LEAK into the auditoriums.

As far as projection went, Century projectors, Christie lamphouses and ancient AW3's -- but they didn't have masking, one auditorium I poked my head into didn't have an aperture plate at all -- and they must all be Mono except the big house -- which is just stereo (at least when I was last there.)

If you're ever in the area and want a good laugh, drop in and take a look around -- it's well worth the time.

-Scott
 

I would also say the Vaska theater here qualifies as a dump, but I have some reservations about the harsh judgment. The sound and projection are both crap and the seats remind me of those cheapo wooden things we had to use in elementary school. However, I cannot knock that theater too badly since it is a bargain house and run independently. At least the place is fairly clean and the prices are cheap. The fellow who owns it has pockets that are not too deep. He'd like to put DTS in some day, but finding the money for it and a better sound system is a bit of a problem.

The new Dickinson Theaters 12-plex in Central Mall is a pretty disappointing build. It is not a dump (at least not yet), but it sure didn't live up to its pre-build hype. Incidentally, the Carmike 8 here just had its eighth DTS system installed so it can have the bragging rights of being the only all-digital-sound complex in the Lawton area. I'm doing some tricky looking graphics work for ads that will run in the paper next week to promote this theater's "exclusives".

There are other theaters in the North Texas/Oklahoma area that I usually avoid. I HATE AMC theaters which install the surround speakers in the ceiling. Absolutely wrong! I have had too many sub-par experiences with Hollywood sites in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa area to visit them anymore. I even had a very underwhelming experience at Hollywood's Promenade 12 (which is an all-THX complex). Cinemark theaters can often be hit and miss on quality (but the new one in Tulsa is pretty nice).
 

Worst seats are at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Seats are designed for a lecture hall, not sitting for 90-120 minutes.

Faux Cinemark Mill Run was, at one time, the best theatre in town. Now, it is run down, with very few employees. Last time I was there was a Sunday to see TRAFFIC. One concession stand worker, one usher and one manager. Film broke twice. This was first weekend of run. I have never gone back, and I never will. This is also the closest theatre to my house. I have friends who go there because they hate crowds, and they know they will never find one there.

Mark Lensenmayer

 

It was a single, but had been twinned later. The automations looked like they were home-made. Not a bad job for home-made, but obviously not professionally made. The controls were pretty much only; "GO" and "STOP". No documentation anywhere; not even labels on the few switches there were. As far as I could tell, there were no provisions for non-sync.

What was really interesting was the front booth wall. The booth was wide but not deep, (guessing) about 40 feet by 12 feet. There was a huge hole in the front wall. It was roughed out cinderblock, but went from floor to ceiling, about 20 wide in the center. There would be no problem for someone to fall accidentally out into either auditourium. You could see the edge of the wall that seperated the two auditouriums. Sound went from one auditourium, through the booth, and out to the other auditourium. They had tried to cut some of the sound down by hanging drapes across the hole, but it didn't work too well. So the rule was not to turn the volume up too loud.

The place looked like it was doing good business, which made me think; here is another example where the locals only go to their local theater, and think it is on a par with most other theaters.
 

Mono sound, and a screen at an angle to the audience, ie one side of the screen was further away that the other. And wooden seats.