AMC Does Hear Us. Is There A Solution?

I had an interesting interaction with AMC the last few days. After my comments on Friday I decided to really get to the bottom of the concerns I had and did some digging. I finally found their corporate contact info on a business-related site and called their Vice President of Operations. I didn't actually reach him but I did reach his assistant. She was a great asset to the company and made me feel immediately heard. She wouldn't let me go without speaking to someone in charge of corporate Guest Relations.

I ended up speaking with someone by the name of Troy who is in management there. Troy assured me that my concerns were not falling on deaf ears and that AMC has been actively working on finding a solution to these issues--especially the cell phone problem. He said that he wanted to get in touch with the General Manager of the Cherry Hill AMC theater and talk over the concern with her and that she'd get back to me.

Monday afternoon she called. We had a long discussion of at least an hour. She wanted to know every detail. When did I last go? What shows have I seen? Did I know about their frequent movie-goer program? Who didn't speak English?

It was all very good to hear. It's clear that AMC has very good people in the right spots and the Cherry Hill General Manager has a pedigree that is just what's called for. In fact, I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't called her first. I didn't given my past interactions with Loews management there and that's my mistake. She pointed out that, indeed, Paranormal Activity caught them entirely by surprise on a night when they expect traffic to be below what it turned out to be and that I can understand.

In the end I still don't have a full sense of how they're going to resolve the cell phone issue and I do really hope they consider the face-to-face approach to curbing it over hoping another pre-movie on-screen announcement or something printed on the ticket will have any impact on this.

For my part I'm going to keep an open mind (and remove the bear trap that had been keeping it closed of late) with respect to going there and give it another shot. We'll see what transpires. It's really a good company with good, well-meaning people. Here's hoping the execution shows through on subsequent viewings.

AMC Theaters. Do They Even Hear Us?

I recently have been writing about my disdain for AMC Theaters and I wanted to mention that I've been trying to contact the right people to try to at least reach someone in a position of authority that can explain to me why the experience at an AMC theater has to be so awful. The problem is that, like many large companies--especially those that have customer complaint issues--all paths lead to a dead end. I can write a letter to them at a Georgia address even though their corporate headquarters is located in Kansas. That tells me I'm writing to some department where my comments will just fall on deaf ears. I've called the theaters themselves but they're part of the problem and supplied no solutions to the concerns.

To recap, I took a moment to go over the pros and cons of the local AMC here in Cherry Hill. It's a 24-screen facility that opened a few years back and was originally owned and operated by Lowes. Everyone was initially impressed with it but then the luster wore off shortly thereafter.

On the plus side it has 24 screens and several of them are in very good shape with decent seats and good stadium positioning. The sound in several of them is quite good. The building is also a beautiful design with lots of open space and attractive styling. It does offer an array of foods as well.

The down side, unfortunately, is quite long and annoying. For starters the theaters are often dirty with cups and trash left from the previous show. On busy nights the trash often overflows onto the floor. The great look of the design and open areas are not in play when it comes to the flow of the main area. In leaving the theater you often have to fight your way through throngs of people backed up by the restrooms. It always feels like a zoo.

While they have a lot of different food choices their drink choices can be limited. Until recently you couldn't even get lemonade or iced tea there (I still don't think they have the former). If you don't want soda then your option is water or fruit punch. The concession lines are often long and poorly laid out adding to the flow issue.

The employees on hand are at the extreme bottom end of quality standards. Few there look like they care about their jobs and act accordingly. You can sense that it's a job environment they don't enjoy. I worked at a theater in my teens and found it to be a great early job. Clearly something else is wrong here. Adding to this is that a surprising number of staff can't even speak English. Several times I've asked a passing employee for information only to get a "deer-in-the-headlights look" and a shaking head.

If this wasn't bad enough then there's the cost. AMC has among the absolute highest prices for tickets in the area. Their "bargain" prices are often higher than the regular price of competing theaters. Then there's the exorbitant costs of their concessions. Seeing a movie here turns out to be more expensive than going to a rather nice restaurant at times.

On top of all of this is the experience itself which is almost guaranteed to be lousy. I find a much higher percentage of people frequenting this theater to be seriously lacking in any sort of compassion for their fellow theater-goers. I mentioned that in seeing the latest movie here the experience was dominated by wide-spread and continual use of cell phones during the movie. People think nothing of openly talking during a showing here. There's just no control to be found.

Taken alone all but the last item could be minimal (though still in need of addressing) but when you combine them all the result is that going to AMC means I pay more to fight unnecessary crowds, sit in filth and not enjoy the film I'm there to see. Why bother?

I also don't feel this is the fault of the patrons. Many of these people appear to be very much the same as those I find at other theaters. The difference is in the environment. There's a famous case involving a man named Bernie Getz who shot several kids on a subway in New York City. When asked why he bought a gun and felt so aggressive towards the kids (they were intent on mugging him) he said that when you live in a rat hole you start to feel like a rat. The police chief recognized this feeling and how things like this and graffiti played a role in lowering the morality of everyone. Take a look at any movie shot in the city in the 70's and 80's and compare it to the city today. It's night and day. The city back then looked like Gotham City--dark, dank and dirty.

The city attacked the so-called "small things" like fare-beaters (those hopping over turnstiles to get on the subway which was rampant at the time) and fought off the graffiti artists. In short order people started caring about their environment and took it upon themselves to keep the inertia going. Crime rates plummeted and people's opinion of the city dramatically improved.

AMC should employ the same type of thinking. Clean up the bottlenecks in the flow of their buildings. Clear the trash each screening. Most of all adopt a near-zero tolerance for disturbances during films. Send in managers (in business attire) before selected showings to explain that anyone found to be texting or using their phones during a movie will be ejected from the film.

Everyone knows it's wrong and they just don't care any longer. Twice notice is given around previews laying out the expectations but to no effect. When people see everyone around them ignoring the rules it makes the group feel like idiots for not doing it themselves. Police the theaters with multiple ushers until the situation comes back into balance. Soon patrons will realize this sort of behavior is no longer acceptable and the patrons themselves will keep the one or two instances of poor judgment under control.

The end result will be happier patrons, happier staff and higher profits. Why this sort of message cannot reach anyone at AMC with the ability to effect change I don't know. If anyone knows someone's e-mail in corporate management please let me know. I see upwards of 50 movies a year at the theater and for me to only see one or two per year at an otherwise nice facility is just sad.

Yet Another Failed Example

Listening to Sean Hannity on the way home from a doctor appointment today and he's once again screwing up every reality we have all lived through. He finally got to one of his big rallying cries to suggest President Obama is taking us into socialism and asking the seemingly powerful question, "Where has socialism ever worked?"

Well Sean, let me answer that question for you. Socialism has worked wonderfully in our own nation for over 200 years. This idea that it never existed here prior to Obama is ludicrous. Our military is a socialist endeavor. Much of what we provide is socialist in nature. Our trash is picked up by the government. Police and fire departments are socialist in their make-up. We've got seniors not wanting the government to interfere with their Medicare and virtually none of them would go for giving up their Social Security checks. Even Bill Kristol admitted to Jon Stewart that the government provides top-notch care to our troops. All of these are socialist ideals.

Much of the socialism that exists in our country is so much a part of who and what we are today that many people don't even think of these elements as anything but the norm. Actor Craig T. Nelson was on Glenn Beck's show espousing the benefits of fiscal conservatism and said, "What happened to society? I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out?"He was totally oblivious to the fact that both of those are socialist government programs. Yes, Craig, someone did help you out--we did. Even Glenn Beck didn't bat an eyelash over the comment.

The biggest joke of all is when people like Hannity point to the Postal Service as a clear example of failed government socialism. This one doesn't stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. Why? First of all, this organization has been providing solid service for well over 200 years. In times of war, in the most far out places in our country, in the worst of all types of weather the mail is the one thing you could be confident about. Hannity and the like love to ridicule how poorly they're doing and tie that to their mantra. The fact is that the post office was doing just fine right up to the 1980's when its business model was changed in an attempt (by President Reagan) to have it stand on its own and operate without any taxpayer dollars. The fact is that the Post Office is suffering these days but it's not due to mismanagement. The fact of the matter is that times have changed. The Post Office is now trying to survive in a market where its core product is no longer in demand. It's as simple as that.

These shows will point to UPS and FedEx as shining examples of how much better the private market can be. First of all, FedEx has been around since 1971 and UPS since 1930. They're relative new-comers compared to the post office. Furthermore they certainly didn't think up new concepts. They borrowed heavily from what the post office had been doing. Furthermore, just because a company is not government run doesn't have anything to do with its success or failure. Being private did nothing to help Airborne Express or DHL for example. It's okay for private companies to experience difficulties, mismanagement and, ultimately, failure but if the Postal Service has a hard time it's just because it's run by the government? I don't follow this line of thinking.

I Had To Mention It

In my review of Paranormal Activity I mentioned how much I despise the AMC/Lowes theater in town. About a decade or so ago a theater opened here that was part of a small local chain called Ritz Theaters. They specialized in art houses and built this flagship location after years of toiling in the business with decent, but not great, buildings. This one was amazing. It boasted leather couches in the hallways, beautiful architecture and elegant accessories to match, clean, professionally-manned concessions all at a great price. Sadly, the owner of that chain retired a few years back and sold off the building to National Amusements. I know them because they built a lousy theater in nearby Atco that's worse than the AMC. When National bought it they sent in representatives to assure the older, more laid-back customers that they were viewing this as a new chapter in their history and planned to keep things pretty similar.

Of course changes did come. They effectively split the theater (16 screens) in half with half getting mainstream fare and the other half keeping the art house films. As time went on that evolved to about a 70-30 split towards mainstream movies.

They also apparently fired the entire staff and brought in a bunch of barely trained kids to work the concession stands and things ground to a halt there. The prices also jumped up but not anywhere near the stratosphere of the AMC theaters.

Then I heard about financial troubles and wondered how long it would be before it might force my hand back to AMC again. Tonight I found this news article from IMDB:

Although reports on Wednesday had indicated that Sumner Redstone's National Amusements, in its effort to reduce debt, was selling off nearly $1 billion in CBS and Viacom stock because it couldn't find a buyer for its theaters, today's Los Angeles Times reported that the holding company plans to unload 35 theaters as well. The National Amusements theater chain, headed by Redstone's daughter Shari, currently owns 79 multiplexes in the U.S. According to the Times, it plans to sell venues in the Midwest and south of New York but hold on to those in New England and the New York areas. It will also keep its theaters in the U.K. and Brazil.

We're south of New York but also sometimes considered part of the New York area. If you count up all their theaters in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island that ads up to 40 theaters leaving four theaters unaccounted for. New Jersey perfectly has four theaters. That would mean a nice theater in Philadelphia that I just found, The Bridge, would be closing but it has only six screens and it never looks that busy to me.

It'll be very interesting to see what happens next. Here's hoping a new buyer steps in to keep the Ritz the upscale theater it is. With my luck AMC will buy it.

Honest Auto Repair. Is It An Oxymoron?

I think one thing that I can find wide support for across this country is that a large percentage of people have real concerns about the honesty and integrity of many car repair shops whether they're at dealers, chains or independent (like at a local gas station).

I've been driving (and owning) cars since 1982. That's 27 years and that means I've had to pay for a lot of repairs using a lot of different shops. My experience is that it's very hard to find a reputable repair shop. Time and again mystery repairs pop up out of nowhere.

Of late I've been dealing with problems concerning a Chrysler Town & Country van that I own (and, surprisingly, like). I initially took it to where I bought it but they just weren't very convenient. I then took it to a local dealer called, Mall Chrysler Plymouth in Maple Shade, NJ. Immediately problems mounted. The first issue we had was that we were told we needed major transmission work. Magically what needed to be done skirted the warranty. $1,200 later the van felt exactly the same to me and after pointing this out they claimed to make adjustments that provided no discernible difference.

Then the van had no air conditioning. Oh, it just ran out of coolant. I paid for that and made it through the season. The next year it had no air conditioning again. Oh, it ran out of coolant again. What? So they re-filled it and it got through the season again. The following year it had no air again. This time they said the compressor went. We paid over a thousand dollars and had air for the rest of the year. The following year we again had no air. It ran out of coolant again so they filled it again and I paid again telling me I had such a small leak that they couldn't find it but that a stop-leak fluid would likely fix it. So, a week later I'm back and it's failed again.

When I took it in they told me the compressor went. Awesome! It's under warranty--except that, upon further analysis, I'm told it wasn't the compressor but the condenser which isn't under warranty. In fact, it has a huge gaping hole in it. Really? And they missed this before how?

So I take back the car and take it to a new place (a local gas station) and they do the repair for half what the dealer wanted and it works fine now. It turns out that we know someone whose husband is a mechanic at this dealer and he tells us that it's common practice at these places to put extreme pressure on the mechanics to "up-sell" repairs. In other words they're expected to find things wrong with the cars that come in beyond what they're there for especially if what they're there for is minimal. He informs me that if your numbers are down on this practice you get fired.

It's when he tells me this that I recall a prior incident there when I took the van in for something minor and they told me I needed new brakes. The interesting part is that I do my own brakes and had just replaced them.

So about a week ago the steering wheel just gives out. It's no longer holding into place like it should. It gets to the new shop and I get the word that he can't fix it for a few days and it's needed immediately. Thankfully Mall Chrysler is no more as Chrysler shut them down during their mass clearing out of dealers. My guess is that even though they seemed to sell a lot of cars that maybe this issue is part of the equation. I remember that there's a popular Dodge dealership in town. Maybe they're better.

I take it there and the atmosphere is dramatically improved over Mall as this is a new building. Everything is bright white and clean. The people seem nice. I'm talking with the rep and explaining things and he seems genuinely concerned and gives me an estimate of $90 on the spot. I can live with that and it'd be the smallest bill ever for this vehicle.

The dealer has a shuttle service and I decide to use it to go home so I wait in the waiting room for them to call me. When the driver shows up and I get hailed I have to walk by customer service again. As I do I notice a blond-haired woman I've seen many times at Mall Chrysler and she's working for this dealership now. Uh oh.

When I get in the car I ask about the woman and he tells me she worked for both dealers. I ask if they're owned by the same person and he tells me they are. Oh boy. I then mention my experience and he tells me that he's a mechanic but that his up-sells were off so he was given the option of being demoted to shuttle driver or getting fired.

When Dodge calls I expect the inevitable, "Well, we're sorry to inform you that while we were working on your steering wheel we found this other problem that will cost a billion dollars to repair." I'm amazed that when he calls back this doesn't happen and the final bill, with tax, is just over $100. Can it be that maybe I got lucky?

So it's now been a few days since the van is back and I'm driving it not far from the dealership when the check engine like goes on. What now? We take it to the local repair place and he looks it over and his response is classic. There's a line that's magically become loose and feel off of something causing the light to go on. He can't imagine how it got loose.

Let's just say I can totally imagine how it came to loosen and it wasn't magic.

Paranormal Activity With Cell Phones

This past weekend I caught the low-budget chiller Paranormal Activity. The film is shot in what many now call the Blair Witch style--that is it uses unknown actors in basic settings using minimal equipment to tell its story.

Unfortunately for me the film wasn't showing at my favorite theater but instead at the AMC theater in town. That theater is, as I've mentioned before, a choice of last resort for me. It's a beautiful building with 24 theaters but it's just a disaster to visit. It attracts a lot of inconsiderate people and the costs are entirely too high. If this was the only theater around I'd have given up going to see movies and that's saying a lot for someone like me.

Anyway, the film was worthwhile to see and has impressed a wide array of viewers. I found it very slow to get going--extremely slow in fact. Once it finally did get to something noteworthy it continued to turn up the tension with every scene. I suspect the movie banks very heavily on a heavy immersion factor from its audience and there things could have gone better if not for the inevitable firefly-like cellphone experiences.

I was powerless to do anything due to the sheer number of instances. I don't believe there were more than three or four moments when at least one cell phone wasn't alight. Two rows down and to my right, the entire row from the middle over had teens using them as if the movie weren't even going on. Every minute or two each of them would re-open their phone, with no attempt to hide it, and text away. One guy well down to my left had what seemed like a netbook that he would open for 10 minutes at a time. This has got to stop. Theaters around the country need to have real people show up before a film and inform the audience that they will be watching and if anyone is seen using a cell phone they will be immediately ejected from the theater. After a few clear examples of this the concept should sink in. I can see no other effective means without the other patrons being outright rude in return.

So for me immersion was out of the question. I suspect this might work better in your own home if your theater is like this one. I feel like it would get you invested much earlier without that sort of continual distraction.

The real questions about Paranormal Activity are if it's a horror movie and if it succeeds as such. I actually wouldn't call this a horror movie. The best way to describe it is that it's incredibly creepy. The later moments are horror-like but still different. It's more a psychological thriller than anything else. The special effects are extremely well done with no cheap cut scenes to be seen. What you see on film look entirely convincing and eerie. The acting is fine though not anything approaching professionalism. The male lead is a bit distracting though much of that has to do with his sorry character flaws.

Of course the biggest problem with the script of movies like this is the unbelievable number of ways it has to attempt to make feasible the continued use of a video camera when far more important things abound. The good news here is that much of the action is written in such a way that this is reduced to a minimum.

It does fall into standard horror fare with one element and that's the too-dumb-for-their-own-good personality flaws that prevent any such character from taking actions that would make the most sense but, of course, would require the writers to be masterful at their craft to avoid such actions destroying the fun. If you're the type that's easily annoyed by such dumb characters then look elsewhere. These are pretty dumb people. If you can get over that, Paranormal Activity will likely be a fun and disturbing experience for you. I woke up in the middle of the night wondering if something might not be lurking in the shadows. That's as good a sign as any for a positive film experience.

How Much More Of This Will We Stand?

An NBC news station is reporting that a 3-month old baby in Denver is not eligible for health care coverage because he's simply too big. If you don't know how it works babies and children are measured in terms of percentiles against the average. Little Alex Lange is in the 99th percentile which means he's larger than 99 percent of other babies at this age. This is a metric that takes into account a combination of height and weight.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans claims this is standard practice. According to them it's common across the country to deny health insurance to any child above the 95th percentile.

I found this a bit strange for a very simple personal reason. My son, who is now 14 years old, has been in the 125th percentile his entire life. He was a big baby, a big toddler, a big child and now a 6'-2" 186-pound teenager. He's in excellent health and the only issue he's ever had was a couple of ear infections when he was around 4 years old. That's it. Anyone who knows my son would never suggest that he looks crazily huge or anything even remotely close to it. He looks tall and now lanky as he grows into his height. Before he really shot up we had a slight concern about his weight but now that's all gone. Nature took care of it perfectly.

This is just getting entirely out-of-hand. I'm left to wonder just how much more of these we're going to accept in this country before people wake the hell up and insist on real change we can believe in and not the pussy-footing that's been going on of late while millions suffer for it.

Obama Wins Nobel And The Right Contorts

President Obama has been chosen as the winner of the latest Nobel Peace Prize. Now the PR campaign has begun by the Right to paint the award as a "popularity contest" and one that they don't recognize or don't want to be associated with.

Back when I voted for Obama I stated that my main reason for doing so was that I had hoped that after eight disastrous years under George W. Bush, if Obama did nothing else, he might at least help to turn around our pitiful reputation in the larger world view. I've seen and heard conservatives ridicule the President as hurting our reputation globally. I've heard a couple, including Sean Hannity, comment that his use of a teleprompter puts us in bad light (as if not being able to pronounce "nuclear" or complete a phrase reliably without one in some way does help).

The other argument is that Obama got it after only being in office for 12 days. The nomination deadline was February 1st. The joke of this is obvious. First of all, his impact was felt long before he took office on January 20th and also this ignores the definition of nomination. Nothing says your work after being nominated is not to be considered.

This award goes a long way towards proving the point that the world clearly sees us in better light now as a result of our choice of electing him. As far as the history of the award it includes (among others):

Theodore Roosevelt (1905 Peace Treaty Russia/Japan)
Woodrow Wilson (League of Nations)
Cordell Hull (United Nations)
Albert Schweitzer (Missionary Surgeon)
George C. Marshall (Red Cross, Marshall Plan)
Linus Pauling (Peace Advocate)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Civil Rights Advocate)
UNICEF (United Nations Children Fund)
Henry Kissinger (Secretary of State)
Andrei Sakharov (Human Rights Advocate, Nuclear Physicist)
Amnesty International (Protection of the prisoner rights)
Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat (The Peace Accords)
Mother Theresa (Order of the Missionaries of Charity)
Lech Walesa (Poland Founder of Solidarity)
Desmond Tutu (Work against apartheid)
Elie Wiesel (The President's Commission on the Holocaust)
14th Dalai Lama (Religious Leader)
Mikhail Gorbachev (Helped end Cold War)
Nelson Mandela (Leader of ANC)

Anyone who doesn't want to be associated with the people and groups on that list is a fool or simply devoid of any cognitive ability.

Capitalism And The Invention Of Lying

This weekend I got in another round of seeing two movies. The first one up was Michael Moore's latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. I've been a fan of Michael's movies and unlike many of my conservative friends, who go to great lengths to disparage them, I've actually seen them.

I must say that I feel this one is one of the weaker entries in his filmography. The concept is so broad and his approach does little to bring focus to it. Instead it ends up as a film that mainly preaches to the choir. He gives us a lot of the same shtick we get in his other films--like approaching security guards and telling them stories that can't possibly change their job of not allowing him entrance to the building.

Essentially the film fails because it tries to tackle a huge issue in his normal style of giving us little more than weepy anecdotal evidence. We meet some people who are having tough times and this is all the fault of capitalism--so we're told. Any conservative in the crowd would think, "Get off your ass and do something about your problem." One example we're given is that of a 50-ish man being put out of his family farm because of a bad loan he took--an ARM whose rates he couldn't afford. We're told he can't work due to a back injury but he seems perfectly fine carrying around all his belongings as he moves out.

Conservatives will also cringe at the broad strokes Moore takes. Essentially the main antagonist of target is Ronald Reagan. That's an overstatement of rather large proportion. Yes, Reagan bears some responsibility for our current situation but his actions also are directly responsible for many positive outcomes as well.

Moore's film touches the fringes of the problem but never with any real dissection. He nearly gets it right during a segment about a juvenile detention center in Pennsylvania but stops at this one example without really driving the point home. As a result the conclusions the movie attempts to sell us come across as rather hollow. Bad things happen to good people. That's life, not capitalism.

On the plus side the film is well-paced and, at times, rather funny. There's a great set of laughs surrounding some Jesus-based film footage.

The second film was the new Ricky Gervais comedy, The Invention Of Lying. When I saw the previews for this I was immediately enthralled with the concept. The idea is quite compelling. We have a world where everyone tells the truth to such a degree that the word "truth" isn't even in their vocabulary. It's just the way it is. "Steve, your breath reeks", "Cindy, that dress makes your breasts look deformed." Frankly, it's a world I would slide right into with ease (as any of my friends would point out).

Gervais' character--beaten down by his role in this world--comes up with a novel idea. What would happen if I..... He's not even sure what to call it.

The first few minutes of the movie support my initial enthusiasm but that's about it. Beyond that the joke has already gone stale. Gervais continues to go back to the trough time and time again without changing gears.

There were countless ways this movie could have gone and virtually all of them that I can think of would have been more entertaining than the path taken. In the end we get an overly-long comedy that provides a few funny scenes that are so slight that I can't even recall them now. Contrast that to bits from The Hangover which I can still recall with clarity months after seeing it.

I like Gervais and I think he can do much better than this movie. Sadly it seemed to me that he didn't quite get the whole point. For example, there are cameos and when I say that, they're all over the place. It's as if Gervais wanted to show us he's a big shot because he can get so many major stars to play goofy roles in his films (and yes, that was Ed Norton as the cop on the cycle). In the end it just wasn't funny enough or compelling enough to live up to the potential of the previews.