On New Theaters, Indiana Jones and Skyrocketing Prices
By Chris Hicks
Deseret News, 4 June 1989, page E10
Summary:
South Towne Center Cinemas
Ground
will be broken on the long-anticipated Cineplex Odeon 10-theater
complex at the South Towne Center on 1 July 1989. The multiplex movie
house is scheduled to open 16 December 1989.
Chris Hicks,
Deseret News movie critic, commented on the ground-breaking because the
"already oversaturated Salt Lake Valley movie market will be a little
more saturated" and "we may see an example of Cineplex Odeon's
notorious mini-theater, the 100-seat box with the postage-stamp screen".
A
couple weeks earlier, Chris Hicks and his wife saw a movie in Cineplex
Odeon's 14-screen multiplex on the top floor of the Beverly Center Mall
in Beverly Hills. "We didn't know the size of the auditorium going in,
of course - we chose a movie, not a theater. But upon entering we both
automatically looked at each other and laughed out loud. 'It feels like
we're in someone's living room,' Joyce said. I replied, 'Yeah, watching
a movie on the wall.'"
Although the sound was good and the seats
comfortable, but there was "a rowdy group of teenagers apparently there
to party, not watch a movie. Altogether there were maybe 25 people in
this 100-seat theater, and the teens were asked to quiet down by nearly
every one of us, from the front row to the back row. There was simply
no place to go to get away from them."
Salt Lake's Blue Mouse
art theater has only 120 seats, but the auditorium is stretched out
like a long hallway and the audience there tends to be more reverent.
Where to see "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"
Where
you should see "The Last Crusade" depends on what you're looking for.
The Movies 7 multiplex in Sandy has the least costly showing, and in
one auditorium you can experience the THX sound system, "a superlative
creation from George Lucas' Lucasfilm company. The Movies 7 print is
geared specifically for the THX sound system, and that theater is the
only one in Utah equipped with THX sound."
"The Last Crusade" was originally recorded in Dolby Stereo, so the stereo sound at the other theaters is also excellent.
If
you want the ultrawide screen experience of 70mm, large upstairs
auditorium at Cineplex Odeon's Trolley Corners theater has rocking
chairs and great sight-lines for every seat. Mann's Villa Theater,
which had the first two "Indiana Jones" films exclusively, has that
wrap-around Cinerama screen that really does enhance the picture to
"put you in the action.''