What's Playing at the OnePlex?

One weekend we took the kids to a youth production of Rumplestiltskin at the local theatre. It is a theatre for live performance (regardless of what the older gent who climbs a ladder to change the marquee spells out) and also a theater for movies. This was a little disappointing to our two popcorn hounds who could not quite understand why they could not crunch their favorite snack during live theatre. After all, we were in the movie theater. Oh well.

Now the weekend before, we went to the theater to see the long-awaited Harry Potter release. Mind you, we had already seen it prior to leaving civilization but this offered a great opportunity for us to experience what the movies were going to be like at our local one-plex. And we were not disappointed. At the point in the movie where the projectionist pushes a button or something to transition from one reel of film to the next, all of a sudden there was no sound. A minute or so went by before polite moviegoers started to cue the projectionist, “Sound!”. Nothing. “Sound!” Some rustling from above and behind us. My husband got up and walked to the back of the theater, presumably to take matters into his own hands. But before long, a lanky gentleman bounded down the center aisle and informed us of the situation. “OK,” he said, “we have a slight problem. The sound on projector two has gone out. So we can either continue on like this, or I can stop after each reel and load the new one.” Well, who wants to see a movie with half of the sound? We all voted for option two. So every 20 minutes or so, the film would stop and we would wait about three minutes (it started at five, but the projectionist got faster each time) for it to start up again.

Some people would find this unacceptable. Intolerable. But, truth be told, it was not too bad. Other than the fact that it took about 30 extra minutes to see this film the second time, it was rather nice. We discussed our favorite scenes. Took bathroom breaks without fear of missing a crucial conversation in the film. Bought more popcorn – which, by the way, was $2 a bag, much cheaper than city popcorn – met the people in the row in front of us, visited with friends from soccer. All for the price of 30 minutes of my life. And, hey, I’m living in the country. What else did I have to do?