My Move To LA

As far as I could tell there were only three people in all of LA who hadn't seen Avatar in 3D: Nicole, myself and apparently check-stand-girl at Dick Blick Art Supply. Well, now it's only you check-stand-girl. Good luck.

I'm going to spare you my personal review of Avatar as I think there are so many other reviews at this point that there really doesn't need to be another. What I will review however is the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood.

If you can't tell by the title of this post it didn't go well. First, the wall of glass doors that face Sunset (which I would argue is the FRONT of the building) are exit only. There are no signs directing you the the entrance either (Tip: Look on the east side of the building). Then, when I give my ticket to the kid manning the ticket scanner it doesn't scan and he just gives it a little tear and hands it back to me. He never said a word! I've been to the movies probably over 100 times in my life and usually at this point you get some instruction on where to go. Lost, I asked him which way our theater was. His reply was that we could go either of two directions and find the theater. I guess this means that the ArcLight has only one screen. Weird for being one of the premier theaters in Hollywood.

Nicole and I buy our soda and popcorn (only after discovering they do not sell medium sized anything) and continue on down the hall. We manage to find our assigned seats eventually and sit down. Five minutes later a group arrives and says that we're in their seats. Bewildered we all check our ticket stubs. Sure enough it appears the seats were double booked. I thought this mighty peculiar and was determined to get to the bottom of it when Nicole told me to not worry and that the movie was about to start. I guess rather than have you read about turning off your cell phone and things before the movie starts on screen the ArcLight pays some kid to come up and announce it. After his spiel about phones and babies he says enjoy the feature, Shutter Island. WTF?

We were in the wrong place and our movie had already started! Pissed, I marched back to confront pimply-stoner-ticket-checker and sure enough there are at least 8 other screens at the ArcLight! They're just in a separately accessed part of the building and retard didn't bother to READ our ticket. Luckily we were seeing the 11:50am showing of Avatar and there weren't many people in the theater so we managed to get good seats.

A little irked after spending $37.00 on two tickets and $10.00 on a small popcorn and large soda while getting poor customer service I get my parking stub validated in the little machine and arrive at the garage exit to discover that parking is still $2.00 with validation!

To sum it all up, the ArcLight is much too Hollywood for me. I'd rather spend half the money at the mall cinema.