So, I was going to go to a screening of EMPTY NEST at the Sundance Kabuki in Japantown. I hadn’t been there since it freed itself from AMC and got a makeover, so I was interested in checking it out. Chose my seat on a touchscreen layout, an unnecessary luxury on a Tuesday afternoon—whee!—but which involved my having to get advice from the disinterested teen cashier about the seat’s proximity to the screen. What popped up on the monitor next really disturbed me: $8.75 + $1.50 “amenity fee” = $10.25 ticket. I asked the guy, “What’s this amenity fee?” He answered with a potted reply citing the theater’s “independence” from sponsorship by Fandango and the like. Needless to say, this skinflint turned and ran. But I’m thinking of adding an “amenity fee” to this blog. What do you think?
Now, onto the show:
A sweet and sloppy doc about North Philly high schoolers competing for culinary arts scholarships, PRESSURE COOKER (2009) drew only two lonely souls to its 4:40 screening in SF. How many theaters are screening it, total? Probably fewer than 10 around the country. So the horrible scratches the Lumiere has inflicted on this print so early on in its run do not bode well (there’s one of the scratches, between the 2nd and 3rd lockers in this shot). And it is the Lumiere’s projector (theater one) that did it—the Stella Artois cycling ad had the exact same ones. Having said all this, please note the pleasing title design; in three paragraphs or less, compare and contrast to POST GRAD’s. End of lesson.
