Untangled

Katy and I decided to go out and see a movie this evening, and settled on the 7PM showing of Tangled at Fresh Pond Entertainment Cinemas. This movie theater is never my first choice; the theaters are small, the sound insulation between them is poor, and they're expensive. Usually I try to go to one of these:

• the Somerville Theater (walking distance, relatively cheap tickets)
• the Capitol Theater in Arlington (same owners a the Somerville; cheap tickets, not far away)
• the Kendall Square Cinema in (duh!) Kendall Square ("art" films, close to Flat Top Johnny's for pre-movie pool and darts)

But Fresh Pond was the closest place we could find with Tangled, so off we went - only to return home without seeing the movie. The sound level was extremely low (as opposed to the usual ear-splitting over volume...) and the image jittery. As soon as the previews started and the problem became apparent I went out the lobby and notified a theater employee; nothing happened. Eventually the actual movies started, and we walked out.

The manager was very polite, and refunded our money without any hassle, but it just seemed so pathetic. Evidently there is so much automation that the one "projectionist" they have was unable to actually do any troubleshooting.

The price of two adult tickets is $18.50; that's about the price of most Blu-Ray movies on Amazon (plain old DVDs are even cheaper). With this kind of experience, how long do the movie theaters think they can stay in business?