el crispito

First, it should be said that the range of the theater-going experience is broad. They have theaters where they serve sushi and cocktails, and they have old spaces that are like warehouses with fluorescent tube lights as the only illumination. Some offer seats that are like recliners you have in your home while others have old creaking metal beasts with wires that stick up through the upholstry to rip your pants and give you quite a pinch. You can see the latest Hollywood crap or an interesting documentary from France.

The top of the line theaters are run by Cinépolis, and are a special deluxe brand known as "VIP." These are the ones where you have barcalounger-side service for food and drinks. The tickets are slightly more expensive than the regular cinemas, and the food isn't cheap, although overall, things like popcorn and sodas at the cinemas here are not as ridiculously expensive as they are in the United States. For example, a large popcorn at a theater chain that is comparable to the major ones in the United States, is $28.00 MXN, which is roughly $2.68 USD. It also isn't as enormous, though.

The regular Cinépolis theaters are still quite nice, and seem pretty much like the googleplexes of the United States, with all the amenities and at times a few more (like capuccino out of a gas-station style machine, variations on popcorn like caramel-coated), but a little cheaper. The VIP theaters are $90 MXN (around $8.60 USD) at the most expensive, and the "plain" Cinépolis tickets are $44 MXN (around $4.20 USD). They run matinee discounts like you're familiar with in the US, but on Wendesdays, all day, tickets are half-price. Films are usually shown in their original lanuage with subtitles, and only a few of the bigger ones are dubbed into Spanish. When this is the case, the fact is noted on the marquee.

One thing I really appreciate about theaters here is that the screens are almost always normal size, and by that, I mean big, not what is becoming normal in the United States, where you have 25 theaters crammed into one location and the screens are squeezed down into the approximate size of a garage door. I have been to one screening here that was on a relatively small screen, but this was a film series that shows old and more unusual films for very cheap prices (like $2.50 USD).

Then there are older theaters that are not as new and shiny as the Cinépolis theaters and their rivals, but that were built in like the 70s and 80s. These are certainly decent theaters, but they are a little worn at the edges. There are several theaters that pre-date those, and these run from well-preserved to wacky.

In all these older theaters, the experience is interesting, and sometimes very disappointing. You certainly see things you'd never see in a Mann Theater. For example, we went to one theater where you could buy a bag of homemade potato chips in the lobby from behind a small display counter that, despite its size, still looked barren because they offered just these chips and a few candy bars. The woman attending the counter was actually sitting at a table in front of the counter smoking a cigarette and chatting with a friend when we passed through. That was in the place with the fluorescent lighting in the theater. Last night we went to see Transamerica in a theater where they show one film in the afternoon and another at night. It was done up in earth tones from the 70s (although those have never gone out of style here in Mexico), and three times during the film, a huge notice stretched across the screen that was burned into the print and read, "BAFTA SCREENING ONLY! NOT FOR SALE OR RENT." Tonight we went to see North Country, and the theater actually had ushers with flashlights. About halfway through the film, the house lights came up and they turned off the film for a 5 minute intermission.

In these slightly-less-modern theaters, one consistent thing really annoys me. After the film ends and the credits start to roll, they just switch off the film and turn up the lights. Nobody really seems bothered by this.

I'd like to close with a request of you folks: Would you be so kind as to add comments giving the ticket prices for movies where you live? I know you folks in California are being taken to the cleaners, whereas Mr. Allen can probably still afford to see a recently released film at the Arcadia for a fraction of that cost.

Thanks!