Unlike Nora Ephron, the cinetrix has never served on any corporate board, much less Loew's, but as a former art house manager, she felt for the writer-director and her less than optimal recent experience at the movies.
Anyway, the other night. We passed the shuttered refreshment counter, went into the theater and sat down. The ads were already playing. There were quite a few of them, including a diet cola ad involving trucks and motorcycles that was so in love with itself that it actually recommended going to a special Web site that explained how the ad had been made.
Then, suddenly, the sound turned off and the screen went completely dark. Several minutes passed. The theater was three-quarters full, but no one moved. In some strange and inexplicable way, I felt responsible. I stood up and went two flights upstairs. A ticket taker had materialized and was now taking tickets. I told her that the system in Theater 7 had shut down. She looked at me blankly. I asked her if she would tell someone about it. She said she would and went on taking tickets. I stood there waiting. After a couple of minutes, when the customers had all passed through, she yelled out, "Projection, is there something wrong in Theater 7?" I went back downstairs.
The system started up again. The trailers began. I noticed that there was a large band of white light across the bottom of the screen and that the images of the actors were all cut off in the middle of their eyeballs.
I left the theater and walked upstairs again. The ticket taker was still there. I asked her if she would ask the projectionist to reframe the movie. Once again she looked at me blankly, so I asked again. She promised she would. I waited until she walked off in the direction of the unseen projectionist. By the time I got back to my seat, the image on screen had been reframed, although not perfectly, but by then I was too exhausted by my heroism to complain further.
I keep getting stuck on "In some strange and inexplicable way, I felt responsible." I feel ya, Nora. Must be the whole shared Non ministrare thang. Believe you me, it's a burden.
