thePlayland

avp or why paseo sucks

I went with some friends to see Alien vs. Predator on Friday of last week. We decided, against our better judgement, to see the film at Paseo Colorado. I’ve never really had an issue with this theater, but I guess it was only a matter of time.

We arrived at the theater and headed straight in to find some seats. We picked the second row of the pit area and sat down. First, I notcied that the seat I was in was essentially the butt-crack of the row. The supports for the seats had broken and my seat and the one to the left of me were sagging into each other. I could have moved seats, but decided it wasn’t enough of a problem for me.

So, the theater fills up and most seats are taken. The first row of seats contained the spawn of hell and are the reason for this little rant. To our right was a large group of middle schoolers that announced their entry with lots of talking and laughing and jumping around. I figured I could deal with that because the movie would start and they would calm down. I was wrong.

To our left (and this is in no way racist) was a large group of African-American kids who were no more that 16 years old. They piled into the seats and began chatting as well. They were getting up and walking out of the theater in groups (talking loudly the entire time) and then when they would come back in, they would continue their conversations at maximum volume. They were on their cellphones, they were changing seats around and generally being the most annoying fuckers in the world.

So, we’ve got the young white kids on their phones, talking loudly with one another and moving around a lot. Then, we’ve got the slightly older black kids doing the same thing. People started to get pissy about the situation and began the typical “sshhhh”ing that happens in a crowded theater. The white kids calmed down and the black kids revolted by yelling things back at the sshhh’ers.

Some time into the movie, a number of people got up and complained. I waited patiently to see if anything would come of their complaints. One employee came in and warned the white kids and they seemed to calm down a bit. Then, a little later, another employee came in and watched the black kids and laughed at their behavious, but did nothing to quiet them down.

Finally, I had enough and I went to complain. Of course, this did nothing at all. The entire first row was ruining my movie experience. They were worse than the toddlers in a Harry Potter movie.

I had given up trying to fight this issue and decided to just watch the movie, when one of the white kids on our right began to irritate the living shit out of me. Have you ever been in a theater and discovered that your chair was squeaky? Plain old common sense dictates that you try to remain motionless as to not upset the other movie-goers with the constant “squeaky-squeaky-squeaky” of your seat, right? Well, this kid was having a good old time talking with his friends and they didn’t care that his chair was loud because they were so engrossed in their conversation. So, every time this kid decides to say something to his friends, he leans forward in the chair and when he finishes, he leans back. Well, every time he leans back, this loud, irritaing squeak is emitted from his chair. I had had enough by the 15th time his chair had squeaked in the span of about 3 minutes. So, I did what any good movie-goer would do… I yelled at him. I believe my exact words were, “Hey! Sit still! Jesus Christ!” To which he turned to me and replied, “It’s a squeaky chair!” I couldn’t let it go there, so I retorted with, “I know! So sit fucking still, asshole!” Well, it worked and he sat still. I felt vindicated and Bryan had to cover his mouth to keep his outburst of laughter under control.

If that wasn’t enough, the one really abnoxious black kid decides to start yelling, “I want the black people to win!” Now, this kind of reverse racism woudln’t really bother me if it hadn’t been for the horrific experience we had all just been through. I was pissed. I wanted to punch the entire first row in the head, but thought better of it and just sat it out, trying to at least hear most of what was being said in the film.

Little did I know that Lisa had her own awful part to add to the story of the worst movie experience ever. She had unknowingly picked the one seat in the entire theater that had gum stuck to it. Icing on the cake, ya know?

So, with all this rage pent up inside me, we headed directly to the Guest Services desk when the movie was over. We first demanded to get out money back, but all they did for us was give us free passes. Of course, we made sure that these passes would work at any Pacific Theater because we had no intention of ever returning to the Pacific at Paseo.

This experience makes me want to never see a movie on opening night ever again. I used to like the crowd and the excitement, but now I just want to see a movie without interruption of any kind. Paseo sucks balls and I can say with the utmost certainty that the Krikorian Theaters will be seeing a lot more of me in the future.