Casual

...And the seats...

...Everybody began installing better sound systems...

...Will they ever know the pain of a broken spring popping through the 50-year-old cushion just enough to let you know if you move even a millimeter, it will tear your pants...

...These anti-palaces joined the K-Car as objective correlatives of American decline in the 1970s, when businesses lost pride in themselves and did everything on the cheap...

...JOHN PODHORETZ...

...Maybe that's why the theaters have to be so nice—to distract their audiences from the cinematic misery unspooling inside...

...Will they ever feel the special anxiety that comes when the theater is filling up and the seat in front of you is still blissfully empty—how the hope that it will remain unoccupied goes to war with the fear that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will sit there and completely block your view of the subtitles to the new Lina Wertmuller film...

...These multiplexes weren't physically attractive, and they had horrible "art galleries" selling framed photos of Elvis...

...The company that inaugurated the new trend was Boston-based National Amusements, which began putting up giant warehouse-like boxes at strategic suburban intersections in the early 1980s with 10 and 12 screens apiece...

...They will ever be blissfully ignorant of such things, because today's concession stands are larger than most airports...

...In the 1970s, the grand old movie palaces had either fallen into terrible disrepair, been chopped up haphazardly into three or four auditoriums with paper-thin walls between them, or been turned into inner-city churches, flea markets, and supermarkets...

...They were soft and green and they rocked ever so slightly...

...The difference between moviego-ing now and moviegoing 25 years ago is nothing short of astonishing...

...Nobody could use the word "cheap" to describe today's palaces...

...Th^ey can sit anywhere in ' •• these stadium-style seats without worrying about a pituitary case with a 10-gallon hat totally obstructing the screen...

...Now there are ultra-luxe theaters that offer waitress service, deep leather couches, and valet parking...

...No, they won't, because every seat in every movie theater these days is plush and big, and the armrest even goes up so they can sprawl into the next seat or cuddle with their sweeties...

...There are ice-cream stations and soft-drink stations and a wall-sized unit full of individual candies...

...One thing though...

...There are hot dogs and kielbasa, nachos with hot cheese...

...It's like a Vegas buffet, only in Vegas the buffets cost as much as these spoiled kids pay for a small popcorn...

...And they cost twice as much as an ordinary movie-theater seat...

...Of course they won't, because V' every time they go to the movies each seat is on its own level, higher than the one in front of it...

...The movies these kids today see in these glorious surroundings are the worst made in the 100-year history of the cinema...

...There were new theaters, but they were horrible—ugly boxes built with crepe paper in mini-malls or stuffed into the nooks and crannies of office buildings...

...Will they ever know the sacrifices we older moviegoers once had to make...

...In fact, they are so lavish that several major theater chains have gone bankrupt building them...

...And who knows what might come next...

...Casual MULTIPLEX BLUES These spoiled-rotten kids today, with their stadium seating and Dolby Digital sound, not to mention the cappuccino at the concession stand and the ticket-takers who thank you for coming and the ushers who give you a nice mint as you leave...

...Yeah, these kids today are spoiled, spoiled, spoiled...

...Their sound systems were about as good as an AM car radio's, and the seats were often laid out in gnarled patterns with structural pillars standing smack dab in the middle of the auditorium...

...Other growing chains, like Cineplex Odeon, built new venues with fancy marble lobbies and thick carpeting...

...Will they ever hear a concessionaire saying there are no Raisinets left, only Jujubes—and just as the credits are rolling, feel the sticky and unwanted Jujube deftly pulling out $2,000 worth of dental work...

...But the lobbies were so large that a moviegoer didn't have to wait outside if he arrived early, and they were filled with video games so teenagers had something to do between films...

...Back in the uncomfortable 1970s, we crammed into uncomfortable seats with giants in front of us—and we got to see The Godfather and The Godfather Part II and Taxi Driver and Annie Hall and Arthur and Amarcord and The Last Picture Show and Carrie and The Sting and hundreds and hundreds of wonderful films that made you forget the broken spring in the seat...

...The candy counter sat in the middle and was laid out in the round with lots of pimply kids in uniform working efficiently...

...National Amusements discovered that moviegoers would drive long distances just to sit in those seats in its Showcase Cinemas and Multiplex Cinemas...