My First Matinee at the New Uptown. September 18, 2012

So I go to the Uptown this afternoon.  Who picked those colors?  I mean I like orange and lime when I mix my slushy's together at the SA, but I don’t like to see those colors in the lobby of my favorite movie theater.

I say to the cashier, one please.  She says do I want to sit in the auditorium or the balcony?  Wow, what a choice.  I say what the heck is the auditorium.  You know, main floor.  $8 for the auditorium bargain matinee and $10 for the balcony.  I select the $8 main floor and she flips over a display monitor screen thing.  It looks like a giant bingo card. She tells me to select a seat on the touch screen.    

Now I’m supposed to touch the seat on the screen I want to sit in?  Gross.  What if someone else had touched the seat that I wanted to touch, someone with dirty fingers.  I point and she touches it.  Seven people behind me in line wonder why this is taking so long. So why is the balcony $10 and the main floor $8 I ask?  She says it’s 18 plus and we want to, you know,  keep the riff raff out.  What a concept.  Does that mean I’m riff raff because I chose the auditorium?  No, not you, she says.  I don’t mind being riff raff.  Riff raff.  It sounds cool.  I’m going to start a Riff Raff club, and sell tee shirts with Riff Raff on it and then all the riff raff will sit in the balcony with our tee shirts on.  Then what?  I don't know.  

Okay so I get inside the auditorium, trailers in progress, kind of dark, and it seems all designed pretty nice, and someone with a small flashlight wants to see my ticket.  Wait what?  I say I went through security already.  I’ll show you to your seat but you have to give me your ticket she says.  Fine.  

She didn’t show me to my seat she just pointed in a general direction, like they do at Home Depot.  I stumble over to an open area and sit down.  Then this so-called usher stood at the back of the theater for the entire film, at her security post, lording over the riff raff that had to sit in the auditorium.  It made me nervous.  I don’t like someone standing behind me, in a uniform, with a small flashlight, acting like a lunchtime monitor while I watch a movie.  I paid $8 for this?  What happened to the Uptown?

Oh yeah, the movie.  I saw “Sleepwalk With Me”.  It was kind of funny if you like to listen to a semi-depressed character talk in a monotone for 82 minutes and be in every single shot.  Couldn't he take one shot off?   It was enjoyable at the time of watching.  I laughed.  The other riff raff laughed as only riff raff can.